Most nights, SVU explores the nightmare of someone terrible hurting your family. But what if the terrible someone was part of your family? What if he was your son?
Recap: A rich, beautiful Upper West Side couple is living the perfect Manhattan life, until their adorable four-year-old daughter, Ruby, goes to the school nurse with bruises on her abdomen. At first, the buxom blond nanny is suspected.
But the detectives soon learn that the real culprit is Ruby’s ten-year-old brother, Henry, who pushed his sister down the stairs because he was curious about how she would fall. Henry’s mental issues are bad enough that B.D. Wong flies in for special guest appearance and determines that, although Henry is smart, he feels and understands no emotions. Wong ruminates, “I hate to label a ten-year-old a psychopath. But…”
Henry’s parents resist the horrifying diagnosis. Their son won’t be able to get into a good middle school with that label. But Henry gets worse. He pulls a knife on his mom and slices her hand. He asks to hold Amanda’s gun while nibbling strawberries in what was possibly the most menacing organic-fruit scene in TV history. And when his parents tell him they’re sending him to a treatment facility, he locks mom in the laundry room, ties Ruby to a bed, and sets the apartment on fire.