Recap / Law & Order: Special Victims Unit S3 E21 "Denial"

Written By Judith McCreary

Directed By Steve Shill

The investigation into the sexual assault of a heroin addict is impeded by the detective's belief that the victim is withholding information to protect her mother and grandmother. The information she is withholding however, unveils a dark family secret covered up for decades...

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Tropes:

• Abusive Parents: Grace Rinato. She was violently abusive towards her three children, and ended up murdering two of them out of sheer anger. Her one living child, Claire, only survived because her grandmother took her in for the better part of her life. Claire claims that she tried her best to teach Lisa how to not cry, knowing how crying enrages their mother.
• Artistic License – Law: No judge would ever order a prosecutor to file charges against anyone, no matter what the evidence suggests, because the prerogative to bring charges rests solely and entirely with the District Attorney's office. (Judges are of course free to dismiss those charges if they feel they don't pass muster.) To be fair, Cabot screams bloody murder at the attempt (and gets found for contempt for her trouble) and it's implied the judge only gets away with it because her boss, Donnelly, reviewed the evidence herself and filed charges over her head.
• The Atoner: Rose disowns Grace, gives the detectives the information they need to arrest her, and makes no attempt to resist her own arrest for covering up Grace's murders of her grandchildren.
  Benson: Do we have to use the cuffs?
  Rose: I'm responsible for the deaths of two innocent children, Detective. I think handcuffs are appropriate.
• Berserk Button: Grace hated the sound of crying so much that Claire taught her baby sister Lisa not to do it, knowing it would set her off.
• Bittersweet Ending: Grace is finally convicted of murdering two of her children. Rose disowns Grace to protect her granddaughter, and must now face charges for covering up Grace's crimes. Claire's rapist is caught, and Fin gives her a chance to go to rehab and clean her life up, now that she doesn't have to pay for her mother's crimes. As a parting gift, he also gives her a photograph of her sister created by the forensics lab, calling it "her last excuse for not going to rehab" (earlier, Claire had told him that she could only remember her sister's face when she was high).
• Disappeared Dad:
  • Grace's father walked out on her and Rose when she was young. Rose speculates that he realized his daughter was a monster and wanted to get away from her.
    Rose: "I don't know why he never tried to get in contact with you. Maybe he saw something in you, something I couldn't face. Until now."
  • It's also indicated Anthony's and Claire and Lisa's fathers abandoned Grace.
• Establishing Character Moment: We first meet Grace Rinato when the detectives arrive to her residence to inform her of her daughter's rape. Her response is being coldly indifferent to said rape and then blaming her daughter for being on drugs before the crime took place, all whilst scowling and smoking in the same scene.
• Exact Words: In order to get Grace's confession, the detectives tell her they exhumed the body of her son, which they did. They never said they found proof the baby was killed, because they didn't. They just let her assume that.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • Claire turned to drugs to cope with the guilt of failing to protect her little sister, Lisa, from their mother's abuse. Between her mother's blatant dislike of her daughter, as well as her grandmother's denial over Lisa's death, it's no wonder Claire is so disgusted with her life and the world.
  • Grace, according to her mother, was never the same after her father took off.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Happens to Fin when he finds the remains of Claire's infant sister Lisa in a garbage bag in a dumpster. The viewer only sees Fin recoil in shock and dry-heave before confirming the presence of the body over his radio.
• Grandparent Favoritism: Rose, Grace's mother, prefers her surviving granddaughter Claire over her angry and abusive daughter. Even when interviewed by detectives, she explicitly says that she's only interested in helping Claire. Given what kind of a person Grace is, it's understandable.
• Informed Ability: Grace is described as being a "pillar of the community", but we aren't given any details as to why she's considered this and between her permanent scowling, antagonistic relationship with her daughter and mother, lack of responsibility and chain-smoking, she doesn't back up this claim.
• Jerkass Ball: Judge Petrovsky in this episode. First, she exceeds her authority by ordering Cabot to file charges against Claire, then when Cabot correctly points out that a judge does not have the authority to dictate who the District Attorney's Office files charges against, she responds by being shamelessly petty in how she rejects Cabot's request for remand, and when Cabot rightly objects to that, Petrovsky charges her with contempt of court; Cabot was justifiably planning to file a complaint over all of this but was overruled. It's quite jarring compared to the Reasonable Authority Figure Petrovsky is in other appearances.
• Lack of Empathy: Let's see, Grace Rinato killed two of her own children because they wouldn't stop crying, and callously blames Claire for being raped. What do you think?
• Laser-Guided Karma: After trying to throw her only living daughter under a bus, Grace Rinato is finally taken down by her own mother, who helped cover up Grace's crimes. Cabot makes it pretty clear that Grace will face 50 years in prison.
• Mummies at the Dinner Table: Grace keeps the corpse of her daughter Lisa in her closet.
• My Greatest Failure: Claire blames herself for failing to protect Lisa. Rose feels this way about failing to save two of her grandchildren and for covering up the truth about the first child's death, leaving Grace free to do it again. By contrast...
• Never My Fault: When Grace is confronted about the death of her son, she admits to smothering him but blames her mother for not taking the baby off her hands that night.
• Parental Substitute: Claire was more of a mother to Lisa than Grace ever was. It's one of the reasons that she takes Lisa's death (and her own inability to protect her) so hard. Rose in turn was this to Claire.
• Practically Different Generations: Claire was 13 years older than Lisa.
• Promotion to Parent: Claire loved her little sister Lisa and looked after her as best she could. Sadly, she still couldn't protect her from their mother.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Grace, when confronted by her mother in the end, loses her composure and rants like an angry teenager lashing out at a parent.
• Raised by Grandparents: Claire was raised by Rose, her grandmother, for most of her childhood. This is almost certainly the primary reason she didn't meet the same fate as her siblings.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Rose decides she's finally had enough of her sociopathic daughter, calling her out on the murders of her children and the grief she's put their family through.
  Rose: Grace, I'm tired of the guilt. I'm tired of cleaning up your mess. I'm tired of you. You suck the life out of everything you touch, but you won't get Claire.
  Grace: What the hell's so special about her?!
  Rose: She never killed anyone, Grace. She never covered her son's face to stop his crying and watched him struggle for his last breath.
• Sole Survivor: Out of Grace's three children, Claire is the only one who survived to adulthood, and that's because she was mostly raised by her grandmother.
• Villain with Good Publicity: To the outside world, Grace is a pillar of the community, while Claire is clearly a troubled drug-addict with a history of juvenile delinquency. But Grace turns out to have murdered two of her three children, while Claire has never hurt anyone but herself.
• Would Hurt a Child: Grace smothered her infant son and stomped her toddler daughter to death. For crying.