Paternity

S09E09

After the commercials, she wakes up and does a double take upon seeing her partner's unconscious wife bleeding in the seat to her. She gets on her radio and calls for a "bus" (SVU-speak for "ambulance," which they use at every opportunity ever since they learned about it) for the "pregnant wife of an MOS." She also tells the dispatcher to tell the fire department that Kathy's pinned, as we see the blood in Kathy's lap from the glove compartment cutting into her. The sirens are already audible by the time Olivia smashes her way out through the window, and suddenly the scene is swarming with medics and firefighters. Of course the other driver is only scratched, and wearing a fragrance I like to call eau de distillery. Get that dude in Witness Protection now, before Elliot gets a hold of him. Before they can jaws-of-life Kathy out of there, they have to disconnect the battery to disarm Kathy's still-undeployed airbag, flatten Olivia's tires, and stabilize Kathy's head and neck by cutting the roof away. Of course, Olivia's the only one on the scene small enough to climb back into the mangled car, take up position in the back seat behind Kathy, and hold her head steady. That's when Kathy wakes up. Olivia calmly explains the situation, and Kathy says her water just broke. Of course it did.

At the lake house, Fin rolls up in a local black-and-white and tells Elliot to come with him. There's a chopper waiting for them at the sheriff's office, he explains. Hopping in the squad, Elliot asks what happened.

Olivia puts a neck collar on Kathy, who on top of everything else is having a contraction. Then Kathy drops off again, and Olivia notices the blood on Kathy's skirt. Because Olivia has to do everything here, now they make her start an IV for Kathy, under the paramedic's instructions. She has to squeeze the bag and everything. Kathy comes around again, just in time for the firefighters to get to work cutting off Olivia's roof. Hate to sleep through that, you know. By the time Olivia's sitting in her new convertible, Kathy's having another contraction. That's three minutes apart. The paramedic says they don't carry anything to slow down labor. What more could go wrong for Olivia? How about Cragen, running up with a phone and telling her it's Elliot? That'll do it. Olivia activates the speaker phone, and Kathy weeps into it that Olivia's taking good care of her. Elliot says he's en route via chopper, and they exchange "I love you"s. The contractions keep coming as the firefighters continue diligently totaling Olivia's car. Finally Kathy is cut free, and Olivia has to get out to make room for Kathy's spine board. They strap her on, and Olivia hovers at her side as they load her into the ambulance. Cragen assures them that with patrol holding traffic on every cross street between here and Mercy, they'll be there in ten minutes. But even as the ambulance takes off, Kathy doesn't think that's enough time. The paramedic sees the baby crowning, and Olivia takes position behind Kathy's shoulders as she starts pushing. And the kid pops out in seconds. Literally seconds. Elliot got his boy, who appears healthy. And judging by his hairline, he's Elliot's. Kathy only gets to hold the wailing tot for a moment before she loses consciousness. Again. She's like Jeff the purple Wiggle here. It falls to Olivia to keep the baby warm with a space blanket while the paramedic calls in Kathy's code.

Whoa, it actually worked. They must have pasted Tommy to Munch. But at Jake's home, they don't find anyone except a lot of blood and one dead nanny in the bed, even though the nanny was supposed to be off today. Well, she will be off in a day or two, in another sense. Sorry. Cut to M.E. Warner zipping up Jodi the nanny and reporting that the victim was raped and beaten to death. TOD is looking like 11:00 that morning, and the perp left a handy, DNA-rich blob of spooge for them on the linens. Warner wants to look at Jake's DNA to exclude him, but Elliot is already suspecting him. So young and yet so cynical.

Outside, Jake is trying to get out of there so he can look for his wife Leah, who claimed she would be home the whole day. Fin chimes in to report that Leah's credit card was used for a gas-up on the Jersey Turnpike at 12:30. He's also got a tollbooth-cam photo of Leah driving Jake's car, with a dark-haired man in the passenger seat. Thinking Leah's been kidnapped, Jake is ready to head off in pursuit. But the cops tell him to go back to the station house to be with Tommy. After Fin escorts him off, Chester breaks the news that Leah's credit card has been used at a motel in Morristown.

In Morristown, Elliot and Olivia bust in on what looks and sounds like some pretty rough sex, judging by all the Leah-howling that's going on in there. But Leah is none too happy to be interrupted by a couple of cops with their guns drawn while she's enjoying a little noisy anal action with her boyfriend. Olivia and Elliot actually have the nerve to look nonplussed.

Back at the station house, a tearful Leah is making her excuses about how her husband's a workaholic, and while she feels bad about Jodi ("a Mormon from Utah," she says), she'd like to get back to her son now, if that's okay. Elliot's not too sympathetic: "You had Jodi come in on her day off so you could go and screw your boyfriend, right?" Leah almost bolts, but Olivia talks her into staying, on the condition she doesn't have to talk to "Detective Dick." Elliot's expression: "I've been called worse." She explains that Mormons make the best nannies, for any number of stereotypical reasons. Leah is sure that Jodi wouldn't have opened the door for a stranger. Maybe fellow Mormon nannies Becca and Kimberly?

Sure enough, the detectives find Jodi's colleagues at the playground, where the news of her demise is greeted with a heartfelt, "Oh, my heck." Speaking of stereotypes. They explain that Jodi was engaged, to a fiancé who's on mission in Peru. Like the other two, she planned to return to Utah when her man came home. Olivia asks if Jodi was lonely, and they reluctantly say that Jodi started acting "slutty" in the past few months. And last week, they stopped by to see Jodi and saw her kissing some dude goodbye. They direct the detectives to a website called Faceunion.com.

thing you know, Olivia is showing Cragen all of Jodi's Faceunion.com activity, as pulled from the family computer. Seems Jodi had been trolling for a little male companionship, using some photographs featuring highly unstereotypically Mormon poses. Olivia is focused on three contacts.

The first goes by the handle "Jesse James," but turns out to be a guy named Gilbert Matthews. When Chester goes to interview him, Gilbert tells a story about how he and Jodi were caught in the act of "gettin' busy" by a little boy (that would be Tommy, in case you've just tuned in), and he never went back. And where was he yesterday? "Paid $250 bucks to hear Donald Trump," Gilbert says, looking as though it was still a rip-off even though it provided him with an alibi.

Elliot takes the second contact, who turns out to be in India for a semester. In fact it's his little brother, who's about ten and has gotten in trouble for illicit internet activity before. Elliot does the mom an unsolicited favor by glowering sternly at the kid. "He's incorrigible," she tells Elliot. "Please, lock him up." Heh.

That leaves bachelor number three, "Casanova," whom Fin finds at a garage. Comparing the version of Steven Bauer before him to the picture connected with his online profile (from Bauer's Thief of Hearts days), Fin advises Casanova to update his photo and carps, "Talk about bait and switch." Casanova smirks that he and Jodi "were intimate," but the smirk vanishes when he learns that Jodi was murdered yesterday.

And then he's at the station house, claiming they had sex, he left, and he'd never hurt her. "We were passionately in love," he claims. Olivia pages through Casanova's many e-mails to Jodi, and it quickly becomes clear that Casanova's love was not requited. Fin plops down photos of Jodi's other two contacts, luridly saying they were more Jodi's type and mocking Casanova for his age, but Olivia plays good cop -- or, in this case, "appreciative of a more mature man" cop -- and gets Casanova to admit that Jodi laughed at him when he showed up at her house, and he was so mad that he lost control. The thing he remembers is the little boy, and then seeing what he'd done, and then running. "I could have made her so happy," he laments. Mystery...solved?

Elliot is watching this from behind the two-way mirror when Warner comes in with the unsurprising news that the blood from Tommy's shirt belonged to Jodi. More surprising is the fact that Warner also compared DNA samples from Jake and Tommy, and found that the two aren't biologically related. "Jake's not Tommy's father," Elliot concludes. Hey, speaking as an adoptive dad? Slow down there, chief.

He seems to have come around a bit on this later, as he argues with Olivia about whether to tell Jake what they found out. Elliot's in the "anti-" position, saying that Jake's the only dad Tommy knows and that it's not up to them to tell Jake that Tommy's not his son. Of course, he says it really loud, with Jake sitting right there. Well, on the bright side, at least Elliot and Olivia don't have to argue about this any more.

After the commercials, Jake and Elliot are having a quiet talk about this. Using a tale of an idyllic lake-house vacation as a framing device, he talks about the love he has for his son, which Elliot firmly assures him is still real. Jake asks Elliot how he would feel if he learned one of his kids wasn't really his after all these years. The scene ends before Elliot can describe his berserker rage, which would be towering and mighty.

Oh, speaking of which, this won't be good; the scene is him at home with Kathy, who wonders how she's going to make a doctor's appointment the day with her car in the shop. "I guess I'll ride my bike," she says, testing whether Elliot's listening. Naturally, he fails. Distractedly, he agrees to take her. And he asks if she saw anyone when they were separated. "Did you?" she asks. He admits it. But then, he's not the one who's pregnant. Kathy admits that she went on a couple of dates with nobody he knows (or, possibly, nobody she wants killed). She quickly twigs to what he's actually asking her, namely the paternity of the child turning her belly into the Superdome, but rather than own up to it, he takes the cell phone call from Olivia that he's been ignoring up until now. Smooth.

Seems he and Olivia have been called to the Keegan residence, where Leah's boyfriend Matt has shown up and some fisticuffs have ensued. Leah is claiming that Matt is Tommy's father, but Jake isn't so sure. "This bitch cheated on me, she cheated on you," he says of his wife, to which Matt takes noisy exception. This turns into another argument, which looks like it's about to get violent as well, until Tommy appears in the doorway. It's like his superpower, appearing at inopportune times. Olivia and Elliot decide that the best thing is to drag both men downtown. It's about what's best for the child, after all. As they cool their heels in separate holding rooms, a briefed Casey explains the situation legally: because of something called presumptive paternity, Tommy is Jake's child in the eyes of the law, regardless of Matt's biological status. Even if Jake and Leah get divorced and Leah moves in with Matt, Jake will still be responsible for alimony and child support. Which, Elliot remarks, sucks. Casey calls it a push and tells Elliot to cut them both loose.

Elliot sleeps fitfully to his wife. Who? Is still pregnant.

Back at work, Cragen breaks the news that Leah's boyfriend Matt has filed for custody of Tommy, and Cragen says that Elliot and Olivia both need to be at family court, like, today. Elliot reminds us of the conflict with Kathy's OB appointment, but then Chester shows up with Tommy, saying Jake handed him off to him so Chester could bring him up for their appointment with Elliot. Elliot's like, "What appointment would that be?" Tommy has already figured it out: "Daddy went away," he says. Elliot looks sad, but not surprised. He asks about Tommy's mom. "Mommy went away too," Tommy says. Also sad. "Like Jodi." Not exactly sad anymore. Time to go!

For the second time this episode, Olivia and Elliot bust into the Keegan residence to find a dead blonde. "Dammit, Jake," Elliot mutters. Recalling that Tommy said Daddy went away, they wonder if it might have been a murder suicide, and where Jake would have gone if that's the case. "The lake house," Elliot realizes, recalling dialogue that I totally glossed over in an earlier scene. Elliot wants to go after Jake, and Olivia remembers Kathy's appointment. She offers to take her for Elliot, and Elliot gratefully accepts so he can go play federale.

Elliot arrives at the lake house an indeterminate amount of time later. Jake's already been nabbed by the local sheriff's department, and he's standing on a high balcony enjoying the view with his hands cuffed behind him. Elliot goes to talk to Jake, and Jake realizes that Elliot was right about Tommy being his son. Elliot asks why Jake did it. Jake says Leah threatened a divorce and a custody suit, and laughed at him, so he snapped. He realized Tommy would hate him and he couldn't live without him. "So you came here to die," Elliot says. So...what happens to Tommy now?

In the ensuing pause, Olivia calls Elliot's cell phone to ask if Jake's in custody and to report that she picked Kathy up right on time. "Unlike some people," Kathy snarks into Olivia's dashboard-mounted speakerphone. Moments after they hang up, Olivia pulls out into an intersection and gets totally t-boned right in the passenger door by a car running the red light. Boom! It's not graphic like those Volkswagen commercials, but it's still pretty rough. We go to commercial on twisted steel and glass, and Olivia taking a nap behind her inflated airbag. That'll learn her to be on time.

Elliot rushes into the hospital, blowing right past Olivia and into the room where a fully conscious Kathy is holding their fully conscious son. Elliot presses his nose against Kathy's for a long moment before taking the kid and saying, "Welcome to the world. I'm your daddy." The kid doesn't say, "So far, the world sucks a real lot." Kathy tells Elliot that he is the baby's father. "I know," Elliot says. Daniel's going to be sp upset that he missed a happy ending.

Out in the hall, a bloody Olivia asks how the baby is. Elliot tells her he's great and almost walks past her before grabbing his partner into a long hug. Afterwards, they stroll down the hallway talking about baby names. "Kathy wants to name her after me," Elliot boasts. "Just what the world needs, another Elliot Stabler," Olivia cracks. If the kid's middle name isn't Oliver, she should sue.