All spoilers are unmarked per policy for recap pages. You Have Been Warned
Written By Christine M Torres
Directed By Constantine Makris
A young black man is accused of the rape of a schoolteacher...who happens to be the granddaughter of the Klansman who led the gangrape of his mother when he was a child and made him witness it take place. Then it turns out he may not have actually raped the schoolteacher at all...
Tropes
- Bittersweet Ending: On the downside, Dwight, in his averted, misguided attempt to avenge his mother's gang-rape, avoids rape and assault charges after telling the whole truth of what he attempted to do to Catherine as revenge against her grandfather Grant (who was the leader and sole survivor of the men who committed the gang-rape), but is still facing up to 15 years behind bars after pleading to a breaking-and-entering charge. On the upside though, his mother's rapist finally pays the price for his crimes and racism as his granddaughter now faces jail time herself after giving into his manipulations to trump up the charges against Dwight, and has angrily disowned him for dragging her into his racist viewpoint.
- The Bus Came Back: Three years after her departure at the end of season 9, Casey Novak returns, revealing that she had been censured the entire time after lying to a judge to try and get a rapist cop convicted.
- Extremely Protective Child: Nephew, but same principle. After Howard learns about his aunt's gang-rape decades ago, he goes to the ringleader's house with the intent of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, but is stopped by Fin before he can carry it out.
- False Rape Accusation: Catherine's grandfather convinced her to say the intruder raped her by telling her the police wouldn't believe her story otherwise (and even tried to convince her that she was misremembering and there had been a rape). When she realizes he was just being a racist jerk who was dragging her into his bigotry, she's genuinely upset and remorseful. Catherine winds up making two false rape accusations, since she falsely accused the Red Herring suspect before she falsely accused Dwight.
- Harmful to Minors: When Dwight was six years old, he had a gun held to his head and was Forced to Watch as three men raped his mother.
- Hypocrite: When he heard what happened, Catherine's grandfather made a big fuss about how black men rape white women, when he, a white man, had raped at least one black woman (quite possibly more than one, but there's only one that was ever pinned on him).
- Insane Troll Logic: Catherine's grandfather convinces her to make a false rape accusation on the grounds that the cops won't believe her if she claims a black man broke into her bedroom but didn't rape her.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Although unable to be prosecuted for raping Dwight's mother due to the statute of limitations on the case having long since expired, Grant ultimately pays the price for his bigotry and crimes in the end after watching his granddaughter both get arrested for committing perjury due to his manipulations and angrily disown him for using her trauma and vulnerability to try and sway her towards his racist views.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Catherine's reaction when she realizes that her grandfather was just spewing bigoted lies and she bought them to the extent that she nearly ruined a man's life.
- Revenge Before Reason: Twisted up in this episode, where Terrence Howard's DA from Law & Order: LA appears to defend his cousin Dwight Talcott, who raped teacher Catherine Harrison, who turned out to be the granddaughter of Grant Harrison, the leader of three men who raped his mother when he was a child and made him watch (and called her a whore to escape justice on top of it). Except... he didn't actually rape her — he just couldn't bring himself to do it in the end, and Catherine only claimed that he did rape her because grandpa told her that no one would believe she was "just" assaulted and that "black men always rape". Although Dwight is still sent to jail for up to 15 years on a breaking and entering charge as part of a plea deal, he does still ultimately get some measure of revenge though, because at the end, his mother's rapist A) is forced to watch his granddaughter go to jail for perjury because of the false accusations he manipulated her into making, and B) must now face that the grandchild who once loved and adored him even in spite of his racism now utterly despises him for even just briefly turning her into the same kind of evil bigoted person that he is.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Dwight Talcott attempted to rape Catherine Harrison as an act of revenge against her grandfather Grant, who was a Klansman involved in the brutal rape of his mother during his childhood. However, in the end, Dwight couldn't bring himself to stoop to Grant's level and backed off, leaving Catherine unscathed but shaken.
- You're Not My Father: At the end of the episode, Catherine disavows and disowns her grandfather for his bigotry.
