‘The Consoler’ Recap. L&O: Criminal Intent S10 E2

The second episode of Law & Order: CI, which aired on May 8th, confirmed our worst suspicions. Yes, they will be doling out the story of the return of Goren and Eames return piecemeal. Waaaa! We wanted to see it in story form. In “The Consoler,” Captain Joseph Hannah (Jay O. Sanders) lets Det. Goren know that he cannot cancel his psych evals. They are non-cancelable and that is non-negotiable. That was a condition Hannah had to agree to just to get Goren back behind his desk because the higher-ups still think he’s crazy. It’s clear if Bobby Goren gets the urge to “let it all hang out” again, the responsibility is going to fall on the new captain who is not liking that idea. So you got the feeling the Captain will be dogging his star detective 24/7 to make sure it doesn’t happen. What was cute was when Hannah headed their way, Eames (Kathryn Erbe) warns Goren by clearing her throat.

On to the crime!

We see a young woman taking a shower, furiously scrubbing herself so, yeah, at first we thought we were watching SVU by mistake. But the woman, Theresa Esperna, is soon a corpse with a gunshot wound in the back of the neck under the hairline. Det. Goren also notices she is a corpse that has been moved. All signs seemingly point, Eames thinks, to a suicide made to look like murder, or, more likely, Goren speculates, a murder made to look like suicide — which actually makes a lot more sense, as it turns out. An old school Catholic like “Tess” would believe suicide was a mortal sin.

The ensuing investigation further reveals Theresa was a Mexican immigrant who worked at a bank. Not any old bank, a bank with the Catholic Church as its sole client and she wasn’t any old employee. Theresa was a Sr. Vice President in charge of the trusts set up for people awarded settlements from the sex scandals.

Three suspects emerge: Johnny Apreda (Jon Prescott), who worked for Theresa at the bank but denies being romantically involved with her; a friend Natalie Finnegan (Lauren Hodges), who Theresa helped overcome drug addiction; and Monsignor Hugh McTeal (Neal McDonough), who we suspect right off may be behind that overzealous shower scrubbing. Eames and Goren know they’re all hiding something and they set out to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Another cute Eames moment: when discussing the autopsy results with M.E. Elizabeth Rodgers (Leslie Hendrix), Goren notices up how the victim mixed olive oil with balsam to make myrrh and anoint herself with holy oil. Eames makes a quiet little snort. Eames and Goren fans surely recognized her meaning: “here he goes again.” We did!

When the techies recover a suicide note that was deleted from Theresa’s iPad, it at first seems like “case closed,” especially since it provides a purty good reason. The note seems to confirm Theresa embezzled a hefty settlement of like $2.7 million dollars that would have went to abuse victim, Alice Garvey, who was molested dozens of times over a period of years. Before she could collect, Alice was in an accident and is now comatose.

Somewhere in the midst of solving the crime, Goren makes that “waste of time” trip to Dr. Paula Severin, with Julia Ormond playing an incredibly beautiful headshrinker. Goren is distrustful, trying to stay one step ahead of her. He almost sneers at her “put him at ease and gain his trust” efforts, but she disarms him when she inquires why a guy like him — with such an extraordinary ability to read other people — is afraid to take a look at his inner self. We’re sure if he did, he’d want to put the moves on his hot doctor. The best part of it was when just a glimpse of a “Private Pyle” expression passed over Vincent D’Onofrio’s face. No wonder they think he’s crazy!

Spoiler alert — on to the solution:

Natalie moved the body because she thought Theresa killed herself and she could not bear for her to be denied a funeral mass and Catholic burial in consecrated ground. The monsignor is the one who blackmailed Theresa into having sex with him and also gave her the gun she was shot with. He admits to Goren that he occasionally has sex with women, consenting women, in the St. Regis luxury hotel. Unbeknownst to him, Goren has managed to get McTeal’s really high superior, the cardinal, behind the glass to overhear this sordid revelation. (The bishop would have made more sense). McTeal’s humiliation lies at the root of a philosophy that is beyond the power of a non-Catholic to understand: it’s okay to do it as long as the hierarchy doesn’t find out. Goren makes his trademark move: bends down so his face is in McTeal’s and tells him: “You’ve got some Hail Marys coming.”

As for Johnny, he was knocking boots with Theresa. He is the culprit but he didn’t mean to do it. He erased the so-called suicide note, which he also wrote, and it was really his own confession.

Six more episodes to go. Don’t miss Law & Order: Criminal Intent on USA Network, Mondays at 8:00 p.m. ET