Bubble Wrap (Season 24, Episode 18)
Premise: When a construction magnate’s son is accused of raping an employee, his mother buys the victim’s silence, and then the victim dies of a mysterious lung injury.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 24, Episode 18
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Grace Muncy (Molly Burnett), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Judge D. Serani (Michael Mastro), Det. Tonie Churlish (Jasmine Batchelor)
- Guest stars
- Michelle Gomez as Connie Parish, Joseph Cross as Martin Parish, Alaina Surgener as Mona Stewart, Robert Farrior as Peter Parish, Louis Balletta as Henry Caputo
- Director
- Batán Silva
- Writers
- Story: Denis Hamill & Kathy Dobie; Teleplay: Margaret Rose Lester; Story & teleplay: Nolan Dunbar
Summary
“Bubble Wrap” opens in a therapist’s office, where developer Connie Parish and her grown son, Martin, argue like a couple: he wants room to breathe, and she wants their standing Friday dinner. At a nearly finished Manhattan tower, Martin, who has started using an inhaler, accepts an invitation from Mona Stewart, an interior designer at the family firm, and cancels on his mother. At Mona’s apartment they drink and use cocaine. When she says a private investigator has been asking about his visits and suggests they stop, he attacks her, biting and raping her. He goes home, tells Connie he hurt someone, and she promises to protect him.
Mona, 22, reports the rape from Mercy Hospital, and Muncy and Churlish take her statement; she left a voicemail for her roommate, Stanton Garber, that night. Martin tells Benson and Fin the bites were part of their drug use and hints that Mona was about to be fired, until Connie arrives and ends the interview. Soon Mona tells Carisi she is dropping the case, and Garber has moved into a costly condo. When the squad arrests Martin anyway, they find him in bed with his head on his mother’s chest. A judge releases Martin without bail, and Connie tells Benson privately that any mother would do what she is doing. Muncy and Churlish pressure Garber into handing over Mona’s message, but Mona still will not testify.
Then Mona’s new super finds her dead. The medical examiner finds only small amounts of cocaine and fentanyl but long-term scarring in her lungs, and a scan shows the same damage in Martin. He says the cocaine came from Henry Caputo, who looks after a Long Island house Connie keeps as a shrine to her father. A search turns up a stash in the freezer and a bucket of industrial abrasive; Caputo admits a sexual relationship with Connie and asks for a lawyer. Connie denies everything, and Martin will not turn on her, afraid of being orphaned. Benson argues that Martin is also a victim, and the squad brings his father, Peter Parish, back from the Azores with his wife, Bianca, the family’s former nanny. Peter says Connie once put abrasives in his smoothies, and that when Martin was 12 he caught her in bed with the boy and believed she was breastfeeding him. When Connie lashes out at Peter and Bianca at the precinct, Martin rejects her, and Benson calls her devotion narcissism.
Spoiler, the ending: Connie pleads guilty to manslaughter in Mona’s death rather than have Martin testify against her. Carisi reports that Martin will confess to raping Mona, with his father promising to stand by him, and Benson heads home to her son.
Why it stands out
- Michelle Gomez guest stars as developer Connie Parish, with Joseph Cross as her son, Martin.
- Churlish says she is studying for a master’s degree in public administration and leadership, and Muncy mentions her brother, Teddy, who helped the squad with a sting in the previous episode.