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.
Done Happy twenty twenty three. Everybody, It's That's Messed Up an SVU podcast And I'm Kara Klank and I'm Liza Traeger.
Hello. This is a podcast where we talk about SVU, the true crimes that are based on We have celebrity guests and up top we chit chat a little bit. We catch up, even though truly we've been spending eight hundred hours together constantly because we're in the time machine. I think, well, by the time this episode comes out, we will have missed each other because I have been out of town for a couple of weeks. You know, you're doing stuff, but.
At this point we're really These are kind of super time machine episodes.
Just because of the holidays.
You know, we got to let all of our babies at exactly right take a little break ski and we need a break. So you know, it's before holidays for us right now, but it'll be post holidays. It'll be the brand new year when this comes out. Actually this comes out of my sister's birthday. She does not listen to the podcast, but happy birthday, Sis, and I'm sis.
Yeah, maybe some of you are thinking about your New Year's resolutions. Probably not. That's like so well, no, we're just trying to survive at this point. I don't know, Like what am I going to say? Am I going to really say the same thing again over for the tenth year in a row, Like it's done. I'm not going to clean my room. I like I have been nicer to my parents that I remember. That was one off for a few years ago. Yeah, that I had to stop yelling at my parents all the time. Yeah.
I don't really have any resolutions.
I would like to start to try to work out a little bit, but I don't know if I have it in me.
Purnologists, rip me a new one. She goes, you better be out there, you need to walk, You need to get your life together, as she was pissed at me. My Undokrenologists rip me a new one? Is that merch? It was just like, yeah, I would like to get my life sorted. It's just like what am I going to chew on a broccoli stock? I don't know. I mean, I've done it before, I'll do it again. Who cares?
Well, one of your resolutions if you're listening, should be to see us live. I'm just gonna do my quick business update. Here we are it is. It is early January. We will be in Indianapolis on January twelfth, and then we will be in Philadelphia on the nineteenth. New York is sold out on the twentieth, but who knows, maybe you can find some tickets somewhere. And then the twenty
first two shows in Boston. There are still tickets available for the four pm show in Boston, and then Hartford, my old college stomping grounds.
I'll be there on the twenty second.
So that is going to conclude our fall winter tour of twenty twenty two to twenty three. So these are your last chances to see us until we two we go to Vancouver, Vancouver for Just for Labs. If you live in Western Canada or anywhere near Vancouver, we will be there for a great festival. You should really make a weekend of it. Go see some comedy. We'll be doing stand up as well at that and get yourself some of our merch if you'd like, speaking of is
that merch? We've got this beanie that is so funny because it says is that merch on it? And also that's messed up? And then it's a great sweatshirt. Lisa's modeling it right now. We will be posting photos of ourselves wearing the merch. We just got our own pieces. There's also a fanny pack that's super cute.
Yeah, we haven't gotten that yet. But I'm wearing the sweatshirt now two days in a row, and I'm really happy to be wearing it.
It's very soft. It's very soft. It's totally soft.
Also, I want to do a quick shout out to our Sacramento crowd. Thank you for bringing us chocolate covered gummy bears. Oh my god, such a lit crowd. That meant the world to us. I even ate the cinnamon bears, the white chocolate bears. I love it that you guys are so thoughtful with your gifts. We you know it, really it's nice, you guys. Listen.
I mean, somebody knitted me a hat that I've been wearing. The little hat. Somebody acknowledged us in the in the forward of their book. The book is called Drew Leclair gets a clue, and I think it's like a it's like a mystery book for like, I think it's like a teen situation. Like it's like, you know, it's it's it's more than two hundred pages. So it's not for like a little kid. It's for you know, a kid that wants to bust through a mystery.
Yeah, it's just really it's sometimes it's hard to be in the time machine. Even though we all everyone deserves a little holiday break and I hope you all get one as well. But not only is care of ruining my life by not being caught up to White Lotus. We now have to wait weeks like you guys won't hear us recap White Lotus for like another Oh mon.
You know we have to talk about we have to talk about the final episode of Rawlins. I mean we haven't talked about that yet. Oh my god, yeah we okay, so sorry, this happened a month ago, but we're in the time machine.
This is my thing. I thought the Little Caper crime is so silly. I was just like, they're investigating in a town they have no jurisdiction on there, with no backup.
In their own little crime silly, like a spoiler alerts, I guess if you don't want to get spoiled on this weird episode. But like Live and Rowin spend hours getting a man drunk to bring him back to the hotel and then just arrest him, like I don't understand, Like.
It's like their last hurrah, but Robins hasn't even confessed to Benson that she's leaving, and it it is just so.
But I loved their time together, so it really is, But I like it. They were looking for an excuse to get those two in a motel together drinking boxed wine. Then they did it, but the caper with the hidden cameras seemed so far fetched and crazy. I also was like not crazy about this Noah's half brother story, but you know that I don't care about Noah storylines, Like I can't believe this is the first time this is like coming up, Like wouldn't there be records that he
has family nearby like before his adoption. I don't know, it's really and the family being so picture perfect was like annoying me.
Well, I was just scared that the brother was gonna molest him, Like I'm just glad everything's you know, hunky Dory, Like, yeah, I was just on the edge of my steeving, like is someone gonna touch Noah, I cannot handle this, and so I'm glad he just got like a PlayStation and a nice dinner and they're sweet and this might be live.
You know.
I liked tear up thinking about it, but I loved Rollins getting drunk. Also, could she have not afforded one Hilton? There's not one days in she had to be in this motel.
It felt like they were at a very like like a psych area, and she wanted to like be closer to the where the family was. I don't know that, And like we haven't seen like Olivia Benson walking out.
Of a shower and a towel before.
Like that was a lot of skin for old Rishka And then all they say old, Oh, I don't mean old like that.
I know, I know, I mean, oh Ellie old, our old buddy.
Yeah, but like yeah, I was just surprised, Like even young her, we never saw her like getting out and like I just kind of loved that. Now she's like in her fifties and she's like, fuck it, put me in a towel and I'm wet, let's do it like well.
I also loved that she was down for her nudes to be released. She was like, you know what, we have victims to reveal a lot, Like I don't care, you can send my news. I bet she knew she looked good. Yeah, no, I love them getting drunk. I you know, I'm glad this all happened because if she had stayed in the house with Noah, there couldn't have been this drunk thing. But like, I think in reality, she would have stayed in the guest room. Like I really don't think she would have left.
She would not have left her kids with a family that she just met, Like you don't know what the dad's deal is, Like you don't know anything, Like I don't think she knowing everything she knows, especially with the grand people.
But yeah, but we all thought Brooke Shields was good.
Yeah, but that took a long time for her to let brook Shields in. I know, it wasn't first night go have a fucking sleepover with Grandma Sheila.
No. So I don't know.
I think it's because Noah's always just like putting her on the spot and is like, I don't know, you know, I'm not a fan, but anyway.
But I just hope it's good. I just hope that she's able to like I mean, it's stung when Noah goes, this is the closest I have to family, or like this is a real this is my real family. She said something like that, and it's like, yeah, you self centered little bitch, like your mom is your fucking family. No, I just want her to have this family and integrate it with her work family and meet someone like I want.
You know what we're talking. This episode was wild too. I feel like we hadn't heard so much confess confession about how she We've never really heard her say. For all you'll say about the long looks off into the distance and whatever that we've seen, we've never really heard her come out and say that she's interested in him that way.
No, And what I wanted to like, I just the postponing joy like tell you know, I'm guilty of it where you give people great advice and you never follow it. And I just felt in that moment, I just love Rollin's being like you do the same girl, Like, yeah, stop waiting for something to enjoy your life. Yeah, it's like shit, Ter get off the pot.
Like it's like get together with him or fucking get on e harmony or something. But let's do something else, you know, I know, Benson on Riya, Benson on Riya.
Do you think they let an SVU detectives on Riya? Oh?
My god, A captain. I bet a captain, I bet a captain.
I'm sorry that was insulting. I didn't mean to insult our queen. But anyway, Also, I do want to mention the wedding. I love that it was pre credits like that really made me happy, because we anticipating something you know is gonna happen is annoying. So I love that it was just like a great surprise right away, you know, with the people who really love them and know them so deeply.
And I'm like really not horny for Careesi at all, but I did think that was such a we mourning with like them in the bed and then like they're girls coming in.
It's like they're a cute family. You know. What's another thing I didn't even think of. It's like Rollins does have to get off the force. If Rollins dies, what happens to her?
Girls cares better adopt their asses because what happens to them, they have different fathers.
We don't know what their relationships is with their fathers.
What are they gonna go to her crazy ass mom down in Georgia or to Kim Rollins, you know what I mean? Like, she's got to figure out a plan for those girls.
Honey, she Yeah, she's gonna have more time. What are a professor? What teaches two times a week? Like she'll have times if Carisy would have adopted these girls four years ago before they were born. Yes, but I'm just saying.
I see why she doesn't want to put herself in harms way all the time. She doesn't exactly have a plan set up for these gals if something happens to her.
Yeah, and she deserves to chill out. I mean, so does Benson with all the trauma they have. But I loved that and I'm sorry, And this always happens to the new people. So it's like, but I'm not these You're not feeling muncy. No, it's like cartoonish and not grounded. Her performance is not grounded to me, And maybe I'm acting like two cocks. Well I got booked in one show and now I'm gonna judge. Everyone's acting, but like I I don't like her little lie. I just don't.
I'm not buying it. And it's like, you know, this case is important, we have to put Elias in jail, and you flip out on the stands.
We don't need another best stable. If anything, what's the coaching for. What's all the coaching for? If you just literally it took barely anything to get you, like, she.
Just doesn't astran And it's like, now we're gonna have to watch these two knuckleheads.
Flirt for I'm sorry, he is cute, but he does absolutely nothing for me. This Taviano man, he does nothing for me. So if she's not grounded, he's literally like dragging his body.
On the floor. It's like so like so I'm like bored. He's always like, uh, what happened? Like I don't know. I just like don't. Yeah, he's like a kid in detention. Yeah, it's like, not up your an, Sucktavio.
But we've been begging for more humor and they give us Monthsy with her jokes and they're not really doing it. They're not It's just those are munch size shoes to fill. And I'm not really getting it. So I don't know what we gotta do.
Yeah, we gotta do. There's growth. I'm sure there's a learning curve. We'll see what happens. I'm in you know, I'm invested. We both are. Will never stop. Yeah, view till we die.
I'll be watching you when I'm sixty five with my grandchildren. Noah's the new captain. Let's start, let's start, let's start. We have a great episode for you guys today. Don't go anywhow.
All right, We're doing episode Persona, season ten, episode eight, and it says it came out November twenty fifth, and so this is the day before Thanksgiving. I'm assuming and this is a horrific start to the Thanksgiving holiday. I'll say that.
This episode is it's a tough ye, but I would say haunting one, most haunting. Yeah, so we opened strong. No long walk in the park or a bickering couple. It's straight up Clea Duval. She looks stressed. She is my queen. I've loved her for decades.
I feel like she created the asymmetrical Bob before anybody else in the game. Posh thinks it's her, but it's not. It's clear. Maybe it's clear from the faculty, but I'm a cheerleader and you know, uh, we'll vat more currently but then Happiest Season the lesbian Christmas movie she wrote and directed that so fun, creative, amazing. But here she's
a conservative, rich looking lady. There's a pussy bow white shirt, a sweater you love that I do, and she's asking the pharmacist for a morning after pill, which should be an easy transaction. It should be like, hello, mister pharmacist, can I have this? And then the pharmacist goes, of course you can. But this bitch is an anti choice Karen and I don't even know how she passed pills school. Okay, she doesn't want to give it to her, and Clia is like, bitch, I don't need to see a doctor,
just give it to me. And the nerve of this woman suggests an adoption that is outside your scope of your job. You feck him, like these people should be fired. I don't understand how, like personal biases do not get you fired in a medical profession, right, you shouldn't have opinions at all, not.
Bible based opinions, science based, science based opinions, fact based, well that's.
What I mean. If you have any sort of personal leanings where you're not doing things that are fully legal to do, you should not be a medical professional. You just shouldn't. That should be a rule. Motherfuckers. Clea loses it though, and she screams at this woman, and you know, she seems and then the pharmacist is like shock, she's being yelled at, and it's like, well, fuck around and find out. Have you never heard of that? So she
grabs her and pleads like I need it. I can't have his baby, and she, oh my god, if you're not already so furious, she goes, well you shouldn't have, Like I'm getting to your pants, and then a security guard who is no less than seventy eight years old grabs Clia and throws her into the glasses spinny display. I just like, I can't even believe this.
Which is like where my mom exclusively bought her glasses for years, four years on the spinny display at the pharmacy.
And Clia is like, don't do this, like you don't understand I was raped. So then it cuts to Benson and Stabler pushing the door into the pharmacy breakroom where they're holding Clia's character Mia, so we'll call her Mia from now on. And Stabler's pissed. He's like, you cuffed a rape victim. And the security guard's like, she caused a disturbance. It's policy and obviously a Stabler's like unhooker, and then the pharmacist is like, she assaulted me. I
want to press charges. In your fucking dreams. They don't respect her at all, and they run out. They're like, yeah, hold your breath, bitch, and then they rush out with her to take her to the hospital, and it's the credits, so a really action packed in raging cold open and we're back and wildly.
Frenchie from Greece is the nurse. I think she's in more than one episode.
I don't know. I did search. Hold on. Let me let me look, cause I remember being like, oh, Deed Cohn, yeah, oh three episodes.
You're right, yeah, Like I've seen her before because I remember every time I go, oh my god, it's Frenchie, you know.
Authority per So that's the Robin Williams one and oh my god, she's in Great ones. So she's in Robin Williams, she's in this one and then she's in Behave with Jennifer Love hewittt Wow, three classics. I would say, ah, that's yeah, season's nine, ten, and twelve, so that's cool. But it's just like shocking that it's her, Like I had to take eight double takes. I would say, to see a person from Greece thrilling. So she's filling Olivia in and shows photos of the victim's body and it's
horrific bruising. I've never seen bruising like this on this show, Like it is deep, intense and all over her body. And then they should talk the pharmacist as well, so she's like, please find him fast, I don't want to see any more of his handiwork, and lets them know that Mia is down to talk, so they go to
chat with Miam. So she says it was getting light, so she went out for bagels when a man grabbed her from behind and her eyes are closed as she's talking, and she says that he had a knife and if she screamed, he would slit her throat and then dragged her into an alley, knocked her down and like punched her and kicked her, and the next thing she knows, she like wakes up and he was on top of her.
She says he was white, tall and big and not really detailed account and she says her husband and her are trying to get pregnant, so she knows that she's ovulating, so she saw the pharmacy and ran in. And it
should have been like a simple fucking transaction. Like I don't understand when people think, Like I just hate when people's like it's like the philosophical debates and like your beliefs are outside of what is actually really happening, Like, yeah, no one cares about what you're pondering or like any debate. This woman was just a tack and then you're making it more and more worse. It's like it really stickens me. Yeah. So we cut to a pretty day in New York
and o'haloran's meeting Benson and Stabler in the alley. And the issue is there's a bunch of motor oil leaked all over but so and there's no evidence of an attack, and she would have been dirty, she would have had oil all over her clothes. So sadly she's been caught in this lie, but clearly she's been abused and was raped. So it hits them finally that the bruises were all hidden by clothing, which means this is a classic DV case. Fuck the purpose her husband. So they go to me
as home. She answers and says it's not a good time, but her husband's not home yet, but he's gonna come home from Warkstone. They're like, we know you lied, and then at that moment, her husband walks out of the cab with flowers. Classic abuser what is it not territ behavior? Classic abuser behavior. He does not like Stable and Benson and is like, hey, honey, you're gonna introduce me to
your friends, and they handle it. They're like, hey, we're just like investigating a string of burglaries the neighborhood, and he goes, don't worry, we have tons of guns.
We're safe. So not good. Oh my god, this man is a full nightmare. Oh yeah.
He kisses her cheek hello and gives her flowers, and he asks her for dinner because he's starved, and she's like, well, I wasn't expecting you till six, and she is clearly scared. Acting is so good, and he is pissed that dinner is not ready and it's like, but if you came home at six and then the dinner was cold, you'd be pissed too, Like, what is happening? I mean, I don't think it's about the dinner. This is an abusive
it's not about the pasta. But yes, yeah, just like you're the one who decided to switch up your schedule, sir. The detectives leave and are like, we got to do something about this. But she's on a tight leash and might not like talk and we can't touch him because he's never she's not gonna speak at but they have to do something because he's going to use her for target practice. They say, if we don't help, so maybe
there's another way. Of course there is. So they head down to the basement apartment, where they're greeted by a happy grain man who's super pumped to see them, and he's like, oh, fuck yeah, I'm a huge crime buff. I think we got to post that on the Insta and with the caption on because yeah, this man in a wheelchair who's like, fuck yeah, give me the deaths. Yeah. And then he's like Lenny, you know, and he calls
for this you know, someone named Lenny. And then he says if his apartment wasn't in the basement, he would be spying on everybody, like rear window, and it's like, do you like crime or are you a freak? Like, we don't, I don't know.
Well, actually, my friend, my friend Rachel, who you know, has a cool apartment and it's like across the street from an old hospital that is now apartments, and she has opera glasses and she just kind of checks out what people do. She's not like, she doesn't like, I don't think, you know, get too deep into it. But she's like, yeah, you see ladies taking off their bras at the end of the night, you know, the end of the day, like a lot of just New York behavior.
It is kind of fun to be like a little voyeur. I don't think she's doing it in a creepy way, but maybe it is.
Yeah, but I also do think people are taking off their bras outside of New York or you mean Rachel's behaviors New York people. Yes, yes, thought it was the bra taking off And I was like, no, I don't know, this might be a bodega incident. Everyone might be so.
Yeah, Like also, I used to get changed in front of my open window all the time because I don't care.
But like, if you care, you should get blind. Right. Wait, have you seen this? It's like a meme text whatever. So someone texts this woman is like, hey, it's your neighbor. Just want to let you know that me and my husband can see you topless smoking a bong. And the response from the woman was, do I look cool?
I haven't seen that, but that's the best. That's the best response I've ever heard.
Yeah, I've it's one of you. Take a picture. I would love to see it from your angle. Thank you. It's a pet peeve when like women expect other women to act differently because their husband's or boyfriend friends are around. It's like, that's your problem. I use your fault.
Yeah, I think I've talked to you about how I had an across the alley neighbor in New York who like, not the alley because they aren't really alleys, but back up building to back of my building who worked for the Martha Stewart Show and would leave me letters telling me how my TV was huge. And when I tell you I had the smallest flat screen of all time, yes.
The one I have. Yes, it's what I gave Lisa.
I mean it's not big, you know what I mean, Like, and she'd be like, your giant flat screen is glaring into my apartment. And I would like write her letters back being like get blinds, like I don't know what to tell you.
I'm not gonna not watch TV.
Like well, but then I realized she was working at Martha Stewart and that maybe she was stressed because I've heard from a friend that Martha really blamed her for a lot of things. Yeah, but I think we started this podcast post to my West Hollywood apartment.
Oh, I had a really wild neighbor who finally was like, your TV's so loud and I wasn't even watching TV. I was playing I Quiplash on my laptop and so I ran out with my laptop and it was all caught on this quip Lash show I was doing. But I was just like, I'm not allowed to fucking zoom with my friends. I mean, it was She's just it was great because she would also say like every day,
like the volume. She's like the volume, and I was like, actually, the remote, the batteries have been dead for days and I haven't changed them, So the volume hasn't changed at all, like you are being caught in lies. You are truly just rooting my life. And honestly, I haven't got my revenge. And if she still lives there, I'm not opposed to it. Yeah, let's go back. Well, my favorite was my two friends
moved all of my stuff across the country. I paid them, of course, but when they unpacked all my stuff, they were so tired. I have a photo of them both passed down on my couch sleeping watching Seinfeld, and she said she called the woman I was subleasing from, saying that she had to call the Sheriff's office because I was partying so loud, and it was like truly two men sleeping on my couch while side club played, and I have to some people that's a raging party. I guess that's wild.
Wow.
Yeah, And then she sicked the other neighbor on my floor against me, like she sicks this woman who had less going on, and so then it was like, yeah, that is it.
Though they have nothing going on, they're just like I gotta complain about something. Like if you sit in silence for too long, then you have to focus on like what you should be doing, what you need, and she was just like every noise was like she had to go up like.
Yeah, I have noises, my guy, Like that's what happens in an apartment and if you don't want to hear noises, don't live in an apartment building. Yeah, but like yeah, and if you can't afford it, it is what it is.
Yeah, Just like I live in a house and it's still like loud motorcycles, dogs barking, people moving their trash cab Like there's loud noises. Like if you live in a city, even, like you need to move into the woods if you want total quiet.
Sorry, I hear people fucking. I hear my neighbors snoring, Like yeah, I don't. I don't understand. That is life. Okay, so we're back, We're back to this abuse. Okay. So he's so Lenny runs in and he goes and she's wearing what my mom would wear, like a colorful apron with a little shirt like this is my mother's fashion fashion twin they address fully the same. He calls her Grace Kelly, and she is not as excited as her man about the cops being in her house, and she's like,
is something wrong? And they they're like, we just have some questions about the upstairs neighbor, and Lenny immediately goes did something happen to me? And the husband's like, oh, that fucking husband and she's like, Jonah, please don't get involved, and it's like you just you just actually started the involvement. They ask if they've heard anything last night and she says no, and he's like, babe, I already have MS, like you know, do you have Alzheimer's? Then we're really
in trouble. And then he says to like to the detectives, yeah, there was an unholy ruckus. He keeps spilling the beans and she's like, zip it, what if he kicks us out? Who's gonna help us? We can't help you, guys, sorry, And she's like where else are we going to find a rent controlled apartment with wheelchair access? And we would have to leave the city and she walks back into the kitchen and he apologizes for his woman and says she's scared of everything and hasn't left Manhattan in thirty
years down not even a walk across the bridge. Jeez. Benson walks to the back to me the wife while the men chat in the front. She's trying to get info. I'm pleading on her emotions, like listen, Mia is covered in bruises and she's mushing things in a pot and the Coli art if the folly artist is really killing it right, there's just like meat noises happening. But she is just really scared to lose this apartment and doesn't want to get involved. And Benson's like there are laws
to protect tenants, like who will protect Mia? And she finally gives in and says Brent is a monster. All smiles and good looks, but underneath there's only ice, no heart. There's a few seconds where they stand in silence, and the next thing we see is Mia coming down to the basement apartment like, Lenny, what's up girl, what do you need? And she sees Benson and is like no, no, no, no, I have to go, and Benson's like please, I want
to protect you. Please let me help you. She turns me out to the mirror and on zips her shirt and makes her look at all the bruises in the mirror and Lenny's like, oh, poor child, But she's wearing like a sexy nighty with all the bruises and it's like, so do abusers like like the bruises.
I know, yeah, probably, I mean they're probably like, this is my property.
I do to it what I do to it. It's just confusing to me. But then do they know they're doing something wrong when they see the bruises or they're like, hell, yeah I did that. Like, I'm it's just I'm curious.
Sure the psychology of all this, Yeah, I'm sure, it's like they disassociate and they think this is this was a punishment that was deserved, and so you know, like that's this just that's what happens when you get your punishment, you know.
I don't know.
I'm just I'm just literally just all conjecture coming from me. But yeah, it's just it's so fun, really hard to watch.
Yeah. She starts to cry and Benson tells her he's not going to change. You have to. She finally confesses what really happened to her. He wanted to have sex and said let's make a baby, and knew that she was ovulating because he tracks it and takes her temperature every day, but she doesn't want to have a child with him. She told him she wasn't feeling well and called her a selfish bitch and then hit her and kicked her and then raped her. She apologizes for lying.
Lenny hugs her and tells Benson, I'll take care of her. You go arrest the bastard. They arrest his purple tie ass on the stoop and they say he's arrested for rape, and he asks where's my wife? And they're like, well, that sounds like a confession to us. He says they're making a huge mistake and that Mia wouldn't say shit against him, But we are in court rape one assault to Gray like versus langon Sexy Verse sex ha Langan
does the approach of how me as a liar. Bail said is at fifty grand though, and he's like, great, I'll post a SAP and Kim as quick to be like, okay, well we still have to protect our girl. So basically we get no contact and nos allowed, and he brings up the Second Amendment, but Judge Arthur Cohen is like,
I'll sleep easier knowing you don't have any guns. So we cut straight to Mia stressed with Benson like at the Upper East Side house and he's like, fuck, I can't believe they let him out and Benson's trying to reassure her he's not allowed by the house and she's like, yeah, if he was, I'd be fucking dead. And Lenny's there too. Mia has no family, her parents are dead and she was the only child and they only hang out with Brent's friends, so they'll never believe her. And he cut
all her cards. She tried to go to the grocery store. No money, so no debit, no credit cards at all. Yeah. I think women should be given basic income by the government at all times so people can escape. Yeah. Yeah, and I and it increases if you have kids. I just feel like that's what I believe.
Yeah.
Yeah, if there's so much domestic violence happening, Like, I just feel like the government should be just paying women into a fund.
Yeah. Always like make sure you have your own bank account. I feel I don't know, I know that that's probably impossible in this girl situation, but if you can, I know, it seems fun right after you get married, combo everything, but it's like have your own resources.
You never know what's going to happen. No, but this is like you know, she goes into it. He's like a classic abuser. He knows exactly how to ice sight and do all of that. And it starts small, and it starts cool where he's like, I don't want you to work and she's like, oh cool, hell yeah yeah, and then a nightmare ensues. But yeah, so she has no money anymore, and Lenny's like, well, maybe you can go to a shelter. And then this is my favorite line reading of all time. Cleo Duval is just like
like a homeless person. She's disgusted by this idea. She's like, I grew up super poor and now I'm on the Upper East Side and I have to go back to eating government cheese. And Benson's like, don't worry, you'll get a divorce, you'll get money. She goes, no, I signed a prenup. She met Brent at eighteen. He made her drop out of college and she's fully dependent on him and she's never had a job, and Ben's she goes, listen, I know this won't be easy, but you'll make a
new life. Lenny tells a story about a friend of hers who escaped a domestic abuse man and now is with a man who really really loves her, who'd rather die than hurt her, and then she tells me, like, you deserve this too, so she packs up, gets her ID and papers, and heads off to the shelter. The camera pauses on Lenny with the dramatic music for a
moment as she contemplates. Now we're in a safe house in Brooklyn on November fourth, and Benson's listing off all the rules and the therapy schedule as Mia wheels her stuff in and she is not happy. She's like, I like that Brent is free and now I'm in a prison and Benson's like, the rules are here to help you, and she cuts her off, like I know all about rules, okay, Like you don't have to fucking tell me. Brent has a ton of them, and before that it was my
fucking mean dad. She's like, I can't remember a time when someone did not tell me what to do. And we're at a walk and talk back at the precinct with Benson and Stabler chatting about the case. Trevor Langen walks right in as Stabler goes Brent's go to prison, and he says, I don't think so Mia recanted her charges on video, so they're like, well, I bet he forced her, and he goes no, she was just guilty. She just has a guilty conscience. And I'm just so
glad that he grew as a character. And because he's so hot and you know, with a Marishka, maybe we let it slide. But he is a real piece of shit for a long time on this show.
Yeah, he loves calling victims liars, reframing the narrative.
Like yeah, but I also don't understand how you're so proud, like you did see the bruises. I know that's his job and he's being I'm assuming paid very well by this rich man, but like, you don't think you're wrong, Like I just the glee he could have been, Like fuck, you know she recanted. This sucks, but like the glee that he finds and I hope after you know, he lives with guilt for the rest of this character's life, this non real person. But I just what a piece
of shit. Benson starts to rush out like fuck, I gotta talk to her, and he's like he's she's at home with her husband. Brent opens the door and Hefner's
style outfit while his wife is making him brunch. She wants to check on her as like a wellness check and threatens him and like he will be arrested if he tries to stop anything, and he is so mad, he's seething because he can't hit her, so he has to let her in for a wellness check and he yells me up, come here, and it's so common, it's just like really fucking disgusting, and then he condescendingly and quietly to Benson, goes, please. She walks in and says
everything's fine, and Benson is like, are you sure. Maybe a shelter wasn't a good idea, but there's other options, and she's like, I want to be home with my husband. I made a mistake, Brent forgave me, and now please let us get on with our lives. And he says yeah, and our breakfast and waves condescendingly. If you can imagine, like, I don't know, how do you.
Describe this wave like a little bait, like the way you would wave to a kid.
Like hi, you know, like bye bye? You know, yeah, really not a good wave. And then he goes, oh, and tell your partner, like my gun's back. Ugh. Benson leaves hesitantly, and you know she's not gonna leave, so she goes down to Lenny in the laundry room after Jonah let her in. She's like, so much for helping Mia, and Benson's like, she wasn't ready and I pushed her. And I agree with Lenny here, like spare me your self pity. This is one of Benson's flaws. She's always
making it about her some not always. I'm not gonna say that about our queen, but like I hate when it's like it's my fault. Oh it's me, And it's like, okay, yeah, what do you want from us? It is your fault. You did make a mistake. You might have pushed her too much, like it was too drastic, Like spare me the self pity. I like that. Lenny just does not have it. But then I turn on Lenny, don't worry. And then Lenny's just like, so you care, but Mia doesn't,
So what's the fucking use? And Benson sees a door a few stares up in the laundry room. She's like, where does this lead? And Mia responds it's the old servant steps and that they share the laundry, and before Benson even says anything, Lenny is like, oh no, you're not staying here. And Benson's like, it's the only way for me to protect Mia, and Lenny is like, she made her bed, now she can lie in, which is quite harsh. Lady, Yeah. And also this is so classic SVU,
like she cannot stop doing the laundry. She cannot and she's straight up as like, go home, detective, but she can't, and she starts reminding Lenny of the story of her old friend she was talking about from earlier, and finally she gives in while violently scrubbing out a stain, and we cut to Benson in the laundry room reading the paper, and right as she puts down the paper and sighs, we hear screams from upstairs. He is screaming at Mia to get on her knees, and she's like, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, and he's like that's not enough. You're Sorry's me nothing, And she's like, let go of me, and he's like, don't tell me what to do, you stupid. And while the yelling is happening, Benson is trying to kick down the door and finally it breaks. She runs up the stairs and we see her shocked face as she says, oh my god, and Mia is straight up standing over the kitchen island staring at Benson with a knife straight in her heart all the way in. He
stabbed her so deep. Knife is just like it's bad. It's like I don't think it's sternum, but it's just the center of the chest. It's long heart. It's like there's this is a this is a gruesome attack.
And it's like because he doesn't have his guns to like threaten with, and he's probably not as good with a knife or something, because it's like, did you want a killer? Like don't you like having this person around that you can just like absolutely abuse and have it You're buck and call like did you like you know what I mean? Like you could have just slashed her, like there's other ways to hurt her, but he stabbed her right in the fucking heart.
That's like no accident, you know, no. And I mean this is why it's so important to help victims escape because this is mostly how women die is at the hands of the partner where it's like one throw too strong at the wall and that's that or your throat, you know what I mean? Right, right, it's quote unquote an accident, But you were trying to hurt her.
You maybe weren't trying to kill her, but you were still trying to hurt her, you know.
Yeah, but and we you know, we know this now, but like and once a woman is pregnant, the chances of being murdered by your domestic partner raises so much eye.
Yeah, but we never find out if she was by the way, we don't know if she was pregnant. Yeah, probably too early to tell anyway, because he kills her like right out, like days after this, the marital rape.
Yeah, it's just like having someone that's just like scared of you at all, Like what a horrible life like. This episode is one of the more powerful episodes of this show. But this guy's a coward and he starts screaming she attacked me. Benson throws his ass on the ground and cuffs him and then runs to attend to me convulsing on the floor and tells Lenny to call
nine one one. She can't breathe though, and there's blood pouring from her mouth, squirting from the knife she's trying to contain it, and she just dies on the floor, fully covered in blood, and Benson is shocked and Lenny can't even dial the phone because she's so horrified by what she is just witnessed. And Benson's walking and we hear Craigan ask how she's holding up, and Benson is like,
how do you think? And he's like, you did everything you could and she's like, I could have arrested her for filing a false rape report, and it's like, Babe, you slept in a laundry room. You did the best you could. Craigan also says, I've never seen you lock up a victim, and she's like, oh god, I should have. You know, she would have been alive. And Craigan's like, sooner or later, like this would have happened me and made her choice. And Benson's like, are you fucking blaming
the victim? Is it her fault? And he goes no, but it's also certainly not your fault. Benson walks out of the apartment and we see a blood soaked shirt and Lenny is like, oh, are you happy now. It's like, geez, bitch, she is cutthroat. So then Lenny goes, was it worth it, Olivia? You couldn't leave her alone? You just pushed and pushed for what for that? And she runs into her apartment.
Jonah calls for her and says, don't let him get away with it, And in that moment, Benson stares into the cop car and stares at Brent, and he's in the backseat crying, trying to act like he fucking cares.
He's crying because his life is over. He doesn't fucking care that he killed his wife. Yeah, it's like a cop was hidden in your crawl space, dude, Like, you're not getting away with this.
No, And we're in the lab with o'haleran, and he also said the evidence is solid like a rock, and the suspect kit on him doesn't show a scratch. So he's going away for life. There's no self defense, like, there's no shot in how he's not going to jail forever. And I know it's bad to do this, and we get mad at the detectives for doing it, but I hope he gets the shit beat out of him every
single day in prison. Yeah, And he tells her that they also solved another murder and she assumes, like, oh, he's killed before, but o'haleran's like, no, not unless he
started young and had a sex change. What is going on? Basically, they found fingerprints on the kitchen phone that matched an old homicide from nineteen seventy four of a man named Vincent Creswell who was shot six times in his sleep in his apartment, and then says his wife Caroline was arrested at the scene, hands her a photo and says and then she escaped and has been a fugitive ever since the early seventies. And it's Lenny. It's fucking Lenny Casey is shocked. Yeah, this is such a good show.
And this is Brenda Blethin, by the way, And she's a star of stage, TV and film for forty years eighty seven credits, and from twenty eleven to twenty twenty two she was the star of the show Vira, which is a murder mystery series set in Northumberland, Northumberland on the England Scotland border. I bet my parents have definitely seen that. They love and.
Definitely your uncle. Yeah, yeah, they love this masterpiece shit. But I do too, Like as I'm getting older, I'm like I'm becoming them. I love British like crime shows so much. I want to watch it, if you know. I Yeah, I love that part of the world too. Yeah, and I forget where where I know her name from. She was nominated for something I feel like in one
year on the in the I can't remember. Yeah, I think for Oscar she was, But like now i'm she's a Golden Globe, BAFTA and cons Festival Award and two Academy Award nominations.
What are they?
So? Let me see what they're for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress.
Yeah, tell me you found it, because I'm not so. She was nominated in nineteen ninety nine for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for someone called Little Voice, Okay, then in nineteen ninety seven for Best Actress in a Leading Role for someone called Secrets in Line.
Yeah, that's what I was saying before. I was like, when I saw Secrets and Lies in her IMDb, I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's her big way.
I never saw it. She was nominated for an Emmy for this Oh really, Yeah, it says two thousand and nine nominee Outstanding Guest Actress and a Drama Series Law and Order SVU for playing Lenny. Yeah.
But I don't think she didn't win, because I think the only people who have ever won are Yeah, I'm like, who's won? Cynthia and Courtillard for no, no, the other French woman. It's not Mary on Coutiard, but it's I know it's French Isabelle u Pear.
Yeah, yeah who. Neo Baer begged to be in it and said, babe, I'll get you an emmy, just do this. Yeah. He was right, he delivered, He delivered. I think other people have been nominated, but those are the two big winners. I wonder if a man has ever But she won the BAFTA for Secrets and Lies. And we're back to looking at the photo while behind her is present day Lenny, and she's explaining that she's been dreading this day for thirty four years. Her husband wheels in and he's like,
what's going on? And she had never told him, and he's like, wait, what the fuck? When did this happen? And she met her husband three weeks after she escaped from jail. She slept in churches and on the subway and stole food and wallets, and one night it was pouring rain and she went into the diner and bought a bowl of soup, and he saw her sitting there,
wet and cold. She told him that she was there on vacation and a con man hustled her at the airport, so she lost her suitcase, money, everything, and Jonah took her home and saved her life. And then we go into a famous SVU cut back and forth from each of them talking about each other, and that day she says he was an answer to a prayer. She says he was a character out of a Dickens novel, like orphanage.
She had nothing, no parents, no, Then she says her parents disowned her after the arrests, and Benson asked if she ever wanted children, and he says, we tried for years, but she was infertile. And then she tells Benson though, the truth, which is that she was on birth control all these years because if she had a kid, then she would go back to jail and lose her kids.
So she just couldn't do it. So this is so complicated, and I think this episode does a really great job of showing how complicated abuse is and being a woman is. And I'm just impressed with sview. Over and over again. She said she's been living in fear of being recognized every day and that's why there's no travel, no work, and he's like, is their marriage even legal? Like I don't even know her name. Her name was Caroline, but that name is dead and she is Lenny now, which
is a really cute and unique name. I don't know how she came up with it. Benson asks what happened? So basically they met at seventeen in her and Vincent at an anti war protest. Vin since the dead man that she shot. Okay, so they met at seventeen at an anti war protest. Vinnie was standing on stage doing poetry. She said it wasn't good, but he was passionate. And this truly does describe how most male comedians get dates, like they're so terrible, but I guess you know, it's
all they care about, so it feels like passion. Yeah, they fell in love and with each other and the anti war movement. But then the war ended, but he just wouldn't move on, and he was still just like super angry and a failed poet, and he took his anger out on her because his poems really sucked, and he blamed her for his bad poems and it's like fuck you. But he liked boozs and drugs and he would beat her up all the time Bruce's black eyes.
One time he choked her until she passed out and then bought a gun, and when he was drunk he would talk about using the gun for suicide. And then one time he was like, I'm gonna shoot you and then I'm gonna take my own life, and she knew he meant it, and so she had to get away. And Benson's like, why didn't you leave? Which knows that's not a good question, right, I guess we all always want to ask it, Like, I don't know, did you ever watch the Julia Roberts movie Sleeping with the Enemy?
Yes, huge scary movie of my child scary?
Why did you watch it as children? I don't know.
It was definitely like a we're gonna watch Sleeping with the Enemy this weekend like an event, Like it was so scary and there's barely any like blood in it. It's just like the scariness of that man. And is that man in it?
Is he not? Hold on?
I know we're doing a lot of fucking imdbing right now. Can I just look up one thing? Wait, they should sponsor? Why is IMDb not doing ads on our podcast? Like?
What what are they doing? Patrick Bergen, Oh.
Patrick Bergen, I was thinking of a different guy, never mind, but this guy.
Is scary, scary. But yeah, I just remember like the cans, like she had to keep all of the cans up food in one direction. But that's how crazy it is, because how did he find her? Because she fakes her own death, like fakes the drowning, and then when.
He finds her, she goes into her pantry, right, and all the cans are organized, and that's when she knows he's found her. Right.
Yeah, I'm like getting chills. I'm like scared already.
Like truly one of the first movies that I think really really dramatized like the terror of domestic violence. You know, I don't feel like a lot of movies were doing that before that one.
That was a big one. I also just don't know how that's I just can't believe. I watched it as a child, Like it came out out in nineteen ninety one. I was five, like, yeah, so fucked up. That's really young. Maybe we saw it later, but I was still really young. And she's like I was trying, okay, So she asks the dreaded question, why didn't you leave? And she's like, I was trying to and she'd been stashing away change from the groce trees and she hid it in a
shoe and she had almost fifty dollars. But then he found it and he was his brain went straight to you're a hooker, Yeah, to have that much cash, and if she wanted to be a whore, he was going to treat her like one, and then raped her and she was crying and she's nodding as she's explaining all of this, And after he went to sleep, she took the gun and shot his ass up. I'm sure the
world did not miss him or his poems. And she heard the siren and the neighbors called the cops and she had the gun in the hand when they broke down the door, and so they took her away, and she never told them that she was raped or anyone. She's never told anybody until right now. Gray Lick and Craigan are watching this whole thing go down, and they're like, this sucks, Like marital rape wasn't even a crime back then.
They would have we would have never charged her today, and Gray looks like, yeah, let's just give her probation and then out at bat out of hell. I can't even believe it. Judith Light appears and she goes, Nope, not anymore. I'm going to return to the DA's office for some unfinished business. She barges into interrogation and says, Hi, Caroline, remember me, And she does remember her she was the prosecutor from the case. And she goes and I still am arrest her and charge her with escape in the
first degree. She's as cold as ice. Benson is shocked, and Judith is cold as fuck. What I don't know what's colder as fuck or as ice? But and she demands she be called by her old name, and Benson mirandizes her. And now we're in court with her favorite bailiff and defense attorney Julia Zimmer, who is from the famous episode Zebras where she suffocates in a car. Now
her husband is watching with Olivia and Jonah. So Judith obviously wants to lock her ass up because of the prior escape, so that makes sense, But Julia Zimmer's like, can we please do home arrass? She needs to take care of her husband, and then Judith, at her worst, goes, Hi, you're a nurse. At least she won't shoot him, so so bitch agro like this is a These are like elderly people, like I don't know, and no one, even the judge is like okay, relaxed, Yeah, like every yeah,
everyone is upset. But she is getting remand which sucks. Benson runs to Judith, who's like, oh, are you here to fucking lecture me? And Benson's like you're being gross, like what And Judith is like, Oh, you don't even know, do you. You don't know what happened. You didn't ask her how she escaped. So now it's storytime from would
you say? Juds? So yeah, basically Lenny ak Carolyn asked for a meeting for a plea bargain and she climbed out the bathroom window and it was her fault and for years everyone made fun of her, so it's personal. So now she's getting back at something from so long ago that's so stupid because nobody respected her anymore and it took her a long time to get her career back in action, and she explains how it sucked for women dumb. So the DA at the time didn't want
a man yelling at Caroline on the stand. It would look bad, so she got this case after he had to ask for her husband's permission to try this case. So now she's going to put her in jail because she set back the image of women prosecutors and because Judith never got to work in homicide again. And it still seems petty. It's been forty years. We know you
live in a townhouse. We've seen it, you're rich. Everything worked out, yeah, yeah, But when confronted, but I wonder if her husband died or they got divorced or whatnot, because she wants to fuck Stabler or maybe she's just yeah, I don't know. I wonder who she's married to, like a professor, we have another lawyer. I don't think.
I don't think we ever find out Judy's or Donnelly's backstory or personal life.
But then Benson confronts her like so for revenge, and she goes, no, I got over being bitter a long time ago. I'm here for the victim, vincent, and Benson's like, she was fucking beaten. There was no shelter, and Judy is like, you don't need to remind me how hard it was for women Benson, and then she goes, listen, she snowed you don't feel bad. She snowed me too, and she starts reading a letter that she got from Caroline back in the day that says, please help me.
She wants to plead guilty, but she has a huge problem and she needs to meet in private. So Donnelly met her and that's where she ran away. And Judith never found out like the reason she wanted to talk or anything, and believes that this is a ruse. She thinks Lenny is a big time player. So now we're at Rikers and Benson, and she tells Benson like, leave me alone, what do you want? But Benson wants the truth. She wasn't planning on escaping, Lenny explains, but there was
a window open and she ran. She just took it. But then Benson brings out the letter and goes, tell me about this letter, or you're going to be in jail forever. And I actually checked the escape you only get a max of up to five years.
Interesting because in my true story it's different.
I wonder did she get charged for both? I don't know. Yeah, I wonder because I was so curious what it was and I looked it up and this was just like on the Google main page of Wikipedia. It was just like, you could go to prison for up to five years, but I don't know if you're serving like a life sentence or like a long sentence. I think it's worth trying to escape if you only get five more years. Who gives a shit.
If you're listening to this podcast and you're serving life, give it a shot.
Come on, Yeah, I would love if we had a jail population of listeners who are into our acab vibes. But even the threat of jail forever, Lenny's like, fine, I don't care, I deserve it. Leave me alone. And Benson's like, just please, like, tell the jury what really happened. Why did you run? She says she can't tell her, and Benson keeps pushing. If you don't want to help yourself, fine, but then do it for Jonah. And she's scared because he won't forgive her. Benson is like, you know, Jonah
deserves to know. You've been lying to him for a long ass time. So finally she starts revealing more and more layers to her past. So she cried and he said shut up. So this is back out for the rape. So she's crying and this vincent guy tells her to shut up and then puts a gun under his pillow and said that that that he was going to give
her more of that in the morning. And then she was really disturbed because he just fell asleep, and it's like what he did to her didn't bother her, bother him at all, Like it was the only thing that relaxed him, Like hurting her was the only thing that made him feel good. And so she pulled the trigger. There was blood everywhere. As she tells the story, it switches in a star swipe jk but from vipers to her on the stand and her lawyer rests as Judith comes to punch on this old woman. Did you tell
the cops you got hit? I mean, she is fully bullying this woman. She's like, you have no proof about anything, and if all of this happened, why wouldn't you just tell a jury thirty four years ago? It's like you're and then to me, I'm like, you just said how much it sucks to be a woman, and especially back in the day, and now you're pretending you don't know this stuff when you're like, why don't you tell the
cops all this information? Yeah, tell the jury it's just like she's not being consistent, she isn't just like a fit of her own self centered rage, and she's really not seeing outside of it or acknowledging that this is really revenge, Like you know why people don't tell cops anything. Jenny looks at Olivia in the stands and it gives her power, just the sight, so she starts to talk while crying, even though she really doesn't want to, and Judith light thinks that she didn't come to court because
she was guilty and she knew it. And finally she cries out, I was pregnant, and they show Jonah, who is so mad in her and a lot of emotions on his face and his whole life is crumbling down around him. Judith won't let up and is like, come on, so now you're gonna say that hormones made you do it?
I mean, it's wild. So then she explains she ran so she can get an abortion, and Judas stops in her tracks and is shocked and understanding all of a sudden, like I think it all fucking hit her in that moment, because you can't get an abortion in prison, and she didn't want to have that man's baby, like, she didn't care about going to prison. She just didn't want this child growing inside of her, and that's why she wanted to meet Judy to tell her she would plead guilty
if she could just please get an abortion. But when she went to see her, she was so strong and confident, and she was ashamed of her weakness, and she just couldn't tell her, like, how could a woman like Judith Light ever understand a woman like her? And Judy looks so shocked, and you know, at least she could admit that she's wrong, and she's just like, really, you could tell that she is regretting all of these decisions. Benson
looks really proud. She's found not guilty for murder, but is found guilty on escape and they'll meet back at sentencing and Judith like is like, oh, and by the way, we recommend probation, and the judge goes, I agree, and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this, Judith Light, And then gavel gavel. On the way out, Lenny asked Judith Light why and she says an important lesson here, which I like that this is She goes, I was
trying so hard to be one of the boys. She forgot why she became a lawyer in the first place. And this is something to remember. I feel like this is true in comedy at times too, where you're just like say, whatever, cool guy. Yeah, Like when you start, there's just so many dudes everywhere, and then you're like, oh god, all these guys are disgusting. Whatever. Yeah, they're all just like cheating on their wives with subpar jokes, and then you realize how much better your life is
not trying to be one of the boys. They're an inferior group. Yeah, Casey, I'm talking to you. No, So that's yeah, So I just I like that she said that. So then Lenny thanks for defense attorney, and Benson and Lenny go to try to talk to Jonah and he says it's over. He says, I'm happy for you, Annie, but and she's like, oh no, please, don't say it. And he continues and asks when did you get that abortion? And she says, when you went to the conference in Seattle.
And he says, every decision you and I made was based on a lie. He's like, remember I always wanted children and grandchildren and you stole that from me. And she's like, no, I'm the same girl you loved and married. But also like, was that love based on anything? Like I'm sure that they've been together for so long now, I'm sure it's real, but like you also just had nothing, like it could have been Jonah or someone else.
Yeah, but I think that like after but after five years after she was like Okay, I don't think I'm getting caught, Like maybe she could have moved on if she didn't love Jonah.
I think she loved him, right, I think she did. No, they grew into like a beautiful relationship. I'm just saying, like, if it was Jonah or someone else, when you have no idea and you're on the run, like and a guy like yeah, if it was a different guy that was like I'll take care of you, I'm sure that would have been great.
Yeah, but I'm sure there was something about him because he seemed like such a like like the kind of guy that goes up to a girl who's shivering and freezing over a bowl of soap and a soup and a diner.
You're either a really nice guy or a really evil guy. You know. Yeah, you're the guy from Dexter. Yeah, the new blood him too exactly. But yeah, she's just like I'm the same girl, and he pulls away from her, he cannot forgive her, and he wheels off, and she is so sad. And I mean, Benson really uncovered a lot, a lot, I don't. I mean, she could have just left everyone alone. I don't know, Like this must have been like a two bottle of Red Knight for Olivia. Yeah,
this is a lot. She gets taken away and her and Olivia stare at each other, and that's that.
But can I just say, it's it's horrible that she like doesn't have Jonah anymore. That's horrible, and like she is gonna have to kind of start over. But in a way, she's free now. She can like leave Manhattan, she can do like not live with like looking over her shoulder the whole time. You know, Like, yeah, I do feel like it's it's like a good thing that happened to Lenny. But maybe she did lose Jonah and like kind of everything she knew of her life for
the last thirty four years or whatever. But let's take a break and we'll be right back with the several true moments to discuss.
Okay, we are back, So all right.
So I first wanted to just touch on the Donnelly piece of this episode, because it seems that her whole point of view is based on this New Yorker article called The Upstart about a woman named Leslie Crocker Snyder.
Who this is. So that's the last name.
Now, that's the last name, Leslie Crocker Snyder. She's a former prosecutor and judge who twice ran for Manhattan DA.
She did not win, but she was an ADA in Manhattan, and she was as she was campaign for the first time, she would talk a lot about how she became a prosecutor, and she said that in nineteen sixty eight, when she was twenty five, she joined the staff of the DA Frank Hogan, and she kept saying, she said, quote, I kept asking mister Hogan to go to the homicide Bureau, which was a big bastion of male chauvinism at the time, and he kept putting me off, saying I could do
I should do consumer affairs, which is where the few women in the office tended to go. And then finally one day I said, you know, come on, it's really time, mister Hogan. And he said, well, if you bring me a letter of permission from your husband. So that whole letter of permission thing comes right from this article. And that's what that little tidbit was based on. And I just think it's interesting because I feel like Donnelly might
be fully based on this woman. She was the first female to try felony and homicide cases as an ADA in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. She founded and led the Sex Crimes Prosecution Bureau, which was the first in the nation. And she co authored New York State's rape shield law. And she was a legal consult an on Law and Order and Law and Order Trial by Jury like for Law and Order for sixty plus episodes and Trial by Jury for like as many as they lasted.
And then she actually played a judge in three episodes of Law and Order Regular, So an icon an icon. But to move on, the Lenny storyline is obviously based on many stories of women who are driven to kill their abusive husbands. And there's I'm just gonna talk about two cases, so and they're very they both have a little bit in common with Lenny, but not totally. As you know the show, they grab a little bit here
and there. So the first case is the Marie Dean Arrington case, and Marie Errington was convicted in nineteen sixty four of the murder of her husband, Lester Jack Arrington. Jack was a former cop and a nightclub bouncer in Miami. He was killed on July fourth, nineteen sixty four, and the next day his wife, Marie, turned herself in and confessed.
She said it was an accident. Her lawyer said it was self defense.
They were arguing the car, and one witness said he saw he had seen Jack choking her in the front seat, and he went and broke them up, and then I don't know what happened. He walked away and she shot him. There's barely any information about this case. It's like very hard to find still, like a lot of articles where you click on them and the links are dead.
So the police never.
Found the weapon, and so she got manslaughter and twenty years in jail, and she later admitted in an interview that she had buried the gun with her husband. Now, Marie was not not that I'm victim blaming, but she was not linny.
She was not like a young girl. You know.
She had like honestly committed a lot of crimes leading up to this, like writing bad checks, assault, forgery, robbery, she had a rap sheet, okay, And so a few years after this murder of her husband, she had a son and a daughter. Her son and a friend robbed a gas station. Nobody was hurt in this robbery, and only sixty dollars was taken, which I know, in nineteen sixty eight it's more sixty dollars is more than sixty dollars now, but still not an egregious amount of mine.
And he was, at eighteen years old, sentenced to life in prison and his friend got probation, which honestly sounds like a lot of racist bullshit. Like Marie and her family, they are black, So like putting an eighteen year old in jail for the rest of his life for robbing sixty bucks from a gas station feels like, you know.
Well, especially if the other guy got probation.
Yeah, And I don't know what the race of the other guy was or what the story was. Maybe the son is the one that had a weapon, Like who knows, you know, there's a lot of you know things there, but it's crazy. And the same lawyer, the same defense attorney repped her daughter in a fraud case and she also got jail time. So Marie was like livid at this defense attorney that he didn't get better results for
her kids. So when she was out on a peel bond for her manslaughter charge, she went to his office to kill him, and he wasn't there, so she kidnapped his secretary, Vivian Ridder, and then she did kill her and Ridder, who had three kids. Her body was found three days later in the woods near a state road a few miles away from Leesburg where this happened, and she'd been shot and run over with her own car. Repeatedly like horrible, horrible. This is really layered, yeah, very layered.
Marie also robbed the home of the judge who had given her son the life sentence. So I don't know what her background is. It's not really documented anywhere. I'm sure she lived a life where like crime was her only option. She was described by others as quote unquote odd and a bad seed. So like, who knows, But I don't think that that. I don't know if I
believe in that. I do kind of feel like that's something that happens to you as a results of things in your childhood, but not that there can't be you know, born psychopaths, as there have been episodes of Law and Order chronicling. So on December sixth, it's also like what you can get away with?
You know what I mean? Because I'm sure like rich Manhattan kids are doing the same bad stuff as like other whatever. Like if you're a rich white team and you might be doing the same thing as non white rich teens, yes, and getting different punishments that then set you up for different shit too, totally exactly, yeah, like what is what is robbery? Is it stealing a candy bar? And does who get?
You? Know? So, I don't know what her the depth of her charges, but now once you murder this secretary, I'm out. I'm not on here, I'm not with you anymore. But so on December of nineteen sixty eight, she sentenced to death for first degree murder of Vivian and a year or so later, March of nineteen sixty nine, she escapes from the Florida Correctional Institution in her pajamas by cutting a window screen and jumping out, so that there could be a movie about her.
I know it's wild.
Well get this, this gets her put on FBI's ten Most Wanted Lists, making her the second woman ever to be on it. And I believe there's only ever been ten women on it, so she's one of the ten women that have been on it. She was on the Lamb for a much shorter time than Lenny, but she did make it three years, and in March of nineteen seventy two they found her and she was working as a waitress to New Orleans and she got ten extra years for escaping. So but that was also back in
the seventies. Maybe they've changed it now, but in the seventies she got ten extra years for escaping, and then later that year her death sentence was actually commuted to life because of like US Supreme Court decisions about death penalty, and so she actually died in May of twenty fourteen in prison from heart problems at the age of eighty.
Well this is wrong, but I'm for people escaping. Like, if you get to live on the lamb and you don't hurt anyone during your escape, I'm all for it. Like, good for you, Fuck the government.
Yeah, but like, can people escape and not hurt people, especially when you're desperate, you have no identification you have no wallet, you have no like no funds, Like you're desperate, You're gonna like hurt people.
I feel like, yeah, because like even because she hurt Jonah, I guess in theory, you know.
Yeah, but Lenny is a perfect example. Like Lenny went on the lamb and like lived a perfectly like model citizen life.
You know, she didn't hurt.
Anybody, but it does she was robbing people, it said, you know, she was robbing people and stealing wallets and stealing food. You know, but I don't really care about that kind of stuff anyway. That is the case of Marie Dean Arrington. One more case I wanted to bring up was an interesting case that I had never heard of before, even though there is a movie based on it. And it is the case of Kiranjit lu Walia.
And she was in.
A movie that came out about two years before this episode aired, called Provoked, So I wonder if there was some borrowing. But Kiranjit Lualia is an Indian woman who she left India nineteen seventy seven to go see her sister in Canada. In seventy nine, she goes to the UK, where she marries her husband, Deepak, who's a man she's only met one time before. I read in other places
that it was arranged. I don't know what you know, maybe it was, And she said soon into their marriage, he started turning violent against her habitually beat her, raped her, and deprived her of food. Of course, her family said it was her duty to stay in the marriage. They
offered her no help when she went to them. She tried running away, but they found her and brought her back, and she had two sons with Deepoc and so in nineteen eighty nine, after a decade of abuse and after that, Deepak tried to break her ankles and burn her face with a hot iron. When he was asleep, she made this flammable mixture out of like gas and like sodium carbonate, like I don't know all these things that she knew about. Somehow poured it over his bed and set it on fire.
And she said, quote, I had decided to show him how much it hurt. At times, I had tried to run away, but he would catch me and beat me even harder. I decided to burn his feet so he couldn't run after me. That's what she says. But she also said in other interviews. I did not mean to kill him. I just wanted to stop him from hurting me. And so he suffered burns over forty percent of his body and then he died ten days later in the hospital from complications of the burns and sepsis.
So goodbye.
Deepok Kiranjit, who could only speak broken English at the time, was arrested in charge with the murder and then she was convicted in December of nineteen eighty nine, and the prosecution argued that even though he had threatened her with a hot iron, she waited until he was asleep so that she had quote unquote time to cool off, and it was considered like premeditated since she waited for him to be asleep, and her lawyer, but it's like.
Where were you the whole time where she was getting beaten for some reason. You can't take him away or punish him. But as soon as they're like, we kill a despicable person, Okay, well you're going away from murder forever, it's like, yeah, so fucked yeah, so fucked up, and like.
Yeah, but that's like that was part of like Donnelly's argument with Lenny. It's like Lenny was arguing I was beaten, and they're like, yeah, but you waited for him to be asleep and then you shot him six times. That like hardly seems like self defense. That's their thing, But so it's borrowed in the in the show. But here's
the thing. Her lawyer never brought up the violence at trial, never brought up that she had endured all this abuse, and they let the prosecution suggest that this happened because she she was jealous over Deepak having all these affairs. So of course the way that this is framed for the jury is crazy. And this is in the UK as well, so I don't know what their trial process is compared to ours. But she is found guilty of
murder and sentenced to life in prison. Thankfully, in nineteen ninety two, her conviction is overturned on appeal on grounds of insufficient council since she, like since a, her lawyer never brought up any of the prior abuse and Karen Jet had not been made aware that she could plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, which I think is their version of like, you know, I guess it's not real. Well, we have diminished capacity so
I guess it's that. So they also added that she was suffering from severe depression when she committed the crime. I wonder why, which her new council argued had altered her decision making abilities. A retrial was ordered and on September twenty fifth of nineteen ninety two, Karanjit was found guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility and sentenced to three years and four months, which was the time she
had already served, so she was immediately released. And her case has raised a lot of awareness about domestic violence, but specifically in families that are non English speaking immigrants in Western countries. And it helped change domestic abuse laws in the United Kingdom, which is great. And her case is known in British legal textbooks as R versus Ala Walia. And it changed the definition of the word provocation in cases of battered women, so like it instead of it
reclassifies it as a manslaughter instead of a murder. And yeah, in two thousand and one, she got the she was at the first Asian Women Awards getting recognized for her quote unquote strength, personal achievements, determination and commitment end quote in bringing you know domestic violence issues to Light, and she wrote an autobiography with an a co author named
Rahela Gupta called Circle of Light. And then in this movie called Provoked, we had Navin Andrew's Svu Alum playing Deepak and Ashwari a Rai, who's beautiful Indian actress played her role. And apparently during the screening of the movie at Kahan, Karanjit set next to the actress and was just like holding her hand and crying during like the really bad parts. So I think she was involved in the process of making the movie at least.
A little bit.
So I don't know we got that movie over here because it was kind of like a UK movie. But so a few pieces I feel like of Marie and a few pieces of the other case were folded into the Linny case, but nothing was exactly the same. But I thought that these were too interesting cases. I had never heard of either of them. I don't even know what to say. The world makes me so.
Mad, I know, I know, But the good news is they're just so gung ho to charge a woman with a murder for killing an abusive man like I like, I see all the time stories on our news where it's like she got twenty years and all this stuff, and it's like, but none of you did anything during all the abuse times. Cool. Yeah, yeah, so thank you that.
Yeah.
But the good news is we have an amazing guest. So that is the flip side, and so don't go anywhere. We will be back with that guest. Okay, guys, our guest today on a well. I would say if Lisa had made a top ten list of her guests that she wanted to have on this podcast, this one's on it. I also love this person book Lisa loves. And she is an iconic actor, a writer, a director. You know, we're from nineties classics, like but I'm a cheerleader, the faculty,
and she's all that. She's worked extensively in television, starring in Veep and recently co creating the show Housebroken and High School. And she's worked on features. She wrote and directed Happiest Season and The Intervention. But you know we're today as the tragic character Mia Latimer. Guys, please enjoy our chat with Cleia Dubal. This is so, this is thrilling. You've been on our list since we started this podcast two years ago.
We are thrilled to have you.
That's so nice that you thought of me.
Well, your episode is horrifying. It's really very exciting.
I very haunting, and yet our us and our sick Freak listeners have been requesting it, asking for it.
So here we are. But we I would love to rewind because I've been a fan since like The Faculty and but I'm a Cheerleader. Was one of the most important movies in my life. I would say, loved it so much. And we had Kathy Moriarty on.
Oh Kathy's amazing.
Yeah, she was so sad.
Now we just need to get Natasha and it's like the whole Oh yeah, and she was an she's an s few alone.
Oh I know that.
But what I love is you've stayed good friends with like Melanie Linsky and Natasha Leone, and I feel like you work with your friends so often, and they were in your movie The Intervention, and I just like love that you keep tight friends for decades.
Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean we're family, you know.
And then you were a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race and we're both fans, and that was did you enjoy yourself your time there?
It was?
It was more exciting than I could have even ever hoped for. It was a real dream. It lived, It surpassed what my expectation was.
And do you watch this was incredible?
Yes, of course.
I remember when Jeff Goldbloom was like crying, he couldn't believe his eyes. What drag was? I really, yes, loved that moment.
I actually wrote on that season, and that was all real. Jeff Goldbloom was really really gooped to be there, like he could not believe his eyes. And there was a longer conversation where he really wanted everyone to explain talking to him for a long time and they were like, Jeff, we need to wrap this up.
Yeah, but it's not a good look.
But let's talk about your SVU journey here. So okay, you do this episode like around Oh my god, I'm blanking out, like two thousand and nine or something like that, or twenty ten, probably yeah, season ten.
Yes, I wanted to. I actually don't know what season or year it was.
I don't really think very literally linear time.
We're assuming it was an offer.
It was, yes, And had you like, had you watched us v you were you like, oh, this will be cool, or were you like, I just have the week free let's just do this or you know, like what was your what was the vibe when you got the call?
I had watched it a little bit, but I wasn't like a super fan or anything like that. But it was a real I mean, I love Marsha Harge. I thought, I think she's so cool, and it was you know.
It feels like law and order.
All of the law and orders really feel like a rite of passage for actors and like it I felt weirdly honored to be like it was like I was getting called up or something to get the call.
So it was.
And it's also just like it's such a great job. They're so they're such a wonderful group of people, and you know, you get to go to New York and hang out and be on this iconic.
Show and it just feels like a real like there, why would you ever.
Not do that? Yeah, how did you feel reading the scripts? Where you like, what were your initial feelings? Because it's so intense.
It's so intense. I mean that it was intense and that it you know, it was such a it was such a cool episode and the twist and turns. Really it was not the show that I thought it was going to be you know, like when when my murder happened, I was like, well, what else is going to happen? Just reading the script, I was like, well what else could possibly where could this go from here?
And it just kept going. Well, speaking of the murder, the can you explain the effects because the blood is gushing hard?
Oh, the blood is gushing hard. It was like they put.
A rig this rig on me under my clothes that it was almost like a harness that had uh it had like a little metal late that the knife the knife like hooked into it so that so and then they like cut a little part out of my clothes so it was like sticking out of me. So I could walk around, you know, like freely with a knife on me. And then they just like pumped blood out.
I was I have never had that much fake blood on me, and it was I ended up having to take a shower in the in the brownstone that we were shooting in.
I had to take a shower because I had so.
I couldn't like they couldn't get the blood off. There was no point in trying to get the blood off because there was so much blood.
Oh yeah, yu, Yeah, I was scary. Yeah, no, I mean it's physically scary.
And then also the situation is so scary because like I remember, like your character is just so like when she's first telling the story, you're like you really believe her, and then when you find out that she's being abused, and that every time when she goes back to him, she's like, yeah, everything's fine. Like, I don't know, you did a really good job of I think capturing how the hitting complicated that is.
Yeah, yeah, but in Cool Things you play a rich person. Where was the word? Do you remember the wardrobe being like extra fancy? It looks pretty fancy.
I don't remember.
It's funny because when I think of this episode, I think of a wardrobe by warrant and at something else like that is the picture that I have in my head that I know that that is not right.
I don't remember. Well, you know, I should have watched it, probably to remind myself of all.
Do you watch yourself often?
I tried. I don't. I don't really, I don't really.
Was it hard when you're in stuff that you're directing to edit and stuff when you're in it, or not horrible horrible?
Like it was like the first I mean the only time that I've ever directed myself, I was sort of fine. I was just like, whatever, I'm in the movie. I did this to myself and I wouldn't didn't really pay that much attention to myself in it. And then when we started to test screenings, and like, there were a couple of people who were like, oh, I thought that maybe you're like a little over at the top of that moment, I was like, well, I'm never gonna ask again.
I shouldn't have done this like it. And then I turned on myself and I tried to cut myself out of the movie completely, and the editor was like, you can't do it. You just can't do it, like you just tone down that one moment. It was really excruciating.
I hated it.
I'll never do it again, never really image just acting.
I mean never say never.
But I I don't understand like that those actors who are who cast themselves as the lead in their own movies, and just like, how can you like that's I just don't think I would ever.
Have the confidence to do that.
Seems crazy. Now. Was the movie based on a couple in your life that you know and judged? No, it was wait, which movie are you talking about? Just The Intervention? The Intervention?
Okay, No, it was really based on me and this time in my life where I was like a very pretty active alcoholic and was like not doing very well in any in any area of life, and yet I was I always would thought I knew what was best for everyone else because I was just like not paying attention to my own life. I was really just like, well, why is that person doing this? They should be doing this. I was like real like armchair quarterback for everyone else's lives.
And then I had this like, I mean it was really getting sober. I got so like I had already written the movie, a draft of the movie, and as I was sort of like starting to wrestle with this idea of like maybe I shouldn't be drinking anymore.
And then it really kind of.
Evolved more once I got sober, and then was like, oh, this is like this is this is me thinking that like avoiding my own problems and thinking that I know what's best for everybody else and focusing on that.
Yeah, I feel like I've just been read fully, but I feel I really to that. Yeah. I actually was grabbing this wine glass as you said, and I was like, oh, I'll put it right right back. Okay, back to se you was your TV husband normal? Like what was his vibe of, Oh yeah.
Totally nice guys so nice?
Yeah, it's I always feel bad for the guys who have to play the really bad guys, because yeah, I feel like they have then are like overcomment sating to be like, I'm not really like this.
I'm actually a pretty nice guy. You know, I have a dog.
We talked to so many of them and they're all like, yeah, people come up to us on the subway and.
Are like you can't hit women or whatever, and they're like, you don't. We're not, that's not who we are.
So people, Yeah, the audiences really take it seriously.
I mean, you can hit women. That's true.
That's true. That's true, and he should know that.
Yeah.
But when you so, speaking of people coming up to you, what do you get when people come up to you for the most do you find.
I mean it's it's really like kind of a I don't know if there's just one. I feel like it's but I'm a cheerleader. The faculty and veep.
Yeah, people like what they watch.
Yeah, we're huge beep, like, did you get to work with Maloney on Veep? No?
But his character on VIEP was so funny.
I'm just wondering because in this SVU you're so you do so much one on one with Marishka, But I don't think Christopher Maloney is even in it.
Is he like on a break this episode? Like I yeah, and then you?
And then I was wondering, Oh wow, that would be so fun if she actually did get some Maloney FaceTime at VIEP.
But I guess not.
And your character was so interesting because I had seen you in a lot of things, but I had never seen you be somebody like so stoic and like so serious.
This is a cool departure.
It was a really fun It was a fun character.
Hard to stay so blank when everyone else is so funny, but I figured out how to slip into his own.
Yeah. It was like a funny joke in itself. Just you existing was like such a fuck you to the VEEP. Oh this I sometimes I asked way two specific questions and then I feel bad, but nurse a moment well, because sometimes we'll talk to people and they're like that was fifteen years ago. I don't know why you'd think I'd remember that audition and I'm like, well, we're worried
about it. But there was a line read where she was explaining what has to happen to you to like leave this man, and when they brought up the shelter, you were like like a homeless person. And I just really liked that line read see you too.
I know, well I should have watched it. I should have watched it. Is it a scene with me and with the three ladies?
I think it's it's you and Marishka, and I think maybe the neighbor.
But well, how was it like working with Brenda Blevin?
It was great? It was really cool.
She's like a pretty Yeah, she's like a legendary lady.
It was because there was a scene with the three It's kind of coming back to me now. There was a scene with the three of us right where we're all talking about what I'm going to do.
And You're like remember reveal like how you you grew up poor and like you know, what are you supposed to do now?
And yeah, I think that I maybe it was having a hard time with that scene. I'm having a memory where maybe I was struggling a little bit with that scene. It's always every job I do, there's always one scene that undoes me.
And I think that was that. I think that's the one.
I don't know why, like all the scenes.
No, No, it's like a it's a very weird, random thing that happens where it's just like, well I don't know how.
To do the scene, and so what you do? You nailed it.
You just keep going. You just keep going, and then you trust the director. You just go. You're like, is this what you want? Doing the thing that you want?
Like, actors have no idea what like, they cannot ever know how they're coming across.
So like that's when you really that's why.
I mean some actors don't need it, but like some really rely on the director to help them know if they're on the right track.
And I am one of those.
Actors for sure. Yeah, which is why.
Working with myself as a director was a nightmare. Everything I did, I was like, that sucks.
You shouldn't have done it like that.
Yeah.
I've done like small acting parts and like I did one where I just kept asking the director.
I was like, is this it? Is this what you want?
Speaking of they had me in like full of Lane Venis's hair from like because it was a flashback to the late ladies and like or early nineties, and I was like, is am I doing the right thing? And he just kept going yeah, whatever, and I was like, no, I need you to tell me.
Yeah, So I mean, yeah, whatever is not the response.
Yeah that is like yeah, yeah, you're doing it. And I was like, it doesn't really I don't believe you.
Yeah, maybe that's on me, So we are so obviously you're sorry. I was just gonna say, like, obviously, your like experience as an actor informs your experience as a director. You do, you just like take all that with you. So when actors are like leaning on you, you know what that's how important that is, And like.
Yeah, absolutely, you know. It's also that every actor is different.
You know, there's no sort of like you know, blanket direction that you can give to every single person on the cast, Like everybody's going to need something different and.
Right, Yeah, I just worked with one director who's like, what, what do you need? And I said positive reinforcement. But then it sucks me up because I didn't believe any of the compliments because I fully asked for them, and so that kind of fucked me up in my head.
But we also talked to a lot of actors where that's for you, and they say sometimes an offer is harder than an audition because an audition at least informs like someone liked something, and then when they just give it to your kind of yeah just yeah five blind.
You feel like you're auditioning on the spot and they can't fire you right where you're just like, well, we're stuck with me.
Yeah, I'm tired.
Yeah, offers are weird, but like and everybody, I mean, what we've heard also is that Marishka is very supportive of people. Like when you got do you remember doing these scenes with her that were like so like heartbreak and like she's like, I mean her character sleeps in a in a hallway to protect you.
She's so invested, Like yeah, she's a great detection.
Even after we've after we finished, I want to say, like, I think that she called me a couple of times after I after we finished, I know that she called me when that like she saw the episode and she said she was like, you did such a good job. The episode's great, like right, and then we just like chit chatted a little bit, and then I feel like she saw me and something else and she called me.
And she has your number.
Maybe maybe she only called maybe she only called me once. I don't remember.
It is Christmas time, how do you feel? Happiest season? Probably being in people like a holiday movie like where I'm doing Christmas? That was on our list of what we're definitely watching with the family.
Stone But was that out last Christmas or two Christmases ago?
Two Christmases ago? Okay, I was like it was funny, funny, It was funny, yeah.
Because it was like not that I think anybody wanted the pandemic to happen, but a great thing for your movie because I feel like everybody watched it like it was a real home.
And like, yeah, it was you know that the timing, the timing was good for I mean just that, I mean not the timing was good. That it's great that everybody was stuck inside because of a global pandemic where not right people died, but it was you know, I think that a good time for that movie to come out, for sure, because it was so the holidays were so weird, yeah, to say the least.
And you know, no, it was fun because it was like one of those movies that like a bunch of my friends, we were all just like everybody was just texting being like have you watched that yet?
You know, like it was like a water.
Cooler movie where we were in like there was no water cooler to be found, you know, because we were all trapped.
It's like a new classic, because I feel like you have either like Hallmark where it's like cheesy and white, like something specific, and then only like a few really good holiday movies, and I feel like it was one of them.
Thank you so much.
It really, I'm so happy that I got to make that movie at all. I really it was really really special and so cool that that.
People are still watching it.
Like Christmas movies become a part of your life in a way that other movies don't, and that was like the fact that we were able to make a movie that is doing that is just really It's so cool.
And then you are now writing on stuff you are directing, like what's the what are you like leaning towards or are you trying to just be a jack of all trades or are you just like I'm going to put acting a little bit on the back burner. While I direct for a while or what's your Yeah.
I mean, I really love writing and directing.
I find it to be so fulfilling in a way that is just and it's also new, you know, I think acting is I've been doing it since I was eighteen, and I do.
Really love it.
But I think before I wanted to act, I wanted to write. I've always loved writing, and so to be able to go back to that and be able to make things and you know, tell the stories that I want to tell and higher actors that I really love and work with cruise like in a more intimate way, like it's really I don't know, I'm just find I'm
just very inspired by it right now. So it is and it's also so time consuming that you can't really do anything else, you know that I have a show right now that that just came out, and we're work we have we're not picked up for a second season, but we have a we're doing a mini room and.
It's just it's time.
It takes forever, like I can imagine, you know, I can't imagine. I mean I have been writing and acting at the same time, and it's just but it's it's harder to bounce back and forth, you know, because I like getting sort of lost in the process of writing and then once once you're in production, forget it, like you can't leave.
Yeah, no, it's wild. I feel like every time I want to set, I'm newly surprised, like how long everyone's there and how hard people work. I'm always just like, geez, you guys are like really putting in all the hours. Yeah, and it always surprises me. And I don't know why. I just don't know how people have a life. But going back to back in the day, you kind of had a really iconic hairdo and the faculty but I'm
a cheerleader. Do you feel like was that you coming into it or did they make you cut your hair? I feel like you're pre posh spice in terms of that fun hairdo.
Yeah, that no, that was my That was me. That was a haircut that I had in my real life. Yeah.
And the reason and my hair is like a little bit curly, So that's why my hair is always so greasy because I would I didn't know how to sty I didn't know how to make my hair straight, so I would just put a bunch of shit in my hair to like kill the wave.
Basically, Oh, it looks very straight and silky in your SVU episode.
Oh yeah, I mean if I have a professional.
If someone does a professional but I do not have those skills.
Yeah, yeah, but me trying.
To blow dry my own hair even now is really embarrassing.
That's embarrassing.
And it's only like part of my hair will be straight in the back of my head will still be like really curly, and.
That's not a good Yeah.
I have crazy curly hair and it's been a lifelong struggle to tame it and deal with it. But well, I'm also looking at your IMDb here at this this animated show called Housebroken that has like all these fun people in it, like Maria Bamford is like a friend of mine through stand up and then you've got like all these people like Lisa Kudrou and like, what this is amazing and this is your your this is a no, you're a creator a creator of this too.
Yeah.
I created with two of the writers from uh VI, Gabby Allen and Jen Crittenden, and they I just loved them so much, and we talked about we were just talking about working on something else together and I had this idea and I told it to them and they immediately had an idea that made the idea better, and it evolved into and then we all started talking about it together and it evolved into the show.
And it's just it's so much fun.
And the cast is out of control and.
Yeah actually who who Yeah, And.
We have two episode holiday episodes airing this Sunday because we've been off the air since last summer, and then we have these episodes airing, and then we have a full season airing again next summer.
But it's really a blast. It's such a funny show.
And I'd always wanted to do animation before I never had and so it's been really I've learned a lot and really.
I really love it. Yeah, animation is such a different thing.
It seems like it seems like for writing, it's so fun because you can really write anything to happen.
You don't have to worry about like budget or whatever.
But then you know, just like thinking about how visually jokes are going to land.
It's like it's just a totally different thing.
Yeah, you know is and you all, I think because I also like I have such a like practical brain when I'm writing live action that it's like, okay, well you're not gonna be able to do.
Have like explode a house like right, But.
In animation you can literally do anything and create anything. And like once I sort of got into that, like no sort of no holds barred imagination. It really unlocked something and just it's so fun.
Well it's also cute, like you get to be a cute thing, you know, like a car. You get to be a little corky.
Yeah, yeah, and now I.
Love Corki's an animal that I never thought twice about.
But really they're so cute. They're so cute that they have no one told me.
They have like butts that look like people butts, Like I just see them all barts my kids into baby animal Instagram, so I see a lot of corky butts floating in water anyway.
Smiling their load of the ground. But they're fluffy. They're just really kind of perfect. Would you get it tattooed on yourself?
You feel uh no, no, no, no, I don't. I'm not going to get any more tattoos.
I don't think that's like my dream to be a cartoon character. So then I can get it tattooed and then.
You could get my character tattoos on you.
Yeah, that's a great idea. I would get a I have a lot of quirgi merch, to be honest, if I'm being fully regular to.
Well, you should watch the watch the watch House Pocus see this little corky in action.
Well, just to like close out the SVU questioning like do you have any like do you have any other like memories from doing it or like little stories or anything you think our listeners would like be excited about.
I mean it was really just the getting the call from Marishka and like working with her and then having her really like take an interest and be so genuine
and it really I don't know. I whenever there's someone like that out there and you work with them and they they understand what their position can do, and like some people use to like scare people or you know, make people feel bad, and then other people really use it to like elevate the people around them, and she is really someone who did that, and it was just it really meant so much to me because as an actor, you can really especially as a guest star on a
television show, you can feel so insignificant because in some ways you are because you are. You're just like in Network TV, if you're a guest star in one episode, like they're just going to do it again twenty.
Twenty one more times.
So yeah, other people and you're you know, you can really just feel disposable and and it just it really just felt like her the way she.
Treated me and everyone that I know who's been on it.
I don't know, it's really it's really important and really like turn something that could that could be very forgettable into something really meaningful.
Yeah, beautiful, and you didn't really get like it was. Yeah, you're really great in the episode. Have you died on screen before? Oh?
Yeah, I've done. Oh I've done a lot.
Oh yeah, Oh okay. Well, not only are you friends with like Natasha Leone and Melanielensku you work with a lot, but like high school Teagan and Sarah, I feel like you've worked with them and the like. On social media, I feel like everyone that I followed was talking about high school.
So oh really, yes, that's nice to hear.
Yeah, well we're really excited. And will you wait? Will you tell me what it's on? What is it on? Where do I watch High School.
High School is on It's on Amazon Freebee, which is its own app, but then you can also watch it on Prime.
Oh, so Amazon gives you a couple of ways.
To watch it, and I don't know if that makes it more or less confusing, but you can definitely find it.
Yeah, because Freebie's like their free platforms, so more people can probably get to it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's yeah, it's based on Teagan and Sarah's memoir about their years in high school and sort of coming of age and becoming musicians and you know, discovering their sexuality.
And it's really I loved.
Their books so much, and as soon as I read it, I called Teagan and just said, you please let me make this into a television show. And it's been really I'm I've really loved the experience of making it. And but I'm not really on social media very much, so I haven't seen any of that, but I'm happy that people are talking about it.
Yeah. Wait, was it fun to cast your friends as little kids or like teens? Like, was that the casting fun?
It was?
Yeah, it was fun, but it was also just like what we were looking for was insane, you know, like that we had to find twin girls that were the right age, who were queer, just funs like uh, I like, we were insane, and I thought we were going to have to pull like an orphan black type situation with just one actor, but it Teagan was on TikTok and saw one of the twins in a video and then discover that she had a twin sister and then reached out to them and they auditioned, and it was like
a very scary thing to do to cast them because they were just you know, Pete, they were not actors. They were working in pizza restaurants in Fresno and just got We just picked them up out of their lives and brought them and cast them as the leads out of television show. Was such an insane thing to do, but they worked so hard. Raley in season who played Taken in Sarah and did such an incredible job, And it was really just it felt like this very.
Like fate that they appeared. It really fell fell into our laps.
Yeah, yeah, TikTok. I mean you just like changed these twins lives.
Yeah, and TikTok. Give TikTok a little bit of a pass.
Yeah, I don't think people are talking about TikTok enough.
Yeah, and they're not giving tik took enough credit, you know, like need to be algorithm.
The algorithm is getting something right.
Yeah.
So they were looking for teen twins and a team twin was delivered. There they have they have the most scary algorithm. But that is really cool. Okay, I'm going to check that out high school on free v on is it called freev Yeah, Amazon, Amazon freeby and Amazon Prime amazing. Yeah, all the Amazon places, all the Amazons.
Yeah. Perfect, you're really crushing it. You made the pivot to writing directing so good.
I mean, I I was fortunate enough to work with so many brilliant writers and directors that I learned so much from. And it's you know, it's really just paying attention to other people doing it well. And yeah, keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut.
Yeah, because you've been in the business for so long, it's like, I'm sure you picked up stuff that you should use and stuff.
That you would not you would never want to use. Absolutely.
Yeah. Working with the with with directors who were not the greatest actually taught me just as much.
Yeah, don't do that.
This is this is a great way to get an actor to turn on you in a scene.
Don't do that.
Yeah, all right, well I'm so excited to hear. I'm so excited to keep an eye out for stuff you have coming up.
And yeah, and I'll be watching the Happiest Season this Christmas.
Yeah, you're going to have like a new Christmas classic watch every year.
That's what we're doing.
That makes me really happy. Thank you for watching it.
Yeah. Wow, she is so accomplished.
God, doing so many things like acting, directing, the writing, the animation live action movies.
I know so much, and also living our dream. I mean, you were there, but being a judge on Drag Race, being able to be in the vibe with that crew is pretty incredible. And you know she put drag queens in her The Happiest Season as well, Deayla and Jenks and Dela Baby. Well they are the Christmas Queen.
I mean, you gots to put them in your movie if you're doing a Christmas movie. They are Jinxon day Law's Christmas. We should go see that live sometime. That'd be so fun.
I of course, no, it was really cool. This podcast is so fun to do for many reasons, but it is also like sometimes I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Like to me and talk to a person that I've been following their work for decades, does it's just like, yeah, good to be true. I can't believe it and you still haven't seen. But I'm a cheerleader. We got to watch that. I know, I gotta watch that. I gotta
watch it. But cause and you have Melanie Lynsky, you have so many stars that you still love today and it's actual Leon like you love RuPaul Mari, like we love these people. So it seems like it's gonna be right up my alley and I'm gonna really love it. So I'm excited to watch it. I so loved knowing that the blood was really squirting JK. Of course we saw it. She I love her being like there was so much blood, poor my body man that she was
like walking around set with a knife. I really love seeing photos of people on set and like Victorian outfits drinking a diet coke? Have you seen that, like Kristen Dunst and Marie and Twinette and stuff.
Yeah, Like famously, somebody left a Starbucks cup on a table in an episode of Game of Thrones. So there's like a Starbucks cup in the final cut.
But well, you know, I had to wear a strap on for pause with Samjay and and then that was the day that she got everyone in an ice cream truck as a thank you, and so we went and got our ice creams with our full strap ons on. Like there was just like seven women with dicks on walking around set. Where did that come from? Walking around set with like the item like bring a Maria and twinette cigarettes We were talking about like the diet coke of it all, but then it's a full strap on.
Well know, her walking around with a knife and we were walking around with dick.
Yes, well we've also gotten to talk to two people that had to wear that knife breastplate thing because we talked to Mike Doyle about the same fucking thing. And it's wild that oh my god, like that scene. This episode is really really like connting and tough because it does really show domestic violence. I feel like in a way that a lot of people, I mean, I don't know that maybe we haven't seen on network television in such a violent way.
And it was it's just like the actual hardships and realities of escaping abuse are complicated as fuck, and it's a pet peeve of I bet you as what, Like when people make it so simple and have no empathy or understanding, when people are like why invents? And even did this here? Like why didn't you leave? Why didn't you do that? What about this? Why do you need
an abortion? Like people making judgments and questions about people's lives that are like so complicated and difficult, yes, and being so black and white about stuff that that isn't like she has no money, no education, nothing, no family, right.
And she just an escape if he hadn't killed her, he's trying to now saddle her with his children, so now she really can't leave, you know what I mean? Like, this is why I feel like the Plan B storyline up top, we hated that pharmacist, but also like it just highlights the importance of reproductive rights for women, because pregnancy and children and a lot of for a lot of women are like the final nail in the fucking coffin when you're with an abusive guy.
It makes it much harder to leave, you know. Yeah, And you know Lenny leaving living with this trauma for so long, and how laws we're not protective of women at all, and we still have to fight for laws to protect women and abuse victims of all genders. And it's just I'm grateful for us to st view and I feel like a lot of people that should be
watching it probably aren't. But it's just like it gives so much understanding to things that even you know, we work so hard to understand everything, and this this episode is just so clear in its messaging I feel. And we have Judith Light realizing her mistakes and seeing her make a mistaken come to terms with it, the judges. It's also like a great female actress episode, you.
Know, totally Yeah, Donnelly Hatter moment, we had Clia, we had Brenda Blethin and other you know icons, So this
was a good one. And yeah, along those same lines there, we'll get into our what would Sister Peg Do, which is our weekly segment where we try to point you guys to an organization, a resource, website, article, book, something that will give you more info and what we talked about in today's episode, And because domestic violent shelters are so uh, you know, geographically linked, I wanted to highlight
the website Domesticshelters dot org. They're the first and largest online and mobile searchable directory of domestic violent shelters, so you don't have to look up like you could just go to domestic shelters dot org and that will tell you what's the closest near you and or near a friend or somewhere else, so you can like look it's like Google of domestic shelters, and it's the US and Canada, and they are really helpful resource for people experiencing and
working to end domestic violence. If you'd like more info, it's domesticshelters dot org and as always will be saved as a story in our WWSPD highlight on our Instagram, which is that's messed up pod.
Thank you so much. And if you know, maybe if your New year's resolution is to spring clean or whatever. Like, shelters are also a great place to drop off clothing, beauty supplies, tampons, hair products, things for you know, toys for kids, outfits so women can go to job interviews. Like shelters are a really great place to send your resources to help local people that need help in your neighborhood. So on top of just finding shelters like it's just
a great place to give yestra. Maybe you want a lifetime supply of tampons, I got a place for you to give them. And then next week we'll be doing Home Invasions Season thirteen, episode fourteen. Yeah, it's a good one. I don't know to tell you. We got Peacock. Oh my god, the person who made Kara hat at mia Hattan, Sacramento too and made it peacock colors because people are obsessed with to say Peacock and Hulu and all that good stuff. And happy fucking New Year, and we'll see
you next week. 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 it That's messed uppod at gmail dot com.
Follow the podcast on Instagram at That's Messed Up Pod and on Twitter at messed Up Pod, and follow us personally at Kara Klank and at glitter Cheese.
As always, please see our show notes for sources and more information.
Thank you so much to our producer Kac O'Brien, and to.
Our mixer John Bradley and our guest booker Patrick Cottner and to Henry Kaperski for our themes and Carly Jean Andrews for our artwork. Thank you to our executive producers Georgia Hardstar, Karen Kilgarriff, Daniel Kramer, and everybody at Exactly Right Media
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