March 27, 2004
9.19 Tabula Rasa
In this episode (9.19), a woman is pushed into the path of a subway train, and a figure from her past seems to be the murderer.The episode begins with the Briscoe and Curtis investigating the death of the woman in the subway station. Their victim is Marianne Hollis, a professor at New York City University. They learn that the woman ran out of a diner without paying, followed someone into a bookstore, and then into the subway, where she was pushed.
After some legwork, including some clues from the bookstore, the detectives find their suspect, a man visiting NYC with his daughter, to drop her off at college. Once he's identitied as a suspect, the man retains Prof. Norman Rothenberg (a recurring character) as his defense counsel. Rothenberg is one of the city's best defense attorneys, but he's got a tough case ahead of him when several people pick his client out of a line-up.
In attempting to retrace their suspect's footsteps and connect him to the victim, they go through his credit card statements, and find a charge for Grimaldi's, a pizza restaurant in Brooklyn. How would a tourist know to head out to Brooklyn for a pizza? Good question. The ask the owner whether he recognized him, but he doesn't. They do a background check oon him, and learn that he didn't go to UCLA as he had claimed. In fact, he doesn't even seem to have existed before 1985. This leads them to believe that the man has adopted a second identity.
This suspicion is confirmed when they show his picture to a friend of the victim, and she identifies him as .... HER OWN HUSBAND who had kidnapped their two daughters years ago and fled. She identifies him as Nick Tasca. She wants to get her children back immediately, but her kids seem to be in the thrall of their father, and one of the daughter's provides an alibi for her father, saying that they encountered the victim but left her at the subway. It turns out they killed her because she recognized Tasca, and confronted him.
We learn from his ex-wife and from his interactions with everyone else that he is a bit of a control freak. His daughter confesses to the crime, but Skoda examines her and concludes that the father did it, but she's lying to protect him.
At trial, McCoy gets the current wife on the stand, and eventually gets her to break down and admit that he husband is a control freak who terrorized her and her children. As he's being betrayed, Tasca jumps up and shouts "You can't do this! You stupid cow!" and "I only married her so my children would have a mother." He pleas out.
The kids, meanwhile, reject the concept of returning to their birth mother's care, but the father has to give up any claims to custody as a condition of his plea arrangement. Nobody seems very happy by the end of this one.
The episode's title refers to the "blank slate" Tasca created in his children's mind after he kidnapped them. He ereased their sense of identity and built them up from nothing.
ps. I believe this is the 150th "original series" episode summary I've written.
Posted by adm at March 27, 2004 03:40 PM
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