| "Scheherazade" | ||
|---|---|---|
| ← | SVU, Episode 8.10 | → |
| Production number: 08002 First aired: 2 January 2007 | ||
 | ||
| Written By Amanda Green Directed By David Platt | ||
Plot[]
Stabler heads to see terminal cancer patient Judson Tierney after a request from his parish's priest, and soon realizes that Tierney has a story that he is dying to tell but only wants to tell to his estranged daughter. With Benson keeping an eye on Tierney, Stabler looks into the man's past and learns that he was once involved in a series of unsolved bank robberies, and that he has been keeping a secret about his daughter for over twenty years. Its revealed that his daughter was raised by a woman who was not her biological mother and that he is not her biological father either. He cheated on his wife with a woman named Suzanne Mollinax. Tierney had a partner help him with the robberies named Jack Colino who was also sleeping with Suzanne. Her biological father (Jack) had killed her biological mother because she told him that she was going to go to the police about the robberies if he didn’t leave his wife. Jack was about to kill his daughter too, until Tierney shot him and took her in. He then confessed that Mike Mollinax went to prison for a murder Tierney committed 35 years prior. Tierney is telling the truth now as he wants Mollinax out. Even with Tierney's confession they run into trouble as Mollinax committed a murder in prison, but Elizabeth Donnelly comes up with a solution: have Mollinax plead guilty to the prison murder while the governor pardons him for the one he was falsely accused of, he is sentenced to time served for the murder he committed in prison and immediately be released. The governor agrees to the request and Mollinax is released. Tierney lives long enough for Benson to tell him, but while his daughter does come to see him, Tierney dies before she gets there with Benson at his side and his daughter breaks down in tears.
Summary[]
Episode summary
Cast[]
Main cast[]
- Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler
- Mariska Hargitay as Detective Olivia Benson
- Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch
- Diane Neal as A.D.A. Casey Novak
- Ice-T as Detective Odafin Tutuola
- B.D. Wong as Dr. George Huang
- Tamara Tunie as M.E. Melinda Warner
- Dann Florek as Captain Donald Cragen (credit only)
Recurring cast[]
- Isabel Gillies as Kathy Stabler
- Mike Doyle as C.S.U. Detective Ryan O'Halloran
- Judith Light as Judge Elizabeth Donnelly
- Karl Kenzler as Father Denis
- Erin Broderick as Maureen Stabler
- Patricia Cook as Elizabeth Stabler
- Jeffrey Scaperrotta as Dickie Stabler
- Allison Siko as Kathleen Stabler
Guest cast[]
- Brian Dennehy as Judson Tierney
- John Doman as Mike Mollinax
- Karen Ziemba as Tierney's Doctor
- Victoria Wyndham as Rita Colino
- Paget Brewster as Sheila Tierney DuMont
- Malachy Cleary as Assistant Warden McFarland
- Erickka Jones as FBI Agent Peters
- John La Giola as Bishop
- Patricia Kilgarriff as Canasta Player
- Joseph Edward Taylor as Aide
References[]
- Jack Colino
- Lenore Tierney
Quotes[]
- Sheila Tierney: My life is none of your business.
- Stabler: That's true, but your father doesn't have much time left.
- Sheila Tierney: Good. Come back when the old bastard's dead. I'll pop the champagne.
- Benson: What kind of father molests his daughter and then every year sends her a birthday card to remind her?
- Judson Tierney: I don't know what your dad did to you, sweetie. You need professional help.
- Father Denis: [to Stabler about Tierney] His immortal soul is in danger.
- Stabler: Well, eternal damnation is not a police matter.
- Sheila Tierney: My parents never hugged me. They never said they loved me.
- Stabler: Well, that was the old-school Irish way. My folks are the same.
- Sheila Tierney: Oh, no. It was not the same thing. That house was nothing but locked doors and silence.
- Stabler: It doesn't mean they didn't love you.
- Sheila Tierney: My father made my mother raise his lover's child. Every day, I was there to remind them of his affair. It's no wonder my parents didn't touch me. My mother probably hated me.
- Stabler: Look, I'm sure that's not true.
- Sheila Tierney: Well, I'll never know now, will I?
- Dr. Huang: It's her choice, Elliot. If Sheila doesn't want to see her father, you can't make her.
- Stabler: Yeah, and after he dies, you don't think she'll regret it?
- Dr. Huang: Maybe, maybe not.
- Stabler: Oh, come on, all you shrinks talk about is closure.
- George Huang: "Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Tolstoy, Anna Karenina. Families are complicated.
- Stabler: Tell me about it. All right, so Tierney. How do we get him to talk?
- Dr. Huang: You don't. He'll talk to you when he's ready.
- Stabler: When he's ready? Look, this guy is running out of time and quite frankly, I'm running out of patience.
- Dr. Huang: You can't rush Scheherazade.
- Stabler: What's that?
- Dr. Huang: You ever read 1,001 Arabian Nights?
- Stabler: Yeah, Ali Baba, the flying carpets.
- Dr. Huang: Scheherazade is the narrator. She made up the stories for a king who married a new virgin every night and then cut off the head of last night's bride. When he married Scheherazade, she told him a story so gripping that he couldn't kill her until he heard the end of the story.
- Stabler: But the story never finished. It just went on and on.
- Dr. Huang: Tierney's trying to starve off death like Scheherazade with a story of bank robberies and illegitimate children.
- Stabler: He's trying to hang on to make peace with his daughter.
- Stabler: The wide collar, short tie? Classic 70's look.
- Warner: Brings back memories.
- Stabler: Of what? You in diapers?
- Warner: [smiles] Bless your heart.
- [on Jack Colino's mistress]
- Stabler: Do you remember the tramp's name?
- Rita Colino: Rhymes with "hunt"... oh, and her real name? Suzanne Mollinax.
- Tutuola: 48 hours, you solve 21 bank jobs, a murder and a kidnap? What, are you trying to make us look bad?
- Stabler: Well, for once, Catholic guilt's a good thing.
- Munch: I thought we Jews had a corner in that market. What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be down in Federal Plaza gloating?
- Novak: My hands are tied. Mike Mollinax committed murder.
- Stabler: I've got witness statements from six people including prison staff, all of them backing the claim of self-defense.
- Novak: I don't have jurisdiction over crimes committed outside the city.
- Stabler: You could talk to the D.A. upstate.
- Novak: I already did. He's backing the warden's decision.
- Stabler: So Mollinax does 34 years for a murder he didn't commit, and now he's gonna do more time for a murder he never would've committed if he hadn't been locked up in the first place? Do you understand how crazy that is?
Background information and notes[]
- The title comes from the name of a Persian queen who, according to legend, married a king who would marry a new virgin every night and then behead her after consummating the marriage so that she could not cheat on him after he caught his first wife cheating. Scheherazade avoided this fate by telling the king stories that he found so exciting that he kept her alive so that he would have a new story every night. These stories became the basis of the classic 1,001 Arabian Nights. Huang mentions this story in this episode.
- This was the first episode filmed for the eighth season and was filmed just after production of the seventh season had concluded. Hargitay was halfway through her pregnancy during the filming of this episode, resulting in all of her scenes being filmed from the top of her stomach, with most scenes involving Benson taking place with her sitting behind a desk as it was obvious that Hargitay was pregnant.
- This episode marks the final time in which the entire Stabler family appear together in the same episode. The four children would appear together in the episode "Pretend", but without Kathy Stabler (Isabel Gillies) present.
- Kathleen makes a comment about Dickie trying to get Elliot and Kathy back together as the audience has known about their separation since the episode "Doubt".
- This is episode may partially be based on former Canadian bank robber Edwin Alonzo Boyd, who also confessed to a murder shortly before dying.
- Mike Mollinax's rap sheet shows that he was charged with one count of arson in the first degree and two counts of murder in the second degree. However since he killed more than one person in the same criminal act (allegedly), caused the death of a person during the commission of arson in the first degree and killed someone in a cruel and wanton manner (burning a baby alive is tantamount to torture) he should have been charged with two counts of murder in the first degree, as any one of those three things elevates a homicide to murder one. Also in 1972 a man who is convicted of shooting his wife in the back, then burning down his house with his infant daughter still inside, alive, would have been sentenced to death and executed without a doubt, people back then were much less squeamish about imposing the death penalty.
Episode scene cards[]
| 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|
|
Residence of |
Crime Lab |
St. Paul's Cemetery |
| 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|
|
Residence of Rita Colino |
Sing Sing Prison |
Office of the Governor |
| Previous episode: "Choreographed" |
"Scheherazade" Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 8 |
Next episode: "Burned" |