Pathological (Season 19, Episode 10)
Premise: A disabled teenager’s sexual encounter at school leads SVU to discover that her mother has been faking and causing her illnesses for years.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 19, Episode 10
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), ADA Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza), Chief ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), Dr. Elizabeth Olivet (Carolyn McCormick), Judge Elana Barth (Jenna Stern)
- Guest stars
- Erin Wilhelmi as Mariel McLaughlin, Dendrie Taylor as Dawn McLaughlin, Conor Tague as Cody Hill, George R. Sheffey as Lou McLaughlin, Mouzam Makkar as Dara Miglani
- Ripped from the headlines
- The story draws on the Dee Dee Blanchard case: Blanchard made her daughter, Gypsy Rose, pose as severely ill and disabled for years, until Gypsy Rose’s boyfriend stabbed her to death at their Missouri home in 2015; Gypsy Rose later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
- Director
- Jono Oliver
- Writers
- Story: Brianna Yellen & Robert Brooks Cohen & Céline C. Robinson & Elizabeth Rinehart; Written by: Brianna Yellen
Summary
“Pathological” opens with Benson, on leave, soothing Noah after a nightmare about Sheila. At a special-needs school, a teacher finds Mariel McLaughlin, 15, who uses a wheelchair, on a supply closet floor with Cody Hill, 19, who has autism. Mariel tells her mother, Dawn, that Cody raped her, but both describe consensual sex and plans to marry. The rape kit shows no trauma, and Barba declines to charge Cody. Uneasy about how Dawn manages Mariel’s care, Rollins, who has already asked Warner to check Mariel’s tox screen, brings the file to Benson at home.
Warner finds Mariel’s seizure drug mixed with Paxil, St. John’s wort and ginkgo, a combination that can bring on seizures. Mariel’s pediatrician, Dr. Alexandra Levy, says she stopped the Paxil and warned against ginkgo a year earlier. Mariel’s father, Lou, hands over old records, and the squad counts a dozen doctors in six states, 50 drugs and at least ten surgeries: Munchausen by proxy. Benson returns to question Dawn, who tries to take Mariel home, and Mariel suffers a seizure. Warner reports that Mariel appears to have neither muscular dystrophy nor a seizure disorder.
Dawn, found competent to stand trial, is charged with reckless endangerment and released. She bursts into Mariel’s hospital room and tries to pull out her IV, then makes bail again through an online fundraiser. Hours later Mariel takes a hammer from her father’s truck to her mother’s apartment and kills her, telling detectives she felt in control for once. At Mariel’s murder trial, Warner testifies that three blows landed after Dawn was helpless, while defense attorney Dara Miglani’s witness, Dr. Elizabeth Olivet, says Mariel knew right from wrong but may have lost faith that the system would protect her. Cross-examined by Barba about Cody and The Little Mermaid, Mariel says she wanted her mother dead and is not sorry.
Spoiler, the ending: Barba tells Benson he may be sending an abused teenager to prison. The next morning, three jurors hear him say on the phone in an elevator that Mariel could get life; Judge Elana Barth declares a mistrial and warns him she hopes it was not deliberate, and Barba asks for the case to go to family court. There Mariel gets three years, suspended, with probation, community service and psychiatric care. Living with her father, she asks Rollins if it is wrong to miss her mother; Rollins says no, then goes home to Jesse and calls her own mother.
Why it stands out
- Tamara Tunie, Carolyn McCormick and Jenna Stern return as Dr. Melinda Warner, Dr. Elizabeth Olivet and Judge Elana Barth.
- Warner is credited as Chief Medical Examiner for the first time.