Unorthodox

S09E13

Casey, the crack ADA, has finally been called in. Since Jack is fourteen and David is only ten...wait. Why were they at the same school? Oh, whatever. It's statutory rape. Jack's going down. Or he would be if Rhea Perlman weren't proving that she is still alive by guest-starring as his defense counsel. I love it when the guest stars aren't the perps! So the ADA wants to try Jack as an adult, and Rhea ain't having none of it because he can't be guilty of Rape One! "They were just a couple of kids screwing around! If you'll pardon the expression." No, Rhea, we do not pardon that expression. Not at all. Rhea goes to talk to her client as the Captain gets his weekly line. Casey says she is ready to drop the charges for the rabbi's custodial interference. When Stabler goes to release the rabbi, the rabbi asks about Jack. He is concerned for the boy and totally guilt-trips Stabler into convincing Casey to try Jack in family court instead of criminal. Casey agrees to try Jack as a juvenile. But that agreement flies out the window when in turns out that Jack is actually a serial rapist. Three little girls have come forward claiming that Jack raped them, too. Casey is so mad, her nostrils are flaring.

Rhea thinks it is awfully convenient that three new rape victims came forward just in time to get Jack's case pulled into criminal court. Casey snorts and rolls her eyes and explains that the victims felt safe after Jack was arrested. At the courthouse, the media has gathered like sharks to a koi pond and Rhea gives them an earful about their role in the rapes. They are the ones who sexualized children. It's their fault! The amount of sex on television is the real culprit. Rhea is planning on arguing that her client is insane because there is too much sex on television. Legal insanity is defined as being unable to comprehend the consequences of one's actions, so since Jack has been exposed to so much sex and violence on the tube, he didn't know that rape was wrong. The TV made him crazy! Casey thinks the whole thing is wack, but the judge thinks it's up to a jury to decide.

During the trial, the three adorable little rape victims tell their tales of woe about how Jack saw some stuff in movies and in television and he made the tots reenact it against their will. It's pretty grim, but that's SVU for you. As the prosecution rests, Jack asks Detective Stabler whether or not he has seen his dad. Stabler sadly shakes his head no and then goes to kick some delinquent dad ass. Jack's dad complains that he doesn't want anything to do with Jack because despite the fact that he made him breakfast, checked his homework, and got him to school on time, Jack still raped four little kids. Stabler plays the "I'm a better parent" card that he must have bought on eBay because he isn't that great of a parent. Weren't his kids not talking to him for a few seasons? Anyway, he tells Jack's dad to man up and support his little rapist.

On their way to Temple, Stabler tells Munch that he had a case in the Hasidic community before, and everyone was very uncooperative. Munch explains that it's just a suspicion of outsiders. Ooh, yeah, I saw this in Witness. When they get to the school, as the receptionist tries to prevent them from entering, they notice a giant stack of fliers telling the members of the community that the tutor has acted in accordance with the Talmud and they should feel free to continue hiring him to tutor their kids. Stabler and Munch go to find the rabbi in charge. Did you see how quickly they got those fliers done? That is some speedy layout and printing. They must have gone to that copy shop on N. 5th street, because the copy machine at the shop on N. 3rd is run by giant hamsters. Munch and Stabler bust up a Torah study group/damage-control meeting. The head rabbi tells the cops that the Tutor is innocent in the eyes of G-d, and that without a warrant they aren't taking him anywhere. Stabler doesn't take that so well and tells the tutor that it's just a matter of time. All the scholars have these really junky-looking fake beards that are very distracting. I know the actors probably didn't have time to grow their own and that the show probably couldn't get real Hasids to act in the episode, but honestly, it looks like they raided a ZZ Top cover band's tour bus.

Stabler is staging a one-man stakeout of the tutor, so when the tutor takes a small boy outside, leads him across the street, down a flight of stairs, and into a basement apartment, Stabler is all over it. He busts into the unlocked apartment and finds the tutor all over...the receptionist. Oy! Under police questioning, the couple admit that they are in love, but within the Hasidic community they aren't allowed to even hold hands until they are married (which I believe is the Bush administration's plan to cut down on STDs). Stabler asks why they don't leave their entire religious belief system behind and become Orthodox instead of Hasidic. They roll their eyes. Jacob (the tutor has a name!) explains that he couldn't tell the cops his alibi in front of the rabbis, but he was with the receptionist all day. They drove David into the city and then went to a film fest at The Roxy. With the alibi confirmed, the cops are left to wonder why Jacob would rather be looked as a kiddy-fiddling perv than admit he was making out with his girlie at a movie theater. Before they can stumble into the quagmire that is questioning religious zeal, Stabler gets a phone call: David has been kidnapped.

David's mother went to the store after arguing with David's father; when she came back, David was gone. She thinks Avi took David. The cops ask where Avi would have taken him. Rachel says that Avi's family is in Brooklyn and Israel, but since David doesn't have a passport, the cops aren't worried about that. Unfortunately, Avi has broken about five Talmudic laws by forging Rachel's signature on David's passport application. Stabler tells her not to worry because Israel is a signatory to the Hague Convention and Avi won't be able to get through customs. I guess those correspondence courses in international law are finally paying off, eh Stabler? Fin comes in with the announcement that Avi's car has been spotted getting off the Thruway near Harriman, NY. At first they think he's headed to Canada, but then despite the fact that there is an obviously Hebraic-sounding town in really big type on the really big map right to Stabler's head, it is Rachel who realizes that Avi is taking David to Kehilat Moshe, a Hasidic town upstate. Munch -- who, as the only Jew on the NYPD payroll, takes his role really seriously and studies Jewish-related statistics in case it ever comes up in the line of duty -- pipes in that the town was settled by Hasids from Williamsburg, and has the lowest median age in the state because of all the encouraged procreation. As Stabler and Munch head upstate, Rachel helpfully voice-overs that in the town, the women wear long skirts, they are separated from the men at shul and in the Temple, there are no cell phones, no influences from the unclean modern world. Once they hit the town square, pursuant to absolutely nothing, Munch says to Stabler, "Just like the stories that Bubbeh used to tell." Munch? We get it. You're Jewish. Now please stop talking.

Stabler and Munch espy Avi's car parked on the street. As soon as they get out to investigate, they are stopped by the local law enforcement officer who points out that they are way out of their jurisdiction. Stabler tells him that they're in hot pursuit of a rapist/kidnapper and they want to speak to his supervisor. The cop and his supervisor speak rapidly in Yiddish on the radio, and Munch overhears that they are trying to keep the goys away from the Temple. They bust into the Temple anyway and grab Avi, who quickly explains that it wasn't him, but rather the head rabbi who kidnapped David. David is screaming that he doesn't want to go back and the head rabbi is saying that he was only trying to protect the boy. Stabler tells him to tell it to the judge. The rabbi asks if out of respect he can finish his prayers, but Stabler says he has no respect for child molesters. In case you didn't guess that.

Back at the precinct, Fin is having no luck with the rabbi, who claims that he did nothing wrong. He was just trying to protect David from the wicked influence of the world. Stabler is faring no better with David, who is claiming that he asked the rabbi to take him away. Stabler doesn't buy it. Why would David want to leave his parents? David says that he wanted to go to school somewhere he could be safe. The elite detective realizes that David was raped at school. ["Those of us on the Time Warner system who read the ep description got there about 24 minutes ago; they really need to work on not giving away who the perp really is, because it makes the detectives look really dumb during the red-herring half of the show." -- Sars] Stabler tracks down the guys who would be CSI, you know, if that weren't a competing show.

The notCSI guy shows Stabler that the pubic hair is from a "Tanner Stage 2," and Stabler with his correspondence-school training knows that means the perp is an adolescent. The notCSI confirms that the hair is from a twelve- to fourteen-year-old. Stabler gives the camera the hoary eye of disbelief. I meet his hoary eye of disbelief and raise him an eyebrow. I mean, come on; he's been on this show, what twenty-eight years? Why would he be shocked by this? Oh whatever.

Huang, the FBI profiler who apparently is always lurking in the SVU squad room, helps the cops come up with a narrower suspect pool. The UNSUB is a boy slightly older than David who is probably picked last for kickball. Seriously. That was the profile. When confronted with this hard evidence, David finally gives up a name. Jack. The attacker's name is Jack. And holy hockey, Jack is played by Shane from Weeds. Why not make some extra money as a child rapist while your show is on hiatus, eh? ["Meanwhile, his mom is played by a woman who was the female-convict Killer Of The Week on L&O: Mothership back in the day." -- Sars] Stabler and Finn track down Jack at his house. He is watching porn because his mom is dead and his dad is working late and oh just admit it Skinemax is the root of all evil. Fin and Stabler take Jack and his little brother down to the station house.

At the precinct, Jack's dad has finally shown up. He is running around the station looking for his boys, and totally freaks when he finds out that Jack is being charged with rape. He is running around yelling for his son, and when Jack hears his dad's voice, he yells that he didn't think it was wrong. He wants his dad to help him because he didn't know! When things have quieted down, Stabler asks Jack about the rape. Jack says that he saw it on the TV. There was a show with some guys in prison and that's what they were doing. Stabler does an excellent job at not giggling and saying, "Oh yes. I remember those scenes. Really, that was my finest work. Can you believe they cancelled Oz?" Instead the camera cuts to David telling Fin that he was too scared of Jack to say no and that he kept going back, not because it was fun like Jack says when the camera cuts back to him, but because he was scared. Jack admits that he did it because he wants everyone to respect him. In the movie he saw, once the guy "had his bitch," everyone respected him. Stabler nods knowingly, "Yeah, I had like three bitches. And everyone respected me. Even the guards. Damn, Oz was a great show." Jack's dad does not understand any of this. He slaps Jack, throws his hands up in the air, and storms out. He tells Stabler to do whatever he wants with the boy.

Back in the courtroom, Rhea does her best to indict an overly sexual television set (Tubey, I'm looking at you) as the real culprit. Jack watches a lot of television, and his favorite stuff is the "ten o'clock stuff" with the naked ladies. Rhea parades a panel of experts onto the witness stand, who all claim that the "ubiquity of pornography," the laxness of the media, and our overtly sexual society can make young people think sex is totally a-okay. Jack testifies that he didn't know it was wrong and that he didn't know he was hurting anyone. As he is dissembling, his dad walks into the courtroom. Jack apologizes to his dad from the witness stand, but his dad just puts his head in his hand and mutters something about Calgon.

Stabler brings Casey a cup of coffee for the weekly ethical debate of individual actions versus greater good. This week Stabler is concerned about a neglected boy surrounded by a society filled with smut, while Casey takes the role of defender of the First Amendment. Gosh, I am so glad that Law & Order is here to make you really think about these issues! During closing arguments, Casey points out that 70 million kids watch television and manage not to rape people. The jury doesn't care. They find Jack not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect. The TV did it! The TV did it! Munch and the rabbi exchange a meaningful glance about the fate of children in the cruel world that I did not comprehend, undoubtedly because I'm only half-Jewish.