Inheritance (Season 3, Episode 8)
Premise: A series of attacks on Asian women leads to the son of a jailed serial rapist, whose lawyer claims his violence is genetic.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 8
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong)
- Guest stars
- Marcus Chong as Darrell Guan, Diane Baker as Margo Nelson, Wai Ching Ho as Susan Guan, Arthur French as Starnes, Lynn Chen as Helen Chen
- Director
- Juan J. Campanella
- Writers
- Teleplay: Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters; Story & teleplay: Kathy Ebel
Summary
“Inheritance” starts with 19-year-old Helen Chen found raped, beaten and cut near a Chinatown warehouse where five masked men have just stolen $50,000 in computer processors; her attacker cleaned up with bleach. Her brother, Johnny Chen, a former Ghost Shadows member, blames her Vietnamese boyfriend, Dao Tran of Born to Kill, but Dao says the Ghost Shadows did the burglary with Helen as lookout and that Johnny made her burn her own arm. A raid on the gang’s stash house turns up Johnny, along with a Gang Intelligence detective who hid what Helen’s tattoo meant to protect a 15-month case. Johnny admits he found his sister beaten and fled at the sound of sirens.
Then accountant Lucy Zhang is killed in a park with a racial slur cut into her body, and there is blood under her nails. Sonja Yung, who answered a Chinese-language personal ad, says her pen pal claimed to be an engineer from Beijing but turned out to be black and pulled a knife, and a stolen credit card leads to massage parlor worker Jiang Li, beaten by the same man. The blood points to Harold Starnes, a serial rapist released from prison last year who now uses a wheelchair, and a Y-chromosome test shows the attacker is his relative. Benson, troubled, tells Stabler she was conceived in a rape. Old Brooklyn files lead to Susan Guan, raped by Starnes in 1977, whose son Darrell was shunned by her family. Darrell, a delivery man whose customer list holds addresses tied to both victims, is caught carrying bleach.
Defense lawyer Margo Nelson, who also has a doctorate in molecular biology, takes the case without a fee and pleads not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, arguing that Darrell inherited violence from Starnes. The prosecution worries a win would let any defendant blame his genes. In a psychiatric exam, Dr. George Huang provokes Darrell into an outburst by comparing him to his father. Geneticist Dr. Randall Coffey testifies that both men carry a DRD2 gene defect linked to violence, but under Cabot’s cross-examination he concedes no causal link has been proven and that upbringing also matters.
Spoiler, the ending: In closing, Nelson argues that nature and nurture made Darrell what he is, while the prosecution says he chose his victims and tried to hide his crimes. The jury finds him guilty on all charges. Afterward, Benson says her mother’s rape is probably the main reason she became a cop and joined SVU, and wonders whether anyone with violence inside them truly has a choice.
Why it stands out
- Diane Baker, Senator Ruth Martin in The Silence of the Lambs, plays defense lawyer Margo Nelson.
- Lance Reddick, later Cedric Daniels on The Wire, is credited as assistant medical examiner Dr. Taylor, a recurring role on the show in 2000 and 2001.