SVU Episode #10: Lay List

Summary: Laughing college students scrawl “Slut,” “I’m Drunk,” and “Do Me” on the face of a beautiful young woman sprawled on a pile of coats at a kegger. But she’s not drunk – she’s bleeding from a fractured skull. Turns out, the victim had written a “Lay List,” describing men at her office she’d had sex with, including a phallic bar chart comparing penis sizes. (Best line of the night goes to Munch: “You were expecting a pie chart?”). The Lay List got posted to the Internet, enraging many of her friends. SVU found the killer before the first commercial break: the girlfriend of one of the lays, who was upset that the Lay List ruined her relationship. But wait, there’s more! The victim was also raped by the paramedic who transported her to the hospital. (A seriously bad night for her.) While investigating the rapist/paramedic, Olivia discovered that her foster son’s junkie mother was burgling houses. Then the junkie mom’s lesbian girlfriend confessed to killing the rapist/father of the junkie mom in a previous episode. Then the girlfriend was murdered. Turns out, Olivia’s foster son’s father killed the girlfriend, because he was distraught that she stole his junkie wife away. Yeah, there was a lot going on in this episode.

Verdict: B-

What they got right: This was one of those “ripped from the headlines” episodes, based on a real female student at Duke University who authored a document she called her “Fuck List,” a Power Point presentation of her campus sex life.  The list is hilariously detailed, and rates elements like penis size, skill, and stamina. You can see excerpts here. The woman wrote it as a laugh for a few friends, but it got posted online and went viral. Happily, the folks involved in real life were only embarrassed, not killed. I think the real-life author could do a Tucker-Max-like memoir of her horizontal education.

What they got wrong:

Everyone Dies. There was a stunning body count in this episode, rivaling the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan. First the Lay List girl whose skull was crushed at the party. Then the rapist/paramedic, who killed himself by injecting air into his neck after the police caught him confessing on a wire. Then the girlfriend, who was shot in the head. And don’t forget the rapist/father, who was bludgeoned to death with a frying pan in Episode #7  (in a related plot). How many plot lines can you resolve by by having the killer die? As a writer, I understand the desire to kill off the bad guys. It’s neat and easy. Viewers get this immediate sense that he got what he deserved. No one has to worry about what evidence would be admissible, whether they’d get a conviction, or what the sentence will be. In real life, it’s the job of the criminal justice system to sort through these tough issues. Few cases are resolved with the murderer or rapist getting a bullet to their brain.

Chatty Bad Guys. Every one of the homicides in this episode was solved by the murderer confessing.  Each suspect blurted out their crime within seconds of being questioned. In reality, many bad guys won’t talk to the police.  Those who do talk usually give a false exculpatory story (“I was volunteering at a soup kitchen”) or minimize their role (“Yeah I was there at the Taco Bell, but my buddy shot her. I just wanted a chalupa.”) I can see why writers use the instant confession – how else would they solve four separate murders in one episode? But in the real world, you usually have to build a case without the murderer giving you a paint-by-numbers picture of how he killed the victim.

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All views here are mine alone and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Justice.