Dolls (Season 4, Episode 7)
Premise: The body of a little girl found at a garbage plant sends detectives after a doll-collecting predator who has taken a second child, whose mother has just returned from drug rehab.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 7
- 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), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- David Harbour as Terry Jessup, Gloria Reuben as Violet Tremain, Susan Misner as Ronnie Marshall, Capathia Jenkins as Thelma Price, Ileen Getz as Mrs. Preston
- Director
- Darnell Martin
- Writers
- Amanda Green
Summary
“Dolls” begins at an uptown garbage plant, where workers find the body of a girl of five or six on a conveyor belt. Warner finds she was raped and strangled with a ligature six to eight weeks earlier and kept somewhere cool before being dumped; synthetic blond hairs are caught in her hand, and her teeth suggest she never saw a dentist. A forensic anthropologist calls her Cherish Doe and soaks her hands to recover prints. Trash from the dumpster narrows the search to 123rd Street and Lenox Avenue, where a bloody sheet matches her blood type, but the hair detail police had held back leaks to the news.
At a candlelight vigil, Fin notices Violet Tremain, a painter just out of a five-month rehab stay upstate, who fears the girl is her five-year-old daughter, Nina. Violet had left Nina with an elderly neighbor who has since died, and child welfare placed Nina with foster mother Thelma Price. Price says a dark-haired white man took Nina more than a month ago, and caseworker Mrs. Preston turns out to have logged visits she never made. A handprint Nina made with her mother shows the dead girl is someone else: Susie Marshall, whose addicted mother, Ronnie, gave her to a man claiming to be from child welfare.
Violet recognizes Ronnie from Narcotics Anonymous. Despite Cabot’s objections, Violet is allowed to appeal for help at open meetings with police present, and a tip leads through a bar to the women’s shelter where Ronnie sleeps. Her sketch of the man is confirmed by Price, and all three women link to a community center on Eighth Avenue, where the director names former handyman Terry Jessup, who mended toys and showed children a doll collection inherited from his mother. His old apartment is empty but for a Polaroid of Susie dressed like a doll. Fibers from a rare doll lead to a dealer, who lures Jessup to the store, and he is arrested.
Price and Ronnie pick Jessup out of lineups. He tells Benson that his mother hit him when he touched her dolls and that Susie broke one of his, but he will not say where Nina is. Without telling Benson, Fin brings Violet to the station, and Huang backs his plan.
Spoiler, the ending: Violet tells Jessup she left in order to get well for Nina and has come back for her. Jessup then reveals he has another place, and detectives find Nina alive behind a trap door and return her to her mother.
Why it stands out
- David Harbour plays the doll collector Terry Jessup, and Gloria Reuben plays Violet Tremain.
- Daniel Sunjata appears as CSU technician Burt Trevor, a role he also plays in several third-season episodes.