Painless (Season 5, Episode 22)
Premise: A woman who reported a rape after nearly suffocating dies of an insulin overdose in the hospital, and the trail leads to the deaf scientist behind a suicide website.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 22
- 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 Casey Novak (Diane Neal), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), Defense Attorney Trevor Langan (Peter Hermann)
- Guest stars
- Marlee Matlin as Dr. Amy Solwey, Karen Young as Christina Nerrit, John Cullum as Defense Attorney Barry Moredock, Robert LuPone as Brooks Harmon, Annie Campbell as Allison Nerrit
- Director
- Juan J. Campanella
- Writers
- Jonathan Greene
Summary
“Painless” opens with two maids finding illustrator Christina Nerrit handcuffed to her bed with a plastic bag taped over her head. She survives and tells Munch and Fin that a gunman raped her, but her timeline does not hold up. Urine on the toilet rim points to someone in kidney failure, and a store camera shows Brooks Harmon, the publisher who had just promoted her, entering her building. He admits an affair that he ended over breakfast that morning. Warner then finds cervical cells in the urine, meaning a woman left it, and Harmon is released.
Christina will not explain, and soon dies of a huge insulin dose pushed through her IV. Her laptop shows constant visits to a suicide forum, where a user called Conductor suggested insulin after her first attempt failed. The account belongs to Dr. Amy Solwey, a deaf embryologist whose fertility clinic stocks insulin; the camera caught her leaving Christina’s building, Huang links her deafness and kidney disease to Alport syndrome, and her print is on the syringe barrel while Christina’s is on the plunger. Charged with manslaughter for aiding a suicide, Solwey hires Barry Moredock, who argues free speech and the right to die. Huang testifies that Christina’s depression was treatable, but the jury deadlocks, ten of twelve favoring acquittal, and the DA declines a retrial.
Christina’s sister, Allison, then plays a message Solwey left through a relay operator the night before the death, promising they would go together. Novak recharges Solwey with second-degree murder under the law on abandoned suicide pacts, and a grand jury indicts. Held at Bellevue, Solwey refuses dialysis and food. When a donor kidney is found, Munch urges a plea deal, but Novak will not reduce the charge.
Spoiler, the ending: Munch visits Solwey and tells her that his father shot himself when Munch was a boy, the day after Munch said he hated him, and that he has never told anyone. He asks her to let him help her live. The episode ends before she decides about the transplant.
Why it stands out
- Marlee Matlin was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for playing Dr. Amy Solwey.
- The episode reveals that Munch’s father took his own life, as Richard Belzer’s father did.
- John Cullum guest-stars as defense attorney Barry Moredock.