Paternity (Season 9, Episode 9)
Premise: A nanny’s murder exposes a marriage built on secrets and a boy whose father is not his biological parent, while Kathy Stabler’s baby arrives after a car crash.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 9
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Sgt. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Chester Lake (Adam Beach), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Mark Valley as Jake Keegan, Anastasia Griffith as Leah Keegan, Steven Bauer as Raphael Gardner, Thomas Langston as Tommy Keegan, Isabel Gillies as Kathy Stabler
- Director
- Kate Woods
- Writers
- Amanda Green
Summary
“Paternity” starts when a man chases a bloodstained three-year-old down an Upper West Side street to help him. The blood is not his, he knows only his first name, Tommy, and he clings to Stabler, who takes him home to the pregnant Kathy. A TV appeal brings out Jake Keegan, Tommy’s father, who thought his son was home with his wife, Leah. In the Keegans’ home the detectives find their Mormon nanny from Utah, Jodi, raped and beaten to death on her day off. Leah’s credit card and a turnpike toll camera lead to a motel in Morristown, New Jersey, where she is with her lover, Matt Kramer.
Jodi’s fellow nannies say she had changed and was meeting men online, and her messages with three of them turn up on the Keegans’ computer. One has an alibi, and another account belongs to a student abroad whose younger brother has been using it. The third, Raphael Gardner, who calls himself Casanova and posts a photo decades out of date, sent her 36 emails in eight days. Told she was seeing younger men, he confesses that she laughed at him and shut the door, and he pushed his way in and lost control. DNA tests then show that Jake is not Tommy’s biological father.
Jake learns the truth but says Tommy is still his son. Stabler asks Kathy whether she slept with anyone while they were separated and whether the baby is his, but a phone call cuts them off. When Matt turns up to see Tommy, he and Jake brawl in front of the boy; both are arrested and released. Under the presumption of paternity, Jake is Tommy’s legal father, so Matt has no rights while Jake owes support, but Matt files for custody anyway. Jake then leaves Tommy at the squad room, and Leah is found dead at home. Stabler races to the North Fork lake house Jake bought, where sheriff’s deputies have tackled him and taken his gun. Jake says he snapped when Leah laughed at him and went there to die.
Spoiler, the ending: With Stabler away, Benson drives Kathy to her prenatal checkup, and a drunk driver crashes into them. Kathy is pinned in the wreck. While firefighters disable an undeployed airbag and cut off the roof, Benson climbs back in to steady her neck and, coached by a paramedic, starts an IV. Kathy goes into labor, speaks to Stabler by phone as he flies back by police helicopter, and gives birth to a boy in the ambulance with Benson’s help before her blood pressure crashes. At the hospital, Stabler holds his son and says Kathy wants to name the baby after him.
Why it stands out
- Stabler’s fifth child is born in an ambulance, delivered with Benson’s help after the crash.
- The episode was submitted as Christopher Meloni’s Emmy episode, and Stabler’s thank-you hug for Benson was not in the script; Meloni insisted on it while the scene was being filmed.
- Mark Valley guest stars as Jake Keegan, a father who learns the son he is raising is not biologically his.