Law & Order Special Victims Unit s21e08 Episode Script

1 In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous.
In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit.
These are their stories.
Oh, I am so sorry! - I'm so sorry.
- Oh, no, no.
It's my fault.
I was trying to look at a map.
I'm so sorry.
I'm local.
What are you looking for? Oh, I, um, I I just lost my friends.
They can't have gone far.
Should we get into that pedicab and go look for them? It could be fun.
I'm Anais.
Um, I'm Meghan from Kansas.
Hello, ladies.
Your chariot awaits.
Okay.
This is so cool! Uh, there's water back there if you're thirsty.
Thank you.
Oh, no, no.
My phone is dead.
I'm just a few blocks from here.
- You could charge it at my place.
- No, no, no, no, no.
I don't want to put you out.
Change of plans.
We're going to the West Village.
Depression and anxiety are an organic response To the stresses created by our corrupt and oppressive society.
And how does the psychiatric community respond? By numbing us, by treating the symptoms, and ignoring the root causes of our alienation.
None of us are free.
We're all cogs in their machine.
Has given you the call - When she was just small - Anais? Anais! I'm right here.
Pay attention, Meghan.
Why are you doing this? You've spent your life as one of the walking dead.
Climb out of your grave.
Find your true self.
Live free.
Hey, hey.
Help me! Can you tell me your name? Get the elves away from me, please.
- The elves? Elves? - The machine elves! They want to take me back there! To where, honey? To their world.
They told me, if I stay here, I'm digging my own grave.
Okay, you know what? These folks right here, they're good elves, and they're gonna help take care of you, I promise.
You're gonna be okay, honey.
I need a tox screen and a psych eval.
She give you anything? She kept going on about machine elves.
- She's tripping out.
- Yeah.
Drugs or a psychotic break or both.
Sergeant, I may have something.
On the way.
- They tried to bury her alive.
- Or got her to do it.
She mentioned digging her own grave.
What the hell did they do to this girl? - Machine elves? - I'm having them check for DMT.
It's a common hallucination among users.
And a very powerful psychedelic.
I-I haven't seen this in years.
She must've taken a massive dose for her to still be feeling symptoms.
So do we know if she was assaulted? She's got ligature marks, she may be concussed.
She's not lucid enough to consent to a rape kit.
Okay, well, the chief just called twice.
So I need to find out what we're looking at.
How is she? Can we talk to her? Uh, still having a lot of terror and anxiety.
We gave her diazepam to calm her down, and we had to restrain her.
We were afraid that she would hurt herself.
Where am I? It's so light in here.
You're at Mercy Hospital in Manhattan.
New York? I'm still here? Yeah.
I want to go home.
Can you tell us where your home is? 190 Forest Avenue, Great Bend, Kansas.
My name is Meghan Gale.
Kat, I got a name and address.
I'm on it.
It was dark.
They held me down.
Let's get these off her.
Okay.
Meghan, tell me about "they.
" The machine elves.
Before they came in, the room spun, and then flowers bursting.
And all the eyes The elves had eyes? A hundred.
Purple and yellow faces.
Oh, and they crawled all over me, inside me.
Inside you how? Like they were having sex with me.
I tried to get away, to get to my friends.
Thanks you, Mrs.
Gale.
Your daughter is safe and in the hospital now.
Once she can talk, we'll have her give you a call.
You're welcome.
Bye-bye.
What was she doing in New York? Bachelorette party.
And the other girls didn't report her missing? Yeah.
Some friends.
Oh, my God.
Uh, we've been texting Meghan.
Is she okay? Not really.
When did you see her last? Saturday night at at Fiddlesticks in Greenwich Village.
Were you girls doing any drugs? No, just fireball shots.
Meghan wanted to call her boyfriend, we went ahead, she never showed up.
And you didn't think to call the police? We were here to party.
It was our first time in New York.
I saw a hawk above me.
I tried to jump on its back and fly away but my hands melted into the headboard.
So you were on a bed.
A woman brought me there.
I thought she was helping me.
How was she helping you? She got us a chariot, without a horse.
What about the driver? He sat on a leopard.
He was nice.
He gave me water.
Okay, Captain.
Meghan's still not making any sense.
She said she got into some kind of chariot with no horse.
Like this? Pedicab with leopard-print seats.
That could be it.
Traffic cams caught 'em up at Greenwich and 7th, and then lost them.
And with the leopard-print seats we got an outlier, it might make him easier to find.
Okay, send that still to Rollins, - and then we'll start walking.
- Cool.
Yeah, that's her.
Anais.
Good, and and she's the one who hailed the pedicab? Yeah, she told him to take us to her place.
There was an older man there.
White beard, he was like a wizard.
He was teaching.
- Teaching? - He said "Depression is the child of repression.
" Okay, Meghan, are you getting tired? No.
No, no, no.
I don't want to fall back asleep.
What if I go back there? I don't want to go back to sleep.
It's okay.
It's okay, I'll I'll stay with you.
Thank you.
Captain, do you have a second? Excuse me.
Okay, well, your detective was right.
There's a reason Meghan was so out of it.
- Well, DMT.
- Yeah.
Lab says a hundred times the usual dose.
Also traces of ketamine.
Anything else? Well, if I had to guess, GHB.
So too long ago to show on a tox screen.
- Thank you.
- Okay.
One more thing.
DMT overdose is not a regular Saturday night, so I called a Bellevue nurse I know to see if they had any cases.
She said a girl was brought in two weeks ago, same tox screen.
- Where can we find her? - She's still there.
Psych ward.
Never came back.
Thank you.
Two victims dosed with DMT? Meghan Gale and Jane Doe.
She was found two weeks ago, 6:00 a.
m.
, wandering, wearing a sheet, by the fountain at Rockefeller Center.
How did we miss it? The unis thought that she was homeless, an EDP.
So they took her to the psych ward.
She hasn't uttered a coherent sentence since.
Doctor says that she stays awake for days at a time.
She might be afraid to sleep.
- We have no idea who she is? - Oh, no.
There's no ID, there's no DNA, there's no missing persons.
Now, the medical report shows signs of sexual assault, and from the tox screen, she was taking prescription antipsychotics.
What are we looking at here? It's a man-woman team who pick very young victims, take them to some group house, drug them with DMT, rape them, and then and then dump them, in some public space.
Have you ever seen something like this before? - Could it be some kind of cult? - I don't know.
I mean, Meghan says that she remembers an older man, talking to the group.
She called him a wizard.
Until we have more answers, let's try and keep the details out of the press.
Well, we may not be able to.
Another victim just turned up.
Central Park, off 5th Avenue.
We got a 911 call.
Screaming woman dumped out of a pedicab.
They get a look at the driver? Not really.
Said he had on a top hat.
We get here, she's blindfolded, hands tied, nothing on her.
- She say anything? - Some language I never heard.
Hey, it's okay.
It's okay, honey.
We're gonna take care of you, okay? Yes, Chief, she's an exchange student from Sweden.
Her name is Freja Bergdahl.
This one went missing two days ago.
You know, the roommate says that she's a good kid, she's a grad student at Pratt, not a drug taker.
The trolls kept me in the dark.
They held me down.
They were inside me.
Was anyone with the trolls? A king.
W-with a white beard.
Like a John Bauer fairy tale.
He ruled the house.
Tell me about the house.
H-how did you get there? It was bumpy.
You were in a car? Nej.
A bicycle.
Okay.
Good, Freja.
Do you remember, you remember seeing anything else? We went past a giant stone woman.
And later up a high stoop.
Many stairs.
Freja, you're an art student.
All right, you think you can draw the the woman and the trolls? Machine elves, Swedish trolls? So this girl was also drugged with DMT? A huge dose, and ketamine.
Both rape kits came back with semen from multiple donors.
- No hits.
- No criminal records, not DNA savvy.
Led by a wizard? A king? Yeah, who has unlimited access to DMT, tougher to get than cocaine and meth.
You know, shamans in South America use it to access a higher dimension.
So our wizard gets DM through a religious group or medical research? We're checking clinical trials to see if they've had any of the drugs stolen.
Anything else to go on? Freja remembered passing a huge stone woman.
Maybe a hallucination.
Or not.
What about the Bust of Sylvette? - The Picasso statue.
- By the I.
M.
Pei Towers.
Okay, we'll start a canvass.
Why don't you put Freja in a car, drive her around, see what comes back? Um, uh, she's she's actually quite traumatized.
I won't tell you how to do your job, Captain.
Thank you.
But I know you'll be sensitive to her experience, and to our needs.
We need a break.
There she is.
The giant stone woman.
Yes.
Yes.
We were here.
Okay.
Okay.
So Freja, is there anything else that you remember passing? On the side of the road, a canopy of floating triangles.
Okay.
There! Those triangles.
That's the AIDS Memorial.
We are close.
That green wall with the posters? Turn here.
- It was dark and - Okay.
You said that the house had a high stoop.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, uh, I don't want to do this.
Freja, was it one of these? - With the red door.
- Okay.
I have to go.
Listen to me.
Listen to me, we're done.
We're done.
We're done.
It's over, and you're safe.
You're safe, okay? You're safe.
So the brownstone here with the red door, was bought 30 years ago, by a foundation for radical therapy, and gifted to Julius Adler for his institute.
- He's the white-bearded wizard? - Dr.
Julius Adler, an esteemed professor of Radical Psychiatry at Tompkins Square, a prolific author, and And a freak.
He uses psychedelics as a cure-all.
In controlled, clinical studies.
I ran the building.
It's got nonprofit status.
Seven complaints over the last year.
Noise, kids partying, a cello being thrown out of a third-story window.
And both victims remember going into that brownstone? - Can they ID him? - No, but Freja was clearly triggered.
Now, she thinks she remembers the red door and the high stoop.
She thinks.
She also remembered trolls.
There's reason to believe he has DM and other psychedelics inside.
But if he's running clinical trials, that may not be illegal.
Come on, Carisi, you can trust us.
I do, Fin, but every time I go out on a limb for you guys, somebody saws it off.
Look, it's an academic institute.
I need some patina of probable cause.
Patina? That guy was really a cop? Hey, guys, he's just he's just doing his job.
We could take a run at Adler, - see if he gives us anything.
- That's a good idea.
Kat, Fin, you're off to see the wizard.
Okay.
What's our play? Well, he's a shrink, so he's gonna try to read us.
So suss him out, let him talk.
- Yes? - NYPD.
Are you Julius Adler? Yes, I am.
Is this about the cello? Actually, it's about the kidnapping of three young women.
Oh, that's horrible.
We think they may have been brought here.
You recognize any of these women? Uh, no.
No, no.
But we have so many, uh, students and teachers, patients coming in and out.
They could've audited a class or an open house.
Actually, I don't really think that's it.
They said that they were raped and drugged here.
Really? Tell me about that.
W-what exactly did they say? That's confidential.
Oh.
Well, I'm a good therapist, but even I can't explain behavior you won't describe.
Well, I can tell you that they were terrified.
The work that we do here, uh, pushes boundaries.
Is it possible that while they were in process, uh, feelings of helplessness emerged or traumatic memories resurfaced? Maybe.
Why don't we come inside and you could show us where these memories surfaced? Whoa, whoa, whoa.
I'm assuming you don't have a warrant? Uh, like you, I have to respect confidentiality.
I hope that this was productive.
I heard Adler wasn't helpful.
Nope.
But he did claim that so many students passed through the doors of his institute that he can't keep track of them.
I, um, didn't want to get into it before, but back in Atlanta, when I was going through some stuff, I took some psych courses at Georgia State, and Adler was a guest professor.
I'm telling you, this man he's brilliant, empathically, a real healer.
Whatever happened to those girls, I can't imagine how he'd be involved.
Rollins, I hear you.
But you and I both know that that was a long time ago.
- And people change, - They do.
But it sounds like he still keeps an open door for his students.
It couldn't hurt to make an approach.
Psychiatry has devolved into social control.
Depression, anxiety are not symptoms of mental illness.
They are, in truth, an organic reaction to oppression.
Sexual repression, economic disparity, misogyny, racism, these are all part of the root.
And now, as psychiatrists are fond of saying, I think this is a good place to stop.
I'll see you all next week.
- Hi, Dr.
Adler.
- Yes? I'm a big admirer of yours.
- Oh.
- Amanda.
I actually took a lecture class of yours years ago.
Yeah, yes, in, uh, Atlanta, right? - That's right.
- Yeah.
Well, aren't you a fish out of water.
I-I am.
Guess you could say I was searching for a bigger pond.
Hmm.
Um, I'm finishing up my master's in liberation psychiatry, and all roads still lead to you.
Oh, call me Rome.
And your book, "Oppression, Repression, Depression," it really resonated with me.
Ah, so you're the one who bought it.
Why, are you surprised your books aren't best sellers? Pharmaceutical companies, mainstream psychiatry, they don't want the truth to get out.
Dad, there's a lot of people that are waiting for you.
- Oh.
- Oh, I'm I'm sorry.
Just, um, thanks.
- Yes.
- Thanks.
Amanda? Um, I don't know if you're busy later tonight, but, uh, I'm having an open house study session.
You're more than welcome to join us.
Yeah.
And what about you, Amanda? Do you feel alienated from your true self? - I do a lot of the times.
- Well, we all do.
How long are we gonna let this guy hit on Rollins? We're gonna wait for probable cause.
Or machine elves? Sorry.
I don't believe in regular psychiatry, let alone this.
I'm with Kat.
Paying someone to listen to you talk? Guys, please.
Amanda our society so suffocates the human soul, our distance from true self so profound, that we turn to liquor, uh, to gambling Casual sex that just reinforces our low self-esteem.
But nothing seems to fill the void.
Yes.
Amanda, the reality that you're experiencing right now is not the only reality, but we're all so programmed, that we, uh, we can't even access the pathways in our own brains.
Oh, here we go.
- What's up with that van? - You know primitive cultures understood this.
They had a life built around ritual White male.
Look like our pedicab driver? To allow them to enter a dream state.
Amanda Industrial tanks.
- Maybe ether? - I knew it.
They're cooking their own drugs.
And you can experience it too.
I'm not sure that's such a good idea.
Amanda.
Don't be afraid to swim past the breakers.
We lost visual.
Let's move.
Fin! Put your hands where I can see 'em! - Get 'em up! - This is all legal.
NYPD! Drugs down.
Hands up.
This is an academic seminar.
We have a right to freedom of inquiry here.
You have a right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you.
- Dad? - It's okay, hon.
- It's okay.
- Rollins, are you okay? - Yeah, I didn't inhale.
- Are you sure? Wait, you're a cop? Captain, everyone goes? Everyone goes until we find out who's a vic and who's a perp.
Let's go, gentlemen.
Stand up, please.
Stand up.
On your feet.
Nice and easy.
Nice and easy.
Hands up.
Meghan's hawk.
Rollins.
- Rollins.
- Hmm? Hey.
So Where, uh, did you go, Amanda? Excuse me? Well, I saw the light come on in your eyes, your soul leave its cage.
You were on your journey.
So I'm curious, where did you go? What the hell is he doing? She's just letting him establish rapport.
Uh-huh.
Who else did we pick up? We're a family.
Maybe not the Brady Bunch, but that was an artificial construct to make us all conform.
Your father tell you that? And more.
Every day since I was three, when my mother died.
He sacrificed everything to take care of me.
What he's built and taught.
No one can take that away.
Which is what, exactly? How to be whole.
People come to him searching for an alternative path.
So she's drunk the Kool-Aid too.
Do we have anybody else? Caleb, the pedicab driver, and ten others who are all on video taking a hit from the pipe.
Adler swears there were no assaults.
No surprise there.
What do the victims say? Uh, victim.
Freja went back to Stockholm.
So Meghan ID'd Anais and Caleb, and she remembers Adler giving a lecture.
But after that, machine elves.
We got any DNA hits from the men? Not yet, but they're in front of it.
They claim it was a mutual psychonautic sexual exploration.
- Translation, consensual? - Yeah.
Okay, so this guy claims academic freedom, but the truth is, he's a puppet master who gets his acolytes to rape and torture girls.
- I don't think that's what this is.
- Oh, yeah? So Meghan wanted to dig her own grave, run around half-naked in a bed sheet? Caleb's parents are here.
We drove down from Syracuse as soon as we heard.
Caleb, he's he's had his problems.
Oh, with depression, self-harm.
Caleb's not even taking classes anymore.
It's like he's in a cult.
Okay.
When did when did he meet Dr.
Adler? Um Freshman year after he moved here, about six years ago.
At first, he used to call us all the time.
Now not even on holidays.
Did you did you ever try to bring him back? We had an intervention.
We brought in our minister.
I-I-I emptied my retirement fund just to pay for a deprogrammer, but nothing worked.
All we wanted was to protect him.
You try to do everything right.
But I don't know if my son will ever come back.
These kids come from, uh abusive homes, repressive schools.
They arrive, uh, totally disconnected, - unable to feel.
- I get all that, but how do you go from there to gang rape? Rape? This is no, no.
This is about cutting through their armor, freeing their libido.
Look, I-I-I'm not angry at you, Amanda, for pretending to be interested in my work.
That ruse was that was your job.
But did you actually read anything I wrote? Yeah, I read every single one of your books.
Then why are you asking the wrong questions? What fear is blocking you from feeling what I know is inside you? Don't do that, Doctor, 'cause I am the only friend you have in here.
Friend? I am offering you the chance to journey to dimensions you can't imagine, and your reaction is to play the "good cop" card? I am so disappointed.
- Hmm.
- Really.
I would like to leave unless I'm being charged with a crime.
Yes, actually.
Possession, for now.
Well, that won't stand.
I have a government-approved grant for research into DMT.
My institute is a de facto extension of the university.
But if the Great Purge must proceed, then proceed it must.
So Adler's a false prophet.
To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, the mystic swims in the same water in which the psychotic drowns.
Even so, his students, still believe everything he feeds them.
And the daughter thinks he's a saint.
The mother died when she was three, so he raised her.
Something happened to Adler.
Twenty years ago he was one of the foremost authorities in liberation psychiatry.
Okay, well, whatever alternate reality he's in, this reality, he's guilty of either conspiracy to rape or sex trafficking.
- I agree.
Charge him with both.
- How? Who am I gonna put on the stand? Caleb? Meghan and her elves? Charge Anais.
Flip her.
She won't turn on him.
They're sutured.
Or maybe that's just another alternate reality he's created.
I found a marriage certificate.
Adler married Kathleen Bell in '94, but no obituary, no death certificate.
Well, if she's not deceased then where is she? Find out.
Kathleen Bell Adler.
Admitted in '97.
She was a brilliant clinician until she was found naked in the middle of Harvard Square.
What was her diagnosis? Hallucinogenic-induced psychosis with underlying paranoid schizophrenia.
- Can she communicate? - Intermittently.
This week, she's been having agitated conversations with someone who's not there, about her daughter.
Her daughter doesn't know that her mother is even alive.
Anais? Kathleen's worried about her.
Does her husband, Dr.
Adler, visit? - No one's ever visited her.
- Ever? At least not since I've been on staff.
That's going on 15 years now.
What's her prognosis? After all this time here? No one reintegrates from that.
Thank you, Doctor.
Adler did this to her.
- We don't know that.
- I do.
Hey, Rollins, I know that you have a blind spot for men that you think are smarter than you No, I just want to ask him about his wife.
Can I can I actually trust you with him? Who else is gonna get through? I mean, you, Fin, Carisi? Okay, he thinks he thinks you're all so covered in armor, that you'll never open up.
No offense.
Oh.
So by, uh, altering my external reality, you think you'll alter my responses.
Is that it? I want to ask you about your wife.
My wife? She's gone.
Gone, but not dead.
I'd ask you to, uh, leave my wife alone.
Like you have? Okay, time in this world, in this plane, has stopped for her.
She's well taken care of, but the, uh, the kind of break that she suffered, there's there's no return.
The journeys you took her on, she can't get back.
That was not the cause.
Kathleen battled demons her whole life.
Her parents treated their dogs better than they treated her.
How? 'Cause she was a-a well-regarded doctor No, no.
Not my fault.
Her father raped her when she was a child.
She completely dissociated from herself to survive.
By the time she came to me, she'd already seen, and been failed by, a dozen therapists.
So you were her doctor.
Initially, yes, for a psych evaluation.
After a suicide attempt.
And you slept with her? Later.
Yes, after I'd begun treating her.
With the hallucinogens? And love.
And positive sexual energy.
She was so depersonalized, so derealized, the only way to heal her wounds was to go back to their cause and reprogram her response.
Reenacting? Yes.
And I can tell you, it did work for a time.
We were happy.
We conceived a child.
But as Anais grew, Kathleen flooded with memories.
The abuse had started earlier than she'd let herself remember.
I did everything I could.
But you lost her.
Yes.
And since then, I have dedicated my life to saving other victims.
That's that's what I want to hear about.
Oh, so many of them.
It's more common than you realize.
Freud knew it early on in his work.
He he he saw how pervasive child sex assault was, but academia wouldn't even discuss incest.
So he categorized their memories as childhood fantasy.
- The Oedipus complex.
- Yes.
The original sin of psychotherapy.
So these students aren't drugging and assaulting these women, it's therapy.
These young people are drawn to us.
They they have deep wounds.
Now, by by altering their perception of reality, while reenacting their abuse, I am able to reconnect them with their true selves.
True selves? Did that help the woman in in Bellevue? Because she may never come back.
- Just like your wife, - No! - who may never - No! Not my fault! Not my fault! They are they are broken.
I-I try to save them.
You know this, Kathleen.
I Okay, all right, they have sent you to silence me? That's not what's going on here, Doctor.
You you were brilliant.
And look what's happened to your mind.
My mind has evolved.
That is why people are so threatened by me.
Who is out there? The AMA? American Psychiatric? How many forces conspire against me? Big Pharma? You said yourself.
They're only interested in drugs in order to numb the soul.
Who is out there? No one's behind that glass but my captain.
"Oh Captain, my Captain.
"Our fearful trip is done.
"The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won.
" Dr.
Adler, come back.
Stay with me.
No, no, no, no, that That is the last thing I will do.
I will not sit there with you and eat green eggs and ham.
I will not give a false confession.
I will not be complicit in our society's bloodlust for scapegoats! Dr.
Adler, you can't go out that way.
- You can't go out that way.
- Too late.
Going, going, gone! - Calm down.
- Gone! Gone! Come down.
Slow down, calm.
- Calm down.
- Gone! Gone! Come back here.
It's okay.
Come, come, come.
Come.
There she is! Oh, my beautiful bride! Oh, Kathleen! - Kathleen! - It's okay.
Oh, my beautiful bride.
My beautiful bride.
Kathleen, how was your day? Tell me about your day, please.
May I sit with you? Please, just for a moment.
It's just us now.
Just us.
I've got an ambulance on the way.
Could this be an elaborate act? If you ask me, he's just escaped.
There you are.
Hey, what's up? Um, I went and checked on Adler.
He's been at Bellevue for the last three days and hasn't eaten, spoken, slept.
He's completely unresponsive.
It's not a ruse.
Well, even so, I still plan on arraigning him and his disciples, including Anais.
What they did to those women I hear you.
Just, can you give me 24 hours before you arraign Anais? Yeah.
Yeah, sure.
Thanks.
Hey, Rollins, if you don't mind me asking.
What's your deal with this guy? I wanted to hear his side of the story.
I had no idea how far gone he was.
There was a time that I was lost and thought he had the answers, I wanted to learn from him.
I wanted to follow him.
Yeah, but you didn't.
You were smart, Rollins.
- Hmm.
- Hey.
You dodged a bullet.
Yeah.
Will she know who I am? She's been here 20 years.
You can't expect too much.
I didn't even know she was alive.
The doctor understands.
If you're not up for this, we can turn around right now.
She's my mother.
Kathleen? Mom? It's me.
Anais.
Yes.
Do you mind if I sit? Are you okay? Am I? I don't know.
Your father and I were just talking about you.