Line #3 Recap/LawAndOrderS7E18MadDog


1	[=McCoy=] testifies at a parole hearing that Lewis Darnell, a convicted serial rapist, should remain in jail. Nevertheless, Darnell is released with 12 years of his sentence to go. He moves in with his daughter Janeane. Shortly afterwards, a teenager named Teresa Perez is found raped and murdered with no murder weapon or eyewitnesses. Initially the MO looks different from Darnell's, but then it's discovered that Teresa was suffocated with a garbage bag - Darnell is known to enjoy asphyxiating his victims. Furthermore, he lived in the house next door when he was a child, and knew how to get into her apartment building via the basement.
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3	Evidence mounts that Darnell was planning to rape again, including shaving all his body hair. But nothing conclusive links him to Teresa's murder. The detectives arrest him for parole violation, but a judge releases him on ''habeas corpus'' grounds. So [=McCoy=] tries to have him detained under mental health laws. When that fails, [=McCoy=] subpoenas anyone who has been around Darnell in the six weeks since his release. He also has Darnell put under constant surveillance, and his neighbors informed (under Megan's Law) that he is a convicted rapist. Janeane is furious and refuses to believe her father did anything wrong.
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5	Darnell cannot find anyone willing to hire him or let him rent a home. He goes to the ACLU and even applies for an injunction against [=McCoy=], but is denied. When Darnell's neighbors make an obviously false claim that he preyed on their daughter, Schiff orders [=McCoy=] to drop the case. But then they receive a call from the detectives that Janeane killed Darnell after she walked in on him raping her friend. As they leave the scene, [=McCoy=] tells Ross he's sorry it had to come to this, to which Ross notes he's not all ''that'' sorry.
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7	!!Tropes present in this work
8	* AmbiguousSituation: Whether Darnell actually killed Teresa, and whether he would've reoffended had he not been relentlessly harassed by [=McCoy=], is never resolved.
9	* AsYouKnow: Justified example as Briscoe walks [=McCoy=] and Ross through the crime scene where Darnell was killed by his daughter after she caught him raping a friend of hers.
10	* BittersweetEnding: Darnell's daughter will be severely affected by what happened, and Darnell has claimed another victim - likely driven to it by [=McCoy=]'s actions. On the other hand, the [=DA=]'s office will not prosecute Janeane, and at least Darnell can't hurt anyone else.
11	* BrokenPedestal: Darnell's daughter believes in his innocence, despite all the evidence to the contrary. In the end, she ends up having to kill her father when she finds him attacking her friend.
12	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Despite being a SerialRapist, and being watched to the point he could only get someone in his own building, Darnell wasn't tempted to attack his own daughter.
13	* HadToComeToPrisonToBeACrook: SerialRapist Lewis Darnell was already a crook, but he "evolves" to murder in top of rape after he is paroled. He has learned not to leave evidence (the reason why he shaves his body hair) or witnesses.
14	* {{Irony}}: Darnell's daughter Janeane, his staunchest defender who believes her father was falsely convicted and forced to confess to get parole, is the one who ends up killing him.
15	* NeverTrustATitle: The episode is about a human criminal, not a dog.
16	* OutlivingOnesOffspring: After Darnell is released, the next thing which happens in the plot is a mother calling the police over the rape and murder of her daughter.
17	* {{Patricide}}: Darnell was ultimately killed by his own daughter.
18	* PornStash: Darnell has a stash of extreme porn, which [=McCoy=] produces as evidence.
19	* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Dr. Olivet testifies that there is no long-lasting, effective treatment for {{Serial Rapist}}s.
20	* SerialRapist: Darnell was sent to prison for 6 rapes, and is believed to have committed 7 others.

Context Recap / LawAndOrderS7E18MadDog