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Hello, everybody, Welcome to That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Kara Klink and name Lisa Tragger.
We talk SVU true crime and one day we will have guests again one day post.
One day right today, year twenty four.
Yeah, yeah, we're cooking up baby interviews. We got some good people coming up in twenty twenty four. This is our last episode before Christmas. Jingle Bells. You're gonna be already be away when this comes out.
No, not yet, not yet.
No. We have just gotten back from our New York Philly dates and I will be going to Mexico City in four days.
So but you know, I mean, we're recording this in the time machine way before.
But I'm already you know, I'm buying skirts, I'm i'm, I'm, I got new sneakers. I'm wearing them in so they're ready for They're ready for Mexico. You know, so much planning the nail appointment has been made on the twenty second. I'm doing a lot doing all, right, I know, I buy my tickets, doing the plans.
Yeah, I'm holding out my nails until like right before because I want them to like last over the holidays, like when I'm gone for a long time.
I know.
Same with the roots.
You know, it's like I'm trying to get my grays, but if I wait this long, then I'll they'll pop out and this time, so yeah, to wait, So I'm gray for a week longer than.
I like to have not done because I'm going to the same girl we both go to to get my hair recolored fully, but I don't like to like I don't really pay her to do my roots.
I just do it myself.
And so I'm waiting until like the day before the appointment so that it can like all be beautiful together. That's so wild that you won't let her just do it all because she did it last time. It's so much more money and it's so much more time. It's like a double process for me. Oh okay, you know, okay, and I just like do it myself and then she just does the rest, you know, because it's like because
I do bolliage. So I will be when this episode comes out, frantically packing to take my two children by myself across the country on a plane.
And should I buy adults a lounge pass before that?
Will it help me? I don't know. I get there so early and then I just let them like run around and they go insane and people usually laugh, but I don't know, we'll see. It might be bothering people at the Christmas time, but.
That's what if you're traveling around the holidays, you know, that's what's happening. You know, like the y at, the babies are there, the families are going, that's like, this is this is the time.
Yeah, the kids are pumped, they're full of sugar. It's happening. Yeah. Wait.
I spent the morning on Ticketmaster trying to buy tickets to take my son Oscar to see Rafi because he's going to be in la in February. And guess what, that motherfucker sold out the Orpheum downtown and he didn't really sell it out totally.
There's like six.
Single tickets left, which is like who's buying those singles? Who's buying a single to go to Rafi? That's an SVU episode, you know, like you can't like send a kid by themself, so.
They're just like time to email for some favors.
I don't know.
I better agents have never been asked for a RAFFI.
I literally was like, is this the ask for the agents or do I wait until I really want to see Adele? Like do I have Like I can't believe I would have. I would like blow it on RAFFI. It's on resale sites, like there's stuff on stub Hub, but it's like for they're on Ticketmaster for forty nine and they're on stub Hub for like ninety five, and.
It's like, I didn't know you guys were such a Raffi family.
Oscar just started kind of being into like Baby Beluga and like down by the Bay and stuff, and I.
Was like, you know, he's kind of an icon.
And I feel like, like I was thinking it would be something fun for me and Oscar to do because I do so much solo shit with Rosie, Like I would like to start doing a little bit more now that Oscar's coming more into his consciousness, like doing more things with him, and so I thought it would be a fun thing for us to do and damn. I texted a bunch of friends. I go, I'm getting tickets for Rappie who wants to come? And then I go cancel that he sold out? Like it's crazy. Yeah that's impressive.
Yeah it's at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Saturday in February. But I'm going to try to I'm going to try to work some work, some connects, see what I can do. So did you find out about it late or did he sell out that fast? I think I found out about it late. I think I don't know. I don't know when it was announced. To be honest, I like saw something generally past like I'm passing about it maybe on my Facebook and was like, what is this? And then my friend I was on
another podcast. I was on Hysteria, and Aaron Ryan, who's the host of that podcast, was like saying, how Rafi's so cool? This is actually we were having conversation because you know what the end of that podcast, you you do, Sanny Petty, something that's keeping you sane or something that
you feel petty about. And for Petty, I was like, I'm so spoiled by Netflix and Hulu without ads and all this stuff that I don't pay for paramount without ads, and my kids watch a lot of Nickelodeon shit on there, and there's so many fucking ads, and it's like so insidious because they're two and four and everything they see, they're like, can we get that?
Can I have that?
And I'm like, god, like, how did our parents even live? We were just watching commercials constantly asking for everything. I'm sure. So I was annoyed by child consumerism, advertising culture or whatever. That was my my petty.
And she was saying that Raffi actually.
Could have been a millionaire many times over, but he would he refused to let his music be sold for children's advertisements. WHOA, yeah, that's what she told me. Have in fact shocks, So.
He could have had a Nickelodeon show or something or like what did she mean he could have?
Like he would have made so much money if he had like lent his song to like, you know, a paw patrol or like, I don't know, not a paw patrol, but like you know, some kind of any kind of toy or like to movies or anything that's like being aimed towards kids, and he wouldn't do it. Wow, so he didn't want kids to be advertised too, I think so. I think he was like, let them find my music on a record player in a field. I bet he's still a millionaire though, yeah, oh I'm sure that's yeah,
that's what I mean. I mean he could have been like a more millionaire, like you know, but yeah, like this thing in Canada, Raffi says no ads for kids like he he advocates for a child's right to live free of commercial exploitation, and he has consistently refused all commercial endorsement offers. That's what it says on his Wikipedia And I kind of like, wow, like love that about Raffi anyway.
Amazing, Well that kind of reminded me and then fully left my brain immediately and now it's back. So there's this woman. I think I talked to you about her, but her name is Chelsea Fagan. I found her TikTok, but I used to read her stuff on Thought Catalog like back in the day, and Ryan Hannels, yes, picks her mom hair. So she's the CEO of this company called the Financial Diet and I think it's just like YouTube and social media finance advice for young people. But
she has eleven employees. She is the CEO, and she's the fifth highest paid in her company. She says it's bullshit to think that executives are the most valuable or the most important to a company. She goes, I am not, and there are people who deserve to get paid more than me. She's not given herself a raise in five years. She says, I make enough money. I have other endeavors. I don't need more money and I don't. That's that wow.
So it's pretty cool with their integrity. It's but as you say, it's tough to have integrity, you know.
But she's doing well, you know what I mean, Like and she can and a lot of the comments are always like you're out of touch, you're rich, And she came from low income. She was raised low income, and that's where a lot of her education and I think with money also comes from.
And like I don't know, but they own their apartment, her and her husband.
She dressed as well, Like, you know, I don't know if she's lat And it's kind of the thing where at a certain point, your happiness does not grow with the amount of money you have, and I think she's at that point. But just to be aware enough to be like, I do not deserve the most that my own company. I have never heard anything like it.
Ever. Yeah that is I mean, I.
Heard the Costco guy is good. I heard the Patagonia guy is good, but like I don't you know, I don't really know about oh oh well yeah. I also saw this family having a birthday party at Costco and I was like, that's fucking cute.
Oh my gosh. I really love the Costco pizza.
I get a piece sometimes when I go to Costco and just sit there and have a life ofttle Costco pizza by myself.
Because I know the Costco hot Dog's the big item. But you know, I can't have that, and.
I'm a snob with when it comes to my home. I want a beef I want a beef dog baby. Oh guess what. So I went to McDonald's to get another Disney toy. I wanted to stab it again, you know, so last time. Basically Disney is doing the hundred years of Disney. You can get any cute toy. I got Star Wars, so I go, I just want a cute toy, like can I just get Sully or Mowana?
Like can I get Pluto please. I went back. I got another Star Wars set.
I cannot believe that.
Yeah, it's a different one. It's c three po So I'll give it to Mateo. He really likes him. He thinks it's a gay robot. So but I can't even believe it. I can't even believe it that I got another Star Wars toy. Nobody wants this, nobody. It's just like what child knows and likes Star Wars Like that is for the parents. Like no child is going like that is getting happy meals want Star Wars. Unless I'm fully wrong. I did see some young.
Jedi toys when I went to the store. Whatever, I'm just I'm pissed.
Let's go so yeah, not to be too negative, you know, but I just want a cute toy, you know, And like if I didn't know what the options were would be another thing.
But on the box you see all the other cute things you could get, and you can't just say to the guy, do you have anything else back there? Or is that an drive away? No?
I drive away. I open it and I go, mother a fucker. I think next time we got to be doing a check on site. And then we gotta go.
I'm sorry, sir, this is my second one. I can't. I can't.
I can't have this again. Yeah, back there to dig around and tell me? Are you going to different McDonald Maybe that one's cursed.
I went to the same one. I will go to a different one. I'm gonna go to a different one and see because this guy at least let me buy the toy without buying food, but without buying a happy meal.
But we'll see, We'll see what happens.
Yeah, I think this year I'm gonna try to get my kids on Santa's Lap, which I've never done before. Where and it's probably in West Virginia, which will be super interesting. I can't wait to see what the West Virginia Santa looks like, just because like we're getting there on like the twenty first, we're gonna have like a few days to kill. I feel like, yeah, let's like go to a dying mall and see Santa, you know, like,
and I mean obviously i'll post the picks. I just I'm looking forward to seeing what happens because I can tell Oscar's just gonna like they met Chuck E Cheese last week two weekends ago, I don't know if I told you. And later Rosie was like, did you know that Chucky was a human in a suit? And I was like, you know, I thought it might be just because mice are usually pretty small, and she was like, yes, you're.
Right, like.
And then she was going around telling everybody I met Chuck e cheese, but he was just a human in a suit.
She also advanced, do you think she's gonna like be no, Santa's a fraud too.
She's gonna catch me early.
I can tell because I already go, well, we'll see what I can I'll see what Santa brings you, you know what I mean? Like, well, like I just keep saying like, I'll see what I can find. I mean, we'll see what Santa will put on in his workshop, you know. Like, so, but do you do any gifts from you or it's all Santa? Or are they've a dad?
They've been so little in the past, like this is probably the first Christmas where Rosie will even understand, like get like the Santa thing really, so I think, yeah, I'll say, oh, this is from us, because you know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get them a couple of like bigger things.
Those will be from us.
That'll be back at the house when we get back from the trip, because like I want to get them a little train table. I think that'll like keep them occupied and uh and we can't like fly with that obviously, so that'll be like, oh, that's from us, but everything else will be like from Santa, or like a couple of big things from us and everything from Santa, and then.
They're gonna get be wrapped from that grandparents.
They're gonna get stuff from you know, my my, my brothers and sisters are probably gonna get them shipped, so they're gonna have way too much crap.
You always get them really practical stuff a train table. Yeah, it's like with the train tracks, you know what I mean, Like the I want to get them like yeah, because I think that that stuff's also like just it holds up, it doesn't break.
They will play with it for a long time and then I'll sell it when I'm done. You know, I'm trying not to buy as much garbage plastic that's just gonna like go into a landfill when it breaks. Like I've bought Rosy two swimming chase dolls and they break immediately when she puts them in the bath, I gotta stop.
Oh damn, that's a bummer.
Yeah.
The swimming Chase cannot swim, in case anyone's thinking about it for Christmas.
He really can't. He moves his little pause as fast as he can, but he cannot stay above water.
Yeah. For when I brought gifts to the kids, I got one the Dalmatian and then the girl. Oh those are the two Guy and Marshall. I was not about to get kids cop shit, you know. And it's weird because Chase is like the most popular one. He's kind of like the head dog. And then Marshall, I would say, and Sky are seconds. Yeah, Marshall is the fire fire.
Yeah. The Dalmatian we meet? We met, or was I with Jared gold Stein?
I met a Dalmatian in Vermont, And usually dalmation owners are like on their own business.
But this guy was really friendly and like let us like he like let us talk to him and stuff. I heard a thing about Dalmatians a long time ago. I don't know if I've ever brought this up.
We talked about it, that they're bad, that they're bad for kids. No, no, not that what I've heard is that Dalmatians are sympathetic dogs, like they need to have another Dalmatian with them, and so like after like one hundred and one Dalmatians came out, there was like a huge like rush to go buy Dalmatian puppies and then they were misbehaving and they were bad because they want another Dalmatian with them, and everyone was just buying one, and then everyone was returning them and there were all
these Dalmatians at like shelters and this was obviously like years and years and years ago, but that like that's the deal, like they want to be with another Dalmatian.
Interesting. This guy was only one, but it was really cute. But I was like, I was like, this dog is so sweet, Like why does everyone talk shit about Dalmatians being like bad? And he goes, well, they're inbread, they're gonna have some problems.
Well speaking of but speaking of by the time this episode comes out, I think I'll be allowed to talk about it. But my brother and his husband are getting a dog and it's a Frenchie and I was like, I was like, on brand, yeah, I go. He goes, I know it's very gay, and I go, you gotta get that insurance. Those things are so inbred they get so many problems. And he really is like really super cute.
He's perfect. I mean, they're perfect little dogs. But yeah, they are gonna snore and smile. It's like a really special color.
I don't know. I and he said, the dog's really chilly, doesn't bark a lot. But so now they're a little concerned because they're like, why is this puppy not like wriggly and freaking out and like you know as and he has a head tilt, so they're they're they're they're gonna get him tested out.
I think they're gonna te So what could be what are they scared of?
Like that he could be ill or something because he doesn't act like the rest of his siblings in the litter or whatever, and he's not and he has this head tilt like he's always like this.
A little quiet boy, I know.
But also what the Dalmatian guy said is they're very active dogs, like they need a lot of exercise, and so when families get them, they're not they're not giving them the proper exercise they need. So of course they're misbehaving in the home, like except for about a regular person.
Yeah, you got to run them. But this dalmation I was petting was like very very nice.
I love that.
I mean, I I can't believe they're gonna get Wait, what's your brother naming the dog? They while they're arguing about it, because I think they want to name it Benjamin, like Benji.
They want to call it Benji.
But then Joe likes Pretzel and like, so they're I know, so they're I think they're going back and forth. I'm like, my brother Kevin was sending this meme from that show Letter Kenny that says, like animals, human names are for humans, Like, don't name dogs human names.
I guess so that would mean she is cute.
There's a movie, but Pretzel is adorable.
To ex Colin for me right now saying I vote Pretzel, okay, if my vote means anything, I'm voting Pretzel.
Okay.
That is so cute because when you first said Benjo's like, oh that's cute, and then once Pretzel came out of your mouth, there's there's nothing stopping me.
Hold on, I'm gonna do it. A voice to text.
I'm podcasting with Lisa right now, and she says her vote is for Pretzel.
He's gonna be mad. Oh uh oh. I heard of the Wrath of Colin. But I think it's cute.
But I also think it's so funny that they're gonna get this dog right before we all descend on their home for the holidays, Like this new dog's gonna be like getting used to his house and then we're gonna be like, what's up.
It's four kids and a.
Bunch of adults, like in a little house, not a little house. It's a big house, but in a house not going outside much because it's December. It's just gonna be funny.
It will be funny. How do you think about this?
I'm going to a birthday party tonight and yesterday I asked, so, what's on the menu? What's the vibe? But what am I wearing? And I do love this, but a part of me is like what. But it's gonna be McDonald's. They're getting tons of cheeseburger nuggets and fries, and I'm just like that actually tracks for me for this person, Like I there's not gonna be any crew to say. I mean, I'm not even a veggie, Like there needs
to be another option. I love McDonald's. Yeah, And I've brought McDonald's to other gatherings that we've been two together, but it was like five of them, Like I just yes. And for the super Bowl party, like we know someone. I remember one time someone came with tons of McDonald's and they were a hero. But there's like dozens of people and dozens of other options, and it's.
A super Bowl party in the middle of the day. It's like different than like an adult birthday party evening.
You know, I get it right. I was kind of like, huh, weird.
I think maybe they're like, it's small, everybody loves this, it's easy, let's just fucking do that.
I mean, I don't know.
It kind of tracks for me for this person who's like a contrarian and is going to do something that's opposite of what you think and what you want. You know, you're right, so contrarian. It's honestly, I can't. But what if I'm gonna bring pad tie with me, you bring your own you bring like your own shrimp cocktail platter.
You're like just wanted to class it up a little. Yeah, I love it.
It's just I think if you're hosting something, you should have other options, but you said it tracks for this part, but like you would get there and you'd have.
Nothing to eat.
I mean I would eat fries. I guess, yeah, you're right. Yeah yeah.
Colin texted me back and said, I admire her bravery. I don't really because he knows he's gonna come for me.
You're dead the next time they come and order duck together at a meal, You're dead.
All right.
Before we get started on the episode, because Casey is about to kill us, let's just quickly remind you that we're gonna be in Seattle on January seventh.
Come see us. We're at the Wet City Comedy Festival. We really love this venue.
We're at the Crocodile that's also called the Hereafter. It's an awesome venue that we've done. We actually some of our first live shows were in the small room at this place, and I think now we're doing the bigger room. So we really want to see you guys there because we haven't been to Seattle in yeah, a while, year and a half.
So come see us.
And the ticket link for that is at that's mess uplive dot com. Also in our Instagram bio and uh yeah, We hope to see you guys, and thank you to everybody who came to see us on tour in twenty twenty three. We had the best time. We love meeting you guys, We love performing for you live. It's just like truly a treat, So thank you, guys. Lisa, I don't know if you have any other words.
Yeah, I hope everyone has a festive or non festive holiday, whatever you feel like, whether you're eating Chinese by yourself, watching you know, succession, or you're flying home to a father of the bride's style house and having a full blown Christmas. You know, I hope it's either spectrum is what you want it to be. I did have a moment where I was talking to someone that I know, Kat and I casually and I asked about Thanksgiving and then he was like, I did nothing.
I was alone.
I got high and drunk and watched television and I went great. But I'm not asking a follow up.
That's for.
We Also, really we also completely ignored Honkkah. I will be lighting Honkkah candles with my children. It starts on December seventh. But you know, we ago we missed it. Were in the time machine. We forgot Hankkah, sorry Honkkah. Happy Festivus, Happy Kwanza to everybody for whatever you celebrate, whatever you don't. I love you guys, and I love the holiday season no matter what you celebrate. So let's get a hot chocolate yesterday. I had a hot chocolate last weekend.
It's time. It's just time.
It's that time of years, time, baby, hot chocolate season.
Yeah.
I had a nice hot chocolate at Mels. Oh, I see, I get. I like the Starbucks hot chocolate I do. I like, you know, what's the best hot chocolate coffee bean. I'm not saying I would go out of my way to go to the Mels for hot chocolate. That's just what I You know, got.
Uh No, you're a huge Mets fan.
You drive all the way to West Hollywood to get their hot chocolate every weekend. Listen, we are starting now and we have a great episode for you, guys. This is our holiday gift to you. Okay, guys, today we're doing an episode I love called Russian Brides. What's wild about this episode is I think of this as a Neil Barriers episode. I think I think of this as like a Season seven Season eight but it is season thirteen, a Stabler Free Time episode seven. This came out in uh,
you know, twenty eleven. The very end it's there's a chill in the New York air so uh. The episode opens a hot babe is walking through empty New York City streets at night, no jacket, just a tight dress. Uh oh, and we don't see her face, we just see the back of her. Someone with a Russian accent pulls up in a car alongside her and is yelling ugle ugele with like so they're saying angel but with a hard G. And he's like, stop, where do you go,
little girl? And I hate I hate that. And she's getting scared and she starts running and then he's screaming at her like no, don't run away. But then it gets increasingly mad. He's like get in the car. And now she's like running up and down ramps. I think there by the beach, it looks like she's going towards the water, so desolate.
I just feel I'm like, yeah, my god, why is there not one bodega, one person on a stoop, like one light. It's it's so horrifying. This intro really makes me scared. It's really scary.
It's like I don't remember, Like that's what people used to ask me, like do you feel unsafe in New York? I'm like, I'm almost never walking on a street where there's not other people or lights on or cars going by. Like I never felt like I was in dark warehouse areas or alleys, you know what I mean. But that could have just been my experience. I just like really wasn't.
And so she's running up at this ramp, but a guy like cuts her off, so she runs back the other way, and now she's like screaming and we hear her screams as this like big guy gets out of a car with like a heavy bag and starts walking towards wherever this girl is.
So and it's very horror movie vibes because it's like you're running to a port like a rap, like don't go by water to people like to swim.
Yeah, I don't know, but like it's nothing good is happening with a guy walking towards you with like a heavy leather bag so hard cuts a daylight. Two guys are taking out the trash outside of a restaurant, and and I am obsessed with like the silly conversations that people are having right before they find the body. It's so funny. It's like, oh, my mother in law or like whatever. And this one is two guys talking about One guy is like, you know, when you're outside, you
got a brown bag. You're alcohol so you don't get a ticket. And his big shark tank idea is designer beer bags. He's like suede leather blure, like bling him out, and the other guy goes, yeah, they're called koozies, and he's like, oh, no, way, Like he was fully ready to present the sharks with his idea, and then they noticed done done, two legs sticking out from the side of the dumpster and undees are around the ankle. That's the international sign for call SV. So now Benson is
on the scene with Warner. This girl has no purse, no.
Id, and a butterfly tattoo and she's faced down on the ground. Yes, she's face down on the ground.
So the bus boys that found her said the body was not there an hour earlier and no one heard or saw shit. She was sexually assaulted and then had blunt first trauma to the head. They do a countdown to flip or over and it is not pretty. On the other side, Amar looks like he's about to toss his cookies, which we've been talking about different words from barf and our live shows, and he goes, what is that acid? Like her face is just totally gone, and
Melinda goes, it's mechanical, not chemical. So she also adds that they pulled her teeth as well, and they also cut off all her fingertips and this is like one of the most brutal body well.
It remembers me of the TikTok trend, which was supposed to be like a joke where it's like women relaxing and then in the background, it's like they took off her eyes, they took off her finger Ye have seen that, and it's like a woman just like painting her nails in a robe. Yeah, Like that's like that's like an over exaggeration, and it's not in this episode.
It's like, yeah, it really is brutal. It's it's it's horrible. So I wrote Jesus, this one is brutal in capital letters. So now Igleayamorrow spots another tattoo on her torso and the words are in cyrillic, and he's like, any of you guys read Russian, and Benson goes, actually, it's the only language I don't speak. So there's no dental for this girl, no fingerprints, no face, but they leave the tattoos.
That's weird, and lives like well, they didn't want us to know who she is, but they wanted to make sure that someone got the message done done credits. So now top of act one, at the precinct, the gang is live, Finn and Rollins and they're all downloading Craigan on the victim, white late twenties, early thirties, assaulted, sexually murdered. No one saw or heard a thing tomorrow had a pal in the gang unit. Take a look at the tattoos.
The butterfly is generic. She just loves Maria Carrey, but the other one is of a woman with a smoking gun and like some words behind her. And he said that one is specific to the Russian mafia and was probably done back in Russia. And Olivia goes the mark of a prostitute and you know, it's twenty it's twenty eleven. She's not saying sex worker yet, but she should be. The words in Russian that are printed on the tattoo mean mother, forgive me. So the preliminary autopsy came in
and there was sand on the body. Let's just say, I don't want to get this like so graphic all of it, but like there's sand like in her canals and cuts from glass and debris. So you know, maybe she was at a beach or something, and the time of death was eight to ten hours before she was found. So Kragan's like, so she was murdered on the beach and then dumped at the restaurant. It's usually the other way around, and live pipes up and goes, wait a minute,
and I love this. She goes, didn't the emmy get sand samples after the Gilgo Beach murders? Hell, yeah, We've already covered the Gilgo Beach murders. And she's correct. The medical examiners did get a bunch of sand samples because they wanted to connect and see, you know, whether the victims had been killed in the same place, et cetera,
et cetera. So Rollins looks at the particle breakdown of the sand, because we all know Rollins is like our makeshift tear, like when they can't afford to like pay a ta roo actor for the day. They're like, Rollins is a professional. She looks at the whole sand particle breakdown and is like, up, we got lucky. It's from a repaired beach, meaning that the city spread the sand and there's only three repaired beaches in the area, Rockaway, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island, and Brighton Beach is still
you know, extremely Russian. Amoral points out, which who else who wouldn't know that there? Who in that room would not know that? Like he's like, yeah, they call it Odessa by the Sea. It's like, wow, Amaro, thanks for the facts. Like, I know we have to I know we have to telegraph that to the audience. But like the people in the room, they know about Brighton Beach, like John Hurd got was a Russian mob episode in
like season five or something. Remember, So they've been they've been talking to Russian mob people before.
And Brighton Beach is where all of my trash family lives. So they are there, and I can attest that it's it's like Chinatown for Russians and Assa is where I was born, so and it is like a sea town, a party town.
Yeah, but I have been to Brighton Beach only once with a Russian and it was like we went to a Russian restaurant.
It was fun.
Yeah, I like it was after a day at Coney Island.
Damn, that's just a long day.
Did you go to like old like a Russia, like just to sit down restaurant one where there's a band playing and it's like NonStop, no band, but.
It was a sit down. It was like dark and like red.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I like getting like I guess it's everywhere, but people playing like chess on the beach on the Yeah, you can get a little pit of skis sure, Like I don't know Dowe things with Doe things in it.
No, mass doesn't.
But yeah, I would say that I don't like that part of a family. I'll say that, Okay, I'm sure listen. Well, I always am like it's a sliding doors situation. Like I always think if my family moved there instead of Chicago, what my life would be like? Right, Like I wonder if I would because you don't really assimilate in any way because you're just living in a community with all
your old school people. And it like the people I followed that I know, like there was one co counselor from fat Camp that's there, and like looking at her photos, it's just it's such a different world.
Yeah, I wonder what would have happened Brighton Beach, Lisa would be it is so close to New York. I could have maybe escaped.
But like I just I wonder, Yeah, I wonder what my accent would be, like, oh my god, Yeah, that's so funny.
But the Russian mob is scary. It's all scary. Tim Dallen recently was saying, like, like Russia's old school. You know, they just exploded a plane a few months ago to kill one person. Yes, and he's just like Russia's old school, like they don't give a fuck, they'll they'll put.
Down a whole plane. Yeah, it's scary.
I mean I know that.
Yeah, Putin will poison you in a different county when you least expect it, like it is. I'm even scared saying anything on this podcast right now. So I feel about scientology. Okay, Oh, but I did get some scoop recently.
Where did I find it?
I think I told you in the car during our road trip, but that porn stars say that Putin loves American porn stars and that porn stars are flown out and then he fucks them while seven security guards watch. You did tell me that, yeah, so, but that's it reminds you of Kim Jong un like loving Dennis Rodman in nineties basketball, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, they're so against the culture, but then they just like want porn in sports? What were our biggest our best sport?
This is how we have to get putin though. This is how we take out Putin.
Is like we train a porn star to be like a Manchurian candidate, you know, like something activates them, and they tried.
It would be fascinate, Yeah, but it would be a suicide mission since the seventh security guards watch, So like, I don't know how you convinced the girl to do that, but.
Well she had.
It's has to be like a movie where she can take them all out. You know, she's that good. Okay, this is a movie we're gonna make. But anyway, so then Craigan tells them to track down this girl's identity using the butterfly tattoo because this other Russian mafia tattoo is gonna scare people off so cuts a fin in tomorrow at Brighton Beach asking around and guess what, no one's talking.
Baby.
Finn's like a lot of these people are undocumented, so they don't love talking to cops. And it's like, yeah, they're not gonna open up and tell you anything. And Finn says, witnesses are like children. They respond to bribes and threats and tomorrow ads and they're easy to trick. And I'm like, yeah, Zara does seem dumb. Sorry, I don't mean to talk badly. She is just a child on a television show. Though she doesn't seem the smartest, it's not her fault.
Her parents have no love between them, and the mom is constantly deployed, so yeah, and the dad is constantly shooting on armed teens, so.
She's gonna have some issues. But I will agree bribes and threats are very effective.
So now they're at a restaurant, Russian music is playing, a blonde woman is yelling at employees and rush and I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, Lisa will tell me what she's saying. But you said that, It's like she's just being like, hurry up, you dumb idiots, Like hurry up, there's a party or whatever. So there's a hilarious poster on the wall that has like pink laser backgrounds of an eighties school photo, and it's all these
pictures of people that come into the restaurant. I guess like my old bar in college had that, just like a bunch of like collage pictures of people drinking at the bar.
I feel like my old dentist had that. That's so funny, like people just like thumbs uping with their wife. He was like he was like a kid dentist. So it was just like smiling, cute.
Kids, cute, I send my never mind. I was like I sent my obgui on one Christmas card to be like, here are the kids you helped delivered. And I don't know if we made the wall.
Did you see the video of Adele at her concert singing and then all of a sudden she starts like crying and she notices the doctor that delivered her son was in the audience, and she stops singing. She like hugs him and makes announce and the it's like full. She's very emotional when she sings, and her songs are emotional.
But there was another clip I saw where she saw a mom up in the higher level, like holding a baby, like rocking a baby to sleep, and she's just started bawling at the idea of that.
Like she's just very emotional, I think when she sings, Oh Love Adele.
All right.
From Adele's emotions to this Russian restaurant photo collage, Amaro notices that there's one picture where a guy is smiling in a woman. We can't see her face, but her butterfly tattoo is visible in the shot.
How perfect.
So they ask bossy blonde woman what's up, and she goes, nope, don't know her, don't speak English. And Finn's like, all right, let's call I in s and get some translators down here and just shut this place down while we wait huge spoilers.
She speaks Iglish.
She's like, no, we have a huge party coming in, Like I don't need the fuzz shutting me down. Like she caves, tells them that her name is Lena and that the guy she's with is named Daniel. They had their engagement party at the restaurant last Friday, and when I was like, show me the receipts. So at the Morgue Tomorrow tells Olivia that the girl's name is Lena and that the fiance is Daniel Carter, age forty eight. He's got two kids in college and runs a nonprofit,
lives in kIPS Bay. No connection to the mob that they can see, and lives like but we know the stats. It's like almost always the man in the victim's life. And Tomorrow's like, yeah, that's why I believe in divorce. When you feel that thing building, you just got to get the hell out. And I'm like, you literally let your bad marriage fester for years. You didn't get the hell out until she got the hell out. Like he's such a hypocrite and lives like, oh, your parents divorced.
Amorro's like, yeah, my dad also liked to beat my mom. We had a party the day he left. It was one of the best days of my life. Last he heard his dad was in Miami. Good riddance we know. Later Tomorrow's dad comes back into the picture and he says to live TMI and live goes no, and then Amarro's like, all right, I guess if we're sharing what about your dad and lives Like, uh, We'll say that for another time. We don't have time for all that.
Then Melinda comes in to give us more horrible details about this woman's murder.
The head wound is.
What caused her death, but they also sexually assaulted her, using power tools to sand off her face and sowt off her fingertips. But she was dead for most of it. And honestly, we knew all this. I don't know why we had to come to the Morgan hear it again. She's really not telling us anything we didn't already hear at the crime scene. So it's just to hammer home the horrificness of the crime. So it turns out that this fiance his job is running a nonprofit. What does
the nonprofit do? They build houses for the homeless and live goes. That gives him access to power tools, And I'm like, yeah, the entire population has access to power tools, like home depots are everywhere, but yes, this man may have had extra access to power tools. At Daniel Carter's apartment, the super is letting them in and he's he's like a weird super character, Like he's like, oh, yeah, Daniel and I play chess every day, one move a day.
It's like, wow, that sounds like thrilling. He knocks on the door.
He's like, mister Carter, no one answers, and he's like, what's going on, guys, And you know, Rollins's like he asked the questions around here, and Finn's like, open up the door or we'll knock it down because he hesitates about opening the door. And then Finn and Rollins and her guns drawn. The place is clear. They check out the very photoshopped photos of Lena and Daniel on like vacation and at parties or whatever, and the super is like, there's no way he would hurt her. She was his sunshine.
And they're like, why don't you call him and find out where he is? And so the guy calls Daniel and Daniel's like, is Lena there? And he's like, uh no, boss, there's a package I can't sign for.
You got to get home.
And Daniel's like, I can't leave where I am and he hangs up on him, and the Super's like he sounds scared. So they take the phone to trace the call. Next we have tomorrow and live kind of on the scene, but the.
Area is too big.
They couldn't trace the call to a small enough area, so they're ish near where maybe the call came from. Live says that Rollins heard kids and music on the phone call and lives like, oh, there's a carousel right at the end of the pier, So we found a body there last fall, and I bet Olivia would have a great like bus tour of New York City.
She'd be like that where we found this body.
That's where I had a shootout and I almost died in front of my son, Like I would totally take the Olivia Benson New York City bus tour instead of the Sex and the City one.
So they book it over to the.
Carousel and the music is playing and they spot Daniel and this actor is Timothy Bustfield. He became famous for the show thirty something, I think was his big claim to fame, but then he later.
Was on West Wing and Studio sixty.
So he's a Sorkin head and he's been in a ton of stuff, like you recognize him, and they id themselves as cops and he's like, no, go away, go away, I didn't call you. They'll kill her, and he's like, please go away, and lives like serious face tells him something bad is going on, and he looks so sad. He's like, is she dead? And he starts crying and he's like, they said they'd bring her here.
That was the deal I paid.
And he's like breaking down, crying on his knees and he's just crying. I've been saying I paid, I paid over and over again. So this is very sad.
BacT too.
At the precinct, they're bringing Daniel into interrogation. The Wooden Blind's kind he did just his fiance and our buddy Michael Kostroff is there and he plays on many episodes of the show defense attorney Evan Brawn. But I think here, even though he might be listed on IMDb as that it seems he's playing a different character because he's like a tax attorney who's just helping his friend.
He's like friends with Daniel.
Or maybe he's a tax attorney who then gets a taste for criminal law and changes. But I literally wrote in my notes, do people change specialties in law like this? Like?
Does anyone go from tax law to criminal like?
Later? I feel like so, I think it's like usually go from doing the lord's work to money.
That's the big glass switch.
They're like, I'm gonna help people, and then they're like, get me the fuck out of here, and I want to that's what happens.
So they he's like, listen, this is my friend. He lost his wife three years ago. Lena brought him back to life. I told him to cooperate with you, but go easy on him. And Lives like, yeah, are you a criminal attorney? And he's like, tax law, So I don't know. And it was like, just tell your guy to tell the truth. So in interrogation, Daniel is iding
the tattoos. He's like, yeah, the butterfly was on her shoulder, the smoking gun lady one is on her like Torso he's a little embarrassed to admit that they met on a Russian bride website called yours Arena dot com and liv goes, yeah, we've seen scams through sites like that, and he's like no, no, no, no, no, Like look, I heard about it from a friend who used to go to Russia on business meet eight to ten girls from the site. Fuck all of them, marry none of them.
He goes, my friend was divorced. It was just a sex trip for him. He said, you know, I was going through a really lonely time, so I just kind of started trolling the site. Then I saw Lena's profile and there was just something about her a vander Pump sandwich shop that will never be open, unfortunately, and they chatted over I Am. He said a little bit, Hey see, looks worried.
They're just dealing with a lot of permits because Wes Hollywood is crazy.
The hope they will open. I believe in it. I was concerned. I saw that. I'm nervous. I'm nervous.
We're never They about it in Vegas at the panel at Bravocan, they were just like, listen, opening up something in West Hollywood is hard. They're like, we have to change the water heater. She's like the ship is so boring, and she's like it's just taking forever. And that's what you hear all the time about people opening restaurants and when you see it's like always behind schedule.
Yeah, Karen doesn't think it's opening. She's a bitch. I do I support women.
I support women women And at that sandwich tasting party there were like ten of them. I wanted to try. I'm dying for it to open. All drive thirty five minutes to get there. I'm just skeptical.
Can't Lisa push some buttons?
I know, it's like opening a restaurant. They don't want her in five minutes. I don't want to help. I don't they want her help at all. But I have a Miley Cyrus one. It's Celebs on sandwiches. I don't know if you follow that, but they just made one for Katie and Arianna with the Greek salad sandwich.
Ooh, so it's happened, Goddess one. I want to try to.
Anyway. I'm sorry for doubting the viabil of this vanderbub sandwich shop. I do hope it happens. They chatted over I am Daniel and Lena a little bit. Because you're not allowed to skype or anything. You just like can talk an instant messenger and then if you are, if you're one of our younger listeners, that was when we
used to text message through the computer. And he had to fly to Moscow to meet her, and she took him all around Saint Petersburg, where his family is originally from, and then he shows them a super photoshop picture of them on his phone, like in front of it, like you know, in front of some monument in Saint Petersburg. They talked and talked. He said they had a real soul connection. And they're like, oh, okay, so was it reciprocal?
Did you meet her friends and family? And he goes, well, she had to be really careful because she'd been in an abusive relationship and her ex was stalking her. He saw the ex like he was following them, and he made a scene one night wanting to get her back, and that's when he convinced her to move to America with him, and he was happy to get a second
chance at love. They lived together two months before this disappearance, and you know murder, So he says, the night after the engagement party, he got a call from kidnappers demanding one hundred thousand dollars. He said he only had eighty K, but it was his life savings. He didn't even blink an eye and paid the ransom. He didn't call the police because obviously they said, if you call, the.
Police will kill her.
And he dropped the money in a garbage can in Brighton Beach and they were supposed to bring her to the carousel. He gave them everything he had and they still killed her. This is a very sad, sad story. They start going through tons of pictures of his trip to Russia, asking him like, hey, like, don't focus on like your dead fiance that you're obsessed with, Like focus on people in the background, Like does anyone look suspicious?
Maybe you spot the X.
And there's a scene of them like dancing to some musicians in a square and in the background they zoom in there's this bald, menacing man taking photos with like a sharpshooter. High Kira is the perfect word. This is a scary man. Yeah, this guy is scary as fuck and he's just like staring at them taking pictures and yeah, it's wild.
No one really knows.
And they zoom in and Daniel goes, that's him, that's the X. So Craigan's like, all right, let's run this guy's mug through facial recognition database, which sounds less fun than IMDb, inner, pol NCIC, whatever, And then Rollins is like, I got a little something on this Zarina website. They're hosted by a rogue provider with an office in Manhattan that does security called quick Secure, and so I mean they just it's like a horrible name for a business.
At the quick Secure office.
A nerd is telling them I don't really know anything about that site except someone wired in money for it from an offshore account. And then like computer whiz kid, Rollins is like, okay, cool, so just like give us the IP address and the wire info and we'll be on our way. And he goes, ah, I can't do that because of privacy, and so why don't you come back with a warrant, And then Rollins and Finn get
straight up like bully mode. Finn gets in the NERD's face and goes, first, spit that lollipop out before I smack it out your mouth, and he goes, you're not a five year old, which I love. Like that to me, goes, if you puke in my car, I'll kill you. That should be on a sweatshirt that you're wearing through the airport multiple times. You're not a five year Old's put that lollipop out, you fucking punk, and roll let me check the NBC store and see if there's a fin merch.
Rollins is like, hey, punk, you want a warrant, we'll bring in the FEDS. And this place is afront and your server is illegal, so don't fuck with us, and Finn's like, we're gonna shut this down, put your ass in jail. Well, you're gonna be sucking on something else. And it's like I don't normally love like you're gonna get raped in jail jokes. But they're going so hard at this little nerd and it is really funny to see him just be like uhmember like and he just goes all right, I'll help you.
Don't call the.
FEDS, and so he right down Malara, did you know that there's a Law and Order SVU monopoly?
No, we gotta get that.
We have to. But it's like I don't want to go to anywhere they go like do I buy Sing Sing? Like how does it work?
Yeah?
Like I'm trying to zoom in, but you.
Got like when you go to jail, they're like you're going to Dana Mora, Like what the hell?
What happens?
Yeah?
I would love to see that. We gotta play.
So the nerd is like, here's where the last place this site was logged into and changed, and he's like are we good and they're like yep, all good, and then right as they leave, the FED storm in they're like, everybody, get drop your computers, and the nerds like, oh, come on, you lied to me, and Finn goes yep, and Rollins goes, ain't like a bitch, and it's like it's a very funny. Rollins and Finn just like fucking with this guy, and
they fuck him over as well. At the address that he gives them, it's a Russian woman behind a desktop, insisting that she's running a travel agency. She's like, I get you a flight in a hotel. You find the bride yourself. She's like, you can check all my shit. I have nothing to hide. Meanwhile, right behind her is like the shadiest man of all time, trembling looking over his shoulder, dragging files to the trash as quick as possible, like he's a full cartoon character. Amorrow notices and is
like hello, and he starts to run. They grab him. He runs right out onto like the brighton beach board rock, like his business is right there. They're on the boardwalk, and then a bunch of cartoon character Russian mobsters are just standing there like smoking cigarettes, watching him get arrested, like on the boardwalk, in front of everyone. So it's very clear, like what's happening here? And now we're an interrogation. This guy gets metal bars and he's like, I'm a
travel agent. I just book flights and it's like sure, Jan, And then they show him the photo of the photographer in Daniel's photo and he's like, oh, holy shit, you guys have no clue who you're dealing with. Do you like that guy's a killer? He lives by the code. He's vor zeconya, which means thief in law or basically the mush the Russian mafia, Like I googled it and it was like it translates to thief in law, I guess, and then it's that's like the nickname for the Russian mafia.
Well, yeah, because in Italian thequin is law. Yeah, I wonder.
What the oh?
Yeah, so I think when they say thief in law, they basically mean like you're a bad guy, but you also like run the town like you you're like it's legal to be a bad part, like a criminal.
Which is I wonder which mob is the word?
Like if all the mobs came together to do a full on battle three hundred style, like who is winning?
Yeah, because like classically there's Italian, there's Iousa, there's the Yakuza, there's Chinese mob, there's Russian.
Yeah, who knows?
And like is there a Canadian mob or do all these cultures come into Canada and run it, like because the Italian mob's here, right, Oh my god, that's so funny. Yeah, wait, what do your impression of Big Ange?
Oh so we just got out of jail for murder. It's the best.
Oh my god, it's the best.
Yeah, I am so.
Well because I have like the book set of like Russian criminal Tattoo. There's just something that is scary about my people, Like I don't know, I am yes, But there's an episode of this is actually happening a podcast on Onedery and they have an episode of like the Yakuza came after me, like they went to Japan and got in the mix, like in the mix of something, but obviously survived.
I remember listening to it.
But isn't there isn't that kind of what Bert Kreischer's movie is about. Like he goes to like Prague and like fucks with the wrong people and like the mob is after him.
Yeah, but it's the machine, it's Russian, it's Mashina, so like yeah, so I don't know, I haven't watched it, but that's obviously what got my sister and everyone involved. If you do a joke about anything remotely Russian, my sister will find it like she loves Dan Soda stretching the hashtag like Dan Soder, you have an old ass joke.
This is so long ago on Conan where it was just like if you're in a bad neighborhood and you feel nervous if someone fuck so, if you just speak in a Russian accent and they will be scared, just be like, I'm really bad at accents, but it's.
Like this is a bad neighborhood and like that. People.
It's like, people, you can't do a Russian accent.
I can't do any accents. I'm so bad at it.
Your Russian accent would just be like imitating your parents speaking English.
Yeah, I'm really bad at imitations and impressions. You've seen my accent videos.
Oh, I know, but I just thought of.
All of them that you'd be able to do Russian. And I mean, look, I've heard Jamaic and I've heard other ones are not good.
It's like, I don't know if it's because i'm not commit like I'm too embarrassed, like I don't know what comes over me, but like I can't commit and I cannot do it, and I flop, I flop, but an accent impression.
It just never sounds the way I.
Want to send you an old web series I did where I was a Russian stripper.
Oh, I think everyone listening would like to see that as well. Maybe that's the Instagram the way.
To publish it. So I'm on the second life.
So the only iced tea sweatshirt just says Detective Fin.
Tutuola real street Justice. So that's it.
Okay, okay, they're not obviously getting the nuances of Finns, of Finn's vocabulary and catchphrases.
Oh my god.
Wait, they have flip flops that say done done on each flop. That's kind of cute. That's really fun like slides, No, like flip flops. Oh like on the deal the gods on the foot. All right, so we're back. We're dye like to power saw someone's face off, Like that is sick. That is a level of sick my brain, Like I can't even fathom. Acid is more It seems more chill than power sawing. Standing a face off horrible, horrid, and
this guy looks scary. I mean it is scary. And this will also reminds me of Orange is a New Black, like with Red you know, yes, yes, yes, Red was in too deep. So this guy is like, you don't get it. This guy's full Russian mob. If I talk to you, he'll kill my family, my friends, my dog. And they're like, all right, cool, no problem, We're just going to release you right back onto the boardwalk where everybody saw your ass get arrested. And he's like, oh
my god, you're right. And they're like, you help us, We'll help you, and he's like, okay.
The guy's name is Leev Bodrov aka the Butcher, not a great nickname. He's wanted on multiple charges of murder, prostitution, racketeering. He was doing time in a gulag in Siberia in the nineties, but he escaped and he's been on the run ever since. Indre Pol says four other murders in Moscow, Johannesburg, Vancouver and Munich all fit this mo o.
And how is he traveling by boat? You don't have a passport, how was he getting all? Probably has a fake passport and.
To escape a gulag like fuck man, Yeah, like, how did you get through Siberia to fucking back to like civilization? You know, it's so scary, it's really terrifying.
They said.
In each of these four international murders, the victim was found faceless, toothless, fingertipless, no way to trace them, and they all had this same mother forgive me tattoo. And then they realize, oh, this guy brands them so that the mark will know that his arena is dead. So now top of ac three live enters this diner and she's meeting Daniel, the you know, the fiance of our victim, and he's got a cap on. He seems kg and paranoid.
He says he couldn't risk going to the precinct. He did his own search online and he found one of my favorite SVU websites. In the SVU canon of horrible websites that they make, this one actually is one of the looks like one of the best. He finds the website russianswans dot com and he finds a profile for a woman named Irene and he goes, it's a different haircut and a different color, but that's Lena and he goes, she's alive and lives like, you don't know when this picture was taken.
He goes, yes, I do.
Necklace she's wearing in the picture is a necklace I gave her at our engagement party.
So she disappeared the next day.
So this is a very recent photo that she's dyed her hair and already put up a new profile. They don't let they don't let a second go by before they get her back up on these sites. He knows he's been played. They faked everything, and lives like, yeah, but we still have a body, so like somebody did die, even though your filance might still be alive. So liv goes, how do you set up a date on a website
like this? Cut to tomorrow and Kragan in a walk and talk with the heiress to the Cabot Cheese umpire Alexandra Cabot. I wish she was, but she's not. They're pitching her their idea to set up an undercover detective on a date with Irene slash Lena.
It needs to be her type, older, lonely, with money.
They need the warrant quickly, and alex is like, cool, I'll see if there's any old lonelies that fit your profile, and Patty Craigan is like, reporting for duty.
Put me in coach.
He goes, I'm gonna take it, and she says when was the last time you were undercover? He goes, probably before you and Tomorrow were even born, and it's like you're not that old, Craigan. And Cabot's like, remember, it's tempting, but you cannot fuck the suspect. It will undermine your credibility at trial, and it's like it's it's just weird the way she says that to him, like, tis Craigan, I know you're a horny old guy, but you can't fuck these girls. And Craigan's like, okay, Alex, I'll try
to control myself. At the precinct, they set up a computer where Craigan can DM with Irene. They're trying to give him tips like he hasn't been doing this since the fucking dawn of time, and he's like, I got it. So Finn makes a crack that Craigan actually has a fat bank account because he's sure a shit ain't buying any new clothes, and Craigan's like, thanks for the help, Dix.
I gotta go get ready for my cyber date, and Finn goes, knock it out, Killa and I love that, and Craigan goes, I heard that, and it's They're having a cute friendship day at the precinct. At the Duchess Hotel in Midtown, Craigan is at the bar Rollin's is undercover as a slut. She's like leaning over at the bar, drinking a flirty face. She's telling Craigan like, remember the goal is get her up to your room. And she's like, you'll do fine, you look great, and he's like that.
It's like she's relentless, like she just has to flirt. And it's like but I do think that gave Craigan a little boost, you know. And Betti was like, okay, Roland says, I look hot. Irene walks up and we find out that Craigan is undercover as someone named Michael.
And this actress that plays Irene slash Lena is Isabella Miko and she's actually Polish and she's been in a lot of stuff and other Dick Wolf stuff like Chicago Fire, I think, but she was in Coyote Ugly Are Is that a movie that means anything to you.
Yeah, I watched it and the song Lehne rhymes yes, I love that.
And I think she's in the video for camp Bite the Moonlight, because I think the video is part of the movie.
But she's like the hot blonde girl that works at the bar. So I love this.
He tells her how pretty she is. He says, I've got a face for radio. She's like, you have kind eyes. It's going, it's going great. Just from the jump. Craigan has a Club soda, confesses he doesn't drink, and Irene is like, wow, new experience is a man who doesn't drink, and then she ordered an orange juice.
It's like, girl, you don't have to have an OJ, Like it's not a breakfast date. So I don't know.
I've never ordered an orangejuice at a bar in my entire life. Like I would say, can I have a soda? Can I have club soda with cranberry something? This is weird an OJ at a nighttime hotel bar.
So they're chatting.
He's making up that he works for the children's rights coalition. He's saying standing up for victims who have no voice is his job. He says he worries about his staff. The work takes a toll on them, you know, the camera cutstaffin and Benson obviously like his children that are traumatized by the day to day work they have to do. Finn is staring straight at Kragan during this like he has zero chill. He's just at the bar, staring at
their date. Irene is like, it sounds like you worry about the children and you worry about your staff, But who worries about you? And he admits he was married, but he's a widower and Marge was his wife. He lost her a long time ago. They had no children. There was a miscarriage. They tried to adopt, but he was just too busy all the time. And it's his biggest regrets.
And you can see live can hear what he's saying to her and the mic and she might be the only one like she's listening to it in in your piece.
And she goes, you're a man. It's not too late be a seventy year old dad. It's fine.
Robert de Niro's doing it. So now Craigan is like, enough of my violins, what's your deal? Sis? And she goes, I just want to have fun tonight. I don't really want to tell you my SOB story. So they're flirting, they're clicking, they're vibing.
He says.
One of my favorite lines that he says is one of his bartender's old lines, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. And she goes, I don't want to go home, and he's like, I've got a room upstairs with a great view of his duke.
So they go upstairs.
She kisses him in the hallway and he kind of pulls away and he goes, I'm a little old fashion, and she's like, but you got a room, and this immediately tips her off. She's suspicious. She goes, let's do a second date and starts to leave. Craigan like radios into his sleep.
She's on the move.
She's on the move, Go Go Go, Rollins and fans stop her before she can get out of the hallway, and she's like, please, you don't understand. You can't arrest me.
You don't understand.
You have to help me.
She's like, please, whoever you are, like looking Craigan straight in the face, like our connection is real, help me. So Tapa back four. They're in the hotel room, Finn is telling Kragan. He's like, don't have a drink, Captain, I know that's what you want. And he's like upset because he's like at the end, she made me like he's really upset that she made him like figured out he was a cop. And so next they're in another hotel room and they're explaining to Irene, we don't even want you.
It's Leev.
We want.
We can relocate you, we can do witness protection, we can help you, and she's like, you don't understand. I have a daughter and Leev already has her. He's going to kill her if he finds out I'm with the police. And this is how he controls people. He runs the mail order Bride sites here and in Russia, and it's just a front for his blackmail operation and for prostitution. Liv goes, okay, tell us how the scam works, and it's like, I think we all get it. I think
we all have figured it out. At this point, she goes, okay, I meet wealthy men on the site. I make them fall in love with me. I tell them about my jealous ex and then I get kidnapped and they pay a ransom and Leev takes their money, and Finn's like, but you forgot about how he kills and disfigures girls that are supposed to be you. She goes, at first, I didn't know that he was killing the girls. And apparently they're like just random sex workers who work for Liev.
That they're legal, no one, they have no family, no one's gonna quote unquote miss them. And so the Russian tattoo is his brand, that's why he does that. And then the butterfly she had that from before, and Leev told her it made her look like it made her special. So lives like, well, I guess you are special because you live and they die and pretty horrifically. So Irene's like, I beg to stop. He won't let me. He says, I'm the best.
He has me trapped.
He moves my daughter from country to country, so I have no idea where she is at any given time. Every once in a while he lets me see her for a few hours in a safe house, then he just takes her away again. She's like, where's my phone, I'll show you, and then she shows them the picture of her little daughter named Anna. Robins checks on Iread's record.
She's in the States on an expired work visa but has no in Russia, like no criminal record, and she does back it up that she has a four year old daughter.
As far as Leev.
Knows, she's like fucking quote unquote Michael right now, Daddy Craigan, So he doesn't yet know that she's been intercepted by the police. They go talk to her. They're like, girl, you're in big trouble. Help yourself by getting by helping us. She's like, I want my daughter back. They're like, okay, you gotta tell us everything. You got to testify. She's like fuck no, And Craigan's like, all right, well, then what would the next step be in our whole encounter tonight?
And she's like, well, I would call him and tell him that I have a big fish on the hook. And so they're like, all right, call him and set it up. So now cut to the next day. They're at the frying Pan, which, excuse me, is one of my favorite little places to go to in New York and I was just there in July, and it is a very random place for this all to go down, But I can see why they did it. It's a big open space bar that is really close to their studios.
It's near Chelsea Peers, so it's very close to the SPUs studios.
I bet that's why they're there.
Everyone is sitting around alone. All the cops are sitting at separate tables with like a half drunk beer, just by themselves, like no one's even pretending to have any friends.
And Lena is like talking to Craigan.
They're at a table pretending to be cozy, and she's like, I know you think I'm a dirty liar, but we have to look like we want to fuck, So could you really smile and get closer to me? And she's like, I'm going to kiss you, and she goes in for a long kiss and then says thank you for helping me get my Anna back. So she's still like trying to charm Cragin. They spot leav entering the bar and he looks.
Like, you mean, there is not to be rude, but it is just such a psyche of like men where it's like Lena doesn't like you, you know, and he's undercover. But it's this idea that these do like, of course there's a scam, you're on a site to find someone that's so hot, Like, what do you think is going on here?
It is confusing, but this.
Is how they got him in the Carissa episodes, right because he felt, really he felt even just having somebody to talk to.
I think he's just been lonely for such a long time. And I'm not hating on Kragan. I'm hating on like dudes that go into this full faith, like, yeah, I'm just gonna get the hottest woman in Russia and she's gonna be obsessed with me and happy with our lives.
And it's like, what is going on in your brain?
That is you know, because this is my big theory, Like when women are not finding a partner or like they can't get it together, it's like, what's wrong with me?
And when men can't get someone, it's like, well, what's wrong with the world, what's wrong with all women?
Yeah, I gotta go mass shoot, you know, and it's like it is so wild, Like I just I just feel I would be suspicious.
I'd be like what's going on here?
Yeah, for these dudes, they're like absolutely someone like Lena would want to be with me. Yeah, this makes sense, And you know, obviously everyone has a lot to offer in different ways.
It's just like, I don't feel bad for these guys that are tricked. I do I do, I do? I do? Well?
Well, your point gets reiterated, I think at the end.
Hold on. So this guy walks in Liev. He is such a scary motherfucker.
But he's also wearing a white turtleneck, so it's an interesting wardrobe choice.
And the like.
The cops around him. He immediately like makes the cops.
He sees Rowlins, he sees Tomorrow with their half drunk beers, and he's like these are cops, Like he can like tell immediately cops around him.
They're like, so there's nowhere to run.
He shoots at Tomorrow and then Rollin shoots him like dead in the chest, and Lena comes running.
Over like no, no, no, no, no, where's my daughter?
Where is she?
Whears Anna, and they're like let go, like he's dead. She's devastated. She's like we'll never find her. His soldiers will kill her. And then Liev's phone rings in his pocket and it's a text in Russian saying where do we meet and saying we have Anna. Wow, she's in New York. What a great coincidence. So she remembers one safe house location in Brighton Beach. So obviously the plan is send this this soldier with Anna to this safe house and we'll go intercept her.
At the safe house location.
The cops and tons of backup invests and like the whole gear are moving in on the safe house. Craigan is in the back of a car with Lena, like a cop car. Tons of shots ring out and they say and we hear officer down. So Craigan leaves, Lena rushes in. The officer that's down is Finn, but his bulletproof vest caught the bullet, so whew, crisis averted. Finn is fine. Liv says, I searched the whole house. Room, my room, no sign of the kid. We hear more
shots fired. They go outside and holy shit, the cop that was in the driver's seat of the car that Lena and Craigan were just in is dead, like shot in the head.
She's gone, and she must have his gun. How did she get it from him?
Like, I don't know, there's no great like maybe they're not in one of those cop cars that has the great I thought they all did live radios it in and then goes, I want this bitch caught now, and Live is activated, like it is hilarious. There is a chase. Lena's running down all these corridors. They're following her. They're in alleys behind the houses, they're following her. Tomorrow's chasing her, corners her, but she's trying to climb through a hole
in the fence. She gets through, but Craigan and Liver on the other side they run up on her. She's caught, but she has this slide grun on her face and she starts staring at Craigan and like smiling as they cough her. So you kind of know she's psychoed. But it's like, bitch, you're still going to jail. You just
killed a cop, Like you're going to jail forever. So back at the precinct, liv is filling Daniel Carter in on the whole scam, and it turns out Lena did have a daughter, but the daughter was murdered four years ago. Leev killed the killers and so she's been in his debt ever since and they work as a team. So she took the story of manipulated them. Yeah, So he's like, like, you're saying maybe he made her do it, Like, there's no way she scammed me.
This hot lady wants to be with me.
She's not a killer, like you know, it's like what you're talking about. So they're like, bro, she shot a twenty two year old police officer at point blank range, like and killed him. They're like, maybe Leev brought her into the game, but she's fully crossed over. There's another side to her, he says. And it's like, you're like I felt bad for you at the beginning, but now it's like you're being obtuse, like stop, and Craigan's like,
I believe you. I believe you saw the other side because I feel like maybe Craigan's like I kind of saw the other side, but it's like she was playing you, and so the guy just Craigan going, I believe you.
The guy goes all right, I'll testify whatever you need, Like he pullably just drops it that she might still be like in love with him and be innocent, and he leaves and Craigan stops live before she walks out of the office and goes, hey, so about all that stuff I said on the wire, like about you know, he doesn't say this but you know he's referring to like all this stuff about the miscarriage, the loneliness, the
actual the widow. She goes what stuff and then he goes okay, and she just walks out and it ends on like a slow zoom out of Craigan just in his office, all alone.
And that's Dick wolf Baby. Yeah.
A lot of twists and turns. Wow, a lot of wild horror.
And what a perfect casting of that bald many scary.
He doesn't really work much, but I feel like he could have been in like every major motion picture is just like Hired Gun number four. Yeah, terrifying. Oh god, his daughter's already dead.
This is wild.
Okay, Well listen to our ads and we're gonna do some crime stuff, all right, great, bye, Okay, so this is based on like a crime, but I guess I'm just gonna touch on like bride scams, just a real quick, little i'm tidbit. So they're called the Boris and Natasha scams.
So I really am interesting. I love that, And so like a quick Google, like the big letter definition right on Google is when a lonely American man believes he has found a beautiful woman to marry, except Natasha ends up being a Boris lol.
So that's the scam.
And then they're also known as romance scams, which seems less offensive than Boris and Natasha. It's very Alexia from Miami Housewives. I don't know if you remember when she called all Russian women prostitutes and then double down and then it is one of the only things she regrets on Watch What Happens a lot. But I bet in the office of the FBI they're still like, we got another Boris and Natasha.
Okay.
So a romance scam, I'm sure we all know, is when you meet someone special on a dating site or app. They claim it's true love, but they live far away, and then they start asking you for money for like a plane ticket or you know, an emergency surgery or whatever it is. And we're living in twenty twenty three, we understand this concept. TLC has made a full schedule on this concept, so you know, I think it's more
in the zeitgeist now than ever, like with catfish. The Federal Trade Commission states that in twenty twenty one, five hundred and forty seven million dollars in losses to romance scams and in twenty twenty two, nearly seventy thousand people reported a romance scam.
So that's a lot.
Yeah, Like I just watched The Tinder Swindler a couple of months ago, and it like, you know, you think it's like they're scamming like idiots. Sometimes it's just like Gal's looking for love. You know, Yes, that was a guy. That was a guy doing the scamming. Yeah, but the Tindler Swindler saw these people in person. They did meet up and then then he loved.
Then he moved away because he had like you know, special ops jobs or something, or he was so rich and had to hide out.
But these is like you don't even see these people. You don't even know. It's just like a fucking photo.
They also ask for money in like really fast ways, so like that you can that you can't get back.
So it's been gift cards.
There's been a surge of gift cards, and then it's like Western Union type things, money wires, ask for pin codes, money transfer apps, and of course crypto is a part of all of this. But it has to they you know, they need the money fast and there's no way you can get it back. The Trade Commission's advice is never send money or gifts to a sweetheart you haven't met in person.
Did everyone get that?
And once these boris types get the money, they disappear and all communication and it leaves the victims broken hearted and broke. So that is what happens. At least, you know, our dude Daniel get to fuck for a little bit, all right. So this whole case is everyone's name is so hard, Okay. So this happened in LA and the LA area, so it's a hometown crime for us. So one guy is Jurijus Kadamovas and the other guy is
Yuri Mkhale and so that's it. So Katamos is a they're both Soviet, but he is Lithuanian, a Lithuanian immigrant, and he was living in Sherman Oaks and Mikhale is Russian and he was living in Encino. So these two guys one YouTube video because I was trying to find videos where they would say their names out loud and I couldn't. But this year was Soviet serial killers who terrorized Los Angeles.
That was like the name of the video. Pretty wild.
So these two they abducted, held hostage and killed five people between two thousand and one and two thousand and two. Their victims were Meyer Muscatl fifty eight years old, Nick Karabadze twenty nine, Alexander Umanski thirty five, Rita Peckler thirty nine, and George Safiav thirty seven. So they targeted Russian immigrants and dumped their bodies in a reservoir outside of Yosemite
National Park in like a remote reservoir. They would put weights onto the bodies before dumping them so they would sink. These guys were like they're described as San Fernando Valley businessmen in their forties, and they cooked up this play and this murder plot while they were operating an aquarium store on Ventura Boulevard, which I don't know, like aquariums usually calmed me down, So I don't know why that's the place they got hopped up to do these vicious crimes.
But they would lure their victims with offers of business deals and then demand money from their families and then strangle them.
And so they went after people that would have some money.
There was always duct tape, zip ties, sedative drugs, and the death was always by strangling After the killings, they loaded the bodies into their mini van and drove five hours north to like the new Maloney's reservoir, and that's where they would dump the bodies. Muscatel was a real estate developer, that is one of the victims, and he went to mchaeale's and Sino home expecting to discuss a real estate deal. That's the thing, It's like, this isn't this isn't a love scam. It isn't like, come on
do this. It is really like they catered the meetings to these people's businesses, and so it was like, oh, we want to talk about this, and I could just see any person being like, oh great, Like if you're a freelancer or you're a real estate like, I could just see being like, oh, of course, I'm going to stop by this house and let's talk. But yeah, So this guy showed up to the house expecting to talk real estate and said he was beaten bound and then
killed when the abductors realized he wasn't that rich. Safeyev disappeared January twentieth, two thousand and two, from his Beverly Hills office. During his disappearance, his business manager received ransom calls instructing them to transfer nearly one million dollars. And this is according to the US Attorney's Office as reported by CNN. And Umanski was kidnapped when he met Kadamoves to sell him equipment for his car in December. Like let's what I mean, Like all of these are so
tailor made for the person. Yeah, So that was December thirteenth, and then the next day his father, Reuven I think it's ruvain probably. So the next day his father went to the office and discovered three identical ransom notes that were faxed demanding two hundred and thirty four thousand, six hundred and twenty eight dollars.
Why is that random?
Specific?
What maybe they thought that maybe they thought in a weird way that banks like wouldn't flag it if it's not like a round number, like it's not two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but like that is really random. So random, that's all I can think of.
The victim's brother, Michael, also received the same note at his home. Facts and it's early two thousands, where Facts is still a thout.
You're still faxing they were because.
I was working in data entry I remember, okay, so, and that was in San Francisco that same day, and the FBI said that all four faxes were sent from Russia, though they could not pinpoint the location. So four days later, his family paid ninety thousand dollars in ransom by wiring them money from a bank in New York to a
branch of that same bank in Dubai. And then that same day he called his brother to ask whether the money had been sent, and it was the last time the family heard from him, So they did get to speak to the brother one last time.
And then this is according to the FBI.
And then December twenty seventh, after being a hell, told that they wouldn't hear from Mumanski till they got the full ransom they wired about like one hundred and forty five thousand dollars. Peckler was a financial consultant and she was targeted because her captors thought she could lead them to wealthy clients. And so Safeyev and Carbodze they were lured both to the aquarium store to talk about a film production deal. You know, like I said, very specific,
they got caught. So that's the information that I was able to get on the victims, so back to the perpetrators of the crime. They got caught because authorities traced an electronic ransom payment to them. The wire transfer showed the money being sent to an account named Designed water Worlds, Inc. And earlier that year, both of the killers each applied for ten million dollar life insurance policies and identified themselves as co owners of the Designed water World.
Wow.
Yeah, so you're gonna make a mistake. And after their arrest in two thousand and two, these guys devised a plan to escape using a tunnel out of their cells. But also, like, how do you put them in the same prison, like near each other, in the same cells, Like they were clearly not good together. They were gonna like break fences and the motorcycles would be waiting for them. That obviously did not happen, but they were charged. They
were charged for escape, like escape planning. So their defense attorneys argue that they're not killers and that underlings did the killing, and those underlings just named these guys to lighten their sentence in the deals and prosecutors are just like, yeah, you would still be in trouble. It's such a funny defense to be like, no, no, we didn't kill. We made the underlings kill. Like you're still just like the same with Charles Manson, he still was in jail for
his whole life. Yeah, so you know, I guess you got to pull up straws when you're trying to defend when all the evidence is right there.
So prosecutors are like.
Yeah, you two men led the group whose goal was to mass the fortune by kidnapping affluent business people. You're not off the hook. According to the prosecution, the men got a little more than a million dollars. I think it was like one point two million in total, so not very much or a lot. I mean, it's a lot of money, but like not for five for killing five people.
Yeah, their goal was to get fifty million.
So and they end quote there they have enough bodies to discard that they were in quote were stacked on top of each other and that was The Orange County Register reported that so these were like classic Russian mob vibes. I feel of like no mercy, no soul, no like no nothing like they wanted to fully I bet yeah, if they were alive, we know what jobs they would
be doing in the thirties and forties. Okay, so like they wanted a pit of people in the reservoir, so many dead that it would come up top like creepy. The victims were killed also regardless of whether the Ransoms were paid or not, and that's really similar to the episode. So they had no intention of leaving anybody alive, ever,
with money or not. In two thousand and seven, a federal jury convicted them of hostage taking resulting in death and many other charges, and then the judge sentenced them to death five years after the authorities began finding the bodies.
The judge another wild name, Dick Ran Tevercian. I don't know. I thought you would giggle, Dick Ran.
Dick Ran is a crazy yeah, Dick Ron to Vrisian. Yeah, so I was just it was just not funny. But for me it was like, Okay, the killers have names that are hard. The victims and you know, have hard names to pronounce. And now the judge is Dick Ran, like what is this case? So the judge said that these perpetrators showed no mercy, and that's according to the
Orange County Register. And then Los Angeles Daily News reported that a prosecutor from the US Attorney's Office Susan DeWitt said that the defendants killed them in cold blood, with cold blood a deliberation. The motive was money. Abducting for ransom was their business. Like it wasn't a side hustle, it was their main hustle. The aquariums was the fake front. Yeah, their defense attorney tried to portray them as hard working immigrants who just wanted to open a boutique aquariums store
in Ventura Boulevard. The jury deliberated for less than ten hours. They heard testimony, including from three co conspirators who earlier pled guilty. So these are like the underlings and stuff, and they all pled guilty to the roles in the scheme. One of the guys is Petro Kroi lov And he was Ukrainian and at at thirty five years old at the time he got sentenced to four consecutive life terms.
In court, he.
Argued that Mikhail and Kasamovas threatened to harm his family if he did not help them with the kidnapping and ransomplot but he was found guilty as hell anyways, Like it didn't really help, and especially since one of the victims, Umanski, was his former boss at a stereo shop with whom he had a falling out with after being fired, but he escaped the denth penalty, not like his friends, and so a total of six men were brought up on charges.
The guys displayed no emotion while the guilty verdict was read. However, two relatives of the victims burst into tears and then left the courtroom immediately after. And then May two thousand and nine, a US appeals court upheld the convictions and death sentences of the two men. And we do have some twenty twenty three updates. I think they're all still
like I couldn't so basically. On January of this year January twelfth, twenty twenty three, the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on behalf of Kasamova and a bunch of inmates.
Thirty seven other inmates.
They're doing a class action lawsuit in terry Hate, Indiana. They say that it is isolating and their standards fall below the minimum standard prescribed by international human rights treaties for the treatment of prisoners and violates the US constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. This lawsuit has been authored by lawyers from the ACLU of Indiana and the national law firm with a bunch of last names and
no updates on how that lawsuit's going. And it's like tough because ethically we're like not for solitary confinement and we're not death penalty girls. But when I hear their crimes back to back with them suing, it's like, yeah, fuck you, I hope your jail is shitty. You want to be treated well, fucking assholes, It's like so tough. Yeah, So that's that's those are my people.
Do you have you ever watched Barry? Have I watched Barry? I have not watched Barry.
There's like a very funny guy and Barry named no Ho Hank and he's Russian and he has like a Russian gang of guys that like it's a funny show. But these guys like if this is obviously very serious and horrific, but like these guys remind me of it.
Like No Hank would totally be like.
Body, I have an aquarium store, you know, and like they all come to the aquarium store, but like they kill people mercilessly just to like, you know, it's like all about getting money and getting they're more mob.
They're like Russian mob but like, yeah, yeah, I'm imagining now Hank is one of these guys. But that's I'm so sad for these victims, you know, like just being lord ugh yeah, also like what breaks in these people's brains that they're just like yep, our businesses we kill people for money.
Like it's just so psycho.
But you know, I don't know.
Thank you for doing that research. Yeah, and not a long one today.
There should be more info them if I'm being honest, like this seems very interesting, but yeah, that's what I.
Don't We will get into a post mortem right now. Well, that was a really intense episode. We never love to see somebody get their entire face removed, but it does happen on SVU here and there. And to cleanse our palate, Casey just showed us his dog a in a hoodie and we will be posting it on the Instagram so you can envision that for yourself and then you can watch it on our Instagram.
But let's do post mortalie.
It's just the horrors of the world, no no ends, and like we shouldn't know these things happen. It's it's beyond it's beyond. But the thing is I always thinking about like Middle Uh what is it? Middle Ages?
Is that what it is?
Back in the day they were pretty brutal as well. Were they more sociopaths overall or did they not grow there?
Like? Why was torture so chill? Or were people upset back in the day too?
God, I don't know.
I mean I would assume nobody loved torture, but I think it was probably part of just like, yeah, part of everyday life. I mean, who was getting tortured back in like the Middle Ages?
Just like everyone?
I meanics or like you know, I mean if you were a witch, if you maybe if you didn't pay your taxes, I mean, if your king husband wanted to marry another woman, you're.
Yeah, really ever, but nobody was safe from torture back in the day. But this is just because because they knew about it too.
It's just like knowing that people's lives are so terrible is just like really hard. Yeah, it's not fair that these women want a future in a life and they are met with this psychopath who tattoos them and burns their faces off while using other women whose kids they have kidnapped like what the fuck?
What the fuck?
I guess you just kind of wonder like where somebody's like moral compass like disappears to like how it just like disintegrates to nothing.
You're just I think it's what I have to do. I think you're I do. I think you're born to be that socio.
Yeah.
And then and then, I mean we've learned from as FuG and if you also have abuse, but I think you need to.
Have that in you first.
Like I think if you're abused, you might get you you will be fucked up. But I think to be a full psycho, you have to be born a psycho and then abused to make it worse. Like all the killers we talk about with these like do you think if they weren't abused they would just be chill?
I don't know.
Yeah.
But also when we talk about this kind of stuff, like this is like also existing in the power structure of a mafia or a mob, right like kind of thing where it's all about sending messages. It's like they could have just shot this girl in the head and like left her on the beach, you know what I mean, Like they do all that stuff to send messages to other people, so behave yeah, to keep people in line.
So it's like using violence and torture as a control device has been tail as old as time, you know.
Yeah, but I mean we could talk about Brighton Beach. If you're ever there, you can the point chickier are the best. It's like these doughy things filled with potatoes. If you're on the boardwalk and you see like a crispy, golden brown dough, get one with potatoes and have a good time.
Is that like a perogi?
No, because our nikia this is more pitoshki. This is like a different type of dough. It's like a thicker dough. It's not a dumpling stuff. The dumplings are different. But the dumplings are good too. But I don't know if the dumplings would be like straight up on the boardwalk, like these are sold on the boardwalk, you know, on the streets, like they'll be venue like a street Yeah, like that's a street food.
But obviously go in have a veryenikia have you know, lots of great stuff.
Yeah, I mean, but just to go back to what we were just talking about, pre food, like the woman in the episode whose child was killed, like I don't know she was born a sociopath, but that event of violence is what turned her into like a bad guy, because like when she's smiling at the end and like she's enjoying the like cat and mouse of like how
evil she is. But I wonder if before her child was like ceremoniously ripped from her and killed, she was a normal person who's to saying yeah when you don't have options?
Yeah, And I don't know.
It's also interesting in this episode too, that we now live in a time where Russian Brides used to kind of like when this episode came out, right, like this is season twelve, I forgot this came out like twenty eleven or something like. Russian brides have always been kind of like a little bit of like a punchline or whatever,
like a thing you talk about. But now it's like TLC has made like a full programming off of this type of relationship, like you know, people that meet online or come from like other places to improve their station and also get married and start a different life. You know, like when you're talking about the Boris and Natasha scams and stuff, which are which are romance scams, but like you know, also.
Yeah, the TLC of it all.
Like even someone yesterday asked me, They're like, oh, what about ninety day or something?
And I go, that's beneath me. I'm sorry.
Bravo is a higher tier and TLC is more trash and exploitative. I think like this whole idea of a Bravo reckoning, it's like, ahh, how about TLC praying on the mentally ill? How about that? How about weird things? And all of like the extreme couponing shows were really disturbing to watch, like the cheap skate shows, Like it's just a little more uncomfortable for me the TLC. But what's wild about the ninety days I've seen a couple is like you don't know who's using who.
It's like, yeah, you feel you feel bad for both of them.
You're like who what is?
Because it's someone that like obviously like cannot find love in any capacity. And then it's someone that wants to leave their country. And then it's like, I never, I don't know, it's well, I mean, but now you know it's opposite. Like there's people that are going to like different like from America, going places, going to live wow.
And then the only clip I saw. Maybe I was in a hotel.
I don't even know why I saw this, but it was like this one be like my family was right, I need to get the fuck out of here, like you're you suck because he he demanded children and she's like, we decided we don't want any. He goes, you better give me a child and she's like, I'm gonna leave the country.
Why. Yeah, Like I mean famously, I dipped my toe in visiting a friend to TLC to ninety Day when I saw this girl who was like nineteen coming from the Philippines to marry like a forty nine year old man and he like wouldn't buy her a wedding dress for like four dollars at David's bridle. Like he was like nah, And I was like, yeah, this show makes me feel bad, Like but maybe that was a bad episode.
I know I have friends with ninety day podcasts. I know it's like a huge phenomenon and people love it. But it's just like that first episode I called. I was like, this feels like a huge power imbalance.
I hate this. I don't want to watch this, and maybe that's the SVU.
Maybe I'm watching too much s for you, and I don't know, You're just you're just hoping that these people get the citizenship they need.
And then and then they come bounce. Yeah, but let's move on to our what would Sister Peg do for this week? That's our weekly segment where we direct you to.
Oh my god, So I just got a text. It says, sorry to alarm major news. The McNugget Buddies are returning to McDonald's December fucking eleventh. The nugget toys that nuggets our buck. Well, I have a nugget witch famously, but oh my god, these are.
I thought something serious was happening, like geopolitically, and it's the nugget toys.
And I'm so happy for you.
But I just want to let you know that you bring the same energy to those both of those kind of announcements.
I think after more than twenty five years, they're back just in time. How did you get this text? Who texted this to you?
Julia Olsen? And I saw major news come up on the laptop. Major news.
In all caps.
This is you know how we a lot of times have unhinged intros. This is one of our most unhinged outros. I will say, like we are, we're bouncing all over the map. So okay, let's get into what would Sister Peg do? And you know, obviously all due respect to the nuggets, we're moving on to Sister Peg. This is our weekly segment where we point you guys to like a book, a blog post, a charitable organization, something to help or give you more context to what we talked
about in today's episode. And for this week, I wanted to point you guys to a consumer advice article from the Federal Trade Commission called to Know about Romance Scams. I'm very I think we're all we were talking a little bit about romance scams in the episode with what happened to the man in this episode that he was basically being scammed from the get and in a much
more intricate way that involved murder. But the tindler Swindler like, We're hearing about all these romance scams all the time, and I want everyone to know what they are so that you're not getting You guys are all really smart, but just in case you never know who can scam you. The article points to the types of lies romance scammers
will frequently use to get money out of you. It also has resources for reporting potential romance scams, and if you're interested, there's even a fun little animated video of a woman getting duped by a scammer. So that's fun.
Well, I mean, we know our friend, we know someone related to our friend who's being scammed by someone pretending to be Kevin Costner.
Yes, that's an older person and that's happening. That's an epidemic.
That's not just her.
That's how it's a yellows people. Yellowstone is taken over. People are going to Montana and they're also scamming elderly women being like I'm Kevin Costner and I would like to fuck you, and they're giving away minute.
If you could just empty your bank account, I need the money. As Kevin Costner, star of Yellowstone. It's really it's really dark because it's like you can get through to vulnerable people who really can't be unconvinced and stuff because of various reasons, and so you just want to like try to be as safe as possible. So for more info about this, it's kind of an a complicated link.
It's not just like a simple website, So go to the article linked in our show notes, and as always, I post it as a story in our Instagram feed the day that the episode comes out, and it's safe forever in our WWSPD highlight.
Thank you so much for all of that. And next week join us for the episode Merchandise, Season twelve, episode four, and we're not talking about after Christmas shopping sales, another type of merchandise.
Sadly, I thank you.
I think they know. Thanks guys, Mary, Mary everything, Happy holidays, whatever you're celebrating. Enjoy the you know, enjoy of peppermint latte or whatever the hell. 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 Casey O'Brien and our associate producer Christina Chamberlain, and to our mixer John Bradley and our guest booker, Patrick Cottner, and to Henry Kaperski for our theme song and Carly gen Andrews for our artwork.
Thank you to our executive producers Georgia hard Start, Karen Kilgareff, Danielle Kramer and everybody at Exactly Right Media, Down the Time,