A man traipses through Central Park with his foster son, who gripes about it, but since this is a trip to recover a dead dog, I kind of sympathize. Instead, they find two dead bodies. The maggots weren't really conducive to helping me keep down my supper.
Olivia's there solo (as in without Elliot) getting the dirty details from Warner, who says there are multiple ligatures, and electrical burns on the victim's areolae and labia. Special Agent Lauren Cooper (played by Erika Christensen) from the FBI's behaviour analysis unit shows up, because this body matches the profile of a guy she's hunting: the Woodsman. Likes to put a bucket over victims' heads and drown them. The male victim, dead of a gunshot wound, likely stumbled upon the killer with the body. She's been dead for some time, he's been dead less than twelve hours. One more thing: the killer likes to watch the scene from above. Why? "He's God." Kind of hard to handcuff God. Too bad Elliot's off this week.
Meloni and Ice-T have the week off, or, as they say at SVU, they're in "Montreal on an extradition." This leaves Olivia and Lauren free to have a sexy-off. Lauren outlines the Woodsman details: sexual sadist; kills, body dumps, and poses them. Twenty-four victims. He strangles and revives, rapes with foreign objects, burns genitalia. Some of the victim timelines overlap, which makes them think he likes to have one victim watch another. Olivia gets all het up because Lauren should have mentioned the possibility that there's another victim out there, but Lauren says he's not predictable. Huang says the email doesn't square with the Woodsman's profile (dumping the bodies means he thinks of them as garbage, but sending an email to lead the authorities to the bodies suggests empathy or even remorse), but Cooper chalks that up to a sexual sadist "evolving."
Two possible matches are identified for the dead Jane Doe: one is Bunny Jones. "Prostitute," says Huang knowingly. Well, not technically. She's an exotic dancer, reported missing by her pimp/boss, Lavender.
At the club, Lauren and Olivia find out it's pronounced "La-VAN-der": "Do I look like a damn flower to you?" And Bunny Jones ain't missing any longer; she's right over there. Lauren gets pissed that he didn't cancel the missing report, and he tries to soothe her by offering her some alone time with Bunny so she can get her freak on. For his offer, he almost gets his arm ripped out of his socket.
Outside, Lauren chides herself for being unprofessional, and gets a mini-scolding from Olivia, who nevertheless adds that it's nice to know Lauren's human. Lauren says detachment gets drummed into them from day one. Olivia's all, "Join the club!" and then admits that it doesn't always take, especially when there are kids involved. Meanwhile, the victim has been identified as the other missing person: Kate Barrow.
Olivia and Lauren interview Kate's grieving parents, who reveal that Kate liked to go "foraging" in Central Park with a group that looks for edible plants. Dad didn't like it: "There's a lot of crazies in the park. Like the nut who runs the program." This guy, whom the parents call "pushy" and "controlling," kept asking her out.
His name's Connor Rob, and the cop and the agent catch up with him and a group of mushroom-grubbers in Central Park. He jokes that he normally gets hassled by the Rangers. Lauren notes that Connor's awfully clean for a guy who's supposedly been digging in the dirt all day long. "I like to keep myself clean," he says, as he starts to realize that this isn't exactly a friendly visit. When the questions start in about Kate Barrow, he admits to asking her out, but she refused, end of story. This guy's far too schlubby to kill anybody, and the detectives manage to finagle a list of addresses of the people he takes into the park.
Back at the squad, Huang is taking audio notes on the Woodsman profile, and noting the aspects that are missing from the profile, as well as aspects that contradict the profile of this type of serial killer. He chalks up the inconsistencies to the mental deterioration of Dr. Carl Tillman, Lauren's mentor, who came up with the original profile of the Woodsman, and who killed himself. Not that that'll prove important or anything.
Meanwhile, Chester is staring at the surveillance cameras on just about every lamppost outside the internet café from which the email was sent.
In the morgue, Warner tells Olivia and Lauren that Kate died approximately ten days ago. She starts going through a clinical description of the wounds (uterus punctured, colon punctured), which causes Lauren to lose it, prompting Warner to harshly spout nonsense like, "I speak for the dead and I'm not done!" Lauren says, at least he didn't cut her into little pieces! At least he let her keep her head! This doesn't seem very convincing to me, but Warner softens. Yeah, this is one of the better serial killers. Meanwhile, the bullet fragments left in John Doe's skull aren't enough to prove the Woodsman killed him without finding the murder weapon itself.
Back in the squad, Chester isn't finding anything on the surveillance tapes, other than a seemingly huge percentage of people who pick their noses in public. Huang questions Lauren about the inconsistencies in Tillman's report, hoping to find if there was one particular victim that sent Tillman over the edge, so he can go back to that point and essentially start fresh. Cooper flips out, naturally, because if she'd noticed anything was wrong, she probably would have done something, wouldn't she? What, like acting lessons? Chester and Olivia exchange glances, and Cragen strolls in to say they've found the Woodsman. The DNA sample matches the John Doe.
The Woodsman was Larry Moore, a park ranger who opened and closed the park for the season, an occupation that gave him plenty of time and opportunity. So where did he torture his victims? The detectives start by searching Moore's apartment, but they find nothing but junk. Lauren's still cranky, and Olivia thinks the best way to make her feel better is to ask her straight out why Dr. Tillman killed himself. "Why does any cop eat his gun?" is her non-response. She says "Carl" recruited her in her junior year of college. "Working with Carl was like having a father for the first time." She asks if Olivia knows what that's like, and Olivia waits about five hours before saying "no" which Lauren takes to mean she's married to the job. Lauren admits she didn't want to see that anything was off: "Maybe if I had, Carl would still be here." But the emotional catharsis is going to have to wait, as Olivia has found a key taped to the underside of a desk drawer, which is likely the "key to the murder room."
The only photo they find in the apartment points them to an Aunt Betty, who isn't all that surprised that her nephew tortures and kills women like most guys play video games. "I've known for a long time what he's capable of," she says, telling them that when Larry was a kid working with a volunteer group to clean up Central Park, he was accused of touching a couple of the women. "I believed him when he said they were lying. He could make you believe anything." Something changed your mind, points out Olivia, who gently asks if he hurt her. "Something happened, I'm not comfortable talking about." Olivia asks no more questions, because, really, what experience does she have asking victims difficult questions? Instead, she tells Aunt Betty they're having trouble locating where Larry took his victims. Betty suggests trying the docks. "The docks! He loved to watch the ships leave. He liked the noise. I never understood that." Probably to cover the bloodcurdling screams of his victims, Lauren and Olivia refrain from telling her.
After Chester fetches his grandfather's New York master key ring to match Larry's key to one of the dock warehouses, the SWAT team loads up, but not before trying to make the SVU detectives wait it out outside. But with another possible victim, Olivia declares, "I'd rather ask for a pardon than permission," and heads into the warehouse after the SWAT team, into what is either Larry's murder room or the set of Saw V, with all manner of hooks and tools hanging over a stained slab. There's a video of a screaming woman in the large metal bath, and a VCR and several tapes. They don't find anybody, at least until Olivia notices a large metal drawer under the table. They yank it out and find a woman, unmoving, filthy, in her underwear, bound and gagged. All the detectives stand there looking disgusted by her marks instead of checking to see if she's ALIVE or anything, and the victim comes to and starts shrieking, as best she can with the duct tape over her mouth. Chester runs outside, presumably to get better cell phone reception as he calls for an ambulance, and Olivia is forced to be Good Crime-Scene Professional to Lauren's Bad Crime-Scene Professional. Lauren wants to move the woman. Negatory: she might have a spinal injury, says Olivia, who likewise won't pull off the duct tape, since that'll take skin right off without the special solution. Lauren's idiocy becomes complete when she fetches a scalpel to cut a hole in the bandage, and starts looming over the victim like a (much prettier) Dr. Giggles. The woman's eyes go wide, and she starts freaking out, and Olivia yells at the world's dumbest FBI agent to back off, and goes back to soothing the victim.
Some of the show gets pre-empted so we can all learn that Hillary Clinton has taken New Hampshire, so let's presume that's the part where Olivia read Lauren the riot act over the scalpel stupidity. They're now visiting the unconscious victim in the hospital. The doctor runs down her list of injuries, which are legion, and says they'll have to wait to see if she'll make it. She did manage to say her name was Amy, but that's about all they got out of her.
Olivia and Lauren get down to the unpleasant business of conducting the rape kit on the unconscious victim, and Lauren gets increasingly unnerved by Amy's cuts and burns. "She's not gonna make it, Lauren. We need to find her family," says Olivia. A drop of glycerin rolls down Lauren's cheek. "What if she doesn't have one?" she says, and breaks down sobbing. Olivia just stares at her, because there are more red flags here than on the Russian Olympic team.
Chester's still watching surveillance tapes, looking for the person who sent the email, because he wants to pin a medal on the person who likely killed the Woodsman. Cragen takes the bait and argues the anti-vigilante position. "No disrespect, Captain, but the prick got what was coming to him," says Chester. Cragen tries the "closure for families" card, not to mention the "could have gotten to Amy sooner" card, but Chester is unmoved, pointing out that serial killers tend not to cooperate until they've run out of options. Anyway, what's this on the tape? Agent Cooper, leaving the internet café just a few minutes after the email was sent. Am I nuts, or should Chester have seen that ages ago? Oh, sorry, the tape has been "enhanced" since the first screening. Man. Are they trying to tell us that the killer may have been murdered by the unbalanced, erratic FBI agent who was crushed when her mentor offed himself out of obsession over the serial killer who is now dead? I just don't see it.
Olivia strolls into Cragen's office, where Casey fills her in on Lauren sending the email that led to the discovery of the bodies. Olivia does her best to convince them (and herself) that there must be some explanation, but Casey ain't having it; she says Lauren executed a man without giving him the benefit of due process. "You don't know her," says Olivia. "Neither do you," says Casey, and pretty much everyone watching. Worse news: the hospital calls. Amy Doe has just died.
Olivia's in the interview room with Lauren, but she's waiting for a senior FBI officer, like she's supposed to. It's procedure, she points out. "Pass. Ask me your questions," says Lauren, so Olivia goes for it: "Did you send an email to the Parks Department about a dead dog?" Lauren asks how she's supposed to answer that. "I want you to say no, but you can't, can you?" No. Instead, Lauren starts blathering about confessions in interrogation rooms from people who want absolution. "They wanna be able to sleep at night. Can you sleep at night?" asks Olivia. "I sleep just fine." "Did you murder Larry Moore?" "I have the right to remain silent." Olivia asks if there was a struggle, if she panicked and then covered it up: "I'm trying to help you. What happens , you control." Lauren is unmoved: "Spare me. You're executing a search warrant on my apartment right now."
While all the other cops do the real work, Chester goes all method, and tries to pretend he's Lauren, wanting to be reminded of her triumph over the Woodsman at every opportunity. He flops down on her bed (to the befuddlement of a CSU agent) and stares into the kitchen. Bingo: fragments of something or other in a spice rack jar. All you useless CSU agents can head on home now that Det. ESP is on the case.
Agent Nickerson, Lauren's senior officer (known to fans of The Wire as Police Commissioner Ervin H. Burrell) strolls in. His position seems to be, "Yes, Lauren seems to have killed a man, but you, Detective, are attempting to question an FBI agent without a senior officer present, so who's the real criminal?" After Olivia pushes Lauren's buttons by questioning her relationship with Tillman, Nickerson decides to end the interrogation, but Chester walks in with the missing fragments from Moore's skull, and the shell casing. "You're going to need a lawyer. And a good one," says Olivia, who starts to walk out. Lauren stops her: "Better do this by the regs. Procedure," she says, and turns her back to Olivia so she can be handcuffed.
When the DA shows up in court to pull rank on Casey and withdraw the charges (due to a lack of incontrovertible evidence, which is necessary to prevent a jury likely to be sympathetic to someone who offed a guy who killed twenty-three people from acquitting), the head honchos from Police HQ march into Cragen's office to impress upon him the necessity of getting some the evidence to shove down the DA's throat, and getting Lauren to plead out. What does the DA want? Try a confession: "Find something that'll make her cop a plea."
In the squad room, Casey says if they can get Lauren to confess, she can plead out to manslaughter two, but Olivia protests that that would give Lauren ten years, which is too much: "Moore was a monster, and you didn't see the tapes of what he did to those women." Cragen says they might have gotten to Amy sooner if Lauren hadn't killed him.
Everyone gets to have their say, and then go back to detective work: finding the gun. Olivia has a brilliant idea: What weapons were registered to Dr. Tillman? Government-issue Glock, and a Sig Sauer .45, says Huang (?). The .45 was returned to Tillman's widow, so off the detectives ride.
Chester and Olivia ask Tillman's widow, who immediately susses out why they're there, what happened to the gun. She says she gave it to Lauren as a keepsake. Chester says they'll need her to make a statement, but she's not scared: "I'm well aware of what you need, young man, but you're not going to get it." She says her husband obsessed over the Woodsman: "It crushed him. He never would have let that vicious killer sit in a cushy cell for the rest of his life. I guess Lauren felt the same way." Olivia asks her directly if Lauren said she was going to use the gun to kill Larry Moore. "I won't lie. But I certainly won't help you put her away. Now please go," is the confirmation.
Outside, Olivia says they've got everything they need: the widow said she gave the gun to Lauren, and the ballistics from the shell found in Lauren's apartment will match the ballistics report on Tillman's suicide autopsy. Is there anyone who didn't figure that out ages ago?
Chester and Olivia bust into Lauren's apartment to find her sitting at a table, her badge and gun in front of her. "Guess I'm going to jail. Proud of yourself?" she says. Olivia, inching closer, says she would have been proud to help her nail the guy who killed twenty-four women. Not good enough, says Lauren. Olivia quickly snatches the gun off the table and hands it to Chester. "How many dead babies have you stood over? How many rape victims? You can't tell me you never wanted to put your gun under the bastard's chin who raped a two-year-old. " Olivia says she has too much to lose. "Not me," says Lauren. "But Amy did," says Olivia, adding that Lauren knew there was another victim, and knew what Moore was doing to her. "I did everything to save her! Even after I put the gun to his head, he wouldn't give it up!" she screams. That's why she sent the email, says Olivia. "I needed help to find her. You have to believe that," says Lauren. "I can't condone what you did. But I understand it," says Olivia, adding that the DA will go easy on her. "I'm sorry. I can't," says Lauren, even more monotone than normal. Uh, Liv? When she starts talking like that, you might want to think about restraining her. "Those who fight monsters should make damn sure they don't become one," says Lauren, who whips out a gun and shoots herself in the head. Olivia screams, and breaks down sobbing, in two seconds making all of Lauren's emoting seem even worse. Not to mention Chester, who just blankly looks like he can't remember if he turned off the stove back at his apartment.
Hey, you crime scene guys, you don't mind if Olivia hangs around brooding the whole time you're working, do you? Great. Lock up when you leave, eh, Olivia?