Conscience w/ Neal Baer

Of the Law and Order franchises, SVU is considered especially watchable.

We are the amateur detectives who kind of investigate the vicious felonies.

These episodes are based on. These are our.

Stories done dun, Hello and welcome to That's Messed Up n SVU podcast.

I'm Kara Klank and I'm Lisa.

Tragger And every week we talk about an episode of Law and Order SVU, the true crime it's based on. And we have an incredible guest that is from the episode. And you know, we bring it to you every time.

She bring it to you every ball. Why are you acting gagged? Is that it?

No?

Yeah, it's something like, why you gagged? You bring it to you every ball? Yeah? Have I bought drag Queen merch this week? Yes? I have? Oh my god.

Lisa sent our group text chain of which most of us watch Drag Race, but one person doesn't. The Simone's Beast outfit that she wore last week. You bought the T shirt of it. It's like, looks like you're wearing it, like those bikini shirts where it looks like you're wearing with aikini, but it looks like you're wearing Simone's furry outfit, and she was very confused.

Yeah, She's like, are you a furry now? I'm like, you don't even fucking get it, you dumb bitch.

No.

She is a great friend. But I don't know why she won't watch drag Race. She loves Top Chef, she likes Project Runway, she likes The Housewife Like, I don't understand why she won't make the jump into the greatest show of all time.

You know what, Ill, it's my best friend too. I'm like, why don't you watch it? You're an art teacher like you would absolutely love. You're a lesbian art teacher, like the show is for you.

Like I actually just got an art teacher involved in elementary school art teacher two weeks, She's already watched four seasons in two weeks.

Wow.

Yeah, see this is what I need to get my best friend from home on board. But Liza, what else is going on? I got the vaccine. Guys, if you can get the vaccine, oviously.

Fucking get it. Please, let's all get back to normal as soon as we can. Now.

I have a theory this summer STDs are gonna skyrocket. I think people are gonna be vaccinated horny and just fucking in the streets, and I think there's gonna be like a herpies outbreak.

That's just I hope not. But that's just a theory.

That once you're vaccinated, please keep in mind that STIs are still happening and be safe.

So my friend told me that she read an article that Putin did get vaccinated. So I went to my dad and I went, Dad, your favorite person got vaccinated? And he said, who Leonardo DiCaprio. What he loves Leo?

He loves Leo Leo? Yeah, like your dad. I bet your dad loved The Revenant. He was like, that's a man, get inside of a bear.

He's loved him since the beginning when he when he lost the Oscar to Tommy Lee Jones back in the day for What's Eating Gilbert Great. My dad like anytime Leo loses an award, he kind of would scream at us and go upstair like he would be over the awards, like he wouldn't care anymore, Like he's just been a Leo statist.

So funny. Yeah, they just love him, and I love him. I mean I love him too. He was a fun me.

He's great, but like that's really funny for that to like alter your mood.

How Leonardo DiCaprio's doing.

So wait, so when you told him about Putin getting the vaccine, did it sway anything?

Did you see anything shift behind his eyes? No, it's really frustrating.

And you said your friend that's Russian is confused as well, and it's like, yeah, I don't know what they're doing.

I don't know, I don't know what's happening.

But yeah, I was telling Lisa that my friend uh Ina, who listens to the podcast, texted me or no, sorry facetimed me and was like, I'm just I'm having a hard time placing what's going on with with Lisa's parents, like they still like they love Russia, Like, what's going on?

Oh, speaking of Russia.

So Vulture put out a list of thirty two greatest character actors that are working today. Our friend to Parner, non Sherla is on it, which is incredible.

Barnapkin on Twitter follow her.

I'm so jealous of her. She's a voice in BoJack Horseman and yeah, she's great. It is weird when you have goals and then those things end and you know you'll never have them again, you.

Know, like, I don't ever say that they're over. Everything's being rebooted. BoJack will be back in ten years. You'll be a voice of a penguin or some shit.

It's right, that's the nicest thing you've ever said.

No, But also on a sadder note, like I always was like I will meet Joan Rivers and then I'm like, oh, I know.

I felt that way about Robin Williams. I was like, I will meet him one day, and then I never did. Yeah.

But outside of a Parna, the list is littered with SVU people. Dennis O'Hare, who's been in two episodes, and then Rita Calhoun was on the list, Who's Elizabeth Marvel? And then a bunch of people that I've like, Greta Lee, her first role was SVU. There was a bunch of people where their first roles were SVU.

And who's the guy the Tablowski I don't know, just excited even Tobolewski.

Yeah, but the reason I thought of it is because one of the guys from the Russians was on it. I mean the Americans, I'm okay, same thing, yeah, But Judy Greer and then Judy M. Baker who is the mom in Freaks and Geeks. She was in an SVU episode and she's amazing in it. She like, won't let her son. She's like, well, we'll test him at trial. We'll test it at trial. Who would ever convict him? And then he goes to jail for life? Do you remember I don't know who this person is?

Yes, you do.

She was in Girls. She was Lena Dunham's mom and Girls. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she's wonderful.

She's so good. So yeah, it was just cool to see, like SVU and like everybody's origin story. Lance Reddick, who you were in corporate with. Yes, I mean we didn't meet.

He wasn't on my shoet day, but I did see him at the I did see him at the season whatever three rap party with his wife and was like, oh my god, bosh.

You guys know I'm a bosch head and he's wait Li's.

I also wanted to give you a quick update on the Obama chocolates. They are back in my possession. Great, and you guys can go to our Instagram. We've already posted about it and the Obama chocolates because you mentioned that we I love them. At a stoner friend's house that you were worried about. I did put a post it on it that says do not eat in sharpie capital letters, as if that would stop like an extremely high person for eating chocolate.

But those are our friends who do no sweets.

Yeah, well, but that's because one of them has a very hard addiction to sweets.

Yeah. And then I sent them Girl Scout cookies. So I'm a person and become full sadist. You know, at a.

Certain point, the kids have too many toys, So yeah, I sent them cookies, and you got to support the girls.

That's true. I bought six boxes. They were gone in a week. Yeah.

And then I will be in La by the next episode.

Guys like, Yeah, I'm really excited, exciting.

You'll see actual photos of Karen I together as it's happening, which I'm excited about.

We're gonna be coming to you live from Rosie's second birthday party, which is like four people.

I can't wait. I'm really excited to be in the sun.

And before we get into this classic episode, I do want to say I've been on pins and needles.

This week.

I was one of the finalists to get a part in a pilot on a huge network, and so obviously I was wid Yeah.

No, it's very exciting.

And you know, my friend always says I take Instagram as gospel, and I read so many inspirational quotes.

Nothing fazes me, you know.

I'm just like, this wasn't meant for me, and something better will come, you know.

I'm very good about that. This door is closing, baby bed, a window is creaking open as we speak. Yeah, so I'm pretty chill.

But they do tell you how much money you're gonna make before you know.

You don't get the part. It's true.

They my mom called them say this. She's like, what the fuck is wrong with these people? I'm like, it is a wild world. But I was walking with my sister and I was like, I already picked out my lou Vaton bag that I'm going to get as a celebration, And she goes, how about your laptop.

She's like, isn't it eight years old? And you had to delete? Uh? What's the iMovie?

My printer won't connect to it because it's so old it has no memory. Didn't even cross my mind to buy a laptop. She goes, your cell phone is your nephew's hand me down. You have your nephew's old phone. She's like, you don't want to buy a phone or a laptop. You're already looking at Louis Vaton bags. I'm like, that's why you're my older sister.

Thank you for you. Yeah, but now I have no extra money, so never mind, never mind, buy our merch people. Okay, and order a cameo from Lisa.

Okay, guys, let's get into today's episode, Conscience.

All right, this is episode six, season six, uh oh, one away from the Devil's Number. This is called consciousness. I'm called conscience. Okay, that's I knew I was gonna say it wrong. I kept spelling it wrong the whole time. It's every time I search for it to watch it. I it's a hard word. So conscious conscious conscious Okay, we all know that's all.

It's not conscious, it's conscious. Okay, Okay, yeah, that's what I thought, con science, Lisa. If that helps.

Yes, it was a tough one for me, but one of my classic favorite episodes.

Got to be honest here. So we start. We're at a birthday party.

It's like a Discovery Zone Chuck E Cheese type place, and instantly I'm jealous of these children.

How much do you miss it? I mean we had a Discovery Zone. I never had a Chuck E Cheese.

I mean I saw Chuck E Cheese on TV, but I Discovery Zone was where we did our parties.

Yes, when you like licked all of it, like not licked. But it's like we got to play in these communal areas, touch everything, and then eat pizza without washing her hands.

It's like a distant memory. I gotta tell you, I think that these might be a these might be lost to a post COVID world.

I don't know that we're gonna be able to have these kind of places anymore.

Yes, I have six thousand points left on my dam and Buster's card, so we better get these back because I have.

I'm ready to go.

Wednesday is half priced game Night, and I miss it so fucking much. So the mom is rubbing one kid's face and yelling at theo this other kid. The kid's like, it's not your part, but listen, motherhood's hard. Motherhood at a child's birthday party that's another level. And should that be on a T shirt?

Maybe? So it's a lot. And then the kid is like.

Ah, I want more cake and the mom's like shut up, and then Theodore is running and she's like where are you. I mean, it's like fucking chaos, and then all of a sudden, Bye bye, Henry.

Henry is fucking gone. So Henry is the kid.

He disappears from Discovery Zone and we're at work really fucking quick right away, and we get a special treat Kragan in the streets. So it's Stabler, Benson, Kragan. They're at work right away. Mariska's hair is bronzy blonde, That's.

What I'm going for. And Stabler's in a denim jacket. Very sexual. I liked it.

Casual Friday, Stabler and iced Tea is on the scene. It's all hands on deck. Henry is They're gonna fucking find him. So the kid was only out of camera range for five seconds and he's gone. So Marishka concludes this is obviously a pro because he knew where the camera was. He's not detectable, and he's snuck out quick. So we're looking for an experienced kid grabber.

So on the streets we have mister Batch, we have mister Wait, Vagilante is not what you were gonna say.

Yeah, we have mister vigilante justice on her hands. Malcolm Wolynski, He's cost them other investigations.

He is so annoying.

And Craigan's like, you need to stop listening to the police scanner and get a life, and Marishka's like get lost.

So we hate Marty Okay, I mean Malcolm.

So we hate Malcolm. He looks like a softball coach. And then there's a woman who says she saw a kid with the man and they went down to the trains. So then they go to talk to the MTA worker who remembers a kid flipping out and a dad with red hair. Now this is the most non realistic thing that SVU has ever portrayed. A helpful MTA worker I will live to see the day. I mean, they are the most aloof workers behind the glass. I've never been helped by one MTA worker. My card can be bad.

Yeah, you could truly be being chased by a murderer and they'd be like please please move upstairs, Like they just don't.

And if you're an MTA worker, that's like, I do a good job. Email us because I don't think you exist. I'm not worried. They bust down the door of this man they like track from the MTA card to a credit card, and and Benson is talking to the kid that they find in this apartment. They're like, everything's gonna be okay, Henry. He goes, who's Henry? This isn't the right kid. So they look similar with the photo they do look similar, but it's a stepdad. Henry just hates

Are you fucking kidding me? Aka Trey McDougall.

I literally just like have to say that he was when I was like a teen preteen teen, he was like my number one, Like I have always thought he was the hottest man.

I loved him in twin Peaks. I've just always had such a huge crush on him. I just love his like dark hair and like his whole look. I love him so.

I I've only found out about him first through sex in the City, so I obviously had intense hatred for him, love but hatred. Trey McDougall, talk to your wife, you know, fuck her well. And then I saw Showgirls later in life, and that was a very sexual scene. And then I became in love with Kyle McLaughlin. His hair is probably one of the most beautiful in Hollywood. I would say the most luscious locks that we've seen on this show.

Saw Pepper Beauty.

Yep, he is amazing. Green sweater, light blue collared shirt underneath. And he hands over the police an updated photos so they don't confuse another kid for Henry again, and I've never seen this in a storyline. They need something for the Bloodhounds. The Bloodhounds get mentioned like eighty five times in this episode. They need the bloodhounds, so he gives them, you know, some clothes for the Bloodhounds. And now I'm just singing of that Bloodhound Gang song.

Do you remember that? You and me baby? Nothing but mammals, So humiliated.

They want I talk to the mother to get some more details, but he gave her a sedative, and the cops, you know, they get suspicious. And then he's like, I'm a psychiatrist. I just wanted her to sleep, Like I'm just being helpful. A uniformed cop comes in and says, there's a neighbor boy who saw something. The kid says he was cleaning his skateboard in the morning.

What nerd is this? There's no way this kid skateboards.

He's wearing a polo shirt, he has JTT like tween heart Throb circa nineteen ninety seven hair. But he says that he saw while Henry was playing in the yard that morning. He saw man parked in sunglasses, in a baseball cap and a black Tyota.

He was a white guy. Didn't see the license plate. He wished.

He told his mom in the morning. He's so so sorry. The kid's a nerd. Thanks for your information. We're off to do some work. And then we're back at the scene and it's Marishka being like, where are these bloodhounds? And the dogs are actually busy in Coney Island with another case. They'll be in an hour. So like.

The dogs are booked, baby booked him blessed.

They tried to see what other pedophiles or if there's any people in the system that have a black Tayota, and there is. Billy Turner is a pedophile who got out of jail two months ago, and he has an apartment on Avenue B And they get to the apartment and who's there, fucking Willnski. Wllnsky is beating the shit out of the pedophile and the pedophiles.

Like, I'm cured. I'm cured. It wasn't me.

And he found this out through the police scanner. Now can you just buy a police scanner?

I mean it's like how we talked about how can you just buy full police uniforms, which, by the way, we hadn't We talked about this in another episode about how like you could just buy police uniforms at these like army Navy stores and how that's crazy. And a listener wrote into us and said that you actually get paid more as an actor on SVU if you have your own cop outfit, so it's encouraged to go buy

Spy dot com has eight available police scanners to buy. They order them by the best police Scanners and number eight there's a police scanning app on your smartphone you can now get. But they have a million police scanners for sail here.

Wow.

So I think it's pretty easy to get.

Think it's like it's radio waves you just got to get, you know, like it's not illegal.

They have handheld, they have car they're on Amazon m We're.

Like kids in school.

When I was in high school, like one or two guys would have a police scanner and they'd be like, yeah, I know when they're coming to bust up the party because I have.

A police scanner. And you're like, but I don't. I don't know if that like I don't know, maybe they were lying.

So mister vigilante Justice is keeping tabs and he's there and Stabler and Willnski have a back and forth and he's like, I'll sue you for police brutality, and Elliot's like, you could have fucked up a crime scene. If there's any fingerprints of the kid, if there's any evidence like, what are you doing?

Who is this guy?

The ball's on this fucking lunatic go back to softball practice. Billy is adamant. He has never heard of this kid. He was not there, he was at the laundry mat. And Maloney is trying to make him look at a picture of Henry. But Billy Shrink said, don't you look at any kid. Don't look at any pictures. So he's avoiding looking at the kid, and it must be hard to avoid photos of children. But he's committed to his recovery. So the canines have found a cent. The German shepherd

It's just like it's an amazing scene. He's such a good actor.

And the woman is very good to the mom. She's been in a bunch of svus. I was like, where do I know her from? And I looked her up for IMDb and I just knew her from other svus. So she's been in a few. And they're both wearing green sweaters again. Shout out to our amazing costume department. Are we ever going to meet them? They need to talk to us.

Yeah, And I would love if it was just like one person this whole time, for twenty two years.

Like a Pat Field.

Yeah. Kyle McLaughlan, Doctor Morton, he's asking all the questions and we're getting all the information. He was not molested, but he was suffocated by small pebbles found in his trachea, and there was brown cat hair, but the Mortons.

Don't have a cat.

So doctor Morton says, you call me the second you find the bastard who murdered my son. And of course Elliott is very taken by this case because he's a father. So they are talking about how composed he is, and Elliott says he's a ticking time bomb. They found Billy's car and it's stripped and torched, so that's fucking telling. Jake the skateboard dork is now doing the lineup and he says it's either number three or two. He just

There's a lot happening.

And now we're back in interrogation with Billy and they're screaming, like we.

Identify there's cat here in your apartment. He's like, I don't have a cat.

But then he says he will admit something, but he's scared because he's violated parole and he doesn't want to go back to jail. He gets raped in jail every single day, and they're like, you won't go to jail, tell us what you did. So he has an alibi, and basically he was babysitting his neighbor's kid. He said that the neighbor forced him to babysit, she had no other options and he's not allowed to be a with children. We find out he actually begged to babysit the kid,

Yeah, that's conflict. That that's a conflict. I feel like I don't know how to feel either.

But like you know, if he kept babysitting, would he eventually not be able to control his urges?

Right? I just don't know. But he is alibied.

It is not him, And the timing of ending babysitting and getting to Riverdale and the cat hairs don't match.

It's just it's not fucking Billy, okay.

In the Nightstalker Gilbert language, it's it's a freak, but not my freak. That's from Detective Gilbert. So it just it doesn't make sense. It is a red herring. It's what s View does best. They're not going to show us Billy up top. Okay, it's just not gonna happen. So they drive Billy back to his house and we Linski is there again, and there's a bunch of people and they're all parading around, not parading, what is it protesting?

They?

Yeah, the pedophile off the streets.

Hardly a parade.

And then I didn't know this, but Benson says, you need a permit to have what is it a megaphone?

A megaphone? Yeah, so yes, they.

Arrest him for inciting a riot and not having a permit for this megaphone. And the crime lab we're with Hatty Hatty Mike Doyle.

Oh yes, he is so hot.

He is hot, And fuck you Stucky for taking away our science arm not arm candy, heart candy, what is it eye candy, eye candy, I candy.

I need to socialize again, Like.

Being alone in an apartment has completely destroyed me because the only people I hang out with is my parents and we're speaking Russian and I am just like I'm getting grossy. I need I need help. I need to find a cure. Oh, you gotta FaceTime me more, Kara. I think that is what we're learning here. I need more interactions.

Keep your English up.

The pebbles are quartz, Hello la, which is and there is prince on the pebbles, and the thing is they're perfect and they're tiny.

These are child prince.

This is not an adult and it's not Henry's and Benson asks do you have the pebbles? And of course he does, and the pebbles look exactly like the one from jac O'Hara's yard. That is great detective memory to match those pebbles. I want to play match game with her. I mean, she her memory like she would be crushing it. I just can't believe she clocked the pebbles in the yard and can match them. So back in investigation, we have the blonde mom and she's played by actress Joanna Day or Johanna.

I mean, I don't know there's an h in there. I think it's Joanna. It is. They just threw an h in there for what. Yeah, there's just a lot of Joannas that have an H in there. Yeah. Crazy.

And she's been on Law and Order, Criminal Intent and Trial by Jerry. Can you fucking believe it? She's been on four Law and Order franchises. So the boys like an innocent act and he goes, sorry, I didn't you know, I didn't do the lineup. Well, I only saw the picture for a second and they go what what fucking picture?

Think there's one there's something to be said for, like police accountability and trying to like bring awareness to crimes that you think that the cops are not paying attention to. But this is like full interference in police investigation.

Like yeah, so you know, Elliot obviously throws them into a filing cabinet. We need, we need one shove, one shove an episode and he basically tells you're going to jail. I mean, you coached a kid to give a false testimony and lie like you're a fuckhead. The boy starts getting a little bit of tears in his eyes and open mouth of face shock, and they do the soda

We know you fucking did.

It, and go fuck yourself, kid, and he knows he got got and you see his little brain working. He's a really talented young little man. Like you can see there's something going on.

He stutters a little.

He says he was scared, and the story he's selling is that he fell on a neighbor's cat, killed the cat, and Henry said he was going to tell on him, and he didn't want to go back to that camp, and the mom would send him back to this camp if he killed the cat, so he had to stop Henry. He just wanted him to stop and not talk. He didn't want to kill him. So that's the story we get. The mom is crying, oh no, it's my fault. I

Episodes of U SV. She's great, she is very great.

Baylis said it two hundred thousand dollars. And we have a regular judge as well. We have Judge Lois Preston twenty two episodes. She's the redheaded cutie.

With the curly hair.

Right.

Yeah, she does not take no shit. What judge does take shit? I don't know, but not that one.

Yeah. So the daddy wants to talk to Jake and Daddy no Kyle, Kyle McLaughlin, doctor Morton, psychiatrist, Green sweater prep. Daddy wants to talk to Jake and Jake is like, I'm so sorry.

Henry was my friend. And doctor is like, I know, Jake, but why did you do it? And he says I don't know.

Some things wrong with me, and the doctor finally cries a little bit.

So that's cool and.

This is a bummer. He asks what was Henry's words? Like what did he say before you killed him? And Jake reveals that Henry wanted his mommy and he was saying he wanted his mommy. And we've talked about this before in other episodes, it seems like a very common thing for people to scream out before they are murdered they want their mothers. So that's like a pretty sombering detail in this kind of fun case. Now, Okay, Casey reveals that they're trying him as an adult, and doctor

So we get Bead Wong, Baby, what is your case? What do you want? What are you telling us? What will you teach us this week?

Bed Wong and him in case You're talking on the streets of New York and doctor Wong is like, but he was traumatized, and Casey is like, yeah, but lots of traumatized people don't abuse people.

So they take a day trip. Okay, so they're in the woods.

They decided to take a trip to this camp and the camp director says they should have never let Jake come to this place for kids, because this is a place for kids with behavior problems, not serious pathology issues, and Jake is fucked up and he should have never been here. Then we get a montage of funny looking kids. So one little redhead kid who looks like he should

Like hearing about oars and lakes and the cheat.

But I mean it was an all girls camp. Nobody ever really physically attacked anyone else. But did you guys ever dances with the boy camps? Yeah we did, But like even at the boy camp, there's not a lot of physical attacking. It's like a very positive environment.

Yeah. I just know you really love summer camp. I do. So this is not giving me the same vibe, but you know.

I get I get where you're coming from.

So Jake tried to drown this kid after hitting him with a paddle the second day of camp, and he held his head underwater and said, if you tell anyone, I'll fucking kill you.

Another kid says he's a psycho.

He threatened to kill me and then put a dead gopher in his bed. And then the third kid is, I mean, I hope he's famous on TikTok.

He's incredible.

I loved him.

I love this kid doing push up pull ups.

He's doing pull ups. I don't think he's really doing There was definitely a box there. There's definitely a box. There's no way this kid can get away with this many pull ups. But he's really funny and he's just like, I gotta protect myself.

I ain't no psycho.

And we find out that Jake's been burning himself with cigarettes and like laughing, and he's like a William Lewis in the making or something, because he's been putting matches in between his fingers and singing his skin and laughing. So we get a lot of information and basically he's the abuser, he's the psychopath.

And we don't trust a word that came out of his mouth. So Casey goes to talk.

To Judith Light Bureau chief Elizabeth Donnelly and Bedie Wong Is explaining the findings from the camp, and the camp warned the mom and told the mom and she didn't listen, and they go, he's a sociopath, and Elizabeth says, no, he's only thirteen. And I guess you can't be a sociopath until you're eighteen or diagnosed. And someone actually wrote that to us as well, some of our listeners. So you can't really be diagnosed sociopath as a kid. But Bidie Wong says, yeah, but he has all the signs.

That seems insane. I don't know.

And one morning, not even like give me an afternoon to think about it. I'm just like shocked by her decision making.

Here.

So we're at family court where Elizabeth moved the case, and he's being moved to his mother's custody, which is in he murdered a kid.

What the fuck is going on?

And it's so law in order that all of this is just happening at the same time. Like normally, like court cases take forever, they would have been able to like appeal the family court decision, but it's like, uh oh no, back walks in justice.

He's being sentenced to the custody.

Of his mother, you know, like so and then Casey Novak to the judge says, you know, we've made a mistake, and the judge is super funny. She goes, Wow, that's really refreshing. I've never heard that in my court room. So I loved that, you know, I don't think lawyers say they're wrong. And this actress, she died a few years ago in twenty seventeen, but her name is Novella Nelson. She's been in three episodes of Sview as two different characters. But I looked her up on IMDb. She has seventy

It's just also a very cool name. Novella Nelson is a cool ass name. Yeah. I was really intrigued by her.

And she's been in Sex and the City in oz and just like lots of movies. And I love SVU for showing us like all these incredible actors that maybe aren't a list famous people, but it's nice to see working actors and it's kind of inspirational that you can have a career in the arts.

And I love that.

So and she died on my birthday, which I don't know how to feel about that. At first I was like, ooh, a fellow virgo, and then I was like, oh, I read the wrong line. Yeah, Casey wants to dismissed in family court, but the judge says she can't dismiss it in family court because then it would go into double jeopardy because it was already in the regular court. So she dismisses it. He goes free and you can't try him again, and she's like, but we have new info.

I fought for you, You lying little bastard. He gives a full Tyra Banks. He's like, we were rooting for you, we were all rooting for you.

But yeah, this is a creepy this scene I always remember from this episode.

Yeah, he is screaming Maloney and a uniformed cop court officer everyone has to hold Kyle mcglachom back as they drag him out, and he is just like screaming and Jake as a smirk, evil smirk, this piece of shit. But Kyle can't even breathe. He's like, he's a sociopath. If he gets out at eighty eighteen, he will kill again and again. And so Elliott and doctor more and are walking in the hallway of the court and Jake comes out of the court and he's such a dick.

Do I feel bad? No, not at all. Sorry, I don't care.

Quote me, bitch, And Elliott is like, yeah, I knew that guy was wound too tight.

And so we go back.

We remember the foreshadow in the beginning, and everything makes sense in this episode, and we're like, where is this gonna go now?

Now?

Elizabeth Donnelly is powerwalking her heels clickity clacking into the precinct and is like, Elliott, what the fuck? And Elliot's like what the fuck? And they're fine, and it's like, you're both wrong. Okay, sorry, Yes, Elizabeth, you shouldn't have moved this to family Court.

You psychopathy is a murderer.

Also, Elliott, how did you let him grab a gun and murder someone in front of your eyes? You are a trained detective of many, many years.

So that's happened like a bunch of times, like he has been a lot of times with them.

They got some butterfingers with these suspects. Sometimes they grab guns.

Oh now I want a butterfinger.

They're also very close in each other's faces. I hope this was like an altoid's day on set. Yeah, really, I hope they choose some gum after lunch.

Maloney always looks like he's going to kiss someone. He's just always right up to someone. I wouldn't mind it, but anyway.

No one would mind it.

So Casey is in the mix too, because now she's in the middle of them, because now she has to try doctor Morton Kyle McLaughlin. So Elizabeth says, you're going to charge him with murder too, and Elliot's convincing Casey to move it down to manslaughter since he was crazed and out of control. And doctor Morton has a great defense attorney Chauncey Zerco.

And he looks like he owns.

Either a Russian or an Italian restaurant with an illegal business in the back. That's the vibe I get from him. Gray Hair Daddy, and he has seven episodes. And what name is Chauncey. It's like such a funny name to me.

I don't know. Yeah, I love the name Chauncey. Okay.

So Kyle says that he remembers none of it, he just snapped, and Casey doesn't believe it, and Chauncey recommends, like, fine, have your psychologists evaluate him.

I don't give a fuck, Like he's.

He's been through trauma and this is so of the Times nineteen ninety nine. There's like a tape recorder in the middle of the table as bead Wong is in talking to Kyle McLaughlin and Kyle's at Riker's in a jumpsuit army green, not orange like. I wonder if that was his demand because he's such a big star. He's like, I'm not wearing orange like.

He's also been in shades of green throughout the whole episode. Maybe continuity story, damn oy, Hello Benson, you notice all the details.

And Kyle is an amazing actor. I keep saying this throughout this whole thing. But he's fully crying and in pain, but also playing a guy who doesn't remember anything. But does he And is was he a psychologist at that moment or was he just agreeving dad?

Does he know what's happening? Does he remember? Was it a plan?

Was it just because of the pain, like it really is, like, what the fuck was going on?

You really don't know?

And B D Wong and Casey Novak are Now there's a lot of side by side outdoor walking and talking in this episode, and he says he's like, the answers are a little too perfect. I mean they're textbook. This guy knows what he's talking about. But also that kind of tragedy, it's a tough call. So what the fuck is Casey Novak going to do? And doctor Morton is on the stand and he said he would have never killed Jake in his right mind. He said, yes, I did it. I can't really deny that it happened, but

He's a psychiatrist because he gave them meds.

Yeah, but I mean he obviously has a psychology background, so I think we'll forgive you so much.

So now we're back at the courtroom steps.

There is a lot of courtroom step action in this episode, like they filmed a lot outside and Casey and Elliott are having a chat, and as always, Elliott will defend any angry guy that kills because of his emotions.

He's always like, but I'm a father. Casey doesn't believe it. She's like, he's screwing with us.

And then right then and there, a process server serves Elliott Stabler.

At least it did that make you upset because that was kind of like your role that you could have had.

Yeah, I was triggered. No, it definitely reminded me of my failed audition. I was jumping their Now, this woman killed her part. She was really good, and congrats. Yeah, I'm not a competitive person at all.

I'm not sorry to bring it up.

I thought of you when now I think of you whenever I see somebody that has one line on the show delivering a document.

But yeah, so he's gonna go up there in the defense and Chauncey and Elliott are taking the stand listen, they're basically just like, did he know what was going on?

Was he aggrieving Dad?

Like they're just trying to figure out what Elliot saw and what Elliott felt during that. And the closing arguments are here Casey's wearing a very Chase Bank manager skirt suit outfit with a flip in her hair, and the closing arguments are just like again like reiteration of what the whole fucking case is, you know, is it like did he lose control sad Dad? Or did he know exactly what was going on? And Casey wants the jury to hold him responsible. We find the defendant not guilty.

How did you feel?

I sort of felt like I knew that was coming. I don't know if it's because eight times or because I just felt it in the air. I feel like, though on a jury, you get one dad, one mom that's like I would have done the same thing, and it's hard to convince a whole jury that that was a murder, you know, And Jake's.

Mom is in the court audience, and I don't know what to say. I mean, I don't feel bad for her, No, I do. I don't know. I would hate to have a child and then they end up a sociopath. Like that's fun, It's difficult.

What do you do? Yeah?

Yeah, what are you gonna do if Rosie one day just lights a squirrel's tail on fire, I'm not.

Putting it past her.

She gets a real crazy look in her eye when she throws plastic toys at my head.

So I don't know.

Shauncey and Casey have a stare down that lasts like seven seconds. It's really like an intense long stare. I don't even understand what the tension is, Like, I don't get it.

Maybe they were banging. Maybe no, I think I think she can bag Hotter, but yeah, maybe he is. Okay, let's get it.

So doctor Morton is doing a bunch of press again on the courtroom steps, like they deserve a guest Star Emmy for this episode, and Elliott and Casey are you know? On the sidewalk and he runs to them and Elliott asks, when did you decide to kill Jake? He responds in the courtroom right when I knew what Jake was. He tells, Casey, you were correct. I looked around and saw the court officer, and I knew I could take the gun and just waited for the right moment. And Elliott says, you manipulated

Thank you, Dick wal It's a really crazy episode. I always remember. I always remember Jake going on, really sorry, sir, and that actor has not acted in the past five years, And I mean I thought he was, like great, if you're a friend of the guy who plays Jake, tell him we'll always think of him fondly as a child's sociopath.

No, it's a great episode, lots of twists and turns, lots of you know, debates of like what would you do? It's like a really classic, incredible episode.

Yeah, and we'll be right back with the harrowing case it was based on. We are back.

We are ready to talk about horrific crimes against children. I have to say I was telling Lisa and our producer Hannah before ever since I had a kid, these are just really really hard cases to read about. So just giving everybody a warning up top, these are really terrible. There's a few cases that this could be based on.

So get ready to get sad.

This crime took place on August second in nineteen ninety three in Savonah, New York, which is a tiny village with a population of nine hundred and seventy people, or at the time I guess that was the population, so super tiny.

Eric m.

Smith, age thirteen, was riding his bike home from summer day camp after being told to leave because of bad behavior, and he spotted four year old Derek Roby walking along alone to that same camp. Now, I was originally thinking, oh my god, who lets a four year old walk anywhere alone? But the camp was one block from his home, he only had one block to go, no streets to cross. The park where the camp was was on a dead end street, so it was essentially just letting him go

It is just.

Wild that you could be a dumb child and still commit murder like this. I thinking a stick can stop a heart if he's not dying, but then also commit murder.

It's like, what the fuck?

Right?

So the cause of death was determined to be blunt forced trump it's the head with contributing asphyxia. So around eleven am, his mom went to go pick him up at the park, only to discover that he had never arrived.

After four hours, they found his body.

So because there was literally a block of land to cover,

And then he would always be like and DNA testing, what does that show?

So he was like interested in how cases work and people getting caught for murder. Marlene, this neighbor actually did her own little Sherlock homes Olivia Benson work because the murderer had taken the banana out of the victim's lunchbox and smashed it everywhere, and so they were speculating that the murderer could be a kid who didn't like bananas, because like an adult would just be like, oh a banana and throw it away. They wouldn't like squash it and like make a huge mess of destroying it.

Yeah, I mean I wouldn't want to leave any DNA evidence if I committed a crime. But like I love squeezing raw chicken, Like I like, uh, look, I like whenever I out and I just want to like school.

I just love that chicken.

So anyway, Marlene decides to do this little experiment where she goes to the store buys ice cream, nuts, syrup, and bananas and is like, who wants a Sunday and Eric was gonna have nuts in syrup, but he didn't want banana and was like, no, I don't like bananas. And so she called her friend Nancy and said, Eric doesn't like bananas. I'm scared, okay, so like And then on August eighth, nineteen ninety three, six days after the murder, Eric Smith confessed to his mother that he murdered Derek.

So he's probably not a sociopath then, because he felt remorse and guilt or why else would you confess?

Right? I think he knew that was closing in on him.

How can you be How can you go and offer your help to the police and play and be happy and have that role?

That is what scares me.

I think it's the same way that the kid did in the episode. He specific made up this guy who he saw staring at Henry, even though that never happened.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, Like, I think inserting yourself in the case is something is kind of creepy about that.

As a kid too, Like you could just be quiet in your room and like you do something wrong. As a kid, I used to like turn the lights out.

And be in my room and like wait to get in trouble, like I don't know, I feel like you don't like go and say like poke around and try to like make people remember you more. But the case made national headlines obviously due to the age of the killer and the victim. And what's crazy is Eric ms I mean thirteen years old. There's a varying range of what you can look like at thirteen.

This kid looked very young. When you were describing the red headed kid from the camp in the episode, that's what this kid looked like. He looks like the kid from Problem Child.

He's like young, red hair, freckles, like dorky glasses like he looks like a kid. The prosecutor said he fully believed that Eric was a serial killer in the making and would definitely kill again.

That's what the prosecutor thought. So at the.

Trial, the defense told the jury that as a toddler, Smith through temper tantrums, banged his head on the floor, had speech problems, was held back in school, and was relentlessly bullied, and when he asked for help with his anger, his stepfather did not really seem equipped to help him, like he told him Oh, when I was a kid and I got mad, I just went out to the barn and punched a bag until I got tired of it. So Eric would go punch trees and like come in

And anger is what the doctor said.

And he said, after the episodic rage, the child may appear to be normal. So the prosecution's experts said, yeah, that is a disorder, but it's rare and it's rarely seen in a kid at Smith's age. So he was really subjected to a lot of medical testing from scientists and specialists on both sides, and they like they looked at his brain function, his hormone life and everything, and

So it wasn't conclude that he was like a sociopath or anything like that.

They just I think, again, you can't really make that conclusion at thirteen, it's just like an episode. You can't really say that, so you can have all these other personality disorders that you know could obviously read flag you to be diagnosed as a sociopath. Later on, even his mother, like everyone was trying to figure out what did this? Like his mother Tammy, said she took an epilepsy drug when she was pregnant, called tridone, which can cause birth defects.

Like I think she was like anything, I mean, I took this bad drug? Is it that?

Like, you know, everyone's trying to figure out, like what would cause him to be violent? The doctor, the psychiatrist Hermann, said he wasn't suggesting that the drug would have caused Eric to be violent, but he does believe that it caused his ears to be low set and caused his developmental delays, which profoundly affected his self esteem. He says

Was sorry he killed the boy. So they tried to go with this kind of insanity defense for him, and the jury rejected it.

He was tried as an adult, he was convicted, and he was sentenced to nine years to life in prison.

So it could be any anything. So is he still in prison. I'll tell you, okay. Sorry.

So he was originally in a juvenile facility until two thousand and one when he turned twenty one, and then he was transferred to a state prison in twenty fourteen. At one of his parole hearings, he said he had been bullied by older children at school and also by his father and his older sister, so he felt bullied all the time. I do think redheads can somehow sometimes get a lot of bullying and it's not right. But apparently people just said no one liked him, like he had no friends.

People didn't like him. He told the parole board he'd.

Been so angry about being abused by his family that he took out his frustration on four year old Derek, and he did write a public apology at one point that he read out loud on television that was, like, I would.

I think about Derek all the time.

I think about him missing his sixteenth birthday, his college graduation, getting married.

Having a kid.

If I could switch places with him, I would, but I can't. I'm so sorry for everything I've done, so I mean a red statement.

Who knows.

Yeah, but my initial instincts was like, he just said that he missed out on those things. I don't think he has anything to do with the okay, and I think he wishes he did that exactly.

He said in his parole hearings that he wouldn't be a danger to society anymore and that he thinks he would actually be an asset to society because he saw himself becoming a forensic psychologist and researching other kids who kill. That he's uniquely suited for this line of work because he is he was a child who killed, and you know whatever.

So I don't know if that's realist. Catch me if you can, yeah, I don't know if that could ever happen.

And he most recently, in January of twenty twenty, was denied parole for the tenth time. So he is now forty years old. He is still in jail, and he looks like Bill Burr. He's like bald, but like with some of the hair on the back. And he is up for pearl every two years, and Derek's poor family is fighting for it to be extended to five years because they feel like they're constantly in pearl hearings like it.

Case really quickly. Why was their cat hair in Henry's throat? Oh?

I think it's has to do with that Jake killed that cat, like the neighbor's cat, and that Henry was going to tell on him. So maybe he just had that cat hair on his body or like fibers of it after killing the cat. I bet that he killed the cat on purpose. There's no way he accidentally fell on the cat.

No, no, no, he definitely killed the cat on purpose. It's just I didn't know.

That if you were had a cat, you were constantly covered in cat hair and leaving it at the scene of crimes. But I think that it's a similar story in that, like, whereas Kyle McGlaughlin's character said, this kid is a is like a psychopath, that's also what the prosecutor thought, and instead of killing him, they obviously have kept him in jail his entire life. But he's now been in jail for twenty seven years. I mean, he's been in jail much longer than he was out of jail.

Yeah, I wonder if they'll like let him out at eighty or something or I don't know. That's well because now I'm thinking a part of me is like, should we just let this guy out? But I bet you know, sometimes jail makes you an even worse criminal. Because he's been mostly raised in prison.

And he has like a perfect prison record, like he has an exemplary prison I think that there's something. There must be something about his affect and the way he appears or something in court that makes the pro board think that he will not be able to reacclimate to society and be and not be a threat.

I don't know, not worth the risk, but it's just really sad. Little Derek was so short lived for this world and little Angel.

Yeah, it's also and you know, we've had an episode in the past about this, but like it just sucks when it's the first time.

You let your kid do something alone. I know, I know.

And like going to the end of the block, you know, it's like the amount of space that he had to get to was crazy. And such a small town, like such a small town for that to happen in you know, everybody knows each other.

Yeah, damn, thank you for that, Kara. Now I want kool aid.

And now I'm really excited for our guest.

It is time for our guest.

And I know this is usually Kara's job, but I'm getting involved this week.

And I don't care what you guys think. I'm sure you're fine with it. I'm sure you're fine with it.

No, guys, our guest today is mind blowing. Listen, this is our first time having a non actor guest on the show.

But you're going to know the name. You're going to know this person.

Our guest has worked on Er Designated Survivor a million shows, but most importantly, he was the executive producer and showrunner of Law and Order Special Victims Unit from two thousand to twenty eleven.

That is the Golden Years. Yeah, season two through season twelve. So he came in with iced tea, he left with maloney.

And if you don't know what a showrunner is, they're basically in charge of everything, like of all the writers of the wardrobe, they're pick they're really.

Running the show.

Hello.

And then on top of all of it, he's a doctor. He is a doctor. Yes, he is. Like he's the smartest man alive.

Yeah, and he literally has so much information. We spoke to him for one hour and we didn't want to hang up.

We didn't want to Yeah, we could have done a full another two hours.

But so the interview jumps around a little bit because he just has so much information and we kind of picked the stuff that we thought you guys would be the most interested in. We do have a couple more tidbits that are going to be audiograms over at our instagram, So go over to our instagram and follow us at That's Messed Up.

Pod for more of those. But in the meantime, please enjoy our interview with the one and only Neil Bhar. I am really nervous.

I feel like you're going to be like you guys were wrong about everything.

You girls, So I'm assuming because you're a pediatrician. My mom's a pediatrician. Also, wonderful profession.

Were you practicing for a while and then you just sort of became like a consultant on er or something?

Or how did that progression work to get into it? From medicine to ten television?

I was a TV writer on China Beach and then I went to medical school.

John Wells hired me.

We grew up together in Denver, Colorado, So people say, how do you get into the business.

Do you write a speck?

I said, now, you grow up and go to Holly Hills Elementary School with John Wells, and we lived six blocks from each other, so I ran into him literally with the grocery cart in la He was the producer of China Beach. He brought me on and then I left to go to medical school. A couple of years after that, thinking I don't know if I have a

Somebody in Spielberg's office found at Spielberg owned it.

And Spielberg had made you know, Saving Private Ryan e thinking Jindler's list around that time, and Crichton had done Jurassic Parks.

So NBC did not like the pilot.

They thought there were too many stories, but given the pedigree, they did it. And John sent me the script and I gave him notes on what had changed over the twenty five years, and he invited me to come and share.

My life, just to spill.

It for the writers, and I went on as a staff writer. So I'm the first Lance genteel, another doctor, and I are the first doctor writers in television.

And now every medical TV series has a doctor writer.

We established that in the past from Saint Elsewhere and before with Medical Center and Marcus Welby and all those shows. They had consultants who'd sprinkle the medicine on top. This was the medicine from the bottom up. So I was still in medical school when Er started, so I was like Noah Wiley's character John Carter, and whatever happened to him pretty much happened to me or my friends and

So when SVU started, I was still in the midst.

Of that, and I'd be hiding in the linen closet giving notes on SVU because I would work like some shifts in the early morning and the nurse would open the door and she'd say, Oh, he's doing.

His other job.

Wow.

I was like two years into SVU.

I was still doing stuff to get my license, and so I never practiced per se. But I do a lot of work in public health, like I teach at Harvard Medical School, I have an appointment and also at Yale School of Public Health.

So I doing that kind of work still.

And how to tell stories about health that can have an impact, to make a difference.

That's amazing.

So you were reading the news looking for impactful stories and then immediately writing episodes based on what you read.

I used to say that the mothership law and Order

And that was because I.

Had read some article in a journal that you know, you could take DNA and what if you didn't do a ninety nine percent match that everybody just kind of in a pro former way says, what if you said it at fifty percent, what would that mean? Is this

The women all had been murdered.

So I think they went to his trash and picked out something and that's legal.

We did that a lot of times on SVU, and that's how they got him.

And they've gotten a number of people using kind of the twenty three and me approach where it's not the person who's DNA they have, but it's a close relative.

Yeah, the Golden State killer they just they just found.

So we did that, as far as I know, way before anybody else did that. So I was always looking at the you know, the technology in service of the story, always so that.

We could do things that kept us you.

Know, I wanted to do a story about Benson wants to find out who her father was, you know, so that seemed like an interesting way to bring in the technology, but it still was about her character.

And you having a medical background is probably really helpful there that you're reading these journals, because I'm sure regular TV writers are not popping open the Annals of Pediatrics.

And you know, absolutely I read in Neurology a case.

This was an episode you undoubtedly will remember since you know every episode there was a case of a man who had a proclivity for pornography, but you know, he had a fairly normal life and then suddenly he was drawn to child pornography and he was arrested and it turned out that he had terrible headaches and he had a seizure and he had a brain tumor. They removed the brain tumor and he lost these feelings.

This is that episode ahead exactly.

And then the feelings came back, and guess what, he had the tumor again. So that raises questions about are we going to get to a point where we can screen people and take away their rights? And so that's how I think SVU. You know, some of the secrets of SVU were this deep research.

Yeah, a few of our listeners have like written in asking us to do certain episodes, And when I look up the dates, I'm like, the show cover that before the crime happened. Actually, like I hate to tell you.

Well, you know it's really weird is that I don't know if you're aware that I oversaw a mini series called Terror and I was in the World Trade Center the Thursday before the before.

Nine to eleven, and we had a five hour.

Crossover series on terrorists with SVU Law and Order and Criminal Intent. So we used everybody and we at anthrax. In fact, we were called to ask us how did we know about this? And it's like, we did this research, like we knew the University of Minnesota was the place you wanted to go to learn about aerosolization.

And so what was bizarre was I think if you look at.

Variety on the morning of nine to eleven, I think it says terror or something and it talks about our mini series, you know, because we were so close to it. We had already cast it, and so it never went Remember Jeff Zucker called me that night.

I was in New York.

I saw horrible, you know, I was at Chelsea Piers and saw the towers come down, and.

Jeff wondered if we could do it.

Still It's like, no, there's no right, but we But it's weird. Go back and look at Variety September eleventh, It's weird.

Wow, because we were going to do this. We did a lot of research.

Yeah, And that's so it's like, you know, we're not really like it's like when I did Designated Survivor recently, we did a show about voter suppression and white supremacy was the whole season. Well, that was in we wrote it in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. It's not because we were prescient. It's because we really talked to experts and we wanted to know, like, what are you worried about?

Yeah, this is the next big problem coming down the pipeline.

And that's what we did with SVU, so we would look at like like we did this episode. It was a really profound episode with Rosie Perez and Eric Dillahunt, and that was about a guy saying, I did it. I'm a pedophile and I was born that way. And that was really controversial because it's like, these are bad people, and it's like what are psychiatrists and forensic psychiatrists saying, And it's like, how do we help them to suppress

I think you can't grow a conscience, grow a conscience.

Can you tell us a little bit more about conscience specifically, like that episode, like how it.

Came to be?

Or I mean, I know you've literally overseen like so many episodes, so I'm.

Sure I don't know.

Maybe one.

Yeah, it seems like you have a real memory for details. I'm not afraid to ask you.

And you can ask me anytime.

So yes, I was reading an article in the New York Times in two thousand and four about sociopathy and children.

And could they be treated?

And so there have been a number of articles since about children without a conscience?

Are they treatable? What do we do? You know?

These are kids who like set fires, kill pets, right, And so I thought, well, we'll create a character who's a psychiatrist who really knows about this, will have something happened to his own kid. And then because of all the research he's done, he knows this kid will kill again. He knows this kid as a psychopath, psychopaths, sociopath, same thing, kind of like the former president, so.

You know they'll do anything.

I liken it to a hall of mirrors, like in the movie The Lady from Shanghai, and in that scene where Orson Wells goes in and Rita Hayworth follows him, he sees hundreds and hundreds of images of himself. That's how what I think, because how do we get into it was always a question of how do we get

Were trying to make that point, like how do you deal with this? How do you think about it? So it was no.

I was just very fortunate because we would just write in depth, so with conscience. It was really the springboard was something I read and I just thought, this.

Is really interesting. How do we dig into this story? When if it's true.

Now there's more research thing maybe these people are treatable, but not all sociopaths kill, but they do things that are bad and that are harmful. So how do we address that?

Moving away from psychopaths?

Who are the people that you really wanted to have on the show and then you got them?

I would go to people I loved, like Lois Smith, who's like ninety and on Broadway and Inheritance, she played the mother of a woman with Down syndrome who's pregnant and not really quite sure.

I love that episode.

I love that episode.

And then I wanted to work with Piper Laurie, who was in the movie The Hustler.

And Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks.

And Children of a Lesser God and Carrie she was amazing, and Carol Burnette and Anne Margaret and Ellen Burston and Jeremy Irons and Jerry Lewis and Jacquin Bassett.

So do you write the episodes with these people in mind and then go after them?

So sometimes I would call them first.

So I would talk to Carol Burnett and I'd say, you know, I'd love you to do the show, and she goes, well, I bet you know. I said, I've been a fan. She said, like, what when you were a kid and watch my show.

With your mother?

Yes, she said, well what's the part? And I said, you'd kill all these men? She's like, I do, And I said, they're really bad and you get away with it. And she's like, oh, I like that.

What are the episodes that really haunt you?

Like?

We have some that stick with us and really haunt us forever, and I would love to know those that do that to you.

One of my favorites, because I think it actually had an impact, is the one with Becky Ann Baker and it's still and Baker's wife, and she's an amazing actor.

She plays the mother of a kid who's fourteen.

And just doesn't really have any friends and he just wants to be liked, and so he befriends this psychopathic twelve year old who tells him go get that knife, and he does, and the twelve year old murders the woman. The twelve year old is sent to juvie because he's twelve, and the fourteen year old is tried as an adult and gets life in prison before the Supreme Court ruled you can't do that anymore, and he's an accessory. So

Some girl gave her boyfriend a.

Gun and later weeks later, whatever it was, he shot somebody and she's isn't for life.

No, the Trump administration just executed a man who did not have a hand in the actual murder.

He was just an accomplice.

And so you can't do that anymore with people under eighteen, and they're still trying, I believe to grandfather people.

And so that haunted me because that kid was like I just wanted to, Oh my gosh.

On the stand too, it's like I just wanted to and the mother's like, oh my god, like how fair is this? So I remember like sending it to the people who are arguing in this case because it's about juveniles, and so that I love that episode. I love the episode. Love the episode that is haunting. That was your question. Is the Lou Diamond Phillips episode. Oh yeah, that's pushing Rishka and Chris's relationship to the degree will you die for each other?

Right?

And so here's Benson slashed by Lou Diamond Phillips horrible character, and Stable has to make a split second decision. Does he chase after this guy why because no telling what he'll do next, or does he save Benson? And so he saves Benson and the guy kills a kid, and it's just like, but that's life. Always was looking for ways to plumb the depth of Benson and Stabler and Finn. So I gave Finn a queer son because I thought that'll be good.

I love how much you love the episodes with the main characters and their emotional growth and stuff. It shows how much you really love them, and I like that.

And it shows because we always talk about Finn, like when you watch some of the older episodes, Finn's attitudes are a little bit old school and like he really grows. I think giving him a queer son was like a great character developer for him.

And first of all, Coco's always there. We heard so I wrote stuff for Coco too. Coco's in two episodes.

Coco is They're like the most normal, normal people in the world. We are like, It's like, I just love the whole sort of iced tea cocoa sort of vision. Yeah, but iced tea here's the great thing, Iced Tea. You know, most people don't want to work Friday nights, and as you progress during the week, you start later and you end later.

So Friday's you could end at like two three in the morning.

Always couldn't count on Iced Tea to say, hey, yeah, I'll just come in. So we would say, of Iced tease scenes for Friday nights. But I did a scene with him. I just said, you know, we're going to give you something that's really super intense, and we're going to cast an actor who you've never seen do this. So that was Julie Haggerty playing the social worker who missed right and commits suicide.

And we're like, so it's also unexpected because you think of.

Julie Haggerty an airplane and all these things, like Julie Haggerty is an amazing actor and she was so funny. But I thought, you know, I bet you that you'll just be like gut punched if we do the opposite with her. And I said, who would be the most interesting character to have this happen to? And I said, let's do it to Finn, who's so tough and have this terrifying scene.

Was like, wow, this is like.

This is deep ye, or like when Maloney said to me when he acted opposite, he's about you pair, it's you don't even hear it. When he tells her that her child is dead, he said, Neil, I thought this was real. I thought I was going down.

With her, he said.

I thought the world was ending. He said, I've never been in a.

Scene like this where I really thought she was psychotic and it was like there's no acting here, he said.

It was like, get me out of this room. I'm like freaking out.

So, you know, I think that the actors are so intensely good that we had so many Oscar winners, Emmy winners, you know. Robin Williams, I love that episode. I wrote that it's the two hundredth episode, and it was based on a story I read about it about this cookie guy in Kentucky who was like calling.

Yeah, I think he called a McDonald's or something.

Yeah, and it's like, hey, you know, go lock up that cute girl. It's like a strip searcher.

So then I was like, well, that's weird, but I think let's go deeper and let's have him have a real reason that he's so angry at everybody.

Right, And that's I think that's like, what's so we are both comedians, and so when we see comedians playing these roles, it's it's I think that extra It's like you said, it's an extra gut punch to have, like Danny Tanner or Will Truman or like guys or actors that you're just like Martin story. Yeah, Oh my gosh, Martin Short, like the first dramatic role.

We're dying to get him.

Neil such a sweet man, and it's like, well that was again, it's like, oh my gosh, I love you know, Jiminy, you.

Know, click yeah, and.

I love him so much that we got to do something.

And Don de Noon wrote that episode about the Fox psychic and it's kind of like a little bit of family plot and a little bit of Nightmare Alley. So and sometimes I would like even tell the directors, like when Ted was directing Marishka for nine to one one where she won the Emmy.

And the Golden Globe.

Mrscer calls me to the sense she says, Neil, It's like Ted's like, I don't know what he's doing. He's shooting in my mouth and a close up and my eye and a close up, and I said, go for it, you'll win it.

She did. Also I dressed her up in a very fancy cocktail.

I want to have favorite things we like. If Marishka's in address, we know shit's about.

To go down.

Do you know why that I did it?

I did read about it. Is it be a nod to like Er and George Clooney?

Or am I a lot to Clooney?

Where I wrote the first season where he's in a big fight over Juliana and it's Christmas episode and he's in a tuxedo and people were saying, oh.

My god, he's so handsome in that tuxedo.

And it's like, so I drew the lucky straw in your two, And I'm like, can I put Georgie in a textedo and have him like be a hero? A reluctant hero? So I said, okay, I'm going to send him with Andrea Parker to the opera. But she never gets there with him, and the kid is in the tunnel and he's trapped and the water's rising, and then Clooney has to go take him on a plane and chopper and make a decision.

And that's really precient.

I didn't know, but we're broadcasting from the plane the news Guy, which now has happened because of the changes in technology, and Tony Edwards and Juliana are like at the desk and they look up at the TV and they see Clooney there.

So that was where Clooney saves the kid and he raises him up. It's this iconic kind of yep.

I remember it, So I thought, well.

Clooney got nominated for an Emmy, so did I for writing it.

We didn't win, but.

I said to Ted what can we do for Marishka that is so different? And Ted said, well, I said, have you've done anything that's like that? You just that's sticks with me and goes, well, you should see this television movie I did with Ingrid Bergmann called The Human Voice, where it's only Ingrid Bergmann kind of losing her mind

She's in it.

She did spu of course, and I said, see these jump cuts of Sean Connery's eyes and mouth and lips and Tippy Hedron's and I said, it'd be inspired by that. And then go to the man who Knew too Much in the scene with Doris Day in the concert hall when Hitchcock is panning faster and faster and faster across the music until the day New Mall, when the symbols are going to crash and the man's going to get shot.

I want to just see her eye almost tearing up. Yeah, so your golden here.

Man, like not for nothing.

It's like this gorgeous woman who's always in a mock turtleneck or like a blazer.

Let's get her in a hot dress once.

In a while, like like what in the hell are you putting her in that transfer?

The whole point is because she's going on on a very hot day and he goes, what an eight hundred dollars hugo bob? He said, it's TV, And so I said, we have to have her look gorgeous.

I said, to you pick out what you want to wear and we're going to give it to you.

Do you have a favorite Marishka haircut? You can identify it by season?

Exactly.

One time she called me and she said, I have to tell you something, and I was like, what, what's wrong? She goes, I got my haircut a little. I was like, oh, that's what a season?

Is that three?

Or oh they're really really short? Exactly all right.

That brings us to our post mortem. That interview was thrilling and we're definitely.

Going to have him back. He has so much information. I want him to be a regular. I want him ya or he's going to be one of our okps to borrow from the Jay Train podcas as original key player. Yeah. I was like, no one knows what OKP means. Yeah, he told me I'm an OKAP and I've been on it twice. I'm like, I don't know if I am.

No.

I was livid when you told me because I felt like I worked very hard to become that and I would but whatever.

So what did we learn from today's episode?

I mean, kids, kids can't be diagnosed as psychopaths, but kids can have some fucked up personality disorders like that little hell Little Jake was nobody to fuck with, especially if you haven't done all your pull ups at Bratt Camp or whatever you're at.

I would say, don't be a vigilante too. I know that, but like, don't be a vigilante.

Yeah.

I think it's okay to be, like to protest, to be part of like police accountability groups, but like, don't get a scanner and show show up at some guy's house and beat up who you think is about aphile like stop.

Like, if you're a parent, stop being blinded by the love of your child and always be suspicious that they are one one crime away from Yeah, I don't know.

I also learned that Comma Glacklin looks great in Shades of Green.

Yeah.

I was thinking of the other vigilante. But I guess he's a vigilante too. Yeah, vigilantes everywhere in this epience. Yeah, well, he kind of took justice into his own hands.

I like that he got away with it.

It is fucked up, but I'm just like, okay, Yeah, your kid got killed.

I guess you got to kill this kid. I'm okay with it. Oh, and keep an eye on your kids at a Chuck E Cheese. I don't know.

Like I said, I don't think that Chuck E Cheese is really gonna let me know if you think Chuck E Cheese is gonna survive past the pandemic.

But I don't know about ball pits and all that. Now.

Also, if you're a judge, can you take a day before you move a criminal case down to family court? This is take a judgees listening, Take a day and watch out, because Olivia Benson will remember the Rocks that are in your yard.

So don't use pebbles from your own yard. You will get caught if you're gonna use.

Someone actually commented on our instrum or sent us a message like can you stop giving people better advice on how to hide bodies?

Like I don't need more killer, we want them to get caught.

I'm like, okay, but sometime, but it's like, yeah, don't use things from your own home that are visible to murder like they're gonna be like.

A thirteen year old murderer. We can't really expect him to hide it. And don't drink soda.

If they give you a can of soda, don't drink it.

It's a trick. They don't care if you're thirsty.

They're gonna use a pencil to pick that baby up. Get your prints.

I think cops have to keep their guns less accessible to people when they're Oh yeah, that's true too.

That's true too.

People in SVU are constantly pulling cop guns right out of the whole ster, like there's no snaps, no no guards.

Speaking of I just saw something on the internet and it was a guy that keeps hot sauce and a whole ster on his belt, and I like him keep that button loose.

All right, A perfect segue into what would Sister Peg Do? Okay, for today's what would Sister Peg Do, which is our weekly segment where we just give you guys a little bit more background information or some resource or article or organization that you can read or donate to, just to flesh out a little bit of the topic of what

And also if you are in a giving mood, you know, for Lent or something. We have show notes that have all the other charities and organizations we've highlighted for like sixteen episodes, so you know, if you've got a tax refund, check on into our resources.

Look at this.

Jew know one about Lent. I don't know when Lent is damn girl. Well, it's the fish Sandwich season. You know my eye on that. Does McDonald's bring back the file of fish during lund Well, they.

Always have it, but on Fridays you can get like two for four or something like that.

Got it, Got it big. I'm very into advertising big ups to Christianity from McDonald's. Okay, let's see.

Next week's episode is going to be Institutional Fail from season seventeen. That's episode four, And if you don't have a chance to write that down, please know that we always post it on our Instagram. Every Thursday, you get your homework posts that tells you what next week's episode will be, and just.

That by I. I don't know whether you're getting your episodes on Peacock.

Or Hulu or wherever they are available, but Hulu I think might have this listed as episode three. You just make sure you're watching Institutional Fail, which we believe is truly episode four, but however they label it.

Wherever there's a thumbnail of Whoopie Goldberg, you know you're in the right place.

Yeah, we'll see you guys next week.

Bye bye bye. That's messed up as an exactly right production.

If you have compliments you'd like to give us or episodes you'd like us to cover. Shoot us an email at That's Messed uppod at gmail dot com.

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As always, please see our show notes for sources and more information.

Thank you so much to SBU super fan and our incredible producer, Hannah Kyle Kraton, and to.

Our sound engineer and personal hero Analis Nilsson, and to Henry Koperski for our theme song, to Carly Jeen Andrews for our artwork. Thanks to our executive producers Georgia Hardstar, Karen Kilgarriff, Daniel Kramer, and everybody at Exactly Right Media.

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