Mother (Season 5, Episode 3)
Premise: A psychiatrist known for treating sex offenders is attacked and left in a drug den, and the investigation exposes her methods and a patient’s buried past.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 3
- 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
- Susanna Thompson as Dr. Greta Heints, Jon Abrahams as Robert Logan, Sherri Parker Lee as Christina Logan, PJ Marshall as Benny Edgar Ralsay, Marisol Nichols as A.D.A. Bettina Amador
- Director
- Ted Kotcheff
- Writers
- Lisa Marie Petersen & Dawn DeNoon
Summary
“Mother” opens with a narcotics raid on a Washington Heights shooting gallery, where agents stop two thrill-seeking customers from molesting an unconscious, injured woman. She is Dr. Greta Heints, a forensic psychiatrist who treats sex offenders by regressing them to childhood and “re-parenting” them. Heints wakes with no memory of the attack and cites confidentiality in refusing to name patients. The lookout, Javier “Bad Ass” Medina, says she came in alone, claiming a patient needed help, and records show a pay-phone call to her patient line that night.
Suspicion falls on Benny Edgar Ralsay, the “Duct Tape Rapist,” the first civilly committed offender released with her support, who wears a GPS ankle monitor. The call came from near a subway stop on his line, and when he slips the monitor onto his cat and flees, the detectives find him at his librarian girlfriend Amy’s apartment with duct tape and burglary tools. But the prints in Heints’s ransacked office, where her session tapes were taken, belong to her patient Robert Logan, a law student. Found after a suicide attempt with Heints at his side, Robert says they are lovers, admits taking the tapes and describes blackouts. His sister Christina blames Heints, and a hospital confirms he signed himself out hours before the attack.
ADA Bettina Amador argues against a finding that Robert is unfit for trial, but when Heints testifies that they never had sex, he breaks down in court and the judge rules him unfit. Christina then plays a tape of Heints talking him through a simulated breast-feeding; Heints insists it was therapy with no physical contact. A junkie places Christina at the drug den, and she admits luring Heints there after hearing the tape and kicking her, then presses charges against the doctor.
Spoiler, the ending: A news archive shows that Robert’s mother died in a 1987 house fire set with lighter fluid, and that Robert, then seven, was found wandering with no memory. In a session with Huang, Robert describes a religious mother who punished him for being a boy, including injuring his genitals, and says Christina set the fire after coming home to protect him. Confronted, Christina reveals that Robert is her son, taken from her at birth. The episode ends before any charges in the fire or against Heints are resolved.
Why it stands out
- Susanna Thompson, known for Once and Again and as the Borg Queen on Star Trek: Voyager, plays Dr. Greta Heints.
- The episode was directed by Ted Kotcheff, director of First Blood, who served on the series as an executive producer and director.