Imprisoned Lives w/ Agatha Nowicki

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 Dune.

Hello, that's a Seinfeld reference. This is That's messed up an SVU podcast. My name is Lisa Trigger.

Hi.

Hi, my name is Kara Klink. Hi, Lisa Trigger. You know what we do on this pod? You guys, we are going to go through an episode of SVU. We're going to talk about the true grumbas based on and we're going to interview some super talented person from the episode. And I'm so excited for today's episode. Oh yeah, we have an awesome interview today. And before we start that, I just like to find out what's going on on

But I can't stop.

I am really excited because carl I stopped watching Project Runway when Carli Kloss became the host, and now she has gone and there's a new season of Project Runway and I feel blessed beyond.

Belief and there's just no model now.

There's no host, so like Brandon Maxwell is the lead judge slash host, and Christian Siriano is such an involved mentor in the workroom. And I like all the people.

And there was a lot of drama in the second episode, but I'm just happy to have Wait, so can I just ask Christian is like the Tim Gunn now, but Tim Gunn never sat in on the judging. Does Christian sit in on the judging? No he doesn't, Okay, got it? Yeah, totally Tim Gunn, same vibes, got it.

I love Tim Gunn. What do you think he up to?

Hopefully teaching, still inspiring people, working on a set, styling, writing a book, making money, retired, whatever he wants.

Honestly, let's head to mood. I love him. I like the Red Lobster.

It's wild that Santino was a judge on Drag Race early seasons.

Santino is terrible. Wait, what do you mean Santino tells people not to get the vaccine. Santino is a nutball. He's like, do not get the vaccine?

Oh, but he was.

They got rid of him on drag Race well before vaccine chats right, Sure, I'm talking about nowadays.

Santina is a bad person.

He was not that good of a person during his season either. He was known as the asshole. Talented but an asshole.

Isn't he?

What like you and your no no drag knowledge to have an ass is not like about him? Like yeah, yeah, it is wild. He was a judge on that show and for a while.

But a lot of people, I mean Carson and Ross don't know drag, right, they don't do drag.

They don't do it, but they're gay. They're part of the community. I mean, he's fashion, but he's not gay, you know.

Like, I don't know why did ru choose him? Like That's what I'm trying to figure out, Like.

What I don't know. I guess because of the fashion part of it.

He was supposed to look at like their fashions and be like, you know, and he would tell them that they look like hookers or something, right, didn't he always like use the wrong words.

I don't know, But I I just love skilled competition reality shows and Bravo Excels and Drag Race of course, but like I love when people have a passion and they're exhibiting their inspiration and skills and competing and funny.

I just like, oh.

God, yeah, I think that I've always gravitated more towards skill based reality. Except for my housewives. None of them have many skills. Oh they got a skill. They have skills.

Some of them do to irritate my fucking heart and brain and nervous stum.

I know that you are. You do watch Atlanta? Did you hear? I heard today?

But I don't know if it's real that Marlow is becoming a cast member.

I would be thrilled Marlow's getting a peach baby.

I hope Marlow gets a peach, and I hope Dere you know, gets eaten by a shark that Marlow catches.

Okay, that's what I That's what I believe.

The way she talked to Garcel, she has not she has not yelled at another housewipe the way she yelled at Garcel.

That bitch is not for me, but Lisa.

Her children are exposed to people of brown and black skin color all the time, and they're in the employ of the Pique family. She's terrible. I've always hated to eat. I don't know why she's there. I don't even think. I don't know, And now we have to look at her one hundred and thirty thousand dollars wedding dresses or whatever. No, I think it was a thirty five thousand dollars wedding dress that she was selling. I do have to say this.

My cousin did have a thirty thousand dollars wedding dress by Derate.

No.

Wow, well there we go by Panina Tornay custuff. Yeah, it was a penina. It was aad I yeah. I think it's so funny how the wedding world has like its own full like celebrity fashion, Like like the designers of wedding dresses are just like, oh, it's a Pinina. Like nobody that hasn't gotten married has heard of that. Like that's never on like in Vogue, you know what I mean?

Like yeah, or like I'm Sally, or I'm Solid, I'm Salah.

Yeah, even I'm Sala in my closet right now. Its aid a bridesmaid's dress.

Wow. No, I didn't pay for it. That was actually a friend of mine.

That was a friend of mine who had me as a bridesmaid when I was like a new I was like a new comic, and she was like, I'm just gonna pay for your dress. All my other bridesmaids like have lucrative jobs. This is a drop in the bucket compared to like a wedding. I'm just going to pay for it for you. And I was like, I'm not to argue. Thank you, Like, are you guys still friends?

Yes, my daughter Marty, you've met her? Okay, great? Thank Mary for Chicago. That wedding was in Chicago. My god, the one with eight hundred kids going to the aquarium. Yes, that's Marty.

She took my child and her four child children to the aquarium by herself. She's a psycho. Beautiful home though. Oh, they just sold it. They just sold it. They moved somewhere else, but they're still in Chicago. So we'll see it next time we go to Chicago. We'll see what the new helm is.

No, I'm glad she paid for it.

I don't know if I've talked about this already, but when I got to wear a Jessica McClintock dressed to my sister's wedding when I was in sixth grade, that really meant a lot to me.

Do you know that was my senior prom dress?

Was it?

Jessica mcclintalk. I could have guessed.

If I had three guesses, I could have guessed because I loved her.

I loved her too.

This dress is so insane. I'm going to put it on the Instagram. You guys are going to see my brother dress, and you got to put up your Jessica m'clintalk from your sisters. We're doing a Jessica m'clintalk parasite.

That's a great idea. Oh my god, I can't wait. I love a TV. But why did she go under? It's so weird. She meant so much to me. Oh, it's it doesn't exist anymore, not in the same capacity.

I don't think, like, I don't have you seen When was the last time you heard of a Jessica McClintock.

Well, I don't go to prom anymore.

I mean I didn't think that anybody besides like high school girls wore Jessica mcclintok.

Oh, you don't think it was also Brides made Heavy?

No, I not that I thought of interesting interesting.

But maybe I could be wrong.

I used to read ym and seventeen and like when prom was coming up, that was like ev like multiple spread, like page spread for Jessica mcclintalk.

I was a teen People girl. Ooh that was my favorite. Oh man, I was Mademoiselle. Were you Mademoiselle?

Yeah?

And I also liked Sassy.

But one time I got Sassy and the cover said chicks with Sticks. It was about girl drummers, and my mom thought that was like a little bit much and said that I couldn't read that magazine anymore.

They were cheeky. But did you even get the cheekiness? Yeah, no, I didn't think. I was like, yeah, I didn't.

I didn't think I was gonna get some kind of pornographic penis material at all.

Yeah, I miss magazine culture. I'll get a Vanity.

Fair here and there.

But I subscribed to Vanity Fair. But that's just because it was like eight dollars for a full year. Because they were all like the magazine industry is dying so hard that they want they'll do anything for you, I know.

But Vanity Fair is good, like they're so good.

But yeah, it's just everything changed because I used to love US Weekly and stuff, but like we have Instagram, there's just like those don't really translate.

I like those when I'm getting my nails done if they have it, yeah, you know, but like I'm not buying it anymore because we have Instagram. Also, I got really annoyed at people when they like put after one of their reporters claimed that Donald Trump assaulted her, they put him like on their cover two weeks later, and that made me really annoyed, and I was kind of like, I think I'm done with people, but I dabble.

If it's at the nail salon.

Well now because of COVID, that's another thing. There are no magazines at the nail sae.

That's why. Oh wow, I forgot. Yeah, realize, No.

Sometimes things happen and you're like, why not that, and it's like, oh yeah the pandemic.

Oh yes, I forget. All right, let's truly forget about it. Yeah, let's get going to today's episode. It's another goodie and we just we can't wait to get going, all right. Today's episode is Imprisoned Lives. It is season fifteen, episode two on Hulu. They have this as one episode, so if you are starting to watch this, it starts halfway through the Hulu episode at about the forty two minute and forty one second mark.

Just an FYI to you guys.

And it's like it's not just only like, oh, it's a little bit of another episode. Bada bing bada boom. It's like the worst episode of all time. It's Marishka and fucking William Lewis.

So it's also like, get this. You cannot force this on me. Yeah, they should be separated. Hulu needs to stop what they're doing. These are separate episodes on other platforms, they are separate. So it is the second episode of season fifteen, but it is the second part of the two parter, and the first part is Olivia escaping from the clutches of the evil William Lewis played by Pablo Sharper, who everybody says is hot, but I truly I cannot see his hotness because of pornstash on Orange Is and

No, and maybe if it was one horrible character, but to that whor, it's like, bro get away from me.

Yeah, and I mean wildly, he probably doesn't give a shit because he probably has a super hot wife. But I think he should know that it's hard for me to find him attractive. But we basically this episode opens with a two two months later card at the bottom and we see Olivia returning to her trashed apartment. We see a chair knocked over with like duct tape tied

On the carpet.

Like I just think it's a very interesting thing that they touch on, and like a lot of women that are assaulted don't have the option to just be like and then I just got a new apartment because I couldn't go back there, you know, Like that's not an option for a lot of people. So it's really fucked up if you are assaulted in your home, like how you have to deal with that. I just was was making me think of that when I saw the horrors

Fine, I'm fine.

And then we cut to her being like I'm fine, straight to her in a self defense type workout class, like and it really makes me miss working out in a class with people. I mean, not in a self defense class, but you know, I really like boxing in zoomba and group activities and I'm not doing that right now with the pandemic. And now then we're in her therapist's office. Who is doctor Peter Lindstrom played by Bill Irwin. And we've talked about him before, but I don't think

I would have maybe put some respect on his name if I knew he had a tony.

I've been very How are you disrespectful to this guy?

Yeah, Bro has a tony and Bro is one of Elmo's tight tight homies. So liv is telling doctor Lindstrom how she is really angry. And I don't think we've seen Olivia before, William Lewis, I don't think we've seen Olivia in therapy besides the Slaves episode where she's.

Getting like mandated therapy from the department.

Like, this is the first time we see her in like a therapeutic situation.

So she's telling me, what about after the jail rape moment?

Did she have did she go to therapy? I don't know. I'm asking, Yeah, I don't. I don't remember a therapist. That's why.

Yeah, I mean they've yeah, like she's also been evaluated by Mary Stewart Masterson. There's been like little adjacent things, but this is the first time I feel like we see her in serious therapy and she's telling doctor Lindstrom how she's really angry that Lewis should have been caught and then his victims wouldn't have been raped.

And then he's like, and.

How you were raped, and she's like, I wasn't raped, just assaulted, just badly assaulted.

So I think we do get the sense that she wasn't.

Actually I used to think it was very ambiguous, but I think it's clear she wasn't raped by him, just assaulted horribly. And he's trying to get her to drop the tough gal act and admit that something very traumatic happened to her and that it's okay to not be okay, and she's, you know, she's just talking about how her apartment is so dark. She went back there, she realized that she hasn't really thrived there, and she thinks she's ready to go back to work.

She's taking pages from Maloney. She's like, let me back at work.

You know. The doctor asks if SVU is the best place for her at the moment, and he's like, you know, you're reevaluating your relationship with your home and your relationship with your person, and it would make sense to look at your job too, And he asks, have you given any thought to the toll that this job takes on you. And she's like, not for a second. He doesn't get to take that from me. So it's really serious. Like nobody takes SVU away from Olivia, and she said the

Do you know that you know what I mean?

Like to me, the eyes of other people makes it more, It makes it worse than the actual thing that happened.

So I relate.

And then we cut to that moment where she is walking back into the squad room and everyone is staring at her and they got her Bodega flowers and like a grocery store balloon. I wanted more. I feel like, you guys could have done better. Yeah, they don't have taste, you know, they're yeah, but like a florist, it feels like one of them was like quick go on the corner while you're getting your coffee and grab her a cup of like Wilting Carnations, Like but you know.

No, but I think now maybe they're smart. What season is no, this is fifteen. Yeah, it's weird that they didn't have a florist in town down the block, Like people are getting shot at all the time? Aren't they sending flowers often?

Yeah?

Or is everyone constantly her? I don't know. They do seem clueless here.

I also was very moved when she was like, he's not taking my job away, because I feel that happens sometimes like that. It's like an easy solution if something bad's happening. It's like why don't you just quit your job or like don't go online?

Well, like literally, it's kind of what just happened on the current season of SVU with Kat, Like they had her character do something that I mean, we can talk about it more in depth another time, but like they had Kat be like I don't think I can handle le s VU anymore after she gets shot, and it's like, what,

I just feel I was reminded, like someone was talking about being harassed online all the time, and someone was like, just get off the internet, and it's like, what the fuck what are you talking about. I can't be online because of that, or it's like I can't go to my job because this motherfucker.

It's like that's not an actual solution, right, that's why.

Yeah, And I'm saying with the cat thing that they made that the solution, and I don't think that that was the right move.

But she made her own solution. I mean the writers, but like in she made her own.

It wasn't like Benson going, I don't know, you should probably get out of here. You're right, she just had this girlfriend. She was like, fuck this, I don't want to get shot at. I just want to kind of like solve chiller crimes.

That doesn't seem very cat like to me, But I understand a person saying no, You're.

Right, it didn't seem like her she wanted to save people. She did.

Yeah, Anyway, in the squad room, like Olivia's like what no cake, like trying to make a joke.

And Rollins's like, oh, we're going to get you cupcakes.

And it's like it's just very awkward, like no one knows how to talk to her because she's like, they're big, strong Benson who's had this horrific thing happened to her, and I think no one.

Knows how to like look at her or deal with her.

So Craigan's like, welcome back, Detective Benson, and we're off. And now we're in Times Square and there's a big purple mascot named Momo who's invented. It's like a guy in a costume, the way that at Times Square it's usually like fucking cookie monster and a minion or whatever.

And this just reminded me of the Momo Challenge.

You remember this, Lisa, where there was like people thought that there's this like creepy drawing called Momo, and they were like, if your kid sees Momo on the internet, they'll kill themselves. It was like a full hoax on the internet. But like adults were believing it. They were like, don't look at Momo videos and it's like it wasn't real.

She is scary though.

Yeah, the drawing of it is very creepy pasta, it's very slender Man adjacent. Creepy, yeah, for sure, but alas it's not making people do anything to themselves. So this little kid named Buddy runs away from his dad and was running towards Momo.

He's like Momo and the dad's like, Buddy, come back.

Here, and he's hugging Momo and he's so happy to see him, and he like won't let go of him, and then the dad runs up to get Buddy and Momo's like trying to sell him on a picture, like one pick for ten dollars, five dollars for the kid, like whatever, and the guy pushes Momo the dad and there's like a whole scuffle starting and a cop runs up to break it up, and where's dad? The dad has disappeared, and Buddy's like paw paw, but like the dad has fully taken off, and the.

Dad had gross vibes, very aggressive baseball cat.

I you know, I don't like it. I don't like it. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he's like, yeah, don't push a mascot for no reason like it was, And then I assume that's where the credits would go, but this is a two parter, so they don't give us two credits. So then at the squad room, liv is sitting across from Amorrow and she's kind of like twirling her hair in her fingers.

It's shorter.

It's very season five Carrie bradshaw I would say, yeah, okay, yes, yes, but she has it short. It's just right to her chin basically, and she's just like twirling her hair and Mamorrow's looking at her. And this isn't like a new me, new look situation, Like she definitely cut her hair in a traumatic way and Tomorrow's staring at her and she's like, you don't like my new haircut, and then he's like sorry, like it's more of the whole We don't know how to deal with Olivia cu I know.

But he goes, it'll grow back, and it's like, you say you like the haircut? Yeah, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Bro? And then she.

Goes, you're not wearing your ring and it's like, well, now we know why you don't even have a compliment a woman, you dumb ass. So that divorce was obviously a long time coming. I don't think we ever saw like one moment of happiness with Tomorrow and his wife. And then Craigan kind of interrupts their conversation to come out and be like, we got a lost kid in Times Square, and Benson's like they're being all apprehensive about letting Benson get out into the work, like into the field,

Famous last words?

So they get there to Times Square, this kid won't talk. Marro's talking to the guy who's inside of Momo and this actually, this guy playing Momo is a very famous puppeteer named Rick Lyon, and he not only used to help operate a Big Bird on Sesame Street another Sesame Street crossover. Because I know our audience got mad at us because we didn't recognize one guy from Crossover from Sesame Street in signature, So we are letting you know Sesame Street people.

I was a Barney and a Lamb shop girl, Sesame and Arthur, like, Sesame Street just didn't connect to me. I don't know, sorry, guys.

I watched it a little bit, but I think for a while when I was a kid, I thought real life stuff wasn't good, Like I only liked wanted to watch cartoons. So Sesame Street's not I do love it, but it's not like a super super important thing for me.

But what is super important to.

Me is that this man, rick Lyon also designed and created all of the puppets from Avenue Q, which is a musical that I am obsessed with.

I know all the music. I've seen it on.

I've saw it off Broadway, and then I think I saw it on Broadway. I like, love, Love, Love AVENUEQ, and this guy basically created it.

How did you know to look him up? Or were you like, who's this idiot and the Momo? Or you recognized him? I was like, who is that?

Like?

I first wanted to know if Momo was real, so I googled if Momo was like a real character that maybe I just had a blind spot, and then when you look it up you see the guy playing him is Rick Lyon, who has all these credits and is like a famous puppeteer.

Yeah. I got to see Avenue Q. I know it's the hip one, right, it's hip. I want to see it.

I mean it was I saw it over ten years ago, so like it's definitely definitely been out for a while.

But puppets have sex.

In it, and it's funny, like it's very funny, and there's like a song called Everyone's a little Bit Racist, Like there's just like it's very irreverent, very funny, and I.

Just it's this guy, I mean hip hip, Yeah, it's hip.

I don't know if it's hip if it's fifteen years old, like Book A Mormon's still hip.

Yeah, I would say Avenue Q is pretty hip.

And uh, he's talking to the cop. This guy anyways got his momo hat off and he's talking to the guy and he's like, this kid's being really weird. He was like clinging to me like I'm weird, like like I was real, and I'm like I don't think that that's that weird.

I feel like a lot of.

Kids think that they're seeing Elmo in Times Square when they see him, but I think maybe for the kid's age, because he's like seven or eight, they're like, what's going on. Olivia goes and works her kid magic and fully gets Buddy to start talking, Like there's always a kid that they're like, he doesn't talk, and then Olivia's like hi, and the kid's like, Hi.

My name's Buddy. I'm eight years old. Like she just really gets kids to start blabbin.

So now the detectives are back at the precinct going over everything with Daddy Craigan. We're finding out the kid is underweight, but otherwise he's fine. There's no missing person report, his DNA's.

Not in the system.

But they're like, but he's seven or eight, he should be able to tell us thing. So now we're back to a live getting him to talk through drawing, and he draws his family. He draws three people and it's Ma, Sissy, and Auntie okay, and then she's like, well, who's this and he gets scared talking about Paw and he's like, Paw lives with us at house sometimes, but he goes sometimes and he starts he's talking in very clipped language, like he's like, don't ask. Be quiet, then he won't

I know it well. I've walked that bridge. I've walked the bridge, I rode the bridge, I biked age the bridge. I've driven across that bridge a thousand times. I've walked there from the creek in the cave. I've definitely walked.

That bridge many a time. And he is pointing out all the stuff he remembers. If this is real, it seems like TV magic to me. I don't think that many kids would be like that place. And then it's a hundred cracks from this place to this place. But somehow, via counting cracks and counting train stops and recognizing the bridge, we finally get to this kid and he goes that's house. So he finally brings them essentially back to his house.

Wow.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. A neighbor guy pops out. He's like, you guys looking for Tony and the house is we find out owned by Angie Minetti. Tony Minetti is her son. They break into the house like no one they don't see anybody, no one's around. They go down to the basement. They find a bunch of cells. One cell has a little Momo doll in it. There are buckets like it's a full horror show, like people are being kept in

And Barba is on this. I don't know, I think we've asked this before.

I don't know how often DA's Ida has come to the scene, but Barba is on the scene here and he does say it's another Ariel Castro.

Oh my god.

So spoiler alert, that is what the crime that this is based on. So basically, no one has seen Angie Minetti, the owner of the house, in years, but her social Security checks are still getting cashed. There have been three complaints, including one of a woman.

Tied up in a doghouse outside.

The cop showed up, there was no answer, so they left and everyone's like appalled by that, further proof that SVU is a cab. So the neighbor is like, I never saw anything sketchy. It's like, you didn't see the doghouse situation, okay, buddy. ID is a photo of Auntie, the woman that they find in the cage downstairs, and

We'll get to it.

She's like very pissed the press is there, but she's also fully exhibiting the effects of her trauma, like this is not really the way Olivia usually talks. She's just like the feeding Frenzi's already begun, like she's so so pissed. So, you know, I think Olivia is just also going through something. So at the precinct, we find out that they've searched Tony Minettie's apartment, but there's no sign of Ma or Sissy.

This is why I haven't talked to my mom in years. Like I don't want that house. I have nothing to do with that house, like Bubba.

So clearly there's a mistaken identity situation going on here. Rollins is like slowly trying to pull more info out of Ronda who's obviously incredibly traumatized. So she says that Pas sleeps with all of them, but that he left with Cissy and Ma and didn't want her to go. She says Pa calls Cissy pumpkin Pie and called her our Thanksgiving blessing.

So this kind of is like a.

Light bulb that this woman came to them around Thanksgiving time. So they're looking for somebody who would have gone missing around Thanksgiving time, and that leads them to Kayla Grayland, who went missing in the Poconos nine years ago around Thanksgiving. And a buddy has id'd an age progression photo of like what Cissy would look like, so they go to see Kayla's parents. They show a police sketch of the man who was in Times Square and the parents are ecstatic.

I don't know. Okay, so just take.

Her little tooth, put a fiver under the put a dollar under the pillow, and throw it in the garbage.

I mean, if you want to keep a tooth, I'm not, but it doesn't seem like you want to, and you do not have to no rule book. You don't even have to tell her about the tooth Fair if you don't want to. I mean, it's all a fucking siskin. Yeah, everything's made up. But I think I'll do the tooth fair.

It sounds it was really magical to wake up with money under your pillow.

That was really fun.

No, it's really really fun, and presents are always a good time. But ew to keep a bunch teeth is not.

I just have seen a lot of people do that. I've definitely I found boxes of teeth. It might my mom too have did it. I'll ask her anyway. Meanwhile, CSU has found skeletal remains in the backyard of the minity house, wrapped in a blanket.

So not great. Live is still having flashbacks.

She's she's just getting really dark, like describing all the details of the case. She's like, and this guy keeps these women slaves, Like she's just getting more heightened and heightened in her anger.

And then she's like, you have to stop treating.

Me, like I'm broken, And it's like you seem not broken, but like you could use a maybe a couple weeks in Hawaii or something.

But the thing is, this does suck, Like this is the normal reaction to a case like this, Like this is fucked up.

Right, But I think when this case transitioned from a missing kid to a full aerial castro situation, they might have moved lived to like just be like a different thing, like because it's so one of the worst cases that we've ever heard of in our lives. And like she's like first case back on the job, like human atrocities beyond all others. Like it's kind of tough, but ice Tea comes in and there's good news.

They found Kayla.

She was picked up by New Jersey police shoplifting at a Kmart, so clearly she was just dumped somewhere and I don't know, they probably wanted to get caught or needed needed food and went to Kmart to shoplift. So on TV, Kayla talks to the press. She's played by an actress named Agatha Nowiki, and she Kayla has been missing for nine years, and she's like, I just want to see my parents and see buddy. The news report has her name underneath, and the font is comic book font.

We go to commercial on.

Live's face looking like kind of pissed, and yeah, that's kind of her vibe the whole episode. But at the hospital, Kayla's like everybody's being so nice. She's surrounded by her parents are there with her. It's like, thank God, she's safe, and she just wants to go home.

But the cops are.

Like, girl, we need a little bit more info from you. This isn't like a head straight home kind of situation, and so Barbara like lures the parents out of the room so that they can talk to Kayla a little bit more easily. And she says when she was walking home from watching TV at a friend's house, she was walking home and these mon pa pulled over. Ma asked her for directions, and she felt a jolt and Olivia's like,

So this is beyond fucked up.

She's ten years old when she is originally captured, so very very horrific.

Ma was never locked up.

She reveals she went upstairs and she said sometimes Paul would go away and Sissy would ask her to let her, like let them go, and she's like, I can't because Pau's coming back. Pretty fucked up, and then the next thing we know, we're in Pennsylvania where Amorrow is there to collect Ma who's been apparently sitting at a McDonald's for five hours.

So this man has just been ditching these women one by one.

He left one at home, he dropped one off in New Jersey, or he didn't drop her off. She escaped in New Jersey, I think. And then he drops off Ma in Pennsylvania. She has no cash. He just left her there.

Do you think this would have happened if the Momo incident didn't happen? Like he was escaping the cops, but like, no, he would.

I think he would have kept living how he was living. Yeah, okay, I think that he knew, oh shit, the cops are going to get in my face. I can't deal with the cops and then leaving. But it's like I don't know if yeah, I don't know, but it seems like it was kind of crazy to abandon buddy. He should have just talked to the cops and been like sorry, I mean, pushed the guy and then like the cops are dumb. They would have never investigated it further and found your fucking full harem of prisoner.

Slaves in your basement.

Ma was like very adamant about staying at the McDonald's because she thinks that Pau's coming back for her, and

Out of the hospital, out of the elevator.

And she's just like sitting there frozen, and she's going to see Kayla, Rhonda, and Buddy. They're all kind of in this like child development room like hanging out. Ronda and Buddy are and Kayla's outside the glass talking to Benson, and this is a very mirrored scene from earlier with Benson. Kayla says she's tired of everyone looking at her like she's going to break, and Benson's like, girl, I feel you. You know, Buddy wants to see ma, and Kayla's like, it's fine with me if he wants to see her.

This character is just like she's really really you feel for her.

Meanwhile, Olivia meets Amorrow in a back alley and she's like, I've got something to trade for with Ma, Like I've got an idea, And so Live shows up to you know, the precinct. Craigan's annoyed because because no one's listening to Daddy. Yeah, no one's listening to him. But Livia is like, want me to quit, bitch, and he's like, okay, well I don't want that.

So they do.

Let Olivia go in and talk to Ma again, and she's got Now she's back to regular Benson. Now she's back to soft spoken. Let's work this out. Let me coax the information out of you the way that only Olivia Benson knows how. And she basically shows Ma a picture that Buddy drew for her and starts to tug on her heartstrings from the whole Buddy and she's like, he misses you, Sissy says, you can see him if you want.

You can still be a family.

You just have to talk to us, and she and it's like, you tell us who Paw is and she won't say, and she's like, well tell us who you are, Like what did they used to call you, and she's like, I just can't say it. Olivia has done this trick before. She's like, if you can't say it, how about you write it down, you know. So in the next scene we find out her name is April Hendrix and she went missing eighteen years ago in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I don't

April and is like, oh, you want to hear something great.

He works at this school now, Michael Williams, So let me get you his phone number. So I love when the writers are like, we to move this along and we just get to who Michael Williams is.

Where he is.

They track him down and a Croatian woman opens the door and she is from Oranges to The New Black. She played Healy's wife that hated him. Do you remember whoa Yeah, I remember? Oh wow, yeah, so that's that's her. I always liked heron Orange Is the New Black. She was really funny. That's a funny type cast to be just mail orders like, yeah, she's yeah, been a Mallard to bride more than once. And she answers the door and she's like, yeah, Michael Williams is my husband. He's in

I was the slave.

I fed these women, I clothed them, I took care of their needs. It's like they were fine, they were what nobody Oh, it's just it's really illusional. Rollins is convincing the wife about what he did and she's like, no, you don't understand. He was at this house taking care of his mother. And the wife's name is Dagmara. By the way, that's her name. They don't really ever say it, but it is listed in the credits, and I think it's kind of a fun name, but it sounds like

So he admits that she was a different case.

But I think it was just like he saw her and wanted to possess her, so that's what he did. The wife is still going on about how his mom isn't dead, she has Alzheimer's and she goes he goes away to help her with her Alzheimer's, and it's like she's just not getting that her husband is going away to basically have a secret family that are captives. And he denies killing Angie and said he just walked in one day and she was dead.

And I'm also wondering if this mail order woman is like actually like somewhere. If she's like, yeah, go to Manhattan, like going to green Point, I don't care.

Well, she's pretty like she's pretty insistent that he's a great man. She keeps like she's not just like she's not just like, look, he helped me.

I'm in this country because of him.

She's like, he's great, he's such a great dad in the Poconos because he wants to keep our son safe. Like she totally I think she's drank the kool aid somehow that he's a good guy, but it also could be that life was bad with she looks.

Like Buffalo Bill. I know he looks scary, fully, I know, but I don't know.

If you watch ninety Day Fiance, I think a lot of these girls are getting with scary guys so they can get out of where they came from.

But like I said, he denies killing Angie.

He says she was just dead one day and they're like, so you just buried her in the backyard and he was and cash her checks and he was like, eh, he kind of doesn't really have answers for a lot of this. And he was like, well, what did you think was going to happen to Ronda when you bolted with the two other women and just left her chained up in a cage?

And he's like, can't save them all?

Like he's truly evil, this man, And he thinks he saved them.

He's like, they're alive because of me. I gave Kayla a son. He's my boy.

And it's like it's just really, I mean, you'll tell us what the real case, But I don't think you ever really get a good sense of like why anyone does these kind of things, But it's just it's so sick. Barba is considering charging April aka Mo, and they're like, she was literally kidnapped at twelve years old and has been held by this man like for eighteen years. Like she's scared to death and she's a shell of a person,

And Finn's like, who gives a fuck?

Like it's just a very funny, little quick interaction between those two, and then the whole episode's winding down, like now we're at uh Kayla's parents' house and she's in the car with Olivia and Buddy and Buddy's asleep and they can't get out of the car just yet because the press.

Is like swarming around them and they're waiting to kind of like move them.

And they have this really sweet scene that's like a heart to heart and she's like, are.

We ever going to be normal? Is Buddy gonna be okay?

Like he doesn't even have a name, like and Olivia said, like, I think people who have gone through unfair, horrific experiences is that they have this will and when they get support and they get a chance, they cannot only survive, they can thrive. And that's like a callback to what she talked about how she wasn't thriving earlier in the episode, I think. And then Kayla's like, thank you, Olivia Benson. You are the patron saint of all that is good

I'm I've heard so much about it and it's so fuck even more fucked up.

So I'm you got a big task ahead of you, Lisa, and I know you're gonna kill it.

I do, And I think you'll be shocked at like these mental narcissists.

Guys. Yeah, we'll be right back. Okay, welcome back to the news.

So this is happening in Cleveland, in like the Tremont area, and I've stayed a mile away from where this took place. Yeah, my friend used to live in the neighborhood with this girl she had, well one of my old dog best friends, Rebel. There were chickens in the back, and I stayed there. I mean, he got to live in a house for two hundred dollars, so this is I guess it's an affordable place to be, but I just can't believe I

We'll see.

And you know, at the time of his apprehension, he was unemployed and the house he kept the woman captive in was in foreclosure.

So focus on your life. You don't need any extra people in there.

You know what I mean, Like, you don't have your shit together, bro, So that was annoying. But he was a school bus driver for two decades, which is chilling that you can be this evil and ride around with children all day waiting for.

Your next victim.

And he but he was fired for having three disciplinary problems, and so he is a loser. He had a first wife who had full custody of the kids, but he was frequently known for abducting.

The kids and keeping them away from their mother.

So he was doing shady shit that he shouldn't have gotten away with. And while there were together, there was some domestic violence in the home. She suffered a broken nose, ribs and two dislocated shoulders. So the signs were there that maybe he shouldn't be in public and maybe should be surveillanced at all times.

Like what the fuck?

And he was a gross person, nasty, dirty, and that's that I hate him. His cousin said that he built himself a shack in the living room and slept inside of it to save money on heat.

Wow, that's the thing.

It's like, how can someone so dumb and careless get away with a crime for over a decade. Like That's what's confusing to me, because we kind of build up these serial killer or like these these evil people as geniuses and meticulous and like dexter style, and they're this guy's a fucking loser, you know.

He's not like all those Virgo serial killers.

They're organized, yeah.

Yeah, but to me, it's like you schlub, piece of shit. Yeah.

So the three victims of Ariel Castro is Amanda Barry and she was held for ten years.

So then it's Gina Dijesuss and she was held for nine years. And Michelle Knight and she was held for eleven years. All three of these women were acquaintances of Astro's children, and that's how he was able to kind of have their trust because they were friends with his daughter, you know, his daughter. So Michelle was just twenty one years old and she was lured into the house with the offer of a puppy for her young son.

Basically, she was like on her way to a custody hearing for her son.

There was problems in her own life.

She's kind of like the one that they thought was just to run away in the SVU episode, like there was less care for her. This woman got less pressed when she went missing. She had it rough.

She was abused in the home, but she was trying to get to court for a custody hearing for her son, and she missed it and it was just kind of this wild thing. And he saw her there and she was asking for directions outside of a family dollar. So we offered her a ride and she said yes.

Because she knew his daughter and she was like yeah, and he goes, you know, I have this puppy. Maybe her son would like a puppy. So she goes, yeah, I'll check out this puppy. So once inside the home, her with an extension cord dragged her to the basement. He forced a motorcycle helmet over her head and then raped her. Jesus and this motorcycle helmet is like kind of a running theme. It's he raped the women in this helmet often.

He also snapped the neck of the puppy he used to lure her in front of her.

Well, this man can't afford to feed a puppy, I'm sure no. It's like it's sadistic, that's the thing. It's like this loser and he's sadistic and this shit gets it's just very twisted. He also ripped up her only picture of her son, Joey and said you will never see him again. So it's just like obviously he's bad,

So oh, that's so heartbreaking. I need her to meet him.

Yeah, but the's on, you know, got adopted to a nice family. So eight months later, in April two thousand and three, he abducted Amanda Barry, and she was sixteen years old. She was last seen leaving her job at the local burger king on April twenty first, and she later in an interview for twenty twenty, said how she wanted to call off that day because her birthday was the next day, and so she constantly thinks like, what if I just didn't go to work that day? Why,

Like she was like, oh fuck, this is not going to be good.

And he took her to the basement, taped her wrists and ankles, put a belt around her ankles over the tape, put a helmet over her head, and said, don't make any noise and I'll take you you home.

But then he obviously did not do that. He changed her to a pole in.

The basement, shut the lights off, and left the TV on. One week after her abduction, he used her cell phone to call her family and taunt them. The FBI had just started to develop technology that could track a cell phone's location if it was turned on, and so they were able to narrow down the area to a thirty or forty block surface area or whatever perimeter.

But he never used the phone.

Again, and he couldn't get on and so they couldn't get info. So you know how like those old nineties thrillers we make fun of, like keep them on the line. Yeah, yeah, they just didn't have the technology. And he taunted them once and never turned it on again. And this is just kind of like, you know when men are like, but I have daughters, and it's like, yeah, that means nothing.

You could still be a terrible person.

And Ariel Castro is the example of that, like he not only had a daughter, but used having a daughter to lure women in that he then kept hostage. So just that's why it's so extra annoying when guys are like, but I have a wife and sisters.

It's like, none of that matters. Go fuck yourself. Yeah.

So Gina Dejeesus was fourteen at the time of the kidnapping, and he enticed her into his car in two thousand and four by asking her for help in finding his daughter, who was a friend of Gina's. He was like, hey, I can't find my daughter. She's been like run around. Can you help me find her? And she was like, of course, And this is a little aside, a little uplifting moment. But I pulled a prank like this because

She ran off, but she's waste, so you have to end.

They were like talking about trying to find me, and then I put my hand up in the side and like grabbed his face and I was like a ghost and scared him.

So that was just a fun prank and he was unfortunately this was not a prank.

No no, but I liked scaring my friend.

Okay.

So back to the House of Horrors. So he took her to the house and he asked for help with the stereo. He's like, hey, can you help me, like bring the stereo inside the house I bought for my daughter. Later in an interview, Gina said that she was unnerved by his bizarre behavior, like he was fixing his eyebrows and trimming his mustache, cutting nose hairs. So he started to touch her and she's like, what are you doing, bro? You can go to jail, Like you shouldn't be touching me.

I'm under age, but she's fourteen, yes, and so he goes, ugh, fine, party, pooper, I will take you home. But unfortunately we can't leave through the door we came in through, and so he led her to the basement and that's where he grabbed her and chained her up. So the chains weren't tight and she was able to throw them over and tried to run, but he sat on her back and she fought and fought but couldn't get away, and the radio was too loud for anybody to hear her.

And that was that.

And she said that he would take her hair and put it in his mouth and it was really gross.

Oh god. Yeah, so that's a detail.

I guess I didn't have to add, but we should know what these women went through. Yeah, so, since she was new, she did become his favorite. We saw that in the s few episode about favoritism. And so she seemed to have the nicer room and he was just kind of nicer to her, and that caused issues with the other girls and they would feel jealous because everyone

Oh my god, so truly.

Within He would go to the vigils on the anniversary of the women's disappearances.

And nobody was like, Hey, this dirty, nasty man who lives in a shock in the middle of his living room.

For heat could be the guy Wow. Yeah.

I mean the town of Cleveland and the neighbor like everyone is very disappointed in the police in this and there was just there was a giant, fifty four page investigation in to the Cleveland Police department because this was around the same time or close to with like Tamir Rice and there was another incident and the police there were fucking up a lot. But definitely the citizens of Cleveland thought that the police should have could have and like, what what do you mean you.

Couldn't find them?

They were within five miles of where they were taken, Like was there no CCTV footage outside of Burger Kings?

Like what the fuck happened? That there was no evidence or what to all three of the victims have in common.

They all know this daughter, Yeah, no Ariel Castro's daughter, Yeah, I don't think they And then you.

Know, especially with Michelle, like they were like whatever, she's a runaway, we don't care and we find Yeah, the police were terrible in it.

I did not read the full report, but there was like a full investigation done to the police departments. But yeah, so there was like a full investigation and report done on these failed police officers, which I'm sure all working and feel nothing.

So so yeah, he went to these vigils.

He brought home the missing posters and showed the women television coverage.

Of their grieving families.

So fucked up Night's case, like I said, got the least amount of attention. She was a strange for her family, and she really didn't get much screen time and searching. And this is kind of a theme that we've all kind of been thrust upon us in the past few months in the news of like who gets attention and who doesn't on cases.

Now.

In the home, he sealed all the windows with closet doors and heavy drapes. There was a system of alarms attached to the interior of the front door. He fed them a single meal a day and forced them to use plastic toilets in their room, and then to mark the passage of time, he would serve cake for each woman's abduction day, like it was their birthday.

Oh my god. Yeah.

He kept them in a state of powerlessness through prolonged physical, sexual, and psychological violence. He would sometimes pretend to leave the house and then sneak back in to make sure they were all still there, so they never knew when he was actually around or not to any of the people that ever say like why didn't you just leave? Just more examples of like how much these people went through. He said, if he ever caught them trying to leave or get out, he would obviously kill them.

And at first he kept.

The women like very divided and didn't perdmit them to talk. And for punishment he would confine them in the cold basement or the sweltering attic.

And then for rewards.

These are rewards they got was a trip to the toilet and an occasional shower.

Oh my god.

But every reward came with a price, so if you had, like if you got a shower, you had to shower with him. Barry said that she had to numb herself to cope with the sexual abuse, and that you just like put your mind somewhere else so that you're not there.

So that was just a comment.

Barry used a code to record how many times he raped her each day in her diary in hopes that one day it could be used as evidence and he could be in trouble.

For each count.

He used ninety two pounds of locks and chains to restrain the women as their years as prisoners. The women only left the house twice and it was only for brief visits to the adjacent garage. So the garage is as far as they went in their lives for a decade.

Give her take.

The women were changed in the basement, but then eventually we're freed from the chains and we're allowed to live upstairs on the second floor. This is so Amanda Barry would watch the Montell Williams show and there, do you remember the psychic Sylvia Brown?

Yeah, it sounds familiar.

So so she's watching Montel. She always thought about the psychic and hopefully whatever. One day, her mother was on the Montel Williams Show to ask about her daughter, and this fucking psychic told her that the.

Daughter was dead. Oh my god.

So she broke down crying and couldn't believe that the psychic did that. So she had to like watch her mom cry on Montelle thinking she was dead when she was fully alive watching this and chains.

That's terrible. It's like, that's the thing like very now.

Maybe I don't know what the statement is, but it just sucks when the real case is even more twisted than the SVU episode, because that's fiction. And there's writers and they're trying to be really you know, cinematic about it. And so then for these like little moments that are all so bizarre to happen, it's a lot and sad. Of course, her mother died before she was freed and was never able to see her daughter free. So yeah, her mom died of heart failure three years after Barry disappeared.

Now, he would impregnate Michelle Knight multiple times and then he would starve her and punch her in the stomach repeatedly until she miskidded. So I constantly would do that to her.

But Amanda Barry was able to keep her baby. She found out she was pregnant on her twentieth birthday, and so she had a baby. But he would beat the shit out of Michelle and force her to miscarry. So I don't know what, what the fuck Amanda said. She was very terrified, you know, like I barely eat, I'm chained to a wall, I use a bucket for a bathroom.

Like it's weird.

It's like Michelle Knight was not allowed like force miscarriage and this is forced birth, and it's like which one is worse. They're both like so bad And what's.

Wild is all the neighbors for were like he was a regular Joe, We chatted, we waved hello, like no one really got these vibes from him, even though I mean, yeah, no one got the vibes from him. Any Yeah, they put that.

In an episode too, because there's this guy that's kind of like, no, I never saw anything sketchy, like he seemed cool.

We said hey, like.

You know, yeah, and Michelle said that Ariel told her if the baby dies, I'll kill you. So Jocelyn was born on Christmas to thousand and six, so Gina said, having a child there was actually a great distraction for them and they all had something to do, so that was kind of nice. Castro instructed them to tell Jocelyn that all the chains were bracelets, and then by the time she was three, like all the chains kind of

Her, and nobody was like, oh, I never saw your daughter pregnant, Like what the fuck?

Like what the fuck? I just don't. This seems like such a.

Failure of like community of like people knowing what's up with other people.

But yeah, they said, she looked happy and healthy and enjoyed her time with granddaddy, and she had clean clothes and seemed normal and alert and talked. He was a different man around her, and they did really love each other. And that made Amanda nervous for sure, because she was really scared he would touch her. But yeah, so now we're going to get into the escape. So Jocelyn went downstairs and didn't see Ariel and was like, I don't find daddy. Daddy's nowhere. So Amanda knew that this was

Door area, with this young child, and they're screaming, I need help, I need help. I've been kidnapped for ten years. So this hero is his name is Charles Ramsey, and he got her out and his news interview went viral.

It has close to ten million views on YouTube. And I think, like, what's that TV show Jimmy Schmidt. Yeah, The unbreakle YEA.

So there's like in the credits there's a guy being like load as hell or whatever, Like I think.

It's Mike britt is the guy who does it on the show, and he's basically playing this man.

Yes, so this is really a charismatic man. And in the interview he says he couldn't believe it. He saw Ariel every single day, he ate ribs with him, played in the backyard with the dogs. If you are interested, there's a video from twenty nineteen of Charles Ramsey and Amanda Berry being reunited if you want to watch that. And in the interview, he had a lot of great moments. He said, I knew something was really wrong because a pretty white woman was running into a strange black man's arms.

He said, something is wrong here dead giveaway, and the.

Reporter is like trying not to laugh, but it's true, Like this white woman is running into this man's arms. I love and he was He's like, yeah, I was just eating McDonald's and I heard those girls screaming.

So the two neighbors heard that.

They freed her by kicking in the chained front door and helped her make the nine one one call. The dispatcher said that the woman who called said, I'm Amanda Barry and I have been kidnapped for ten years.

Angel Cardero was.

One of the other men that helped Barry escape, and he said that her clothes were dirty, her teeth yellowed, her hair's super messy.

And the kid looked really nervous.

Barry said that even with the cops all around and so many people, she was still terrified he would hurt her and still doesn't know why he left that day with the door unlocked, But he did leave, and he left the door unlocked, and he went to go have a meal with his family.

So I don't know if he was testing them or was a mistake, or if he was drunk or he I don't know what it was.

And I wonder, like his family never came over for ten years, like no one ever came into the house for ten years, and like saw these I don't know, It's like so nuts.

Gina said.

It took her a while to get out because you didn't even believe the police were really there. She legit was thinking maybe it's people in costumes. This is what that damage can do to a person. Gina said when she told the cops her name, that their face completely dropped, like they saw a ghost. And like I said, Cleveland's pissed that the detectives didn't do enough work there. So he was charged initially with four counts of kidnapping and three counts.

Of rape, and bail was set at eight million dollars.

There were two other men arrested in connection to the case that were his brothers, Pedro and O'Neil, but nothing really came about with them. Thursday, August first, three months after her rescue, Michelle Night goes to confront her abductor in court, and she was the only one of the victims who made a statement. The other two victims had representatives from their family who read statements on their behalf.

So they just needed some privacy.

Beth said, Listen, Amanda could not control a lot of things for a long time.

Please let her control this. I'm sure that no one left her alone. But it's wow, a very succinct, well said sentence.

Beth maybe was an English major. Michelle said that the days never got shorter. Days turned into nights, nights turned into days, that years turned into eternity, and she got some shade into She said, you took eleven years of my life away. I spent eleven years in hell. Now your hell.

Is just beginning. She spoke about horror.

Bond's with the other women was the only thing that gave her a sliver of hope. Castro had a statement to The New York Times said that they called his statement mostly rambling. He denied that he was violent or he had ever raped or beaten Michelle or the other women. He legit said, people are trying to portray me as a monster, and I'm not a monster. I'm just sick.

None of these burns are actually that good. But I guess for the court of law, it's exciting.

He was sent to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and then plus one thousand years. He pled guilty to nine hundred and thirty seven charges.

At least he pled guilty so that the girls didn't have to go to court, you know.

I mean, he wasn't really thinking about them.

But yeah, well no, I'm not saying he did a service.

I'm just saying I'm glad it happened that way.

Absolutely, And the punishment was the result of a plea deal. So Castro and the prosecutors made a deal that would allow him to avoid.

A possible death sentence if he pled guilty.

He also had no expression on his face when the sentence was read to him by Judge Michael J.

Brusso.

The Cleveland house where all of this went down was demolished August seventh, twenty thirteen as part of the plea agreement. They didn't want it to become a tourist attraction. And while they were tearing it down, there were cheers from a group of people. Michelle Knight was there.

She released a bunch of yellow balloons to remember all the kidnapping victims that have yet to be rescued. And it is now a garden.

So Chris Mahandi, I don't know, but he's a forensic psychologist, not associated with this case, but he's a consultant and other long term kidnapping cases, and he said these are some of the most catastrophic kinds of experiences a human can be subjected to.

He said.

Purpose of these types of crimes are men who have long standing fantasies of capturing, controlling, abusing, and dominating women. They use a perverse system of rewards and punishments to create fear and submission in their victims, who then lose all sense of self and become dependent on their captor. So it's the total control over a human being is what stimulates them.

I know sometimes we try to figure these.

People out, and I just thought this forensic psychologist did a good job.

Yeah yeah, okay, So back to arie'all so annoying. He hung himself in prison and died, And I feel like I remember the collective conscious when this happened in the world, and.

We were pissed, like it was so ugh. I think we all wanted him to rot in jail forever.

I think everyone was really excited for him to have to be captive and not have any control over his life.

How do you remember how much longer it was? After?

Not long at all. It was not even a month. Oh, Like, he got caught in May and he was dead in September. Oh my god, Like he was sentenced and August dead in September it's like really fucked up.

Oh yeah, it's really disappointing. Why did he have bed sheets? He should have it? Sayesn't make it, doesn't make it. That's such a fuck up.

Oh you don't think you think there wasn't a fuck up and cover ups and fake documents with the police, Yeah there are, don't worry.

Oh my god.

There's also like some weird shit with the death, So like, okay, some people say it was exphyxiation during a sex act because his pants were below his ankles and he didn't have underwear on. But he was found with the Bible open to John chapter two and three. He had a picture of his family out and like arranged in a poster board fashion. But yeah, his pants and down to his ankles. But some said he had a lot of trouble keeping pants on with all the weight he lost in prison.

But how much weight can you lose in a month, you know?

And then some people say he didn't wear underwear, so it's kind of strange. There was a handwritten notes with religious things written on them. Some said love my kids and grandkids, and some hearts flowers, musical notes, so it seems suicide. But the pants around the ankles did throw people a loop Either way, I think everyone was very disappointed that he did not die in captivity. He was

He was found dead at eight forty five.

They were supposed to go by his sal at least once every thirty minutes on an irregular schedule.

They did not. The officers were placed on leave lol.

I don't know if anyone got fired or if anything ever happened to them, but they no one cared. As of January twenty twenty, some updates are that Gina and Amanda graduated from high school. Gina had a Cansiniera that she'd never had. Gina is super excited at her driver's license, and then Barry and so Amanda and Gina. They wrote a memoir together. I don't think they get along with Michelle.

Oh okay, so their friends and then Michelle's not their friend.

I didn't want to get too deep into it. They're allowed to continue being connected or not connected to whoever they want. Yeah, and Michelle has changed her name, so I will go into all of that, Okay. So yeah, Amanda Gina did write a memoir together. And then Amanda Barry. She works with a local news station. She covers missing children in the Cleveland area. And we know that Jocelyn is thriving. She is very special and why is beyond

Wow.

Yeah, And she said at first she was like super scared to leave the house or do anything, and now she really just feels lucky to be able to give people hope that their loved ones could be alive. Still, Gina became an ambassador for Northeast Ohio Amber Alert. In twenty eighteen, Gina founded the Cleveland Family Center for missing children and adults, to work with families to help them navigate the media and go to the police station and

People with this sort of trauma.

And she is an international and New York Times best selling author. Her memoir is called Finding Me, A Decade of Darkness, A Life Reclaimed, and then a follow up called Life After Darkness, Finding Healing and Happiness. She's married to who she calls the love of her life. And

And this has nothing to do with the case, but just you know, very final destination. But Gina was carjacked at gunpoint May twenty twenty one, so of this year, she was carjacked at gunpoint. A very Olivia Benson like, give this girl a break, leave her alone.

She needs no more stuff. But she just gave them the keys without a fine and they drove off. And it's kind of once you go through what you go through, I'm sure it's like, take my shit, nothing matters, I know all about life. Also, while researching, there was a photo of this is just to end on like a more fun No, obviously we have a great interview, but and this this is a very heavy case. So this is just a little tidbit that I thought would be

Everyone's allowed to go through what they go through.

But the cover was three Ohio Women Free after ten years an amazing escape, and it's it's about to be this giant People. And then on top the second the second headline is Bethany's Brutal Divorce.

Bethany Frankel.

Yeah, and so I was just thinking about her being like the richest homeless woman in New York and like how dramat she has about our problems and that it's like, I mean, I'm sure the divorce sucked, but just well in saying that that divorce kind of just ended and these women were found eight years ago. Yeah, like that's how long that dragged on in the National Nightmare. But wow, Liza, a lot of great info there. Thank you for walking us through that horror. I mean that just was like

Well, yeah, it's like it also fucks with I mentioned this but your idea of what evil is and what evil looks like, and who these people are that come at these crimes and just the evil that lurks underneath. I mean, because the sinister like actions never ended. It was like ripping of the photos, making them watch their families ry on TV.

Like it's more than just chains and rape. It's like it never ends. Like his is desire for sadasa set what is it?

Sato makasichism, Yeah, statistic saticism, sadism.

Ye satism, Like.

Yeah, it's like it obviously doesn't make it better or worse, but sometimes it's like when you at least hear oh they were like a psychotic religious fanatic and they thought they were starting a call to followers or they were this, or they thought this or they thought that. Like it almost makes you be like, okay, I kind of see. This guy just was like I'm sick, and it's like no, you're not even like there's nothing even diagnosable about you.

Essentially hated women.

Yeah, So to it's like who's worst him or Cameron Hooker?

You know, well, I would say at least Cameron, at least at least Aeroel Castro let them like be together, talk to each other, come upstairs and watch Montel Williams. Like Cameron Hooker left a girl under a bed for seven years. I mean that it's like, you know, yeah, but same kind of situation with breaking them down. I mean, Cameron Hooker brought Colleen stand home to her family and she still went back to him. So it's like the bounds of Stockholm syndrome. Are you know these guys understand

It's so gross.

Yeah, no, And it is weird to think about Kimmy Schmidt at all as a show, Like it is weird to make a com is really weird. I don't get how it passed so many hands in how I watched a season of it, Like, I don't get it.

Yeah, it's like they tried to make it really because I think they tried to make it really obviously.

PG.

It's like he just kidnapped them and left them, kept them in a bunker and told him the world was going to end. But there's never sexual abuse, Like there's never, And there are some episodes where Kimmy has to kind of confront what happened to her, but like it's still joky.

It's like very thirty Row, you know, it's.

Like Tina Fey, but it is really straight that I see that that's how it was inspired by that, but that they let it be so to the letter, like to the point that there was a Mike Britt character that's like that. I forget how the song goes. God, I used to have that song stuck in my head all the time. How does a song go to Kimi Schmid?

I just remember he had like one moment.

Where he would say, it's very reminiscent of Hyde, your wives, hide your hide your kids, Hyde your wives.

But it's not that anyway. Yeah, I don't. It's just not funny.

And it's really hard to think about other's people right now.

Kidnapped, yeah, being held. Yeah, if you see something, say something. If you see a fucking hand reaching out of a storm door yelling help me, maybe call someone. But we'll get into that when we get into our post mortem. Let's get to our interview. We've got a really great one.

All right, guys, today's guest.

You may have seen most recently in the HBO series I Know This Much is.

True, alongside Mark Ruffalo. Excuse me.

You might recognize her from another SBU episode, a classic called Totem season twelve, but today you guys know her as Sissy or Kayla Grayland. Please check out our chat with the actress Agatha Nowiki all right, Hi Agatha, Right, I'm Kara.

This is Lisa.

Hi Kara. I'm Lisa.

Thank you so much for talking to us. Where are you.

I'm in a fire Island. I'm in New or City. I'm on Fire Island.

Oh my god.

I'm obsessed and I've never been I'm obsessed. I've always wanted to go there. I just watch all of my gay guy friends go there my whole life, and I've just always wanted to go.

How fun.

Yeah, it's so beautiful. Y Now, there's like no one here because it's like after seasons.

Yeah, that's so cool. Are you doing pure vacation?

No, I'm actually doing, like it's really crazy what I'm doing. I'm doing what they call a dream lab.

So there's people here that are working on a script and they're trying to like develop the themes and the characters and the producers hired a bunch of actors to do like dreams on behalf of the characters, to infuse the material with like a higher level of consciousness and illuminate like greater themes in the script.

So what is that? What do you mean dreams?

What do you mean?

Like I go to go to sleep at night and I'm given an assignment like have a dream that reveals Chloe's struggle or something. So then I like get up and I act out a dream and it's like a really weird dream, like me driving around in a Volvo chain smoking around like NYU or something. But somehow, through the process of like improvising that dream, it reveals a theme in that like a deeper theme in that character.

And then the writers and producers are.

Like, Oh, that's what that character is struggling with, and they add.

That to the script.

So you're almost collaborating on like the full play of the script.

Yes, yeah, they're using the actors and they're subconscious to improve the writing.

But so wait, you have to dream this yourself. What if you go to step and don't have a dream, No, you're acting out the dream.

Yeah, you're having the dream. So they give us a few nights.

So we're here for like seven days, so we have a lot of time to catch a dream as they call it.

Wow, oh dream lab. Damn.

Well, thanks for talking to us today. We love both of your episodes of SVU that you've been on. We watched both of them recently.

Of course, which one are we talking about.

Well today we're talking about in Prison Lives, but we would also love to talk about Totem as well.

Okay, but both emotional parts.

You really know how to cry and get the feels going on screen.

Thank you.

I'm glad I'm an actor because it gives me a purpose, a place to go with all my big feelings.

So it's not hard for you to cry.

Yeah, I think it is hard. I think it is hard.

I can't think of it in terms of crying, otherwise I can't cry.

There's funny enough.

There's like a moment in this episode actually where I was on set and the director was like, okay, now, like because I killed my audition, Like I just cried a lot at the audition.

It just like happened in the room.

Because it's like, can never be the intention to cry, because then you're not thinking about the thing that would make you cry. You're thinking about how do I cry? Right, So it doesn't work like that. But so when I got to said we're shooting the first take, the director was like, Okay, now give us all that big emotion that you gave us in the room, and I was like, you might as well just have like shot.

Me and yees.

Now the pressure's on and the intention is about that. But it's okay, we got through it. We got through the episode.

Oh wow, So tell me about the process of Like, so when you went in, you like you auditioned for Totem?

Probably right, yes, So my audition story for Totem is really spectacular actually because I was in LA and I had no representation, and I had been doing theater in LA and I really wanted to work in television and I had worked like I had booked like one little Criminal Minds episode before something, and my manager.

At the time, Robin Ziegler, she was like, so I.

Did the craziest thing, but I submitted you for this guest star on Law and Order. And she's like, I know you're not here, but like if I get you the audition, like can.

You get here?

Like I don't know what to do it's like tomorrow, and I was like, what, she's like tomorrow.

So I was like so broke.

At this time, I called my dad and I was like, I'm going to just go, dude, because like, I've never had an audition this big, Like I've never had a guest star audition.

I've only done like a co star before I called my dad.

I was like, Dad, can I borrow like seven hundred dollars because it's that's how much the Red Eye costs for tomorrow because it's like last minute to New York City. And he gives it to me, and I go and I fly Red Eye and I wake up in the morning and I stop at my friend Chet's house.

At the time, I was like, can I crash your pa for this audition? He's like sure.

I walk up the Hudson River and like memorizing the lines for the totem audition, and I walk into the room and I get a call. I ended up getting a callback, so I was then I have to like push my flight and then I'm in New York City and then I end up getting that job, and then I actually ended up moving to New York City.

Oh my god.

Wow, So it was like the biggest risk and it worked.

What a dream?

That is fantastical? And then have you been in New York this whole time? Or are you back and forth?

I've always been kind of back and forth.

I think I did like a good five solid years of like not going back and forth. But since then my work has kind of like moved me depending on what I'm doing, back and forth between LA and New York.

Wow. And then so for In Prison Lives, did you have to audition again or do they just like bring you back or what was the deal with that one?

In Prison Lives, Jonathan Strauss, the casting director, just called Robin and was like, I think Agatha would be really good for this. So obviously, because you look at the two episodes, you're like, how do we get an emotionally stunted person. It's like not totally there, but like can actually figure out how to play this role.

And so because there.

Are parallels obviously between those two characters. And then so I went in and yeah, I think I maybe went to just producers for that. I just went in and when Michael Slovis, the director was there, and it was

Then I was just like, it just took over.

I might get that tattooed on my body. I like love that.

I know. It's so powerful, I.

Know, amazing.

This role in Prison Lives is so I was just looking it up. I was looking up when Room came out, because this is very similar to the movie Room, but like you kind of you this role predates that, so you didn't even have you know, not that you not that you copy other actors' roles, but you know, that was like a huge role for Yes, I think she won an Oscar for it, you know, like so I know, you know, but you were the first she got her oscar.

I was like, okay, but did you guys see my episode of Law and Order before this?

Just kidding, No, it's awesome.

And what's extra cool is you got to be there for the Neil Bear years and then the war in light years like early season, late season, and so we're curious, was it different vibes? How have things changed from you know, your first her second episode.

Yeah, both of my experiences were really beautiful. I owe a lot of that, I think definitely to Marishika. She creates an environment on set that is I don't know, precious, She's the Mama bear, it's her set. She is aware of everything that's going on. She's the ultimate boss, like ultimate in charge of everything, but vulnerable at the drop of a hat, you know, And is that the saying

I have to take the guard down, right.

So you need someone to be your guard and to be your advocate in order for you to be kind of focused on what you're supposed to be focused on. And I remember we were shooting one of the scenes in Murushka kind of like she put her hands on my shoulders and it was just like I knew she was holding space for me in the set and everyone was so loud, and then eventually she was just like you guys, silence.

It was just suck.

It was like it was like those kind of moments. It's like where she made me coming onto her set the priority that day, you know, and then there's an energy. So then you're just in that energy, that wonderful like law and order suspense energy of like there is a magic it's like what is going to happen, you know, and then it happened. So I was really great for that to that. And then Warren Light was tremendous. I mean tremendous because he comes from a theater background.

So I had been in Hollywood.

I had been doing the whole thing where I kept feeling like I didn't know how to have an artistic experience in that town. Not that there's not tons of artists in that town, but I it's such an industry town and there's such a sense of like a revolving door next whoever, and polished performances and there's just it's it's.

Hard, you know. And from the beginning, like when I walked into Jonathan's room, the casting director Jonathan Strauss, he was just like, I mean, he was like on the floor with me doing the scene.

I had never felt so like, wow, this is the point. We came into this room to find the truth of this character, and like you're in from from the beginning and you're holding space to that.

And then Warren Late in the same way.

I mean, he was just I don't know, just super fan and super warm. And even after the show he wrote me like recommendation letters for people and was like, Agatha was one of my favorite guest stors on the show, and like wow, walked around town with that letter and I got meetings and people paid attention.

And Marishka did the same thing. I mean, everybody on that set.

Kind of rallied for me afterwards to find representation to take meetings. Yeah, it's amazing.

That's so cool.

Wow, we love to hear this. I'm getting chills.

That's so oh.

Yeah.

She invited me like a Hollywood party, like in La Like I came back a holiday party. It was like a big grand gala benefit or something, just so I could come and like sit and next to Hillary Swank and all of her friends and she was just like, this is Agatha.

She was on Law and Order. She's amazing, like so freaking generous, like so generous.

It's like really wild because we've talked to a lot of actors from the show and everybody's like, oh, she the set's amazing, she's number one on the call sheet.

She sets the tone. She's so great.

And then like everybody we talked to has one more story that like notches it up. How amazing she is like to invite you to like a party like that and to try to get you representation.

It's like out of this it's it's it's unbelievable.

Yeah, it's not heard of.

Wow, that was so I really love everything you said.

You also with this episode, not only with Marishka, but you got to work with like that episode is jam packed with so much of the cast. There's Amorrow, Rollins, Finn Munch, Kraigan, Barbara Cassidy. Like to have a overlap of all of those characters is really rare. And then you also got to work with Maloney in the past. Do you have any stories or moments with any of those people you'd like to share.

I just am obsessed with Christopher Maloney, Like I was a Milan Arder fan and when I saw him on set, he's magical. He's like this honky alpha male in every kind of way, but like just a clown dork, you know.

What I mean.

And so it's like he was just making everybody laugh in between takes, and their chemistry is like so fun. I mean, it's like being in high school and being like the bad kids that are always like laughing in class, like when they shouldn't be or something like just a wonderful juxtaposition to the insanity. But I have to say that in the Totem episode, and this is what I get credit for most people mentioned to me from the show is like the confession scene.

I don't know if you remember, but it's like really dark. Yeah, we were.

In the room together, and Jeremy Irons was also guest starring on this episode, yeah, being most pedophile psychologists, which is also so crazy because my mother grew up like a hardcore Jeremy Irons fan. So it was like some cosmic manifestation where like the first rule I booked was like her fuck her crash from whatever. You know. Actually, Jeremy Irons called my mom from set that day to tell her, tell her like what a good job I did, Like it was just incredible.

Oh my god, your mom must have been freaking out.

She still has like the picture of me and like my creepy sweater and like looking all law and ordery with Jeremy irons, and she has it like on her office wall, like in front of the computer. It's like her proudest moment of me. So that scene in particular, it was also one of those things like I don't want to sound whatever it is, it is what it is.

And it felt like that, Like.

Mushka and Jeremy were watching from the window, you know, and this is like a big deal in my mind. I'd never been on a set like this, so it's like, Okay, this is your big scene, you know. And like Chris Maloney's like sitting across from me, and Mushka and Jeremy are watching from the glass because it's the interview booth room or whatever. And I just remember looking at Chris and the compassion in his eyes and the empathy he

Wow, you're maybe one of the most prepared actors that we've talked to.

Really, Wow, that's cool, and.

The most in tune with a lot of stuff. I'm like, very in awe, I'm very into this convo. So when you would be in this method space, getting into these people or like these feelings, did it how.

Do you shut it off? Or are you just kind of like I'm going to be sad for a few weeks.

So the Law and Order episodes really drained me.

I'll tell you, Like, I left those both of those sets with like a migraine and dehydrated because I and not because of anything anyone did on set to me, just because of what I did to myself on set. And I'm not advocating this for actors. I just because I cared so much to do a good job, and because I hadn't had that much experience yet on set, I really felt like I had.

To cocoon myself in it. And I know people, eventually.

You get better, and I have gotten better as I've gotten older, of like just tapping it, knowing when you're going to tap in, and to like manage the timing of that so you're not just like I'm going to sit in a suffering pile of.

Hell for two weeks, you know, Like I don't.

I don't really work that way anymore, I think, But for those episodes I did, I did. I dropped in and I hung out in there until I was kind of done.

So you're not going back to the hotel and like eating pizza and watching a show, you kind of stay and say yeah.

And I was like very besides, like with Marishka and in between my scenes on set, very much in my trailer,

So I knew there was like a developmental.

Thing, and I had an acting class, like forever Ago worked on. This sounds crazy, but this is how it works. I had worked on a sea lion external. So you take the externals of an animal, which are like you know, rocking back and forth and begging for fish, and if you like, keep making that smaller movement smaller and smaller and living in that energy, you just have the vibe of like begging and not being totally there in like a one track mind. So I did that. That's like

And did you pick a sea lion or is that a common thing? Do you do other animals? Sometimes I do other I've done other animals.

Yeah, but I have that one like in my bag of tricks from like some workshop I had done and when I had translated it in a class, because you take it from the animal form into the human form slowly so that you don't lose the rhythms of the animal, and then you see the effects. And so the feedback I got from everybody when I was doing that was that looks like a stunted person, and that looks like a person with a developmental disorder, looks like a person that's unsure of themselves.

In their body. So it was kind of like I have certain certain animals.

I know kind of what energy they stimulate in me and what it kind of like looks like from the outside, you know. So it was like a collision of perfect moments, Like I read that script and I was like, oh, I need something developmentally stunted and I was like, I have it, and I just like it was like what they say about actors, like preparation meeting opportunity.

Like that's what that moment was, you.

Know, wow, because I don't even think Seline, but that's like, but they are totally shape.

I mean, I just I see. It's kind of like a like revealing a magic trick in a way where I'm like, oh my god, Okay, I see it.

Yeah, now go back and watch it and look for the ceiling.

Yeah, yeah, I get the My new spiritual healer I did was the all Along.

Isn't that from that show? It was Agatha all Along? Yeah, from I don't know what you're talking about. Okay, you know what I'm talking about. It's from what's that show that was just huge during pandemic. I keep wanting to say wonder Woman, and it's it's fucking oh WandaVision, WandaVision anyway.

Catherine Hahn is Agatha anyway?

Agatha Nowiki was so cool and she told us also that she was a writer's room in this new HBO show called Gorilla and the Bird, which is from Jean Mark Ballet, the guy who did Big Little Lies.

Hello.

So keep an eye out for that when it comes out. I mean, this episode, this case so fucking difficult. I don't know what the post mortem is like, never walk anywhere by yourself, women constantly carry a knife on you and a gun.

I don't know.

It's like, yeah, because we researched lots of different things, and I think I've realized the cases that fuck me up the hardest are the like contained multi year torture, not being able to leave situations.

I don't think I'm unique.

I'm sure some people can relate, but I think these are the worst for me to think about.

Yeah, yeah, and like just being Yeah, it's really tough.

But I hope these women are continuing to heal and thrive and have positive lives and good things happen to them.

Yeah, for sure. And I feel like we learned a lot from Agatha. She had a lot of amazing insights and.

Be a seal baby, go back to That's what I'm thinking, acting like, go to your most animalistic, pure human emo, like not human emotion, animal emotion, animal instinct.

Yeah, like narrow. I don't know, it's it was very interesting.

But also about this that criminals are not smart, they're disgusting. Cops are not smart, they're bad at their jobs, and everyone's a nightmare.

So keep that in your pocket. Yeah.

Ooh, and I love that guy who said I knew something was wrong when a white lady came running into my arms.

Yeah, I love a hero. Yeah.

I am horrified by this case and as a nation, and it sucks that he was able to not We all wanted him to live the constricted life that he put onto others, a real eye for an eye situation, and it's like it's a collective weird thing that he was able to end it.

Yeah.

I did forget. We forgot to talk about this last week. You know, I was catching up on the SVUS. But Johnny Pemperton, our friend who does comedy, really killed it.

Oh yes, if you caught the episode that was about an ice cream truck driver who was assaulting women while their children watched Nightmare of nightmares. The rapist was our friend Johnny, and he.

Is not a rapist in real life.

Such a good guy and did a great job and had to wear amazing prosthetic makeup to make his face look like he got beat up in jail, and it was tough to see your pal.

He also got to get tackled by all the detectives.

I mean, I was like, you had a role of a lifetime.

Yeah, yeah, so check out Johnny in that episode. But we'll try to have him on the pod. Meanwhile, meanwhile, so are There's so many pauses.

I do feel this case weighs heavy on my heart and mind, Like I get into a spiral where I just like imagine being tricked by my friend's dad and then all of a sudden, now I'm being raped for a decade, covered in chains in a room.

Yeah.

But also it's just crazy that the cops couldn't put it together that this that this man was a through line between all of them, that his daughter knew all of them, and like, I don't know, I just want the cops to do better with finding these kinds of things because it's so horrific, and you know, a lot

Yeah.

Anyway, this week for our what was Sister peg Do segment, which, as you know, is our segment where we highlight an organization or an article or a book or something they can give you more information about what we talked about.

No?

Okay, so listen.

Next week's episode is Witness, another classic you might know what is the episode with Nardalie Season eleven, episode sixteen.

Join us on this journey on.

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