Locum (Season 12, Episode 1)
Premise: A ten-year-old who stages her own disappearance reveals that her adoptive parents are remaking her in the image of the daughter they lost to a kidnapper years earlier.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 12, Episode 1
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Sgt. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek)
- Guest stars
- Joan Cusack as Pamela Burton, Peter Strauss as Kevin Burton, Bailee Madison as Mackenzie Burton, Henry Ian Cusick as Erik Weber, Christiane Seidel as Darla Pinnington
- Ripped from the headlines
- Inspired by the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was held captive in California for 18 years, and by Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo.
- Director
- Arthur W. Forney
- Writers
- Dawn DeNoon
Summary
“Locum” opens with Pamela Burton stuck behind a jammed bathroom door, screaming that someone has taken her ten-year-old adopted daughter, Mackenzie. She and her husband, Kevin, lost their first child, Ella, to an abductor ten years ago. Lobby video, though, shows Mackenzie rolling out alone, and software the Burtons installed on the family computer reveals a plan to meet “Eddie D” at Grand Central at noon. There Kevin tackles Erik Weber, the man walking with Mackenzie, who says he bought a runaway a soda and was coaxing her home. Mackenzie names Erik as Eddie D, and he tells the detectives about his sister’s suicide after a rape and his work with a neighborhood anti-predator group. The email account, however, belongs to Marie Povolko, a foster mother, and Eddie D is her foster son Wesley, Mackenzie’s best friend; Mackenzie lied to shield him. Cleared, Erik invites Benson for coffee, and she says no.
Mackenzie then leaves Benson a note saying the Burtons hurt her and put something inside her. During a late-night home check by child-welfare worker Lauren White, Mackenzie shows Benson a lump in her arm, a radio-frequency ID chip that Dr. Zaydok implanted; he says it carries only a number tied to her medical records. Mackenzie adds that the Burtons dye her hair, dress her in Ella’s clothes and had her nose reshaped, the same way a doll was made to resemble Ella. Benson accuses them of building a replacement for their lost girl, and they refuse to give Mackenzie up.
The squad reopens Ella’s case. The state trooper who ran it always suspected the parents, since nobody else saw the older red-haired girl Pamela says led Ella away. Photographer Mickey Schaeffer, once a suspect, turns out to have shot a girl in green shorts and an orange top in a pickup that same day. FBI face-matching software links her to Darla Pinnington, found in child pornography seized in 2002. Now arrested repeatedly for prostitution, Darla finally says her drunken father, Dale, had her befriend Ella so he could make Ella his wife, and that he beat Ella when she tried to flee.
Spoiler, the ending: At Dale’s farm, Dale comes out armed and is arrested by Sheriff Renshaw for Ella’s kidnapping and murder, scoffing at Darla’s story. Before any digging begins, a young woman appears and asks where they are taking her husband. Benson asks whether she is Ella and assures her she is safe now.
Why it stands out
- “Locum” and “Bullseye” aired back to back as a two-hour season premiere on September 22, 2010, the first SVU season without the original Law & Order on NBC’s schedule.
- Henry Ian Cusick, of Lost, plays Erik Weber, a character who carries over into the next episode.
- Joan Cusack and Peter Strauss play the Burtons, with Bailee Madison as Mackenzie.