Law & Order SVU “Strange Beauty” certainly did the “strange” part very well. This felt like a Law & Order Criminal Intent case, and like many of the Law & Order Criminal Intent cases I’ve seen over the years, it threatened to put me to sleep as it reached the end. The story begins with an abduction that Rollins witnesses outside the local bar, but soon descends into the creepy life of people who push the limits of body alterations in an attempt to be different.
The episode also gives some back story to Rollins’ transfer to New York City, and also hints at a potentially romantic relationship with her former Captain from Atlanta. All we know is that the deputy chief in Atlanta did something that was out of line, but they never explain exactly what. While I wasn’t thrilled at first with Kelli Giddish on SVU, I seem to be warming up to her character over the last few episodes, and Rollins seems to be fitting in much better with the SVU team.
But back to the story. While the issue of the kidnapping gets resolved promptly, it’s the issue of the victim’s missing leg that stumps the detectives. As they continue to investigate, they are led into a world where some people clearly have a different sense of beauty than the norm. Tattoos and odd body piercings have become mainstream; my personal opinion is that most people look much more attractive without them. Extreme body “art” really was best described in the episode as a “job stopper” as most employers don’t tolerate it, especially for jobs that deal face to face with the public. Needless to say, I am not sure if the public would ever except anyone that would perform amputations of healthy body parts in order for a person to look more attractive.
All in all, this was a decent episode. I must admit that the subject matter was a big turn off for me, so I put it at the bottom of my list for this season.
Here is the recap:
Cast:
Mariska Hargitay – Detective Olivia Benson
Ice-T – Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola
Richard Belzer – Sergeant John Munch
Dann Florek – Captain Don Cragen
Kelli Giddish - Detective Amanda Rollins
Danny Pino - Detective Nick Amaro
Guest stars:
Tamara Tunie – Dr. Melinda Warner
David Eigenberg - Dr. Hal Brightman
Patrick Fischler - Dr. Gene Brightman
Britt Lower – Jess Hardwick
Myk Watford – Sam Reynolds
Bridget Barkan – Lisa, the one legged prostitute
Ilana Levine – Shelly Raedo
Tony Campisi – Lawyer
Constantine Maroulis – Seth Morentz
Paul Whitty - J.C. Cassidy
Morgan Lynch - Nina Reedo
Ralph Lucarelli - Nikos Attellades
Nick Maccarone - Kenji Yashimi
Alex Hernandez - Pablo Desperon
Jennifer Onvie - Robin
Barrington Walters, Jr. - Joaquin
Yanelba Ferreira - Tiffany
Ross Brodas - Bouncer
A young girl races down the street while on the phone with her mother. She tells her she wants to come home and asks if her mother would pay for a car home. She runs into a building for a car service where a security camera records her entry and then being ordered out by a man at the front desk. The camera also sees a cab pull up and the hooded driver step out and grab the girl, pulling her into the cab. The man at the front desk isn’t paying attention.
Elsewhere in the local bar, Amaro and Fin are playing pool and Rollins and Sam Reynolds, her captain from Atlanta, enter. They make their introductions and Rollins says Sam helped her transfer from Atlanta, Sam adding that he and Don Cragen go way back, Amaro and Fin decide to leave and pass the pool cues to Rollins and Sam, with Fin warning Sam that Rollins is a shark.
Sam asks her how she is doing in New York and she replies that New York was a fresh start and she needed it. He tells her she had to get out of Dodge, and drunk or not, the deputy chief was out of line. She says she shouldn’t have taken it personally – no lasting harm, no foul. He asks if she has made any friends and she reminds him he just met her partners. Sam says he means friends, and that anybody that calls her Rollins is a cop, not a friend. He explains that he worries about her as he knows how squirrelly she can get. She says she is fine, calling him “papa bear.” He moves in to kiss her but she pulls back, asking him if he forgot he is married. He sighs and holds up his left hand, which has no ring on it, and explains he is separated. He says she can’t say that they both haven’t thought about it. She says no, but he caught her by surprise right now. He nods and pulls back, saying he gets that. He suggests he get them another round, and then grabs her phone, saying she is going to take the call real quick. She steps outside and while standing there, sees a cab drive by with a woman in the back seat, screaming for someone to help her. Rollins chases after the car and calls for assistance, saying she has a possible taxi abduction in a cab with medallion 6209, and as she says where the cab is heading, the cab pulls away even faster, leaving Rollins standing in the middle of the street.
At SVU, Cragen walks in and asks Rollins if she is fishing for overtime. She explains the possible cab abduction she saw. Benson explains it could tie into the yellow cab rape case, the Sikh, where they have two open cases from last year. Fin says the medallion number matches a cap stolen in Chelsea the day before but the drive says he was struck from behind and he never saw the assailant. Benson explains that the cab turned up about an hour ago by the Lincoln Tunnel and CSU is going over it now. Rollins submitted the description to missing persons but no matches yet, but Amaro gets off the phone and says they may have caught a break. A desperate mother has been calling the NYPD about her missing daughter, saying she got a panicked call from her around midnight and she never came home. The description matches Rollins’ girl. Cragen says Rollins saw the girl so she should talk to the mother.
Benson and Rollins visit Nina’s mother, Shelly Raedo, who says Nina is 19 and she has been in and out of the house for a year now. Rollins looks at photos of Nina. Shelly doesn’t know who her friends are but explains the scared call she got the night before asking if her mother would pay for a ride home and said she felt “out of control.” Shelly says Nina has been going through a phase with piercings and tattoos, and explains the octopus tattoo she got on her left ankle and the next thing she knew, she was covered with them. She doesn’t know her daughter anymore. Benson asks for some DNA samples and her mother gets tearful and asks if she is going to see her again.
Outside the home, Rollins tells Benson that is the girl she saw and Benson suggests their run her cell phone records.
Elsewhere, Fin and Amaro talks with Joaquin, who seems to know Amaro from his work in narcotics. They show him a photo of Nina and he says she used to be with Pablo, pointing to the roof of a nearby building. He says Pablo had some pigeons up there. He tells Amato to take is slow, Pablo is golden gloves. Amaro says he isn’t scared.
The get to the roof where there are a lot of pigeons but they also hear heavy breathing. Fin opens the door to the coop and announces they are NYPD and ask for Nina, breaking up Pablo’s playtime with another girl. Fin talks Pablo aside as the girl – Tiffany – asks who is Nina. Pablo says Tiffany is mad jealous, adding he broke up with Nina months ago as she was too wild for him. She used to cause trouble, she once came on to three dudes just to bait him into a fight with them. Last night she came over and wanted to hook up and said she was scared and only felt safe with him. He said no as Tiffany was on her way over, it was around midnight. He explains that Nina said she got home using a car service down the block, she used it before.
Fin and Amaro head to the car service and the man at the desk tells them if they want a car, they have to call. Fin shows his badge and Nina’s photo and the man said he told her the same thing last night when he ordered her out. He told her twice. She gave him attitude and said she was going to look for another car service but he knows there aren’t any others around there. He saw a cab pull up just as she went out and guesses she went in. Fin asks about the security cameras and says they will need to see his tapes.
Back at SVU, Rollins identifies Nina on one of the videotapes. The detectives see Nina being ordered out of the car service and another cab pull up with the same medallion number that Rollins saw. They see Nina attempt to run off and then be pulled into the cab. Amaro sees the driver is a white male, and not their Sikh. There have been no hits on her cell phone. Cragen comments they know she has been abducted but when is she going to turn up?
Later, Benson and Rollins arrive at the morgue, Warner says she had something come in an hour ago – a young woman’s leg, freshly severed. Benson sees an octopus tattoo on her ankle. Warner explains some guy fishing from a boat on the Gowanus Canal reeled in the leg. The description matched Nina’s tattoo and they are running the DNA. Rollins comments that it is a pretty clean cut, and Warner thinks it was done with a surgical saw. She adds there is evidence of living response to trauma in the boney tissues – Nina could have been alive when her leg was amputated. Warner says there was anesthetic in the marrow and asks why go through the trouble for a corpse? Benson states this was a healthy leg severed cleanly from a living person, and Warner nods her head. As they walk off, Rollins tells Benson she’s heard of that with drug wars but she does not think this is what that is. Benson adds there is something else – a fisherman reeled this in, questioning that no one fishes in the Gowanus Canal, it is so polluted it is a superfund site.
At the houseboat of J.C. Cassidy on the Gowanus Canal, Fin and Rollins speak with Cassidy who uses the scrap from the canal for his inventions and eats the fish for dinner. He explains he found the leg and when Fin asks him what he does with the band saw, Cassidy says he did not use it to cut anybody’s leg off, and gets upset, saying this is why he doesn’t trust the cops. Rollins says they would appreciate his cooperation, but Fin says maybe they should just tear up his workshop looking for evidence. Cassidy tells him to look around and bring the Luminal and UV lights. They won’t find blood; he was just trying to do the right thing, same as he did 11 years ago when he found the other leg. He thinks that is why they are here. He explains he notified the police but there wasn’t much follow through; it was 3 days before the planes hit the towers.
At the morgue, Warner shows Benson and Amaro the stored leg, saying Cassidy told them the truth. This leg and the others were both removed by surgical saw which makes a different kind of scoring on the bone. Both limbs were healthy and removed professionally, and both had the same traces of anesthetic – propofol. Warner thinks this victim was also alive when the leg was removed. As Warner walks off, Amaro asks Benson what they think they are looking at, and she has no idea. Amaro gets a message and says it just got weirder; the crime lab got a DNA hit on the first leg and the woman it belongs to, and she is still alive.
