March 26, 2004
13.15 Bitch: Skoda vs. Olivet, Round 2
In this episode (13.15), a fabulously wealthy and famous female entrpeneur is a suspect in the death of a stockbroker who helped her make an unlawful stock trade. Sound familiar? The ep is L&O's take on the Martha Stewart scandal. Along the way, police psychiatrists Emil Skoda and Elizabeth Olivet end up on opposite sides of the case, a situation that has happened once before.The episode begins with a professional dog walker finding the deceased victim in his house. Briscoe and Green investigate, and learn the victim is Bradley Osterhaus, a high-profile stock broker. Soon enough, they connnect the stockbroker to Jackie Scott, aka "the Makeover Maven," who has made a fortune and earned fame selling beauty products. They also learn that the stockbroker was sleeping with a fashion photographer named Lindsay Tucker. What takes them a while to figure out, however, is that Tucker is Scott's daughter, and the two were both sleeping with Osterhaus. Yikes!
The apparent motives grow more complicated when the investigators learn that Osterhaus had advised Scott that shares of Pylon Petroleum were about to start trading lower, and she should sell. She did, and then the SEC investigated her . It looks like Scott killed Osterhaus so that he wouldn't mention the sale to anyone, but before they can put the case together, Tucker (the daughter) confesses to the murder.
Her story doesn't add up, however, and they continue to focus on her mother. Once they uncover hard evidence of the insider stock trade, they arrest her. Her lawyer offers a novel defense: she did it because hormone replacement therapy related to her menopause made her irrational!
McCoy can't believe it, so he has Olivet and Skoda take a look at her. Olivet rejects the defense outright and says the woman is simply a narcissist, but Skoda thinks it sort of makes sense. McCoy tells Skoda, "Sorry, Emil, you'll have to sit this one out," but Scott's defense attorney calls Skoda as an expert witness. The case is further complicated because Scott happens to be an old friend and supporter of DA Arthur Branch.
The case is going to hell when Branch saves it by privately speaking with Scott and telling her that he is going to finish the prosecution himself and bring up every sordid detail of her life. She backs down, and she pleads out.
The episode is notable, of course, because it re-tells the Martha Stewart story with a violent twist and because Skoda and Olivet take oppositing viewpoints, although not as angrily as they did last time.
Couple of casting notes: Fred Grandy, formerly "Gopher" on the Love Boat and a US Congressman in real life, plays the head of the petroleum company, and Lucy Arnaz, daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz is Jackie Scott.
Posted by adm at March 26, 2004 08:21 PM
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