Written By Dawn De Noon
Directed By David Platt
A mother and her 10-year-old daughter are found raped and butchered in their apartment and the main suspect is a homeless man who turns out to be Munch's uncle, Andrew (Jerry Lewis), who's in New York after escaping his Florida home. They quickly prove Andrew's innocence and find a new suspect, however, when their only evidence is thrown out in court, Andrew takes matters into his own hands.
Tropes
- A Day in the Limelight: Munch got to shine when his uncle Andrew (played by none other than Jerry Lewis) got involved as a suspect.
- Asshole Victim: Brent Allan Banks definitely qualifies, being an unrepentant sexual sadist and murderer.
- Bittersweet Ending: Much heavier on the bitter, though. The only real positive is that Brent Allan Banks is dead and unable to hurt anyone else. But it also leads to Andrew deciding to go to jail unmedicated rather than be admitted to a hospital to get better, believing he needs to pay for what he did. Munch and Stabler are visibly upset, with Beck not even being able to visit Andrew out of guilt for inadvertently causing his psychotic break.
- Cowboy Cop: Beck, in an establishing character moment, pulls a gun on a suspect (guilty of solicitation) for suggesting she must have traded sex for money at some point in her life.
- Death of Personality: The episode ends with Munch's clinically depressed Uncle Andrew coming off his medication to "kill" himself as penance for murdering a suspect while in a mania caused as a side effect of his (different) medication.
- It's All My Fault: Brent Allan Banks' original victim, Maryellen Seaver, blames herself for Gabriella and Illaria Travino's deaths, believing Brent would've gone to jail for longer than he had if she'd testified against him for raping her.
- Beck has a similar reaction to inadvertently causing Andrew's manic episode that drove him to kill Brent Allan Banks. The guilt is enough to where she can't bring herself to visit Andrew and John in the hospital.
- It Never Gets Any Easier:
Stabler: Just so you know, everybody loses it, their first kid case
Beck: I'll get used to it
Stabler: When that happens, transfer out.
- Nay-Theist: Beck, to the practicing Catholic Stabler, regarding the death grip the ten-year-old victim has on the crucifix she was clutching as she was raped and tortured to death:
She was praying for help, that never came.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While comforting Brent Allan Banks' original victim, Beck empathizes with her desire to see him be given the death penalty, even saying she'd "put the needle in his arm myself" if she could. Unbeknownst to her, Andrew overheard her and was driven into a psychotic break, going after Brent and killing him after he was released. He subsequently refuses to be institutionalized, deciding instead to go to jail and go without medication to pay for what he did.
- Railroad Tracks of Doom: Munch's uncle follows the detectives as they tail the perp to the subway, then shoves him under the approaching subway train and expects the detectives to celebrate with him.
- Smug Snake: The perp, Brent Allen Banks, banters with the detectives in the supreme confidence that he's smarter than they are, but he's dumb enough to let Beck manipulate him into chewing some gumnote so the team can get teeth impressions to compare to the victims' bite marks.
- Would Hurt a Child: Brent Allan Banks raped, tortured, and murdered 10-year-old Illaria Travino alongside her mother.
