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Recap / Cold Case S 2 E 6 The Sleepover

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Directed by Emilio Estevez

Written by Liz W Garcia

Neal Beaudry, a mentally disturbed man, drowns a woman in Devil's Pool while drawing mysterious symbols on her body. His method is the same as what was done to a 12-year-old girl named Rita Baxter, who came to his house for a sleepover with his sister and her friends the night of her death in 1990.

Tropes:

  • Abusive Parents: Brandi and Neil's parents' idea of punishing their children was forcing one of them to hold the other's head underwater until they were on the verge of drowning. It's really no wonder both kids had issues down the line.
  • Alliterative Name: Brandi Beaudry.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: Rita was routinely bullied by her classmates.
  • Awkward First Sleepover: More like Traumatizing First Sleepover, complete with vicious mean girls, the witnessing of abuse from parents, and death threats made to the newcomer.
  • Bad People Abuse Animals: Brandi drowned the family cat when she was young; she reflects that she was an "angry kid" due to her abusive childhood.
  • Bespectacled Cutie: Rita
  • Big "NO!": Ariel lets out one as she furiously pushes Rita to her death, in response to Rita's assurances that they don't need Brandi's approval and can face whatever happens in school together.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Beaudrys. The parents are Rich Bastards who are neglectful at best or abusive at worst, with their kids becoming mentally scarred by their upbringing; the son has severe schizophrenia which eventually causes him to accidentally kill someone while the daughter is a drug addict who is still a bully.
  • "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Ariel initially tries to claim her illegally prescribing drugs to an addicted Brandi was "a favor that got mixed up." Scotty is quick to correct her.
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Brandi (blonde), Tiffany and Ariel (brunette), and Rita (redhead).
  • Book Ends: The episode begins and ends with Rita riding her bicycle home.
  • The Chain of Harm: Brandi is a mini Alpha Bitch... but it makes a lot more sense considering that her parents are viciously abusive. Plus, this all takes place over one night where her bullying of Rita gets progressively worse as a result.
  • Death by Falling Over: Rita, continuing a Cold Case tradition.
  • Disproportionate Retribution:
    • Brandi's punishment for having friends over at her house without her parents' permission is to have her brother hold her head underwater in the bathtub until she was near drowning.
    • Ariel pushes Rita to her death simply because Rita tried to comfort her over being rejected by the popular girl at school.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: Tiffany became an alcoholic due to the hypocrisy of her home life (her father was cheating with Rita's mother) and her inability to fully go against Brandi, which led to Rita's death.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Brandi is shown to genuinely care for her brother Neil, telling the cops she won't testify and nonverbally asking Scotty to bar their parents from visiting at the end of the episode.
  • Extreme Doormat:
    • Zigzagged with Tiffany, who couldn't completely stand up against Brandi. This made her unable to bring Rita home. Brandi and Tiffany argue when they are reunited, and when Tiffany is told by Brandi to sit down, she does, albeit glaring at her. However, she makes good on her vow to stop "keeping [Brandi's] secrets".
    • Ariel is so obsessed with being Brandi's friend, she agreed to all of her deranged, hypothetical schemes to kill Rita. She even let herself be blackmailed so Brandi could continue needing her.
  • The First Cut Is the Deepest: Tiffany is a raging alcoholic in the present, which is revealed to have gotten started on the night of Rita's death when she broke into Brandi's parents' cabinet.
  • Future Loser: In 1990, Brandi and Tiffany were the most popular girls in middle school. In 2004, Brandi is a recovering junkie (though still works as a party planner) and Tiffany is an alcoholic under house arrest who has since let herself go. Subverted with Ariel, who's a doctor... but is STILL being bullied by Brandi, being blackmailed into supplying her with drugs lest she reveal that Ariel is Rita's killer.
  • Girl Posse: Ariel and Rita stopped hanging out when the former joined Brandi and Tiffany's popular clique. Brandi kicking Ariel out of the group is what drove Ariel to kill Rita.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Brandi and Neil's Abusive Parents who punished their daughter for hosting a sleepover by forcing the son to simulate drowning. Such abuses caused their daughter to grow into an Alpha Bitch in school and a drug addict in adulthood, and their son to suffer from schizophrenia and kill another woman. And they escaped punishment.
  • Hate Sink: Brandi. She's a vicious, unsympathetic bully whose Freudian Excuse barely justifies her past or present behavior. She also feels nothing for Rita before or after her murder, even taking advantage of what happened to blackmail the killer, and openly mocks Tiffany in the present for being an overweight alcoholic in spite of being a dysfunctional addict herself. Even when being interrogated by Lilly and the detective gets the best of her and breaks her down, Brandi resorts to acting like her preteen self with her signature "What are you lookin' at?!" insult.
    • Her parents are also pretty awful, being partially responsible for her many issues (as well as those of her brother).
  • Hoist by Her Own Petard: Two rather twisted examples.
    • Neil wanted to accept Rita's offer of help but Brandi refused and made him leave so she and her friends could kill Rita. 14 years later, Neil's continued ordeal and guilt over what happened to Rita leads him to kill a woman when he tries to mark her the same way Brandi and Tiffany did to Rita at the sleepover, reopening the case and exposing the girls' roles in her death.
    • Ariel was desperate to please Brandi by any means, including not helping her escape her hellish home life all these years and accidentally killing Rita. As a result, Brandi becomes a troubled addict to deal with her issues and forces Ariel to risk her physician's license by writing her fake prescriptions, which in turn allows the police to deduce Ariel is Rita's killer.
  • In with the In Crowd: Zig-zagged. Ariel stops hanging out with Rita after she joins Brandi and Tiffany’s Girl Posse. Soon after, however, she tries to help Rita and rekindle their friendship by getting the girls to invite Rita to a sleepover, hoping to get Rita in with her new cool friends. The sleepover goes wrong, however, and Brandi blames Ariel for inviting Rita, kicking her out of the popular crowd. Devastated at the loss of her friendship with the cool girls, Ariel pushes Rita to her death in a blind rage when the latter says popularity doesn’t matter.
  • Karma Houdini:
    • Played with. Brandi, in spite of being the nastiest of all the mean girls and her Freudian Excuse excuse still not giving her good enough reason to be a hostile and selfish bitch even in the present day, isn't responsible for the crime and doesn't truly pay for any of the harm she inflicted on Rita or her "friends" other than losing her supplier. The show would later rectify this in the season 6 remake "One Small Step".
    • Her parents aren't shown to get any punishment outside of having the door slammed in their faces when they go to visit their son.
  • Kids Raiding the Wine Cabinet: Played for Horror. At the titular sleepover, one of the girls raids her friend's parents' liquor cabinet after they witness abuse being perpetrated within the family. This is the trigger event that leads her to become The Alcoholic throughout her life.
  • Lack of Empathy: Brandi shows no remorse that her turning her back on Ariel indirectly led to Rita's death, to the point that she laughs Ariel off as "crazy" when recalling her crying over being barred from their lunch table, then tries to shrug off Lilly's visible disapproval.
  • Mental Handicap, Moral Deficiency: Played with in Brandi's schizophrenic brother, Neil. He murdered a young woman (not Rita) but he also endured years of abuse during which he was forced to almost drown his younger sister. So it all sort of evens out.
  • Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Ariel (nice), Tiffany (in-between), and Brandi (mean). Ariel is the killer.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: If Rita had just gone home instead of trying to convince Brandi and Neil to seek help in order to save them from their abusive parents, Brandi wouldn’t have lashed out and cut ties with Ariel, angering her enough to push Rita to her death. Also, Ariel might not have been provoked if Rita hadn't made an effort to convince her during their walk home that she didn't need a friend like Brandi to be happy.
  • Only Sane Woman: Tiffany is this, even referring to herself as the only sane of the three. While she did become The Alcoholic, she wasn't afraid to stand up to Brandi unlike Ariel, who foolishly clung to middle school popularity even in the present, and actually feels horrible about what happened to Rita. This is in stark contrast to Brandi's childish attitude about it, or Ariel who only showed remorse when caught.
  • Parents as People: While Rita's single mother clearly loves her, she is also mentioned to be carrying on an affair with Tiffany’s married father.
  • Peer-Pressured Bully: Ariel initially seems uncomfortable with some of her friends' actions towards Rita even as she joins in. Until her place in the group is threatened.
  • Pet the Dog: Brandi's only redeeming quality is that she genuinely loves her brother.
  • Pink Means Feminine:
    • Rita dressed in all pink at the sleepover and has a pink backpack and bike helmet.
    • Brandi also has a pink bedroom.
  • Popular Is Evil: Played With with each member of the Girl Posse.
    • Brandi is the middle school Alpha Bitch, cold and cruel, even threatening to kill Rita for trying to help her and then coldly cutting Ariel out of the group for bringing Rita to the sleepover. But with parents whose idea of punishment is forcing her brother to almost drown her, it’d be hard not to have issues.
    • Tiffany is Brandi’s Beta Bitch, and is pretty rude to Rita at the sleepover, but mainly because Rita's mom was romantically linked with her dad. When Tiffany sees the Beaudrys' abuse of their kids, she is horrified. When Brandi blames Rita and suggests they kill her, Tiffany has a Jerkass Realization and tries to get Rita to leave with her.
    • Ariel is Rita's oldest friend, or at least was before she became friends with Brandi and Tiffany. She tries to get Rita in with her popular friends by inviting her to Brandi’s sleepover. When it all goes south, Brandi blames Ariel for bringing Rita and ends their friendship, exiling Ariel from the popular crowd. Ariel is devastated and blames Rita for costing her her friendship with the popular girls. When Rita tries to cheer her up by telling her they’ll be fine in the future and offering her friendship, Ariel snaps and pushes Rita off the rocks, accidentally killing her.
  • Ripped from the Headlines: Based on the Murder of Shanda Sharer, where a 12-year-old girl was abducted by a group of older girls under false pretenses and murdered, simply for being the romantic rival of the girl who organized the ordeal. The perpetrators also came from troubled backgrounds.
  • Scholarship Student: Rita at Chestnut Collegiate.
  • Spoiled Brat: Deconstructed with Brandi and Tiffany — being spoiled by their families as a substitute for any actual parenting is the reason they were such vicious mean girls and their adult lives got screwed up.
  • Stepford Smiler: Everyone, except Rita.
  • Teens Are Monsters: Brandi threatens to kill Rita, who she blames for her getting punished by her abusive parents. Ariel actually kills Rita for costing her friendship with Brandi.
  • Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Rita is a blameless cutie who gets murdered by her "best friend" after enduring a long and horrible night of bullying.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Brandi blames Rita for ruining the sleepover, and Ariel for inviting her, and ends her friendship with the latter. Ariel blames Rita for losing her popular friends, and gets so mad she pushes Rita to her death.
  • Was It Really Worth It?: As Ariel confesses to killing Rita, she acknowledges it wasn't worth it since all she got in return was being blackmailed into feeding Brandi's prescription drug addiction while Tiffany eventually cut off all contact due to her own guilt over the situation. To add insult to injury, she's probably long since realized Rita was right in that being popular in middle school didn't matter in the long run — in fact, Ariel’s desperation to keep it was what ultimately ruined her life.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Rita is not only the most compassionate and down to Earth of her peers, she recognizes thanks to her mother that it doesn't matter if some mean girls in junior high think she's a loser because class status is fleeting, while being smart and different will make her someone worthwhile in college and life in general.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Both Beaudry kids got messed up by their parents' abuse, but Neil got the worst of it. He developed psychological issues, becoming mentally unstable enough to mark a girl in a similar fashion to how his sister and her friend marked Rita before killing her in the woods like how Rita was found.
  • You Are Fat: Brandi and Tiffany bully Rita at the sleepover by circling the "fatty" parts of her body with marker.

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