The episode title communicates this will not be a straightforward crime drama, yet Something Happened as a title doesn't quite do justice to its plot. A nature museum visit by a school class uncovers a woman hiding amid the animal models. The woman is identified as Laurel Winwood and she is a mess; a rape kit indicates sexual penetration, but no actual evidence of trauma.
Olivia questions Laurel and Laurel initially claims no memory of what happened. As she warms to Olivia she begins to give some details, enough that Dom and Fin track down a man seen with Laurel at a bar where they made reservation - and the man is found stabbed to death with scissors.
But Laurel soon begins ranting confusingly about hate she feels, and when her sister Lea - an attorney - comes in to represent her, Laurel turns on her and rants about their late father and how he favored her over Laurel. The longer Laurel goes on, the more deranged she is, to where she is claiming her father sexually molested her as a child - but later she implies sex with her father was consensual.
Clearly Laurel is manipulative to the apex and even when Olivia gives away secrets to her past, it comes across not as confession but as an act to smoke out the truth from the increasingly-manipulative Laurel. By the end all we know is a man was stabbed to death with scissors; just about everything else is grossly unclear, even whether Laurel is even a victim, to where the impression I got is she never was any victim, just a greedy self-serving psychopath using her father as an all-purpose excuse for any heinous act.
Confusing as this character study is, it is powerfully presented by Melora Walters and Mariska Hargitay.
Olivia questions Laurel and Laurel initially claims no memory of what happened. As she warms to Olivia she begins to give some details, enough that Dom and Fin track down a man seen with Laurel at a bar where they made reservation - and the man is found stabbed to death with scissors.
But Laurel soon begins ranting confusingly about hate she feels, and when her sister Lea - an attorney - comes in to represent her, Laurel turns on her and rants about their late father and how he favored her over Laurel. The longer Laurel goes on, the more deranged she is, to where she is claiming her father sexually molested her as a child - but later she implies sex with her father was consensual.
Clearly Laurel is manipulative to the apex and even when Olivia gives away secrets to her past, it comes across not as confession but as an act to smoke out the truth from the increasingly-manipulative Laurel. By the end all we know is a man was stabbed to death with scissors; just about everything else is grossly unclear, even whether Laurel is even a victim, to where the impression I got is she never was any victim, just a greedy self-serving psychopath using her father as an all-purpose excuse for any heinous act.
Confusing as this character study is, it is powerfully presented by Melora Walters and Mariska Hargitay.