"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" Contagious (2005)

Director:

Aaron Lipstadt

Writer:

Jonathan Greene (writer)

TV Series:

"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (1999)

Original Air Date:

11 January 2005 (Season 6, Episode 11)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Plot:

A medical exam after a car accident reveals a fourth-grader's sexual assault. The perpetrator is obvious -- but not as obvious as everyone thinks.

Plot Keywords:

Soccer | Soccer Coach | Detective John Munch | Little Girl | False Accusation

Cast

Christopher Meloni	...	Detective Elliot Stabler
Mariska Hargitay	...	Detective Olivia Benson
Richard Belzer	...	Detective John Munch
Diane Neal	...	A.D.A. Casey Novak
Ice-T	...	Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola
B.D. Wong	...	Dr. George Huang (credit only)
Dann Florek	...	Captain Donald Cragen
Mary Stuart Masterson	...	Dr. Rebecca Hendrix
David Lansbury	...	Larry Purcell
Jennette McCurdy	...	Holly Purcell
Pamela Stewart	...	Mrs. Purcell (as Pamela Holden Stewart)
Rebecca Lowman	...	Julie Dobbins
Peter Hermann	...	Trevor Langan
Daniel Hugh Kelly	...	Mark Dobbins
Zach Gilford	...	Kevin Wilcox

Runtime:

60 min

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Wolf Films

Quotes:

[the case of a sexually abused girl is getting on Detective Stabler's nerves]
Detective Olivia Benson: You know, running away's not gonna help.
Detective Elliot Stabler: I'm a little beat for the dime store shrink routine right now.
Detective Olivia Benson: Elliot, that little girl is counting on you. You quit on her, and you're just another man she can't trust. That's not who you are.

How we grown-ups learned of Jennette McCurdy

Apparently some kid on an IMDb message board took offense to the title of this comment, as if I were somehow implying that they lacked the ability to understand the subject matter. Let me reassure that person, that I meant no disrespect to the kids. It's just that she was better known for her appearances on other Nickelodeon shows and TV-movies before her current status as the co-star of "iCarly."

Larry Purcell, his wife Sonya, and their daughter Holly(McCurdy) are rushed to the hospital after being in a car accident near Central Park. While the doctors try to change Holly into a hospital gown, she impulsively starts to kick away at them, making them suspect that she was also a victim of sexual abuse. Unable to get her parents consent for a physical examination while they're in surgery, they contact SVU to sneak a court order for one. During the procedure, Detectives Benson & Stabler are called to the scene, and Holly takes some comfort in the presence of Stabler. Sure enough, their worst fears are confirmed, and now the SVU and the hospital must work with hospital shrink Dr. Rebecca Hendrix(Mary Stuart Masterson) to find out who violated this little girl. Holly is so terrified of the "man" who molested her, that she fingers a good friend of the family, played by Daniel Hugh-Kelly. To make matters worse, she reveals her victimizer also killed another girl from Queens who's the subject of a highly publicized missing persons' case. And if that's not enough, two other mothers claim that their daughters were molested by him, and a few others follow. It's so hard not to be touched by Miss McCurdy's performance, that it's easy to understand why Detective Stabler flies off the handle more than usual in this episode, at one point nearly ripping the prime suspect's wife's head off.

Ah, but while the person who truly victimized Holly is a member of the same gender, we can't really be sure "Uncle Mark" is the pervert here. Yet every circumstance in his life seems to indicate that he is. The extra time he spends with other people's kids and a trumped-up teen prostitution charge in his past should make this an open and shut case. Holly's artwork is the key to the guilty party, and he's very close to Uncle Mark. No, I won't go beyond that, other that to reiterate the fact that McCurdy's heart-wrenching performance will make you stand up and take notice.