Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV Series)

Something Happened (2017)

Melora Walters: Laurel Linwood

Photos 

Quotes 

• Olivia Benson : Hello, Laurel. Is it okay if I join you over there?

  [Laurel doesn't respond] 

  Olivia Benson : Can I call you Laurel? I understand that you might have been raped. That's okay. We have plenty of time. When you're ready, we can talk...

  Laurel Linwood : What's the point? You'll never catch him.

  Olivia Benson : What makes you say that?

  Laurel Linwood : Because I can't remember a damn thing.

• Olivia Benson : [to Laurel]  All the eyes on Madison Avenue. They're all predators.

  Laurel Linwood : Don't you ever feel like prey?

  Olivia Benson : No. No, I don't.

  Laurel Linwood : You can wear a badge and you can carry a gun, Lieutenant, but there's going to come a moment of weakness. The big fish eat the little fish and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

• Laurel Linwood : You know what I remember? That stupid National Geographic special. The antelope going after the cheetah, sinking his teeth into his flesh... I was thinking about the animals that got away. You'd think they'd learn, but there they are the next day, going across the plains...

  Olivia Benson : Laurel, I want you to know that this is a very common first reaction, to blame yourself. But it's wrong.

  Laurel Linwood : Not to the cheetah, it's not. I mean, who's really in control? Who really has the power? You'll have to admit the antelope really makes the cheetah work his ass off for his dinner.

• Laurel Linwood : [to Olivia]  You poor thing.

  Olivia Benson : No, I'm okay.

  Laurel Linwood : No, you're not. I can see your sadness. I mean, you have to wake up every morning, you have to brush your teeth, and look at yourself in the mirror. And then you see it right there in your face and in your eyes. Something's missing. You don't feel a hole because your father's dead. You feel it because he was never there. He never loved you. And late at night, you close your eyes, but he's still there. And you hate him, but you love him too. And that's the absurdity of your life. He's part of you so you have to love him.

• Laurel Linwood : [to Olivia]  Why do you do this? It's pity, right? You pity the pitiful.

  Olivia Benson : You couldn't be more wrong.

  Laurel Linwood : And you're not Jesus! You can't save me!

• Laurel Linwood : You can't save me. You can't make it go away. No matter what you say, the pain, the humiliation. It's never gonna go away.

  Olivia Benson : Laurel, I have been doing this a long time and I'm pretty sure that you feel alone.

  Laurel Linwood : I feel pure and utter hatred. You can't know.

  Olivia Benson : Laurel, I know all about hate.

  Laurel Linwood : Really? Did someone force your legs open? Did they lie on top of you like you're nothing more than a mattress and then force themselves into you like a knife? Stabbing your soul over and over and over again? Pity isn't going to bring my soul back nor is false sympathy or whatever it is you're doing right here.

  Olivia Benson : But your soul's not dead, Laurel, and I think that I'm here to help you understand that. This I know. Your soul is not dead.

• Laurel Linwood : [to Olivia]  You're a pretty woman. You know. Men stare at you. What do they expect? That you'll forget your plans. You'll forget you had to go to work. You'll ditch everything. Everything on your schedule and just lift up your skirts and do it on the sidewalk?

  Olivia Benson : Well, if you stare back at them, they often they often look away.

  Laurel Linwood : And if they don't?

• Laurel Linwood : [to Olivia]  You don't even know when you're doing it, do you?

  Olivia Benson : I'm sorry. Doing what?

  Laurel Linwood : Every time I mentioned your father, you changed the subject. You tense up and you change the subject. Tell me.

  Olivia Benson : There's nothing to tell.

  Laurel Linwood : Tell me how you unbutton that extra button of your blouse when he was in the room. How you ran across the living room in your panties when you knew his eyes weren't on the TV.

  Olivia Benson : Is that what you did, Laurel?

  Laurel Linwood : It's all in your head. It's all in bits and pieces. It comes out in different places and different times. That's what you told me. And you said we were friends.

  Olivia Benson : Yes.

  Laurel Linwood : And it's not because we're talking. It's because our daddies loved us more than our sisters.

• Laurel Linwood : [to Olivia]  What would you say to your dad if he was...

  Olivia Benson : Definitely wasn't my "dad."

  Laurel Linwood : Okay. Your father.

  Olivia Benson : Even that's a stretch.

  Laurel Linwood : What was his name?

  Olivia Benson : What difference does it make?

  Laurel Linwood : Well, I have to call him something, don't I? "Scumbag rapist" doesn't really flow off the tongue.

• Olivia Benson : [to Laurel]  You were jealous. Jealous of your sister.

  Laurel Linwood : I was just as pretty and just as smart.

  Olivia Benson : I'm sure that you were, but your father never noticed, so he turned you into that sad girl and wondering why he never chooses you. But Leah was the antelope that was caught by the cheetah and you were just one of the herd passing by. All those years and he never picked you.

  Laurel Linwood : He loved me. He said I was beautiful.

  Olivia Benson : Like Greg Harvey said you were beautiful. He wore the same aftershave as your father. He wore the same watch as your father, but he wasn't your father. Your father was in a box in the ground and it wasn't fair.

  Laurel Linwood : Why wouldn't he pick me?

  Olivia Benson : You're lucky, Laurel. You're lucky that he didn't pick you. When you're running in Central Park, you ever notice kids throwing a rock into the pond and it makes the ripples? They grow bigger and bigger and bigger, destroying everything in its wake. That's what your father did. He threw an insidious rock into your family and it covered all of you. You, Leah...

  Laurel Linwood : [quietly]  Uh-uh.

  Olivia Benson : Your father was a monster and the three of you are collateral damage.

  Laurel Linwood : Like you.

  Olivia Benson : Yeah. Like me.

• Olivia Benson : [to Laurel]  Well, you told me that you were filled with hate.

  Laurel Linwood : So did you!

  Olivia Benson : You're right. I did.

  Laurel Linwood : It starts in your belly, doesn't it? And then you feel kind of nauseous. And then it starts bubbling like that lava in that volcano in Hawaii.

  Leah Linwood : Laurel, stop talking.

  Laurel Linwood : She knows what I'm talking about! It bubbles and bubbles until it spreads down your legs and your toes and your arms and your fingers. Hatred, pure and simple. And it spreads until you have to do something or it will eat you alive.

  Olivia Benson : So what did you do?

  Laurel Linwood : What did you do?

• Olivia Benson : So let's go back to what you do remember. You remember you were lying in the bed and you were looking up at the blue paint on the ceiling.

  Laurel Linwood : Blue and gray. With streaks of white and bubbles, and pocks. We did a better job in the pool house. Mother and Daddy were on the deck of the main house drinking martinis, remember? We thought we'd surprise them and finish painting.

  Leah Linwood : You sound crazy, Laurel.

  Olivia Benson : Hold on. Let her talk. It helps her remember.

  Leah Linwood : It's completely irrelevant to what happened to her last night. As your attorney, I'm advising...

  Laurel Linwood : Just shut up! It was fun. What's so terrible about remembering when things were fun?

• Laurel Linwood : [about her father]  I loved him.

  Olivia Benson : But you hated what he did to Leah.

  Laurel Linwood : He said it was a mistake. He said he'd never do it again. He didn't want me to be mad because I'm the one he loved most anyway.

  Olivia Benson : He abused you too. How old were you when it started?

  Laurel Linwood : It was fall. I was six. Mother went to Leah's ballet recital. We played cards. I won, but I think he let me. Then he put me to bed. He thought I was beautiful.

  Olivia Benson : And then what?

  Laurel Linwood : I put on my nightie. I asked him to turn away. I was... I was so shy. He said, "There's nothing to be ashamed of, sweetie."

  Olivia Benson : How long did this go on?

  Laurel Linwood : Forever. We used to do it in my room late at night. He'd get in my bed, tell me how much he loved me.

  Olivia Benson : That's not love, Laurel. That's rape.

• Laurel Linwood : He said it was love.

  Olivia Benson : And you never told Leah?

  Laurel Linwood : She must have known. She's not stupid. You saw her. Don't you see? I was in control. I knew what he wanted. I controlled every thought in his head. Every muscle in his body.

  Olivia Benson : Like the antelope and the cheetah.

• Olivia Benson : Laurel, how come you didn't tell your mother what you saw in the pool house?

  Laurel Linwood : I didn't want to upset her.

  Olivia Benson : What he did to Leah was wrong.

  Laurel Linwood : Then she should have said something.

  Olivia Benson : You know, Greg wore the same aftershave as your father, and he wore the same watch. I think that when you used those scissors you weren't stabbing Greg, Laurel. I think you were stabbing your father.

• Olivia Benson : Laurel, you talked... You talked about the scissors. What room were they in?

  Laurel Linwood : The living room. They were next to his watch. He had a Vacheron just like Daddy.

  Leah Linwood : She doesn't care.

  Olivia Benson : Yeah, actually, I do. Please continue.

  Laurel Linwood : That's why I stopped Greg when he was kissing me. I thought about Daddy. I thought, "What would he think?" I thought maybe he was looking down thinking, "What kind of slut did I raise?"

  Leah Linwood : Jesus Christ, Laurel. He's dead. He's not looking down at anyone, and sleeping with someone doesn't make you a slut.

  Laurel Linwood : On the day he was buried?

• Laurel Linwood : I splattered your sweatshirt with paint. The one Daddy brought you back from his Harvard reunion. He brought me a little mascot doll. You loved that sweatshirt, but you got me back. You painted my nose and you painted my hair. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.

  Leah Linwood : It was a great time, Laurel. Can we get back to the rape now?