Mean (Season 5, Episode 17)
Premise: A well-liked high school girl is found tortured to death in the trunk of her own car, and suspicion moves from a bullied classmate to the victim’s closest friends.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 17
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), Judge Lena Petrovsky (Joanna Merlin)
- Guest stars
- Kelli Garner as Brittany O’Malley, Arielle Kebbel as Andrea Kent, Rose McConnell as Paige Summerbee, Lindsay Hollister as Agnes Linsky, Robert Iler as Troy Linsky
- Ripped from the headlines
- Drawn from the real-life murder of Shanda Sharer.
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters
Summary
“Mean” begins when a tow-truck crew spots blood leaking from a car trunk. Inside is 16-year-old Emily Sullivan of Westchester, bound with duct tape, stabbed, cut more than a hundred times and burned with cigarettes; the medical examiner’s assistant says she bled to death over several hours. Her father believed she was sleeping over at Andrea Kent’s house. At her private school, Tanner Day, the number he called rings in Brittany O’Malley’s pocket, and Brittany admits covering for Emily’s date with an older man. Photos lead to Lukas Croft, an actor working as an extra, whose alibi holds. Emily’s phone turns up with a comic-shop clerk who found it on the street.
Text records show Emily taunting a classmate, Agnes Linsky, and urging her to kill herself. Agnes tells Benson about years of cruelty from Emily and her friends and admits she is glad Emily is dead. Her brother, Troy, shoves Brittany into a locker, saying she secretly photographed Agnes changing for gym and sent the picture around, and Brittany concedes it. The lab finds pink nail polish in the wounds, cuts made with manicure scissors and a dyed blond hair on the tape. Emily’s childhood neighbor Terri Walsh says Emily was pulling away from the clique and had gotten involved with Brittany’s boyfriend, who turns out to be Croft. He admits Brittany put him up to it as a loyalty test and came by that night in Emily’s car with Andrea and Paige Summerbee.
The three girls are arrested at cheerleading practice. Paige says they only taped Emily into the trunk to teach her a lesson, and Andrea blames all of the violence on Brittany. Novak rejects a manslaughter plea; Brittany takes second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping, with parole possible, in exchange for testimony. Defense lawyers Lynne Riff and Roger Kressler argue that Andrea and Paige were under Brittany’s spell, and Judge Lena Petrovsky lets them call an expert on group pressure. Brittany testifies that the other two kept Emily from escaping and enjoyed the night. Cross-examining Andrea, Novak shows that the ring on her hand is Emily’s; Andrea says Paige took it from the body, and the two turn on each other in court.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Andrea and Paige on all counts in about 15 minutes. Moments later, shots are reported at Tanner Day. A popular senior is the victim, and Agnes, under arrest, says the trial changed nothing and the torment was never going to stop.
Why it stands out
- Munch and Fin are credited but do not appear; the case is handled by Benson and Stabler with Cragen, Huang and Novak.
- The guest cast includes Kelli Garner as ringleader Brittany O’Malley, Arielle Kebbel and Rose McConnell as her friends, Robert Iler as Troy Linsky and Blair Brown as a defense lawyer.