"Lost Traveler"

Guest Star Mark Margolis

This week on Law & Order SVU, a cute curly haired 10 year old boy in a private school uniform is followed on a busy street by a grown man, trying to hide.  The boy senses he’s being followed, stops, looks behind him, takes his cell phone out, calls someone… We hear the phone ring; the man stalking him takes out his cell phone.  The cute little boy says, “Stop following me dad.  We practiced.  I know the way.”  The dad gives up the charade when the boy tells him, “I’m ready.”  He walks down the subway stairs alone, and makes it to the school.  At school he is picked on by the older boy who spits on his palm, ‘since his mother is a gypsy palm reader’.  The principal sees it, and gives him a napkin to wipe his hand.  This is obviously not the first time he’s being bullied.  Cut to the end of the school day, the boy-Niko makes it to the subway entry, but it’s blocked off due to construction.  That’s the last time we see him.  The cops are notified of a missing person’s case.  “He should have been home at 4pm, and you waited until 7pm to report him missing?”  The dad explains, “My wife said the cops probably wouldn’t care because of who we are.”  The local cop on the beat seems to underscore the racism.  He says, “These people are different.  They’re gypsies.”  The dad is franctic, “We bought him a cell phone, I keep calling, but he doesn’t answer.  Niko doesn’t have a lot of friends.  At school they bully him. Kids tease him for being Romani.”  Amaro pushes, “What about a favorite handout? Some place he likes to go?”  The dad answers, “You’re in it.”  The cops canvas the school.  The principal doesn’t know the parents.  The kids say he’s kind of weird.  Then we find out there is a rabbi who runs the community of gypsies, only he’s called The Rombaro, and he works for the King of the gypsy.  The Rombaro takes care of everyone, that is everyone who plays ball.      

This is not a summary of the episode, it is a recap of the five best moments of the show.  Here’s the countdown to the Five Best Moments of the Show.

#5 Best Moment of the Show.   The wife, Nadia Grey (Alexandra Silber) screams at the husband, Tomas Grey (Donnie Keshawarz), “You didn’t pay.”  The cops look confused.  “ We stopped paying our tides, so we could pay for Niko’s (Cameron Ocasio) school.  The Rambaro (Mark Margolis) said that this could not stand, that we had to be punished.”  The cops make a visit to the Rombaro’s house in Greenspoint.  It is posh.  Compared to the Greys’ house and where the rest of the gypsies live, it is a mansion.  The Rombaro makes it clear.  The line has been drawn.  “The Greys want to be outsiders.”  Nick Amaro (Danny Pino) blurts out, “Are you using a kid to make them pay you?”  Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) make nice, “I’m hoping you didn’t take the child.  We’re hoping this will be a happy ending, and just a misunderstanding.”  The Rombaro dismisses them, “Make sure they get an almond candy on the way out, Alba.”  Amaro and Rollins feel like they just visited ‘The Godfather’.

#4 Best Moment of the Show.  The father bursts out of their home while the cops are still outside the house at a canvas.  “Detectives, he’s alive.  My wife and I have been calling his cell phone every five minutes, it’s been busy, now it just went to voice mail.  He’s been deleting his messages.”  Amaro asks, “Did he call you back?  The dad is certain, “He is alive.”  He is so naive.

#3 Best Moment of the Show.  The IT expert, played by Gilbert Godfried, traces the cell. Despite of Godfried’s grating voice, the scene moves quickly along as the IT expert lays it out for the cops.  He says the cell phone has been calling from an ip address.  He gets an address.  It’s to a Chinese takeout with an online ordering system.  The owner says the client called to complain to say the food was too spicy for his little boy.  “I could hear the kid crying in his background.”  The S.W.A.T team bursts into the apartment yelling, “Get your hands up.  Get your hands up.”  All we hear is a little boy saying, “Don’t hurt my daddy.”  The cops realize, “It’s not Niko.  It’s not Niko.”  Classic Red Herring. 

#2 Best Moment of the Show.  Turns out the man with the boy in the apartment gives the cops a lead.  There is a mentally handicapped gypsy boy, Mark Rajick (Michael Barra), kept locked up in his mother’s basement across the street.  He looks good for the crime.  The cops even finds Niko’s lucky rabbit’s foot in Mark’s bed, and a Metrocard that was used near where Niko was seen last.  The cops find Niko’s dead body, burned with cigarettes at a construction site.  Mark’s goose is cooked.  But wait, The Rambaro makes his bail and he is returned home.  The next thing we know, the cops are called back to the scene.  Niko’s mom, Nadia Grey, just tried to set Mark Rajick on fire.  She poured gasoline through the window, try to spark him.  Detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) tries to calm the waters, “We’re going to need to talk to Nadia before you take her in.  Nadia, what happened?”  Nadia is distraught, “You had him and you let him go!  He murdered my baby!  He killed my son!  This is justice.  He burned him.”  Benson is shocked, “Nadia, who told you that?”  All Nadia says is, “You know what I know.  That my son is dead.  This is what I know.”  Benson briefs the rest of the cops, “It wasn’t released to the press that Niko’s body had cigarette burns.  There was no way the parents could have known.”  Do  the gypsy really have the power to commune with the dead? 

Finally, the #1 Best Moment of the Show.  The ME doesn’t think the handicapped boy, Mark Rajick, did it.  The cigarette wounds tell a different story.  Finally the cops wake up to who’s been tipping them off the whole time.  The two pretty girls in the private school (Caswell Academy) Niko was attending; Courtney Lane (Lili Reinhart) and Emma Butler (Quinn Shephard).   Mark turns them in.  This is when the faint of heart should turn away.  Courtney, the ring leader, tortured Niko with a lit cigarette while her accomplice, Emma, did nothing to stop her.  Emma flips on Courtney, “I told her to quit and we should just go.  He was crying.  He was going to call his mom.  Then Courtney grabbed his scarf and I was yelling stop, stop.  She said he’s just a dumb gypsy.  Who’s going to miss him?”  Both of them frame Mark and tips off the cops.  In the final scene, when Courtney’s father, who’s sitting next to her when she reveals everything, wants to lawyer up; Courtney tells him, “It’s a little late for that.”  The little psychopath is right. 

This is a horrific crime, perpetrated by a juvenile psychopath, who looks as innocent as the day is long.  ¾ through the show, all of us were still thinking it had to be the handicap boy across the street.  This was indeed a shocker to all of us.  A well written episode.

Next week on Law & Order SVU, the grid iron legend, Treat Williams, suffers from diminished capacity, and claims, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”