Law & Order: SVU | StarWorld | 06.30.2004

On Law and Order early yesterday morning : Families

When a 16-year-old girl is found dead in an alley, the NYPD Special Victims Unit try to crack the strange case. First suspect is their choirmaster, to whose apartment Shannon has a key; however, it is determined that the apartment was only a meeting place for Shannon and her boyfriend Aidan, and the choirmaster is also the lover of Shannon's best friend. There is a twist, however: Shannon was pregnant, and with the child of a male relative. Further investigation reveals that Shannon and Aidan share the same father, Jason, who has been supporting two families--Shannon's family under an assumed name. When Jason shows up dead and Shannon's mother and brother take off, it becomes a full-blown murder investigation that doesn't forego any sordid details.

It was nice seeing Jane Seymour again (as Debra, Jason's legal wife); also a much more mature Helen Slater, the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as Shannon's mother Susan. Seeing her was a who-is-that moment, that turned into an aha! moment. Brilliant performances from both women, as from Patrick Flueger, who plays the tragic figure of Aidan, who loses both girlfriend and father in one fell swoop and then found out he had impregnated his half-sister. It is also a treat to see cutie Spencer Treat Clark as Shannon's brother Brian, originally a suspect because of the incestuous nature of Shannon's pregnancy.

As always, crime stories such as these try to up the level of sordidness, and one topic that is always sordid is incest. In this case, it wasn't really intentional--reminiscent of an anecdote told among the children of the famous and prolific (in terms of fathering children) filmmaker Artemio Marquez, where one of his daughters falls in love with a man only to find out that they are half-siblings (so that's why they had the same surname!). Law & Order: SVU is almost always well-written, and well-paced--this episode is no exception. It is one of the above average episodes, made more watchable by a stellar guest cast. In the end, it is the promise of a relationship between half-brothers Aidan and Brian that lifts us up from the pathos. There is hope.