Recap pages are Spoilers Off per policy and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned
Written By Neal Baer and Dawn De Noon
Directed By David Platt
A woman (Cynthia Nixon) with multiple personalities may have abused and killed her daughter. The real issue, though, is whether said personalities are genuine or if it's all just an act to avoid prison.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Janis and Cass claim their father raped Cass while their mother was in the room and did nothing, which is stated to be the reason for Janis' Dissociative Identity Disorder. It's never made clear if that really happened, and the DID diagnosis being fake muddies the water even further. But we are not given any other motive for the sisters to murder them either.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The multiple personality act on Janis's part turns out to be just that.
- Evil Gloating: After getting her "not guilty by reason of insanity" verdict Janis gloats to detectives how she was able to fool everyone. It backfires when they immediately arrest Cass to whom the Double Jeopardy rule doesn't apply, since she hasn't been tried as co-conspirator before.
- Family Theme Naming: Janis and her sister Cass are named after Janis Joplin and "Mama Cass" Elliot, both female inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- Honey Trap: Downplayed example. Elliot flirts a little with one of Janis' personalities to get her to cooperate.
- Insanity Defense: Janis manages to get off by reason of insanity despite being perfectly sane.
- It Has Been an Honor: Parodied when Lake says "It was an honor serving under you, sir" to Cragen, who's been temporally reassigned. Cragen replies: "I'm not dead yet, Detective Lake."
- Manipulative Bitch: Janis doesn't have multiple personalities, having learned how to fake it from a prison library book. Stabler even admits that she did a good job fooling him.
- Patched Together from the Headlines: The episode begins as a Gender Flip of the Billy Milligan rapes
before it's revealed that it's also ripped from the headlines of the Menendez brother murders, in which two brothers killed their allegedly violent and sexually abusive parents. - Pyrrhic Victory: Janis manages to obtain a "not guilty" verdict and is committed to a mental institution thanks to faking her multiple personalities, but the detectives arrest Cass as a co-conspirator, to their mutual shock, which will presumably lead to Cass's daughter April being put into foster care.
- Taking the Heat: After the events experienced by his detectives during the season 8 finale (Stabler's daughter finally being arrested/charged for her DUI in season 6, Benson assisting her fugitive brother and Fin's stepson walking on two murders), Cragen must do so and is temporarily reassigned, with Munch briefly taking over the former's post until he returns.
