Speaker 1: Of the law and order franchises, SVU is considered especially watchable.
Speaker 2: We are the amateur detectives who kind of investigate the
Speaker 2: vicious felonies. These episodes are based on. These are our stories,
Speaker 2: done done. Hello, that's messed up an SVU podcast. My
Speaker 2: name is Lisa Traeger and my name is Kara Clank.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I did last name, so that's wild.
Speaker 2: But yeah, every week we talk about an episode of SVU,
Speaker 2: the true crime it's based on. And we have an
Speaker 2: amazing guest from the episode. And we're fresh off of
Speaker 2: bead Wong week and Kara Clank gave birth to baby Oscar,
Speaker 2: So Kara give us the scoop.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, thank you to all the listeners
Speaker 1: who have left me very sweet messages welcoming baby Oscar
Speaker 1: into the world and being excited to see him with
Speaker 1: Lisa and wondering how Rosie's reacting to him. That's what everyone, everybody.
Speaker 2: The first question is has Rosie chucked him across the kitchen?
Speaker 1: So far, there's only been one attempt on his life
Speaker 1: and involving a cell phone.
Speaker 2: But he's fine, and she's really just.
Speaker 1: Mostly ignoring him but also being very sweet and like
Speaker 1: kissing his head and touching him, being like.
Speaker 2: He's soft, you know. So it's very cute and he's.
Speaker 1: A good baby, and I'm getting sleep and everything's good.
Speaker 2: No, it's really wild. She's at So what I'd like
Speaker 2: to tell everyone is at four o two pm last
Speaker 2: week we got a message from karaen the group chat
Speaker 2: saying welcome baby Oscar. Five oh five pm. I did
Speaker 2: have an email about the podcast, so people were like,
Speaker 2: are you guys taking a hiatus? I go no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: She is doing tasks from the birthing room. So we
Speaker 2: are on track. Baby.
Speaker 1: It's really boring in there, you guys, It's really boring.
Speaker 1: Once the baby comes out, it was boring. So I
Speaker 1: had to send some emails.
Speaker 2: And he's cute and teeny and I like to hold him.
Speaker 2: And then the funniest thing is that Jared, Kara's husband's
Speaker 2: mom sent a package of nuts, which I think is
Speaker 2: the funniest gift ever.
Speaker 1: Yes, she's because of nuts. She's a big fan of
Speaker 1: nuts dot com. She has sent us two packages from
Speaker 1: them in the past year. This is not an ad,
Speaker 1: but if you're interested nuts dot com, we have basically
Speaker 1: killed almost all the nuts. The package did have chocolate
Speaker 1: covered espresso beans in.
Speaker 2: It, and Rosie was like, I want it, I want
Speaker 2: and I want it. I was like, let her have one.
Speaker 1: She'll hate it because, like, I don't like the taste
Speaker 1: of coffee, so I couldn't imagine a two.
Speaker 2: Year old like she loved it. So now we're.
Speaker 1: Trying desperately to keep chocolate covered caffeine balls away from
Speaker 1: my two year old child.
Speaker 2: So wish us luck, pray for us. Well, maybe Aunt
Speaker 2: Lisa will sneak her son to keep her loving me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and in case anyone's wondering.
Speaker 1: Lisa's two week or so trip to New York did
Speaker 1: nothing but make Rosie's heart grow fonder. She literally has
Speaker 1: been asking about her stop. I picked her up at
Speaker 1: school the other day and she was like, we're going
Speaker 1: to Lisa's house. I'm like, a place you've never been before. Sure,
Speaker 1: We're going to Lisa's house.
Speaker 2: She would love my corn stewol honestly, and I think
Speaker 2: she'd have fun in the garage.
Speaker 1: She would love everything in your house. You have so
Speaker 1: many chochkeys, she would ruin it. I can never let
Speaker 1: her come over.
Speaker 2: I have to teach her backgammon when she's old enough to. Oh,
Speaker 2: I bet she'd be good at it. That's such an aunt,
Speaker 2: like an aunt tipping I feel like. And then non
Speaker 2: baby news. Someone one of our friends sent to the
Speaker 2: group chat a TikTok I don't remember the name. I'm
Speaker 2: sure we'll find it and share it whatever. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: the basically the TikTok prompt was, what is something that's
Speaker 2: happened in your town that would make an amazing movie?
Speaker 2: Did you watch it or did you skip this one? Yes?
Speaker 2: I did, I did? I did. It was amazing. So
Speaker 2: this woman basically this man in her town showed up
Speaker 2: to the police department pretending to be a federal agent
Speaker 2: that was there overseeing stuff, and they let him stay.
Speaker 2: He was not an officer. He ended up beating children
Speaker 2: and holding like a gun to a three year old's head,
Speaker 2: totally like clusing menacing things throughout the town. And then
Speaker 2: a person in the town was like, this isn't right.
Speaker 2: Had to go to the police department and go, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: this isn't an officer. Like they let just a guy
Speaker 2: show up and be an officer and terrorize the town.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he told them, He told them they had like
Speaker 1: won a grant and like for like a new officer
Speaker 1: or something like that, and they didn't they didn't even
Speaker 1: question it.
Speaker 2: They were like, great, here's your gun and your badge.
Speaker 1: And he committed a woman to a mental institution like
Speaker 1: he is like sounds evil and he was essentially doing
Speaker 1: it as like a prank to like see.
Speaker 2: If he could get away with it.
Speaker 1: And I think it was a couple of years or
Speaker 1: something he was on the force in this town.
Speaker 2: More than a day. Is too much, like honestly, because
Speaker 2: you know, we do get some people that are like,
Speaker 2: you're too mean about cops and it's like they do
Speaker 2: seem bad at their job a general background check. I mean,
Speaker 2: are there not like if you let a loose guy
Speaker 2: show up and terrorize your town and then once the
Speaker 2: guy like put a gun to the three year old's head,
Speaker 2: you would think it'd be like, let's get him in trouble,
Speaker 2: but they were like business as usual, We see no
Speaker 2: problems here, put the woman in the mental institution and
Speaker 2: hit that kid like it is wild. So thank you
Speaker 2: for TikTok.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll definitely post that TikTok on our Instagram because
Speaker 1: it is wild. So Liza you are also back from
Speaker 1: New York. Welcome back to LA It's been so fat
Speaker 1: back in the town.
Speaker 2: I also surprised my parents in Chicago got my Domino
Speaker 2: games in beat them fully, beat my mom at backam,
Speaker 2: and my dad did beat me at backgammon, which was upsetting.
Speaker 2: But they have not They told me they have not
Speaker 2: played at all since I left because I terrorized them,
Speaker 2: like I played with them so much they needed a break.
Speaker 2: Saw the dogs, Saw the kids. It was very fun.
Speaker 2: But my interesting story is I get into the uber
Speaker 2: at Lax, which is a fucking nightmare. The fact that
Speaker 2: I used to read about Lax and US Weekly and
Speaker 2: be like, oh my god, when I can be in Lax,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be Paris Hilton. And then you show
Speaker 2: up and you're like this janky ass place is where
Speaker 2: the celebs fly into. I'm like shocked. I'm shocked. So
Speaker 2: I'm with my uber driver. He asks how my night is.
Speaker 2: It's like one thirty in the morning. I go, dude,
Speaker 2: I'm flying on. I'm not this. You know how I'm
Speaker 2: doing and he goes, okay. I say, I like the
Speaker 2: song on the radio. I'm not a full you know, cunt,
Speaker 2: And then we're driving, there's an accident, so I'm in
Speaker 2: traffic and I'm like, I want to be feel grateful,
Speaker 2: like obviously someone's going through pain. I'm like, I just
Speaker 2: want to get off this highway. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 2: and he goes, Honestly, I've had a rough night. I
Speaker 2: caught my fiancee cheating on me just a few hours ago.
Speaker 2: That's why I can't sleep, and that's why I'm driving
Speaker 2: right now. And then I have to be at work
Speaker 2: and my other job at five am. But I can't
Speaker 2: go home. And I caught her fucking some guy in
Speaker 2: my bed, in my house. It's truly I can't. And
Speaker 2: then you were like, I said, why didn't you tell
Speaker 2: me this sooner?
Speaker 3: Sir?
Speaker 2: We now we only have six minutes to discuss all
Speaker 2: of this. But I gave him good advice, I said,
Speaker 2: He goes, I don't know if we should do this
Speaker 2: or that or that. I go, you can do whatever
Speaker 2: you want, and do what you want, not what you
Speaker 2: think you should do. Dump the bitch, put her on hold.
Speaker 2: I don't know. But I also, are you lying to
Speaker 2: get more tips? I just don't know. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: But I did tip him well that's.
Speaker 1: I mean I normally am like I don't want to talk,
Speaker 1: but that's he needed. He needed ju Lisa. I feel like, uh,
Speaker 1: that was a divine force that put you two together
Speaker 1: in that car. I think he needed your advice.
Speaker 2: He needed Yeah, you know, he did need me. And
Speaker 2: then I told him where to get tacos late at night.
Speaker 2: You know, I was like, if you're like, if you
Speaker 2: want to eat your feelings, bro, Charlie's Tacos is the
Speaker 2: place to be.
Speaker 1: I really hope he uh he took your advice and
Speaker 1: talkoed it up. Wait, but did you also talk about
Speaker 1: when in Chicago, how you went to drag Race live.
Speaker 2: Oh my, this is amazing. Yeah, so I went to
Speaker 2: drive in drag Race. We saw got mik, we saw plastics,
Speaker 2: Kimchi uh like vanj I mean I can name them all.
Speaker 2: Naomi's legs are even more gorgeous in person. It's like
Speaker 2: fucking insane. But it was pouring rain and we did
Speaker 2: run out. I mean, it's worth getting soaked to see
Speaker 2: Got Mek Do Britney spears fucking heaven. But there was
Speaker 2: a giant, giant puddle in front of our car, and
Speaker 2: we just kept seeing people ruin their lives like their
Speaker 2: nights were. And then we opened our windows, it would go,
Speaker 2: there's a puddle. Stop Like we did try to help people,
Speaker 2: but you know, people don't register your shouting at them.
Speaker 2: We saw people in slides, flip flops, heels, dresses like
Speaker 2: no coachs just enter this puddle and then instead of
Speaker 2: exiting out. I don't think they've realized how big the
Speaker 2: puddle was. The puddle was probably like twelve feet wide,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, and like a few inches deep, like
Speaker 2: mid calf deep, and people were just going through the
Speaker 2: puddle and it was kind of a fun show. Also,
Speaker 2: I was on a rooftop in New York and people
Speaker 2: kept getting engaged. Well, one person got engaged in front
Speaker 2: of us, and I was like, it would be funny
Speaker 2: if that was just like people getting engaged in front
Speaker 2: of us. So I saw people walk into a puddle
Speaker 2: over and over and get engaged in front of me
Speaker 2: in this trip. So it was kind of great. It's
Speaker 2: so great.
Speaker 1: The world is opening back up, nature is healing, and
Speaker 1: you are watching people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I peed in the streets of New York. I
Speaker 2: saw a man shit in the streets. Yeah, I had
Speaker 2: a piece of pizza in the street. I did a
Speaker 2: lot of street times. It's fun in New York. Wait,
Speaker 2: I just wanted the listeners to know that. Just so
Speaker 2: you know, Kara has a new recording studio that she's
Speaker 2: set up in their garage and there is a giant
Speaker 2: framed Frankenstein behind her.
Speaker 1: So if I just I want to shar you with
Speaker 1: my husband, I am sharing you with my husband, who
Speaker 1: is a role playing game enthusiast and so everything behind
Speaker 1: me is very nerdy, very call of Cthulhu, dungeons and
Speaker 1: dragons for his stream of blood thing that he does.
Speaker 2: So oh and I saw a celebrity in New York.
Speaker 2: I saw Amar Stott a Meyer at lunch with his agent.
Speaker 2: I can assume it was his agent for lots of reasons.
Speaker 2: But I did wave at him and he waved back.
Speaker 2: But it was exciting. So any NBA fans, that was Lisa.
Speaker 4: I just need you to know, since you're back on
Speaker 4: the celebrity train and you brought up LAX, celebrities have
Speaker 4: their own terminal at LAX.
Speaker 2: I just need you to know that.
Speaker 4: And they pay it, okay, oh really yeah, they pay
Speaker 4: an annual thing for their own car service and all this.
Speaker 4: My friend is in charge of security for it, So
Speaker 4: there is a glamorous side of Lax.
Speaker 2: You're just not in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just don't get to go to it because
Speaker 1: I put it on the list, put it on the
Speaker 1: fucking vision board. We need to get in that lax.
Speaker 2: Because I saw Kathy Bates on a flight one since
Speaker 2: she was definitely whisked away in a different direction than
Speaker 2: I was. But Lisa Reno, me and her were just
Speaker 2: in the lounge, so I don't know. I don't I
Speaker 2: wonder if Lisa's not paying the subscription fee. Interesting, and
Speaker 2: we have New Beverly Hills, New New York. We're watching Hacks.
Speaker 2: I mean we got to start the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but really quick, I want to say. Speaking of
Speaker 1: drag Race, we just we just announced on our social media.
Speaker 1: I know this episode this is you're not going to
Speaker 1: hear this by then, it'll be a few days, but
Speaker 1: go back and check our social media. We have announced
Speaker 1: our live show. We're doing a live show June sixteenth.
Speaker 2: We're so excited.
Speaker 1: We're going to have drag Race All Star winner and
Speaker 1: SVU super fan Shay Kole. We're also going to have
Speaker 1: comedians like Joe Kim Booster, Lindsay Adams, Jamel Johnson, and
Speaker 1: Temmy McNamara. These are all our friends and amazing comics
Speaker 1: who also love SVU.
Speaker 2: They're all going to be part of it. It's going
Speaker 2: to be so fun.
Speaker 1: Games Trivia recapping an episode, there's a special Q and
Speaker 1: A you can buy tickets for, so go to Thats
Speaker 1: Messed Up Live dot com and get your tickets asap.
Speaker 1: We can't wait to see all of you guys on that.
Speaker 1: And then before we jump into today's episode, which is
Speaker 1: Lessons Learned, I just wanted to mention that we did
Speaker 1: record this episode a little bit in advance due to
Speaker 1: my you know, bringing a human into the world and
Speaker 1: such and different different things. And this episode does star
Speaker 1: legendary actor Charles Groden. We did record this before he
Speaker 1: recently passed away, So we just wanted to let you
Speaker 1: know that we're not just glossing over the fact that
Speaker 1: this amazing actor passed away.
Speaker 2: We just didn't know when we recorded. So now let's
Speaker 2: get going. Okay, So this is Lessons Learned, Season fourteen,
Speaker 2: Episode eight. Any initial thoughts.
Speaker 1: Kara, I mean I knew what this was based on immediately,
Speaker 1: Like when I first saw that, like even the like
Speaker 1: the cold open of this episode, I.
Speaker 2: Was like, I know where this is going. So you know,
Speaker 2: you just have like I feel once you when I
Speaker 2: feel when you lived in New York, you were on
Speaker 2: top of every single crime that ever happened.
Speaker 1: I was like reading the free paper, like reading stuff.
Speaker 1: And my sister was really big into also this like
Speaker 1: Upper west Side blog and would like send me. My
Speaker 1: sister loves crime too and would like send me articles
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we were like on top of what was up.
Speaker 2: And I remember that. No, it's very impressive. And the
Speaker 2: episode starts with the back of an old man's head
Speaker 2: walking into the unit. Am I where is the lie? No,
Speaker 2: there's no lines. It's just a funny cinematic setup by
Speaker 2: Lisa Traeger. He has like white hair, and it's just
Speaker 2: super busy night, so we're assuming it's a Saturday night
Speaker 2: or something. There's people yelling, there's a domestic violence couple,
Speaker 2: someone gets kicked in the nuts, there's a woman in leopard,
Speaker 2: there's a bleeding woman. Things are a muk. I felt
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 1: Was also, but I feel like that was like probably
Speaker 1: a more honest portrayal of what a unit looks like
Speaker 1: on a regular like I don't know, Friday night or whatever.
Speaker 1: Then like normally it's just a bunch of people like hello, SVU,
Speaker 1: TI tip tip tap on their computers and like it's
Speaker 1: not Yeah.
Speaker 2: The only time I went into a precinct was to
Speaker 2: report my building super climbing in the bedroom window and
Speaker 2: it was dead and nobody cared and they were like, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know what you want us to do, but
Speaker 2: you should leave. And how was that? So, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I wonder if we could do investigative reporting and like
Speaker 2: go to all these cop precincts on the weekends and
Speaker 2: see what's up. Okay, Anyways, we won't do that. So
Speaker 2: Amorrow sees him and he goes, hey, I have this
Speaker 2: letter I need to report. Amorro says, sit down, I'll
Speaker 2: be with you in a minute. It's busy, bitch. But
Speaker 2: I think the guy gets overwhelmed or intimidated or something
Speaker 2: and decide and he leaves, so he never gets to
Speaker 2: report anything. We cut back to his house and he
Speaker 2: puts on a record. It'ts some opera music. He pours
Speaker 2: a glass of whiskey and he starts reading the letter
Speaker 2: and then it's a quick cut to him hanging dead
Speaker 2: in the daytime, so that was wild, and then cut
Speaker 2: to Benson's at the scene. Tomorrow's at the scene. The
Speaker 2: neighbor found him, and Benson has just like a beautiful
Speaker 2: updo with a swoop being in the front and I
Speaker 2: think this is one of my favorite looks, like I
Speaker 2: love a messy like thing in the back with a
Speaker 2: sweeping So Benson is can fused why they're called in
Speaker 2: since it's just a suicide, and Tomorrow explains that his
Speaker 2: card was found and he actually remembers him from last
Speaker 2: night but didn't get to talk to him, and Benson's
Speaker 2: kind of sassy here and goes nice work, and Amorrow
Speaker 2: just deserve to be put in his place, like someone's
Speaker 2: dead because of you. Usually we tell people it's not
Speaker 2: their fault, but it's like, it is your fault. So
Speaker 2: we find out this is mister Lassiter. The letter assigned Kurt.
Speaker 2: It's Kurt with a C and it was written to him,
Speaker 2: so mister Lassiter, this old man is an abuser. And
Speaker 2: then they cut the body down and he flops onto
Speaker 2: an emmy like what we don't need to see the
Speaker 2: cutting down of the suicide body flopping onto a worker.
Speaker 2: I just I don't understand what they were. Just I
Speaker 2: don't understand. I don't know the choices there. Yeah, I don't. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that seems like a lot. And because of what we
Speaker 2: learned from Jess Varley, who played Fidelia in that episode,
Speaker 2: she was being hot like it wasn't a body double
Speaker 2: and it wasn't right.
Speaker 1: She had like a special like seat or something that
Speaker 1: was making it so that she wasn't like yeah, oh
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: But that means this old man was just flopping around
Speaker 2: on this other guy.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 2: It is a lot for me to think about. So
Speaker 2: is it a suicide? Did Kurt do the murder?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: Will there be twists and turns? It's SVU baby, So
Speaker 2: the squad is chatting trying to figure this out. So
Speaker 2: mister Lassiter taught English. And Amanda's hair looks amazing here.
Speaker 2: It's like a long bob with layers and swoop short
Speaker 2: beings and wow, look at you giving Amanda some credit.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, and we'll see a lot of this in
Speaker 2: this episode. I think what's making me love Amanda right
Speaker 2: now is I don't know if I ever noticed her
Speaker 2: in Finn's little buddy buddy vibe and I love their
Speaker 2: friendship and it's making me love Amanda more and more
Speaker 2: every day. That makes sense. And I do feel guilty
Speaker 2: because I was like, I hate her, and then we
Speaker 2: got thousands of messages being like I fucking hate that bitch,
Speaker 2: you know, So I did start feeling guilty for my
Speaker 2: Rallins hate. You know, she lived in an abusive home too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's true. We all have stuff. Yeah, so we split up,
Speaker 2: and we have Benson and Tomorrow heading to the school
Speaker 2: mister Lassiter taught at, which is Manor Hill Academy. Very
Speaker 2: she she she and mister Lennox is the head master.
Speaker 2: And we have Rose who is a secretary. And you know,
Speaker 2: we're not trusting this headmaster because he's wearing a brown
Speaker 2: suit coat. That's not a trustworthy color, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. I just it's it's used car salesman. You
Speaker 2: don't trust someone in a brown suit I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: And the wardrobe department knows that the war knows what
Speaker 1: the trustworthy color colors are. And then trustworthy I was
Speaker 1: going to say, unless it's like Pharrell on a red
Speaker 1: carpet trying to make a statement like I'll accept that
Speaker 1: in brown, but if it's just someone going to work,
Speaker 1: they needed a discount, and so it's not gonna happen any.
Speaker 2: Is the bozo hairdoo that is also a problem. Mister Lennox,
Speaker 2: the headmaster, explains that mister Lassiter retired this spring before
Speaker 2: he got there and started his job. But this teacher
Speaker 2: is so respected and he's going to help the investigation
Speaker 2: in any way possible, and we'll see if he sticks
Speaker 2: by that. Finn and Amanda, my cute favorite duo. They
Speaker 2: go see an old friend of Finn's who went to
Speaker 2: the academy on scholarship, and he has a sexy office.
Speaker 2: We're talking views Florida ceiling windows. This is a rich man.
Speaker 2: He's wearing a pink shirt. He's not scared to make
Speaker 2: a fashion statement. He's very rich looking. And the scoop
Speaker 2: we get from him on Lassiter is he got a
Speaker 2: little touchy feely after drama rehearsals and he says like
Speaker 2: I was an easy target because I was a scholarship kid.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't rock any boats. And he gave him a
Speaker 2: shoulder massage and tried somewhere else, and basically the scholarship
Speaker 2: kid was like, if you try that again, I'll break
Speaker 2: your arm. And so he didn't try it again. But
Speaker 2: mister Least was right. He wasn't going to tell anyone
Speaker 2: and like starting problems. So that's that. So this scholarship guy,
Speaker 2: he's on the board of the school. He loves the school.
Speaker 2: The school changed his life and helped everything. And so
Speaker 2: they asked him like, hey, will you give us the
Speaker 2: database of all the alumni you have the alumni lists,
Speaker 2: and he's like, what the fuck, I don't know if
Speaker 2: I want to. They have a back and forth, YadA YadA.
Speaker 2: Finn is very persuasive, so he's like, fine, I'll share
Speaker 2: this alumni list with you, and my advice to you
Speaker 2: is to start with the drama club. So now they're
Speaker 2: in a park with a husky man and a flannel
Speaker 2: walking a bunch of dogs. So he's not doing well. Okay,
Speaker 2: this is he's a dog walker, but I don't know
Speaker 2: in her shoes. She left her law job to become
Speaker 2: a dog walker. We can't assume all dog walkers are
Speaker 2: not doing well, assuming that except for you, I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: that is true. Yeah, but he has he does have
Speaker 2: a look of distraught, like I've been through some shit.
Speaker 2: On his face, he does not look like he's doing
Speaker 2: well emotionally. Yeah, like black eyeliner, black chip nail polish
Speaker 2: for a woman in distress, is like a flannel and
Speaker 2: a dog walker for a man in distress, Like your
Speaker 2: life's not going the way you want it, you have
Speaker 2: some Nirvana energy. And he did write the letter. This
Speaker 2: is Kurt, and he said that the therapist told him
Speaker 2: to write the letter. He's in a program of survivors
Speaker 2: of abuse, and he would never kill him. He's shocked
Speaker 2: that the teacher is dead, and I believe that he
Speaker 2: didn't kill him. His vibe is trustworthy. I would say
Speaker 2: he works at a dog hotel, but wanted to sing
Speaker 2: at the met and he's like, my life's a mess
Speaker 2: because of this abuse. I really like this angle, you know,
Speaker 2: I talk about it a lot on this podcast. As
Speaker 2: a society, we don't concentrate enough on like the aftermath
Speaker 2: of an abuse. We just think people should just like
Speaker 2: dust themselves off and try again, you know, And we don't. Sorry,
Speaker 2: but once I said dust yourself off, there's no way.
Speaker 2: I wasn't about to sing Alia. I didn't plan on
Speaker 2: it beforehand, but I couldn't stop myself. Here we are,
Speaker 2: but yeah, we don't talk about like how it messes
Speaker 2: people up and how you know, people let's suffer abuse
Speaker 2: to do self harm and go through depression. So I'm
Speaker 2: already into this episode because we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: a topic that I feel passionate about. So they go
Speaker 2: to a group and it's at a community center, and
Speaker 2: Kurt Is kind of seems like the leader of this group,
Speaker 2: and I'm assuming it's like all the boys that were
Speaker 2: abused in high school by these teachers are now grown
Speaker 2: up or you know, they all know each other. They
Speaker 2: went to the school and they all seem like they
Speaker 2: were abused. Anthony Rapp is there, Okay, hello Broadway, and
Speaker 2: he's pissed. He's like, who invited these detectives? I thought
Speaker 2: this was a memorial? What the fuck is going going on?
Speaker 2: Which confused me, Like why would I guess you're happy
Speaker 2: he's dead? I mean, I don't know. I was about
Speaker 2: to say, why would you go to this memorial?
Speaker 1: So I think what the group is is like this
Speaker 1: guy is has been in a program for survivors of abuse,
Speaker 1: the Dogwalker Kurt, and he has also been speaking to
Speaker 1: his fellow alumni. And then I think when the word
Speaker 1: got out that Lassiter had died, he sort of organized
Speaker 1: this whole like let's talk about what happened. And that's
Speaker 1: why Anthony Rapp is like I thought this was a
Speaker 1: memorial and it's like, no, you know why you're here,
Speaker 1: Like we're all here to talk about how this guy
Speaker 1: had a handsy problem, you know, and.
Speaker 2: He's angsty as well. You know this is a group
Speaker 2: of angsty men. Oh yeah, I mean Anthony Rapp has
Speaker 2: a Willco shirt on. Yeah, he's definitely feeling things. And
Speaker 2: Benson's hair is now down that shows the past thing
Speaker 2: of the time. I love her hair in this scene. Yeah,
Speaker 2: she also has a curl look later, like this is
Speaker 2: a really a plus Benson hair episode. The men in
Speaker 2: the support group are obviously skeptical about sharing since he's
Speaker 2: so They're like, what is the point what We're going
Speaker 2: to go to ghost Court and coming to NBC this
Speaker 2: fall ghost Court. Benson brings up, like, listen, I understand
Speaker 2: that he's dead, but we need to know who knew
Speaker 2: about this and who covered it up because these are
Speaker 2: people that could still get in trouble. Anthony's arms are
Speaker 2: bent so he's not into a very dangerous minds body language,
Speaker 2: and his knee is shaking. And also, did you notice
Speaker 2: there was a boombox at this community center? This was
Speaker 2: twenty twelve. Boom boxes were long gone. What's happening? No
Speaker 2: one needs CDs. It was like a very nineties boombox
Speaker 2: at this community center. I would love to know why
Speaker 2: the prop person put it back. I do feel though
Speaker 2: that if there are any living boomboxes, they're at community centers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for choreographic that's like where they'd be. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: just I love the details of our prop our prop groups.
Speaker 2: What is what do they call prop master? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 2: there's a man with geled hair. And he said, you know,
Speaker 2: after Lassiter's death, a lot of feelings have come back
Speaker 2: to him that he thought he was over with, so
Speaker 2: maybe this would be helpful. And then they all discussed
Speaker 2: that this teacher had a signature move called the last
Speaker 2: sitter lasso, where he'd wrap his arms around you, pull
Speaker 2: you in and poke you under your ribs. I hate this.
Speaker 2: I hate this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I think that unrequited tickling is horrible,
Speaker 1: like welly, and they explained.
Speaker 2: That it was it was a test because if you laughed,
Speaker 2: then you got a massage, and then if you didn't
Speaker 2: stop him, and he would, you know, abuse you more.
Speaker 2: So it's like it was a total test. So if
Speaker 2: you were like, get the fuck off me, he's not
Speaker 2: going to try to massage you. And Anthony Rap's character
Speaker 2: Nathan is like, I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Stop blaming all your problems and someone tickling you. So
Speaker 2: he has some issues. Another teacher that's brought up is Streppik,
Speaker 2: and he raped one of the guys in this group.
Speaker 2: So then more in another teacher abused a student that
Speaker 2: was drunk at junior prom offered him a ride home,
Speaker 2: and then assaulted him. Then so we're finding out that
Speaker 2: this is many teachers are abusing their students at one school.
Speaker 2: And then Streppik is dead though, but gave one of
Speaker 2: the guys gonorrhea, and then Mercer attacked someone in a
Speaker 2: locker room, and then all more men walk into the
Speaker 2: meeting and we realize this is a lot of teachers
Speaker 2: and a lot of victims, and we go to commercial break.
Speaker 2: If you want to go smoke a cigarette, okay, oh good?
Speaker 2: What if we started advertising cigarettes? All right? We're back
Speaker 2: at the precinct and there's a corkboard with a bunch
Speaker 2: of pictures and yarns zigzagging to all the former students.
Speaker 2: There's three decades of sexual abuse, and Barbara's here acting
Speaker 2: smug and very lawyer like, excuse me, we're the victims
Speaker 2: under the age of twenty three. Did this happen less
Speaker 2: than five years ago? Was this out of state? Then
Speaker 2: I can't do anything about it? And it's like, okay, Barba.
Speaker 2: Basically they're chatting and they're like, there is no way
Speaker 2: that people high up didn't know about this, Like we
Speaker 2: have to find out who knew about all of these assaults.
Speaker 2: And Mercer, the swim coach, is in Thailand, which is
Speaker 2: a haven for abusers. There's no way he's not committing
Speaker 2: fucking crimes in Thailand. So Moran taught up until a
Speaker 2: few years ago, which means there could have been new
Speaker 2: students that were abused by him. So there's ways to
Speaker 2: find people that aren't outside of the statue of limitations.
Speaker 2: So that's something to think about. And then so they
Speaker 2: go to talk to Morton to figure out what's going on,
Speaker 2: and he loves trains and making tiny villages in his house,
Speaker 2: so we know there's an issue. No one that's building
Speaker 2: little villages in their house is above board, okay. And
Speaker 2: then it seems like he has dementia or something because
Speaker 2: he keeps talking about the Korean War, so he's not
Speaker 2: going to be helpful. He has no idea what's happening,
Speaker 2: and he's building villages. So Elliott Gould comes into the
Speaker 2: precinct now and he's a former teacher for Manor Hill
Speaker 2: and he wants to talk, and he's wearing a bolo
Speaker 2: tie with a marbled stone in it. I don't even
Speaker 2: know what this means, but it's obviously a specific choice
Speaker 2: to give him a bolo tie. He admits that he
Speaker 2: had sex with students. He said that they were older students,
Speaker 2: ages seventeen and eighteen, that it came out of affection,
Speaker 2: and that it was in the seventies early eighties. It
Speaker 2: was a different time you wouldn't really understand. But it
Speaker 2: was warm and caring. It wasn't really rape. And Benson's like,
Speaker 2: well that's fucking convenient, Like you breach the trust of
Speaker 2: these students. You know, we can't do anything about it
Speaker 2: because they're of age, Like, why are you even coming here,
Speaker 2: you shady motherfucker. You're calculating, and he goes, no, my
Speaker 2: actions have had consequences that I did not foresee. So
Speaker 2: if I've harmed anyone in any way, like maybe confronting
Speaker 2: me would be helpful. Like, I just want to do
Speaker 2: my part. I feel really guilty about what I've done.
Speaker 2: Elliott Gould to me, I don't know, do you I
Speaker 2: think of American history? X Well, I've told you famously.
Speaker 1: I've never seen that movie, but I know Elliott Gould
Speaker 1: from so much stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if I've remembered you haven't
Speaker 2: seen it. I kind of want to be like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, we have to watch it together. But it's
Speaker 2: not really a good.
Speaker 1: Feel I don't know if it's like a feel a
Speaker 1: feel good, fun Nazi movie that we can watch together.
Speaker 2: Eli juises it is really good. It's done so well.
Speaker 2: But I remember in ap English in high school, I
Speaker 2: did quote that movie in my conclusion of an essay
Speaker 2: and my teacher was like, are you fucking kidding? You're
Speaker 2: quoting movies in your essay? And I go, I thought,
Speaker 2: I mean what? But I did get bad grades? But yeah,
Speaker 2: I love it and Edward Ran is very hot in it.
Speaker 2: He's very sexualazi tats and all. So Benson asks if
Speaker 2: anyone else at the school knew about this, and Elliott
Speaker 2: Gould says he didn't know about the other teachers, and
Speaker 2: he feels really bad that he failed to see it
Speaker 2: or help them in any way. He did take advantage
Speaker 2: of boys, right, But do I believe the seventies were different? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't. I'm on Elliott's side. What
Speaker 2: are you thinking? You're giving me eyes?
Speaker 1: I just I gotta it'll feel different, I think when
Speaker 1: we get into the real crime, because it's not Elliott
Speaker 1: Gould and it's like real boys who have had their
Speaker 1: lives ruined, So it might just feel different.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he does. He just I think that's why
Speaker 2: they got Elliott Gould to do this part.
Speaker 1: It's like he comes in with this like sincerity and
Speaker 1: like you really feel like, oh, it was a different time,
Speaker 1: like you could smoke.
Speaker 2: A cigarette while you were at your pediatrician for fuck's sake.
Speaker 2: I mean, like it was a totally different like world
Speaker 2: in terms of like what was allowed. But and it
Speaker 2: doesn't mean those things aren't wrong, you know. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: we'll know more, but the fact that he didn't know
Speaker 2: about the other teachers is helpful because it excludes him
Speaker 2: from like, you know, this conspiracy that it's like a
Speaker 2: bunch of people or whatever. So the detectives talk to
Speaker 2: the men from the group and they're like, wait, what Tompkins. No,
Speaker 2: that's everyone's favorite teacher. I've talked to twenty five victims
Speaker 2: and no one has ever mentioned Tompkins. Barbara has his
Speaker 2: pockets square, and he's like, YadA, YadA, YadA, I can't
Speaker 2: do anything without evidence, YadA YadA, YadA, And he says
Speaker 2: this all sucks, like the only way we can have
Speaker 2: a case at all is against the school if they
Speaker 2: knew and covered it up. So they need to find
Speaker 2: evidence to show that the school knew what was going on.
Speaker 2: So the one who has gone to Rhea said that
Speaker 2: the dad went and confronted the headmaster of the school.
Speaker 2: But both the headmaster of the school, like the former
Speaker 2: head master of the school, and the dad are dead,
Speaker 2: so it's like, only this guy, this victim, could testify
Speaker 2: because there's no other evidence of anything happening. So they're like, okay,
Speaker 2: if you testify, this is good news. And then the
Speaker 2: gel hair Boy and the ringleader are like, we don't
Speaker 2: even need laws, we don't need court. We just want
Speaker 2: an apology. We just want someone to stay sorry to us.
Speaker 2: And Barbara says, yeah, but that's admitting guilt. And then
Speaker 2: they would be too scared to do that because then
Speaker 2: you can take them to civil courts, so they're never
Speaker 2: gonna like apologize in any way. And then we see
Speaker 2: Rita Calhoun. Yes, I've growned. I love her more and
Speaker 2: more every time I see her. Is that fucked up?
Speaker 2: I like, I'm obsessed? I really great. I love that actress. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I oh yeah. Isn't she in Veep? She's our veep girl?
Speaker 2: Is she in Veep? She's definitely in House of Cards cards, Yes,
Speaker 2: House of Cards. Listen. I can't keep all my political
Speaker 2: shows in order. Okay, I'm watching too much. And then
Speaker 2: Charles Grodin is there. Uh oh, what's going to happen?
Speaker 2: Is that the dad from Beethoven? I think so? And
Speaker 2: he is the board chairman. I'm the dad from Clifford.
Speaker 1: If anybody used to watch the show Clifford where Martin
Speaker 1: Shorret plays a little boy, go on, so and the
Speaker 1: head master is there.
Speaker 2: So we have a meeting with Rita who's going to
Speaker 2: be the lawyer. We have Charles Groden, who's the head
Speaker 2: of the board, and then we have the head master.
Speaker 2: And of course I think I need to add to
Speaker 2: an SVU drinking game. And anytime someone says fishing expedition,
Speaker 2: I think it's time to drink. And if you do
Speaker 2: it in this episode you will get a little tipsy.
Speaker 1: Fishing expedition and witch Hunt would kind of be in
Speaker 1: the same square on like the Bengo card.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And Groden is like, my family is four
Speaker 2: generations of the school and so many success stories, and
Speaker 2: I love this school and it's like, okay, for every
Speaker 2: successful person, you have a bunch abused people who are
Speaker 2: like our lives have been ruined. And Growden is like,
Speaker 2: they're losers and if they drink, that's not my problem.
Speaker 2: And he's just very serious. His voice is very scary,
Speaker 2: and he goes, we have a party tonight, please leave.
Speaker 2: So that's his vibe, very intense, and Barbara says a
Speaker 2: line I don't love and he goes, listen, I'm a prosecutor,
Speaker 2: not a healer. And anyone that's in the Barbara b
Speaker 2: great brigade. It's like, how do he's a jerk in
Speaker 2: this episode?
Speaker 1: Yes, but like I think this is part of his
Speaker 1: arc because he later does become a healer. Like he
Speaker 1: does do things in later episodes where he bends things
Speaker 1: or does things to help people. So I think because
Speaker 1: this is what like his Is this his first season
Speaker 1: or I mean maybe second. Yeah, it's fresh, Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: fresh off the boat. So like we gotta have him
Speaker 1: be a little bit of a dick that has to
Speaker 1: like soften up or whatever. It was like Graylick didn't
Speaker 1: have enough time for that to happen because she was
Speaker 1: just a dick all the time and then they got
Speaker 1: rid of her. But Barbara, he has an arc.
Speaker 2: So then moral Benson is like, I know you want
Speaker 2: to do the right thing. You know, something fucked up
Speaker 2: happened and criminal and we need to do something. So
Speaker 2: that's exciting. So now Barbara now is wet to work.
Speaker 2: He's like got his motivation back up, he's invested again,
Speaker 2: and he goes, fine, if they want us to go fishing,
Speaker 2: we'll go fucking fishing. And so he pulls up his
Speaker 2: cuffs of his dress shirt. He doesn't but I have
Speaker 2: pictured it spiritually, I know, I kept being I kept
Speaker 2: being like, where are the sleeves coming out? What is happening?
Speaker 2: And Robins lets the team know that she found something.
Speaker 2: And this to me is this is fishing for sure,
Speaker 2: because this doesn't seem like evidence to me at all.
Speaker 2: But that's why they're being paid the medium bucks to
Speaker 2: be detectives. So she says that, like, they threw a
Speaker 2: retirement party for Streppick, but he wasn't even sixty And
Speaker 2: for that, I guess that school it's suspicious to leave
Speaker 2: and retire before you're forced to, since it's such a
Speaker 2: little cult. And there was a party nine years ago.
Speaker 2: But then he started teaching in an inner city charter school,
Speaker 2: So why would you retire from this like hoity toity
Speaker 2: place to go to a charter school in the city.
Speaker 2: So Rollins and Phil, oh my god, are you back
Speaker 2: on college? Fin Phil, it's back drinking game.
Speaker 4: Addition, Lidia calling finn Phil, Lisa calls Phil get wasted.
Speaker 2: Rollins in finn Ough go visit this charter school, and
Speaker 2: the lead woman in a gray power suit she goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a big deal that he came here. We
Speaker 2: were like really excited that this fancy guy was going
Speaker 2: to come to our school, but I fired him a
Speaker 2: month after he got here because I heard voices in
Speaker 2: the locker room, walked in and he was with an
Speaker 2: eighth grade boy. Nothing happened, but it was too close
Speaker 2: and I just got a bad vibe. Then we find
Speaker 2: out that she called the old school, the Manor Hill
Speaker 2: or whatever and tried to find out what was up,
Speaker 2: and the secretary said, follow your gut. So that's a
Speaker 2: clue that the school fucking knew. But the school gave
Speaker 2: a glowing recommendation. So it's like, okay, hold on, you
Speaker 2: forced him into early retirement. The secretary is like, ah, yeah,
Speaker 2: fire him. He is shady as fuck. But then you
Speaker 2: gave a glowing recommendation so they can go abuse people
Speaker 2: in like a poorer neighborhood. Messed up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's essentially the same as like shuffling a priest
Speaker 1: to a different city or whatever.
Speaker 2: I just don't get what goes through people's mind, Like
Speaker 2: what is it? Well, I know exactly what it is.
Speaker 2: It's like the people that are doing the molesting are
Speaker 2: the ones making the laws. I mean, that's basically it.
Speaker 2: I just saw a tweet recently that was like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the brock Turners of the world grow up and become
Speaker 2: the Matt Gates' is who create the laws and protect
Speaker 2: each other. And it's like all these abuses because it's like,
Speaker 2: why aren't you, like, why are you not protecting children?
Speaker 2: It's like, I think they're just protecting the reputation. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like if you fire him with bad cause, it's like,
Speaker 1: then there's a trail.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: If you give him a good wreck and he moves
Speaker 1: on to another school, he's someone else's problem.
Speaker 2: It's just upsetting. It's yeah, it's upsetting when you think
Speaker 2: about how the world works. Okay, So the cops go
Speaker 2: to this private event. You know, I love when they
Speaker 2: break up a party and the head masters like, you
Speaker 2: can't be in here, and Growden's like, but they have warns,
Speaker 2: they have the paperwork. They're not fucking around, And so
Speaker 2: we're going to the grand jury, baby, and Benson turns
Speaker 2: to read and goes fishing expedition done baby, Okay, so
Speaker 2: it's exciting news.
Speaker 1: Also, like a fishing expedition is just looking for something,
Speaker 1: isn't It isn't like a fishing expedition is like you wait,
Speaker 1: you fit, you like, try to find fish, Like that's
Speaker 1: what investigation is.
Speaker 2: I don't know why that's such a bad thing.
Speaker 1: We're not going to let you go on a fishing
Speaker 1: expedition and just start finding evidence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's basically saying that there are fish to find. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you should say something else, But I don't. I
Speaker 2: can't think quick enough. Like fishing in the La River
Speaker 2: like that might be like no fish, like that might
Speaker 2: be smart. I just learned that there's no water. I'm
Speaker 2: glad I got to use it for the podcast. My knowledge.
Speaker 2: So the head master's on the stand and he's getting questioned,
Speaker 2: you wrote a recommendation for a guy that you knew sucked.
Speaker 2: What's going on? Why didn't you call the principle back?
Speaker 2: What do you know? All of this seems inconclusive, and
Speaker 2: then Rose is denying helping and she goes, no, I
Speaker 2: didn't imply anything. I was just telling her, you know,
Speaker 2: to do what she felt best. So Rose is good.
Speaker 2: I bet she got a bonus for that. She just
Speaker 2: keeps being like I didn't think it was a good
Speaker 2: fit for him to be at that school. I don't
Speaker 2: really know why, and doesn't have any answers so there's
Speaker 2: like a little break in the grand jury time and
Speaker 2: the Gonorrhea guy is nervous as hell in the hallway,
Speaker 2: and they're like, you're going to testify, right, and he goes, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but we're sview experts. We know something's happening. So Grodin
Speaker 2: is now on the stand and says, Strepick taught his
Speaker 2: son if he thought that Streppik was some molester, why
Speaker 2: would he allow that? Good point? That is persuasive. And
Speaker 2: he goes, listen, Strepik was loved, and I don't know
Speaker 2: what you're doing. And then they ask him, well, why
Speaker 2: did why did Strepik retire early? Why did he get
Speaker 2: financial compensation? What's going on? And Groden says, listen, motherfucker,
Speaker 2: that was nine years ago. I serve on a lot
Speaker 2: of boards in three different time zones, which is a
Speaker 2: flex I like that. I love having to juggle time zones.
Speaker 2: And he goes, yeah, but there's all these missing files
Speaker 2: and missing meetings, missing minutes in the meeting. But Groden
Speaker 2: is like, listen, I don't belie eve a word of this,
Speaker 2: and I wasn't aware of anything, So go fuck yourself now.
Speaker 2: Vincent Gonorrhea guy. It's his turn and he's missing, and
Speaker 2: we knew he was gonna be missing. He was nervous
Speaker 2: as hell. He's of course, this is a big stressful ordeal.
Speaker 2: And they find him at the Dover Hotel with a
Speaker 2: sex worker, comes out in leopard like running out and
Speaker 2: he's in his underwear on the bed and he's very,
Speaker 2: very sweaty. And now Amorrow's words, not mine, amorro goes.
Speaker 2: He was found with a hooker and some coke, which
Speaker 2: sounds like a great party, okay, but this is why
Speaker 2: Amorrow doesn't get more. People don't want to fuck Tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I think things like this. So Tomorrow Benson and Barber
Speaker 2: walking on the cobblestones under like the Stone Court building
Speaker 2: arch and they look like superheroes. And I fucking love
Speaker 2: this shot, like the director did amazing. I really love it.
Speaker 2: So the new goal now is to get the medical
Speaker 2: records for Strap to see if he had gone a
Speaker 2: rhea to link it to when Vincent had got rhea.
Speaker 2: This is a fishing expedition, deep sea diving, I would
Speaker 2: say so. Now Strepick's only living relative is a second
Speaker 2: cousin who does give permission and access to his medical records,
Speaker 2: which I think sucks. Like I would hate if I
Speaker 2: had some loose cousin be like, oh yeah, dig her
Speaker 2: up or whatever, like I, this is wild. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: what if your second cousin was like, yeah, old uncle
Speaker 2: Streppik with the fucking hands, Yeah, you can go ahead
Speaker 2: and get his impot Like, go ahead, yeah, he probably
Speaker 2: fucking most everyone and gave me really weird vibes at
Speaker 2: the family picnic. Go get his DNA, no problem, Okay,
Speaker 2: I like that because I kept thinking of the Barnes collection,
Speaker 2: which is just art theft. But like I I was
Speaker 2: just like, you should be able to do this, but
Speaker 2: you're here totally right. I switched my point of view.
Speaker 2: So and he did have goneriea like three weeks before
Speaker 2: the student did. Now Rita Calhoun enters fast I mean
Speaker 2: speed racer, and she said, as you cannot use this
Speaker 2: because of subsection see ma blah blah blah blah blah
Speaker 2: blah bah. And basically this like weird subsection of a law.
Speaker 2: Why read A Calhoun gets paid the big bucks is
Speaker 2: you cannot release anything of the dead that would like
Speaker 2: fuck with the reputation or disgrace them. So that's weird.
Speaker 2: So it's just like hard, you can't speak ill of
Speaker 2: the dead because that would be speaking ill of the dead,
Speaker 2: and that's the law. And Barbara's like, maybe there's a
Speaker 2: way to work around this. Let's get Elliott gool To
Speaker 2: on the stand to talk about how hey, we were
Speaker 2: all fucking the kids, like to make it seem like
Speaker 2: it wasn't disgraceful, which does seem crazy, Like I I
Speaker 2: don't understand this. It does not work in court. Sorry,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work. Like the judges like, sorry, you haven't
Speaker 2: sold me on raping your students is cool, Like it
Speaker 2: doesn't work. They're like, no, this would disgrace it. There's
Speaker 2: no way around, Like abusing children that you're supposed to
Speaker 2: protect and teach is not. It's disgraceful no matter how
Speaker 2: you try to spin it. But good, good try, you know.
Speaker 2: And then Benson, I would like to say, did not
Speaker 2: like this idea the whole time. She's like, I really
Speaker 2: don't like that. We're gonna say raping is okay to
Speaker 2: like get this, and Barbara is like, we we lose
Speaker 2: the battle, but win the war, but none of it happened. Also,
Speaker 2: Rita is a lady in Red I love this outfit.
Speaker 2: She has redhead to toe, and so Elliot Gould also
Speaker 2: has another Bolo tie which is exciting, this time with turquoise.
Speaker 2: So he has a nice, healthy bolo collection. That's how
Speaker 2: you know he's an intellectual from the seventies. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what it is. I was like, what is this
Speaker 2: represent and bolo? Now? I only think about the stripper
Speaker 2: from Atlantis? Same, yeah, I don't think about anything. I
Speaker 2: was like, he was wearing fake tionel oh no, And
Speaker 2: I do want to say, you know, I told you
Speaker 2: this didn't work. And Rita is a good point. She's like,
Speaker 2: what are you gonna do? Bring a cannibal up here
Speaker 2: and tell me it's healthy to eat people. Get the
Speaker 2: fuck out of here. So the school decides to get
Speaker 2: ahead of this. So they're back in the squad room
Speaker 2: and there's a press release that's released. Obviously it's a
Speaker 2: press release, it's out there, and they talk about how
Speaker 2: Tompkins is a creep. So they basically like, instead of
Speaker 2: focusing on Streppick or all these other people, we have Tompkins,
Speaker 2: who on the stand admitted to having relations with students,
Speaker 2: So they use him and they go it's just one
Speaker 2: bad apple. It has nothing to do with their school.
Speaker 2: We can't do anything legally about it. It was too
Speaker 2: long ago. But we're so upset and fuck Elliott Gould.
Speaker 2: So the teacher, you know, I mean, they're escapegoating him.
Speaker 2: They're scapegoating him. It is a good it's a good play.
Speaker 2: Now Finn is on the phone with a former student
Speaker 2: who saw the story and he wants to talk. It's
Speaker 2: a man in a green velvet suit coat and a
Speaker 2: patterned shirt underneath, and he's drinking a coffee. We can
Speaker 2: only assume this is a gay man. So Benson and
Speaker 2: Amarro are sitting with him, and he goes, oh, I
Speaker 2: don't want to testify against Elliot Gould. I want to
Speaker 2: testify for him. I was eighteen. I knew I was
Speaker 2: gay since I was six, and Walter let me know
Speaker 2: it's okay, and walt was great, and so he had
Speaker 2: a great time. I mean, this is so many ethical,
Speaker 2: different moral discussions, honestly, But he loved his relations with
Speaker 2: Elliot Gould slash Waltz. But he says Strepik found out
Speaker 2: about it. Streppick is like, oh, this is easy prey,
Speaker 2: Like if he's doing that over here, I can get
Speaker 2: him here. So Streppik tried to come on to him
Speaker 2: and he did not like it, and he told his mom,
Speaker 2: and his mom wrote a letter to the school complaining
Speaker 2: about him. He does not have that copy of that letter,
Speaker 2: but he has a copy of the letter that the
Speaker 2: school wrote back. Brad Forrester, member of the board signed it.
Speaker 2: AKA Charles Grodin knew saw the letter from the mom
Speaker 2: and wrote a letter back to the mom. So he
Speaker 2: fucking knew that Streppick was abusing children and let his
Speaker 2: son stay in his class. That is fucked up. Okay,
Speaker 2: I agree with you. Yeah, I mean I wrote it
Speaker 2: all in caps. I had to yell. So Benson's like,
Speaker 2: boom baby. So Benson and Tomorrow go talk to Charles
Speaker 2: Groden are like, hey, babe, we know about the letter
Speaker 2: and guess what perjury you lied on the stand. So
Speaker 2: what are we gonna do here? And he goes, that
Speaker 2: was twenty eight years ago. I don't even remember. He
Speaker 2: was not a sexual predator. And while they're talking to him,
Speaker 2: Benson corner of her detectivice he's a family photo and
Speaker 2: Anthony rap is Charles Groden's son. Wow, Dun Dun dunt huge.
Speaker 2: I mean like big twist. We didn't know that. No,
Speaker 2: we did not know that. And so you know, if
Speaker 2: you don't remember, he was in the support group. So
Speaker 2: Groden says he asked Nathan Slash Anthony Rap about the
Speaker 2: boy and that Nathan said the boy was like a
Speaker 2: cry baby and a loser, and so that's why Groden
Speaker 2: like didn't really care about it. Do that make sense.
Speaker 2: That's why he'd like dismiss the allegations.
Speaker 1: Basically because he's like, oh, this is just a kid
Speaker 1: that's oversensitive or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they go to talk to Nathan, who lives
Speaker 2: in the guest house. He loves bears, there's a hanging plant,
Speaker 2: he's wearing flannel, another Willco shirt. You know, there's like beers,
Speaker 2: there's a there's like a Heineken mini keg on the table,
Speaker 2: and yeah, the guest house is nice. Like where are
Speaker 2: they living? This looks like an LA style sprawling man.
Speaker 1: No, I don't know where in New York there are
Speaker 1: guest houses, but they might be up in like Riverdale,
Speaker 1: like near where this actually is supposed to be.
Speaker 2: But go on, Yeah, so Grodan is like peering behind
Speaker 2: the detectives who are talking to Nathan, and we know
Speaker 2: Nathan has a secret, like he has something to say,
Speaker 2: there's too much angst not to and they're straight up
Speaker 2: this is a wild scene. They're straight up calling Nathan
Speaker 2: a loser in front of him. They're like, hey, Charles Grodin,
Speaker 2: are you embarrassed of your thought of your son? Because
Speaker 2: your son's a loser. Look at him. He doesn't work,
Speaker 2: He just lives here alone, he does nothing. It's like,
Speaker 2: this is so rude. This is like a clearly abused team.
Speaker 2: But this is how they push people to snap, Yeah,
Speaker 2: humiliate them. Yeah, it's really like funny. He's like Benson's like,
Speaker 2: are you so disappointed in your son? Nathan's like, excuse me,
Speaker 2: I'm ready here, And Grodan's just like Strepika is a
Speaker 2: saint among men, which makes me think were they lovers?
Speaker 2: Was Grodan abusing kids? Like why are you calling him
Speaker 2: a saint? Like I just don't understand, like a school
Speaker 2: who cares? Yeah, So so Nathan snaps like a little
Speaker 2: angsty like good Charlotte guy, and he's like, or what dad?
Speaker 2: We have to protect the reputation of Manor Hill. That
Speaker 2: school is so important and Benson's like, yeah, your dad's
Speaker 2: pretty obsessed with the school, like what the fuck? And
Speaker 2: Grodan's like, Nathan to cork in it, you're done, and
Speaker 2: Nathan hates it. Whatever, there's a lot of stuff happening,
Speaker 2: and Nathan said he had strepiic and my grades went
Speaker 2: to hell and so did a lot of other things.
Speaker 2: And he's like, what's up, dad, You didn't notice anything
Speaker 2: was wrong with me, Like why didn't you help me?
Speaker 2: I needed help. I was obviously like fucking up. And
Speaker 2: he says I couldn't tell you because you would have
Speaker 2: called me a fairy, like you did the other kid
Speaker 2: whose mom wrote a letter to complain. So Grodan's also
Speaker 2: scapegoating his son too, like he called the guy a fairy.
Speaker 2: And Anthony raps like you love this school more than me,
Speaker 2: and he runs off and says, listen, it was a
Speaker 2: long time ago and I don't remember. And Grodon's heart
Speaker 2: looks like it might be melting, and he's realized he's finally,
Speaker 2: finally he's realized he's done something wrong. So after we
Speaker 2: see the heart melt a little bit and Nathan have
Speaker 2: his moment and we're like, Okay, maybe something's positive is
Speaker 2: gonna happen. After all this. We are now at like
Speaker 2: the school, an assembly type situation, and so then the
Speaker 2: three amigos from the support group come in. We have
Speaker 2: the main guy in glasses, we have the gelled hair guy,
Speaker 2: and we have the guy that had gone rhea. And
Speaker 2: the cops sent a car for them. So that's kin.
Speaker 2: I didn't know car. I didn't know that happened. And
Speaker 2: there's a giant meeting happening, and it seems like a
Speaker 2: bunch of alumni are there and the headmasters talking on
Speaker 2: a podium and he says, tonight begins the healing process.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about what happened here and make
Speaker 2: sure it never happens again. Barbara asks if Benson is happy,
Speaker 2: and she says, I am so. Then Groden comes to
Speaker 2: talk at the podium as well, and his son is
Speaker 2: in the audience. They make eye contact and he says,
Speaker 2: I can't undo the damage that was done here, but
Speaker 2: we will help and support those who are victimized and
Speaker 2: launch an investigation to those responsible. Akau I apologize on
Speaker 2: behalf of the school. They zoom in on everyone's faces
Speaker 2: and everyone looks really sad and serious and just like
Speaker 2: thinking about the heaviness of all of this, and then
Speaker 2: they zoom it on Benson, who has like, I feel
Speaker 2: like tears starting in her eyes, like she should teach
Speaker 2: a masterclass on like not fully crying, but tears just
Speaker 2: building in your eyes. And she looks moved by the
Speaker 2: moment and knows that she's done more great work. And
Speaker 2: that is the episode of Lessons Learned, Star Studied Amazing.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I like this episode.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's another one that is extremely close
Speaker 1: to the real crime. So get ready because we're about
Speaker 1: to take another trip to sad Town with the real crime.
Speaker 2: All right, So now let's head to reality.
Speaker 1: This episode is based on a scandal that happened at
Speaker 1: the horus Man's Cool, which is a private prep school
Speaker 1: in the Bronx founded in eighteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Oh so this is very ripped from the headlines.
Speaker 1: Extremely No, Like, when I tell you how this story works,
Speaker 1: it's like literally the number of teachers that they focus
Speaker 1: on in the episode is like the number of teachers
Speaker 1: that are focused on in the New York Times piece
Speaker 1: that kind of blew the lid off of this whole scandal.
Speaker 1: Like it's very, very ripped this episode. I'll just I'll
Speaker 1: tell you everything. So Horace Man is Yeah, it's part
Speaker 1: of the Ivy League Preparatory School League. It goes from
Speaker 1: nursery school to twelfth grade. It's located in Riverdale, which
Speaker 1: is a nice neighborhood in the Bronx. The tuition for
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen twenty twenty is fifty two thousand, a little
Speaker 1: over fifty two thousand a year. So to send a
Speaker 1: kid from pre k to twelfth grade there would run
Speaker 1: you about three quarters of a million dollars.
Speaker 2: And that's for their schooling, which they could get publicly.
Speaker 2: And is this a boarding school or no? Or no,
Speaker 2: these Upper east Side kids are traveling to the Bronx
Speaker 2: every day. No, it's private school. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And ironically it is named after Horace Man, who was
Speaker 1: an American educational reformer and politician known for his commitment
Speaker 1: to promoting public education. And now he is named a
Speaker 1: school where only the elite can go and the rich
Speaker 1: go is named after him. So I actually know a
Speaker 1: bunch of people who have gone to Horace Man through
Speaker 1: my summer camp, through my college, Like I know people
Speaker 1: who have gone there. I never really hear people talking
Speaker 1: about it like it's this far, Like you know, the
Speaker 1: way I talk about my summer camp.
Speaker 2: I mean I talk about my summer camp like it is.
Speaker 1: The fucking best place in the world, and like if
Speaker 1: you don't go there, like you got like, I just
Speaker 1: like love talking about it.
Speaker 2: I don't really hear people talk about Horace Man that way,
Speaker 2: or anybody talking about their high school that way. I
Speaker 2: never really hear. But I'm sure we're going to say
Speaker 2: this and then we're going to get all these dms
Speaker 2: that are like my high school was the best place
Speaker 2: I ever went. But you know, I just don't hear
Speaker 2: that a lot. No, you ride high for summer camp.
Speaker 2: All I said this weekend was like, yes, I think
Speaker 2: sports teaches kids a lot of great lassons. And you're like,
Speaker 2: so does summer camp. Okay, you learn a lot at camp.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, all right, bitch, Rosie doesn't have to
Speaker 2: play sports.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to figure out a way that I
Speaker 1: don't have to put Rosie into sports. Please let me
Speaker 1: have this, Okay. So Horace Man was an all boys
Speaker 1: school until nineteen seventy five, and then they started letting
Speaker 1: women in.
Speaker 2: So here's what happened.
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, a former student named Amos Camille. He
Speaker 1: published this massive expose in the New York Times magazine
Speaker 1: that details sexual abuse of students at Horaceman by teachers
Speaker 1: that took place from like the honestly late sixties and
Speaker 1: seventies into the nineties. So this is like the same
Speaker 1: as that episode decades of abuse. This guy was, you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit like the character that we meet, who's
Speaker 1: the guy from Finn's old neighborhood. He was not a
Speaker 1: member of the Manhattan elite. He was just a guy
Speaker 1: who went to a public school, but who was really
Speaker 1: good at baseball. He was recruited by the headmaster, who
Speaker 1: was this guy named Inky Clark, and he talks about
Speaker 1: how like in his first days there, there were teachers
Speaker 1: that he was told to stay away from and he'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh, because they're hard, or like they're mean,
Speaker 1: and he'd be like, no, they're perverts. Like his friends
Speaker 1: would be like their pervers, like stay away from them.
Speaker 1: So apparently there were some teachers that were known to
Speaker 1: grow up female students, and then others.
Speaker 2: That went for boys.
Speaker 1: So and especially like I mean, because it wasn't all boys' school,
Speaker 1: you know, just a decade earlier than this guy went.
Speaker 1: I think I think there was probably a lot. It
Speaker 1: seems like more many more male victims came forward than
Speaker 1: female victims. So in the article he talks about this,
Speaker 1: like one time that his mom had to go abroad,
Speaker 1: and so the headmaster invited him out to dinner, and
Speaker 1: like they him and his brother and his friend, and
Speaker 1: they all went to his apartment and another teacher was
Speaker 1: there from their school, and they were just kind of
Speaker 1: drinking cocktails. And these guys were drinking gin and tonics
Speaker 1: and they were seventeen, and the drinking age had recently
Speaker 1: moved from eighteen to nineteen. But it's still just feel
Speaker 1: sketchy to go to your principal's house and drink a
Speaker 1: bunch of gin and tonics. I don't know, that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like something that's going to go in a good way.
Speaker 1: And he said he like kind of had an intuition
Speaker 1: for like what was going on, Like he knew what
Speaker 1: was up. So like right after dinner, they like obviously
Speaker 1: wanted the steak dinner.
Speaker 2: They went to a steakhouse.
Speaker 1: They drank more, and then the kids were like we
Speaker 1: got to go and like high tailed it out of
Speaker 1: there and didn't you know, stick around to find out
Speaker 1: what would the after party was going to be like. So,
Speaker 1: ten years after this, the author of this article graduated,
Speaker 1: he went on like a camping trip with a bunch
Speaker 1: of his friends from Horace Mann and one of his
Speaker 1: friends on the camping trip kind of just confessed to
Speaker 1: being sexually assaulted by the assistant football coach at the
Speaker 1: school named Mark Wright, who had eventually left the school
Speaker 1: under mysterious circumstances right before the author of this article
Speaker 1: had started to attend. So and this guy was also
Speaker 1: cons are like a huge Horseman success story. This guy Wright,
Speaker 1: who was the teacher. He graduated in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 1: He was one of the few black students that the
Speaker 1: school had. He was really popular and now going went
Speaker 1: to Princeton played football there, and then he came back
Speaker 1: to Horace Man to teach art and coach football. And
Speaker 1: the friend on this camping trip basically described how right
Speaker 1: like groomed him, molested him and then acted like nothing happened,
Speaker 1: and then they said there were others and so on
Speaker 1: this camping trip, a lot of the guys all started
Speaker 1: talking about like sort of like all the way from
Speaker 1: this guy getting molested to like lower stuff that was
Speaker 1: still sketchy or bad vibes, like just like that were
Speaker 1: not necessarily crimes, but just bad feelings they had, like
Speaker 1: for example, the drinks at the steak and the steakhouse dinner.
Speaker 1: He's like they were just getting us drunk, and like
Speaker 1: it just didn't feel like that's something that should have
Speaker 1: been happening. So then twenty years goes by and the
Speaker 1: Penn State scandal broke, and then of course, like besides
Speaker 1: Penn State, we've got the Catholic Church, the Boys Out,
Speaker 1: other scandals, but the Penn State scandal is kind of
Speaker 1: what got this author thinking about what had gone down
Speaker 1: at his school. So he spoke to his friend who
Speaker 1: had opened up to him on the camping trip and
Speaker 1: got some more details about essentially what happened when this
Speaker 1: assistant football coach assaulted him, and he explained how he
Speaker 1: had lured him to a room saying he was going
Speaker 1: to paint.
Speaker 2: Him red flag, just a red flag.
Speaker 1: He told him to get undressed, and he had told
Speaker 1: the kid like, oh, you're gonna put on a bathing suit,
Speaker 1: and then when he tried to put on his bathing suit,
Speaker 1: he was like, no, no, no, don't put that on, and
Speaker 1: then he forcibly performed oral sex on him while masturbating.
Speaker 2: And this kid was thirteen years old when this happened.
Speaker 2: Like this is awful.
Speaker 1: He told the author that it was really hard to
Speaker 1: stay at Horseman because then this coach would come up
Speaker 1: close to him at certain times and go, what's wrong,
Speaker 1: little buddy? Are you you're not still mad about that
Speaker 1: that one thing?
Speaker 2: Are you?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Horrific because it's like now you're sort of psychologically torturing
Speaker 1: him to make sure that he doesn't talk. And now,
Speaker 1: you know, nineteen seventy eight obviously was a different like nowadays,
Speaker 1: kids are taught so early about bad touch, like how
Speaker 1: to tell a trusted grown up, et cetera, like if
Speaker 1: something happens.
Speaker 2: But he didn't.
Speaker 1: He didn't report the assaults anyone, but he did contribute
Speaker 1: to the gossip about this guy being a child molester,
Speaker 1: so he would like add in and they would just
Speaker 1: all hope that the gossip and the word of mouth
Speaker 1: would like get around to somebody getting a punishment or
Speaker 1: being you know.
Speaker 2: Kicked out.
Speaker 1: So he was supposed to see right for a physical
Speaker 1: exam one day, which is like, why is an assistant
Speaker 1: football coach doing physical exams on anyone? I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's what's supposed to be happening. And the guy
Speaker 1: started to molest him again, and he said, if you
Speaker 1: don't stop it, I'll tell and so he did stop,
Speaker 1: and then other kids told him that it happened to
Speaker 1: them too.
Speaker 2: So this was That was all.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy eight, and when the nineteen seventy eight
Speaker 1: seventy nine school year started, right was gone. The school
Speaker 1: said absolutely nothing about it. There were rumors of resignations
Speaker 1: or like a firing, but like nothing definitive. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of weird, like a beloved teacher or coach just disappears.
Speaker 2: And the school doesn't say anything. You know, like if
Speaker 2: you were just kind of like a teacher that was
Speaker 2: there for like a year, I guess nobody really cares.
Speaker 2: But you're this big personality that everybody knows at the
Speaker 2: school and the school's just like by, like no, not
Speaker 2: a word. See this is the thing, Like no one
Speaker 2: says anything because of the reputation of the school. But
Speaker 2: I feel if the school went, hey we fired this molester,
Speaker 2: bye bitch, that would be better for the school rep No.
Speaker 1: No, but because I think that then they think they're
Speaker 1: opening themselves up to like we allowed it to happen
Speaker 1: for such and such an amount of years, or we're a
Speaker 1: school where molested, where children get molested, Like I think
Speaker 1: it has a lot to do with just reputation, you know,
Speaker 1: like especially in these this elite world of like Manhattan
Speaker 1: private schools. You know, I'm not saying it's right, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying this is what I think is like motivating people.
Speaker 1: The author of this article contacted the Horace manheadmaster and
Speaker 1: members of the board of trustees. He did receive a
Speaker 1: reply from a corporate PR firm, of course, just basically saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not in a position to comment on the events
Speaker 1: involving former and now and in some cases now deceased
Speaker 1: faculty members that are said to have occurred years before
Speaker 1: we assumed leadership. They're basically saying like, oh, well, this
Speaker 1: was all before our time.
Speaker 2: What can we do?
Speaker 1: You know, that's the gist of what this corporate statement says.
Speaker 1: But they did say it should be noted that Horace
Speaker 1: Mann's school has terminated teachers based on its determination of
Speaker 1: inappropriate conduct, including but not limited to certain of the
Speaker 1: individuals named in your article, So they are in a
Speaker 1: way like admitting that they got rid of some of
Speaker 1: the people that you're talking about in your article. And
Speaker 1: when the article did come out, they issued a blanket
Speaker 1: statement saying the article contains allegations dating back in some
Speaker 1: instances thirty years long before the current administration took office,
Speaker 1: which makes it difficult to accurately respond to the factual
Speaker 1: allegations therein. In addition, on June thirteenth, nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: there was a fire in the attic of the business
Speaker 1: office that destroyed some records. How convenient. So the coach
Speaker 1: is one guy, Mark writes, one guy they talk about
Speaker 1: in this article. Another guy they talk about in an
Speaker 1: article is a teacher named Stanley Copps who's kind of
Speaker 1: like this eccentric weirdo who would like stop in the
Speaker 1: aisles of the classroom to like pop quiz students, but
Speaker 1: it would only be like real male, hot athletic students,
Speaker 1: and then while the students were sort of like thinking
Speaker 1: about their answer, he would massage them, so there was
Speaker 1: like a massage situation that was not normal, and he
Speaker 1: would cancel class sometimes and instead of a regular class,
Speaker 1: they would just do something called a frolic and the
Speaker 1: kids would just run wild and he would like join
Speaker 1: in and get all like red in the face and
Speaker 1: like worked up over just like roughhousing with kids or whatever.
Speaker 1: And he was a JV swim coach. Please, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: if that triggers you in any way.
Speaker 2: No, it just reminds me of my JV swimming hundred
Speaker 2: butterfly record. No big wanted to give you a place
Speaker 2: to drop that in. And here we are.
Speaker 1: So this guy, Stanley Copps was a bachelor at the time,
Speaker 1: and so was the headmaster Inky, and so there were
Speaker 1: kind of rumors that they were both gay or that
Speaker 1: they had a relationship with each other. A lot of
Speaker 1: students loved Cops. He cared about them and they cared
Speaker 1: about him, so he got away with being kind of
Speaker 1: just like a weirdo instead of being like a pedophile.
Speaker 1: But then on a trip to the school's nature preserve.
Speaker 1: The school owns a nature preserve and Connecticut of course,
Speaker 1: like all of our high schools did, and a former
Speaker 1: student said he was like sleep it was they would
Speaker 1: they would sleep over at this like nature preserve like
Speaker 1: and do little you know, outdoorsy trips and he was
Speaker 1: on the top bunk. He dropped his sleeping bag out
Speaker 1: of his bunk, and when he went to go down
Speaker 1: to get it, he like bent over to get it,
Speaker 1: and suddenly this teacher was pressed up behind him, and
Speaker 1: he said he didn't feel assaulted, he just felt uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: And then what sealed the deal for him was the
Speaker 1: next morning, the teacher pulled him aside, grabbed his own dick,
Speaker 1: and said, what were you doing last night?
Speaker 2: And then the kid totally freaked out and told his dad,
Speaker 2: who reported it immediately, and cops resigned. So that I
Speaker 2: think the school like hats himself on the back because
Speaker 2: they did sort of like handle that swiftly and like,
Speaker 2: you know, appropriately. But the faculty received a letter saying
Speaker 2: Cops was leaving. Nothing was said to the students, nothing
Speaker 2: was said to the parents.
Speaker 1: So I think now schools and camps and all kinds
Speaker 1: of things like try to be super transparent about everything,
Speaker 1: and they were the opposite back in these times, like
Speaker 1: just completely obfuscating like the truth at all times and
Speaker 1: like just let's move on, and you know, nobody gets
Speaker 1: a letter, nobody gets any kind of warning of anything.
Speaker 1: This guy exactly like the episode that you that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: moved on to another prep school in New Jersey. Horace
Speaker 1: Man said nothing to this school about the allegations, and
Speaker 1: they did fire him at the end of the school year,
Speaker 1: or he was asked not to come back at the
Speaker 1: end of the school year, and that teacher ended up
Speaker 1: taking his own life cops. So you can see the
Speaker 1: way that the show sort of used a bunch of
Speaker 1: like pieces from all of these different teachers, and the
Speaker 1: school said nothing. The school said nothing about this beloved
Speaker 1: teacher for all these years who had resigned taking his
Speaker 1: own life.
Speaker 2: Nothing. And then this last teacher that they talk about
Speaker 2: is like particularly like creepy to me because his name
Speaker 2: was Johannes so Marie, and he was the head of
Speaker 2: the arts in the music department. He was very wealthy.
Speaker 1: He was a semi famous conductor, like he would conduct
Speaker 1: all these orchestra, all these philharmonics and orchestras, and he
Speaker 1: was like looked up to by the students. One former
Speaker 1: student confessed to the author that so mari had befriended him,
Speaker 1: hired him for babysitting his own children. And then in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, when this boy was sixteen molested him
Speaker 1: when he was in his home babysitting for his kids.
Speaker 1: He told him to stop, and he did, but then
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks later he did it again, so
Speaker 1: he knew who to groom and how even if they
Speaker 1: resist the first time, I still think I can give
Speaker 1: it another shot. Many other kids came forward about like
Speaker 1: he would take glee clubs on trips to Europe and
Speaker 1: introduce them to all these musicians and take them to
Speaker 1: these fine like dining establishments, and then he.
Speaker 2: Expected them to have sex with him.
Speaker 1: Some of these kids, which this one kid said he
Speaker 1: did it even though it repulsed him, So that doesn't
Speaker 1: really sound like a consensual experience to me. But then
Speaker 1: this kid told his parents he didn't want to sleep
Speaker 1: in the same room with Johannes anymore on trips. Why
Speaker 1: was that ever happening? Why was that ever happening that
Speaker 1: the teacher would sleep in a room with the kids.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm I don't know. I went on a
Speaker 2: trip to Washington, d C. In eighth grade. I was
Speaker 2: excited to share a hotel room with my friends.
Speaker 1: I was never like, hey, when is my geometry teacher
Speaker 1: hopping into the bed you know, like, that's a very
Speaker 1: weird setup.
Speaker 2: And even if someone's dreaming of, like, you know, their
Speaker 2: math teacher or something, the teacher still shouldn't be sleeping
Speaker 2: with them, you know what I mean. Yeah, sure, as
Speaker 2: a high schooler, you can imagine having a crush on
Speaker 2: your teacher. Yeah, because you're like, I would never want
Speaker 2: to sleep with my teachers, but I felt different. But
Speaker 2: that shouldn't encourage the teachers in any way, right, No,
Speaker 2: the teachers are supposed to know the boundaries.
Speaker 1: So basically, the same kid who said he told his
Speaker 1: parents he didn't want to sleep in the same room
Speaker 1: with this teacher, So Marie got word that he had
Speaker 1: told his parents that came to his house and like
Speaker 1: begged him in front of his parents, like please stay
Speaker 1: in the same room with me, please? What Yes, in
Speaker 1: front of his parents. And the parents didn't understand.
Speaker 2: They thought that like they thought he was being like
Speaker 2: I want to be with my friends, and the teacher
Speaker 2: was like, please stay with me. Like they didn't understand
Speaker 2: that there was like a sexual thing going on or abuse,
Speaker 2: and they didn't know and the son was not offering
Speaker 2: that information to them. Okay, a teacher begging at your
Speaker 2: house to sleep in a room with you. I don't
Speaker 2: know how it could be anything but creepy. I knew,
Speaker 2: I knew.
Speaker 1: And this abuse from between this boy and Summary went
Speaker 1: on for three years, even when this kid went off
Speaker 1: to college, and he wrote a letter to Summary. At
Speaker 1: one point he got no reply, and then he wrote
Speaker 1: a letter to his wife and got a seasoned assist letter.
Speaker 2: So the wife knew, I mean new denial. Who knows,
Speaker 2: but yes.
Speaker 1: Twenty years later, a member of the class of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four came forward with basically a similar story about
Speaker 1: this guy.
Speaker 2: So this is twenty years later.
Speaker 1: Who knows how many people there were in between these
Speaker 1: two victims, And this kid went on a trip to
Speaker 1: Europe with Summary, and when he got back, his family
Speaker 1: could just tell he had changed, like he was angry, secretive,
Speaker 1: and he eventually attempted suicide. He was put into a
Speaker 1: hospital and as soon as he was released from the hospital,
Speaker 1: he wrote a letter to the headmaster accusing Summary of
Speaker 1: grossly inappropriate sexual advances. This kid's mother worked at Horace
Speaker 1: Man too. She confronted Sommary and he said, he kissed
Speaker 1: me first, so pretty gross. This guy thinks that this
Speaker 1: is like some kind of like cute flirtation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because even if a student again you push the
Speaker 2: kid off like blame Oh, by then this is nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety four. We're not doing this free love nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: shit anymore. You're not allowed, You're not just this isn't happening.
Speaker 1: So the headmaster said that the administration and the trustees
Speaker 1: got together and decided to do nothing to address this problem.
Speaker 1: I'm like, ugh, like spinning with anger over how this
Speaker 1: school handled all this stuff. A lawyer for the school
Speaker 1: told his mother basically that if you don't have a
Speaker 1: tape of this abuse happening, it's basically your son's word
Speaker 1: against the teacher's word. So no one from Horace Man
Speaker 1: ever asked the student about his experience, Like no, they
Speaker 1: never had him come in explain what happened anything like that.
Speaker 1: He ended up going to Brown, so he got into
Speaker 1: the Ivy League as was expected. Struggled with depression in
Speaker 1: post college life as well, and in two thousand and
Speaker 1: nine he took his own life.
Speaker 2: So it's just like heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: And when you're talking about the effect of this abuse,
Speaker 1: like years later, it doesn't go away. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not a it's not like a pull yourselves up from
Speaker 1: your bootstraps kind of thing. Summary continued to teach a
Speaker 1: horace man until retiring in two thousand and two. And
Speaker 1: then he died in twenty eleven, and the kid who
Speaker 1: I had described to you before, who he raped for years,
Speaker 1: went to the funeral, and he said in this article,
Speaker 1: he says, still today, after the drinking and the heroine
Speaker 1: and the therapy and the battered relationships, I just can't
Speaker 1: bring myself to fully hate the man who gave me
Speaker 1: so much. So there's like entanglements going on here with
Speaker 1: like with these relationships. So while he was researching this article,
Speaker 1: the writer said he talked to a lot of people
Speaker 1: who could easily recall male teachers who were sleeping with
Speaker 1: male students, female teachers who were sleeping with male students,
Speaker 1: like all kinds of like, oh, yeah, this guy used
Speaker 1: to sleep with the students, blah blah blah, this teacher
Speaker 1: used to sleep with students, like it was just sort
Speaker 1: of common knowledge. And then he spoke to an expert.
Speaker 1: I just I'm using these quotes from this article because
Speaker 1: he did talk to this lawyer named Paul Monis, who
Speaker 1: represents people who have been sexually abused by authority figures
Speaker 1: who had a lot of interesting insight, Like he said,
Speaker 1: the whole goal of the grooming process is to wrap
Speaker 1: the child close to you, like the affection and trust.
Speaker 1: Is to make the kid complicit in the act, make
Speaker 1: them feel like it was their fault, so it won't
Speaker 1: occur to them to talk to someone because they are
Speaker 1: they feel complicit in the relationship. As of to twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: New York Statute of Limitations says people who were victimized
Speaker 1: as minors cannot take civil action against an abuser until
Speaker 1: after they turn twenty three.
Speaker 2: So it just adds to all these reasons to not report. Why,
Speaker 2: Like why would I report? I can't, you know, like
Speaker 2: there's no evidence.
Speaker 1: And then if I even want to take him to
Speaker 1: court to get money, I can't do it until I'm
Speaker 1: twenty three. Like, there's just a lot of reasons that
Speaker 1: the law makes it, you know, not a hospitable environment
Speaker 1: to tell your story. A lot of the victims of
Speaker 1: these teachers developed as we've discussed depression, drug and alcohol abuse,
Speaker 1: broken relationships. Monus says that sexual abuse emotionally binds the
Speaker 1: child closer to the person who has harmed him, setting
Speaker 1: him up for a life plagued by suspicion and confusion
Speaker 1: because he will never be sure who he can really trust.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why I'm going to talk about
Speaker 1: somebody else a little bit later. But I think that's
Speaker 1: why you'll see like this kid who was abused by
Speaker 1: this man forever goes to his funeral, you know. And
Speaker 1: this is also why a lot of victims only speak
Speaker 1: up when their abuser is dead or dying, because it's
Speaker 1: too scary. The idea of thinking that they might deny
Speaker 1: it or blame turn the blame around on them is
Speaker 1: too frightening. But for example, the kid who got cops
Speaker 1: fired after that sleeping bag incident says he doesn't feel
Speaker 1: traumatized at all. He says, I think the school acted
Speaker 1: quickly and appropriately, and I'm not traumatized.
Speaker 2: Very tricksy Mattel.
Speaker 1: Yes, the author of the Times piece also tried to
Speaker 1: talk to tons of administration, faculty trustees.
Speaker 2: And they all lawyered up and like no one would
Speaker 2: talk to him. So when the.
Speaker 1: Article was published, that's when a lot of survivors started
Speaker 1: to contact one another. So I think that's like when
Speaker 1: you see that group that came together with like Anthony
Speaker 1: Rapp and Kurt and stuff that would be like something
Speaker 1: in the show it was the death of Lasseter, But
Speaker 1: I think in real life it was like this article
Speaker 1: coming out just validated what a lot of people had
Speaker 1: gone through. So this came out in early June twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: and a couple of weeks later, Tech Young Lynn, who
Speaker 1: was a teacher at the school, a Buddhist who had
Speaker 1: been a beloved chaplain and cross country coach at Horace Mann,
Speaker 1: who at the time was eighty eight years old, admitted
Speaker 1: to having sex with quote unquote maybe three students, and
Speaker 1: he says it didn't feel like a big deal back then.
Speaker 1: So this is to me where the Elliot Gould character
Speaker 1: comes in. This is who they've based it on.
Speaker 2: He says, the only thing I can assure you of
Speaker 2: was that everything I did was in warmth and.
Speaker 1: Affection and not a power play. I may have crossed
Speaker 1: societal boundaries if I did, I am sorry, and he says,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised they remember. It was all so casual and warm,
Speaker 1: so he definitely didn't think he did anything wrong. And
Speaker 1: one of his victims said, delusional might not be the
Speaker 1: right word, but to not have the awareness that there's
Speaker 1: a built in power dynamic with a teacher.
Speaker 2: And a student. That was the end of his quote.
Speaker 2: He was with a question mark. He just says, like
Speaker 2: that is delusional.
Speaker 1: I mean to not think to think that you and
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old that you teach at school have
Speaker 1: are on equal footing in a relationship.
Speaker 2: And then so this article came out twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: The SVU episode came out in November of twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: so they wasted no time. A few months later they
Speaker 1: got right to it, and in twenty thirteen, another alum
Speaker 1: named Mark Fisher published this piece in The New Yorker
Speaker 1: that I remember reading on a plane when it first
Speaker 1: came out about another horus Man teacher named Robert Berman
Speaker 1: and this it seems.
Speaker 2: Like you could write a movie about him.
Speaker 1: Like he was this like weird Svengali kind of teacher
Speaker 1: who like, on the first day of classes would be
Speaker 1: so mean to everybody that most people would drop out.
Speaker 1: And like the six or seven guys that would stay
Speaker 1: behind were obsessed with him. They dressed like him, they
Speaker 1: like tried to talk like him. Other kids would call
Speaker 1: these kids Bermanites, like it was all they wanted to
Speaker 1: do was impress this guy. He was this like, you know,
Speaker 1: total intellectual powerhouse to them, and they just wanted to
Speaker 1: impress him and get his approval. He always, like every semester,
Speaker 1: every year had like one kid that was like the
Speaker 1: bell of the ball, you know, like who would They
Speaker 1: would be told that you're brilliant, You're the next Milton,
Speaker 1: you know, and he would start calling that student by
Speaker 1: their first name, give them special attention, and then he
Speaker 1: would most of the times, it sounds like he came
Speaker 1: on to these boys.
Speaker 2: It was like a pouncing.
Speaker 1: It was like they came into his room for something
Speaker 1: and they would just turn around and he was kissing
Speaker 1: them like out of nowhere. And then some of them
Speaker 1: rejected him, and he seemed very pissed off by those rejections.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, same same patterns as some of the
Speaker 1: other teachers, taking them on trips or inviting them over
Speaker 1: to his home and molesting them. And I am trying
Speaker 1: to find out if this guy is still alive. I
Speaker 1: know that as of twenty thirteen, he was seventy eight
Speaker 1: years old and he was alive, so it's eight years
Speaker 1: later he'd be eighty six by now, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's alive still, but he was living at
Speaker 1: the time of this article in upstate New York in
Speaker 1: a home purchased for him by former students who were
Speaker 1: all part of this cult of young men that are
Speaker 1: obsessed with him. So they bought him the house that
Speaker 1: he lives in. And I think he actually has abused
Speaker 1: some of them. So that's really a lot to take in.
Speaker 1: So in the end, with Horace Mann, there were credible
Speaker 1: abuse accusations against around twenty two teachers. In the spring
Speaker 1: of twenty thirteen, the school finally issued a public acknowledgment
Speaker 1: for the abuse by former teachers and administrators between nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two and nineteen ninety six. They said, yeah, we
Speaker 1: sincerely apologize, and then it was a three page letter,
Speaker 1: and I guess one of the phrases that people liked
Speaker 1: to quote was these unconscionable betrayals of trust never should
Speaker 1: have happened. So now, at this point, the statute of
Speaker 1: limitations for criminal charges has passed, but a civil case
Speaker 1: can still be brought, and Horace Man does have a
Speaker 1: lot of money. When one Horace Man survivor asked for compensation,
Speaker 1: he was told by the chairman of the board of trustees,
Speaker 1: it's not Horace Man's bill to pay sounds very like
Speaker 1: Groden's character. Eventually, the school hired a private mediation firm
Speaker 1: which presented the board of trustees with impact statements from
Speaker 1: thirty one victims, and then they said settlements.
Speaker 2: Had been reached with like the majority of those.
Speaker 1: And I heard some of the settlements were from you know,
Speaker 1: low like ten thousand, all the way up to six
Speaker 1: figure settlements that depending on how badly the student had
Speaker 1: been abused, and on whether they had alerted school authorities
Speaker 1: while it was happening. And then Horace Man, in an
Speaker 1: attempt to you know, kind of save their reputation, also
Speaker 1: established the Hilltop Cares Foundation, which was formed in the
Speaker 1: summer of twenty twelve by members of the community to
Speaker 1: help victims from the school and promote healing. They help
Speaker 1: with therapy bills, they help with studies related to the
Speaker 1: issues in the community, and they are totally nonprofit and
Speaker 1: independent of the school's admin or board of trustees. So
Speaker 1: that's what happened to Horace Man, and I feel like
Speaker 1: SVU just kind of fully ripped it from this article.
Speaker 1: I have other sources that I used as well, But
Speaker 1: the New York Times article is really what blew the
Speaker 1: lid off this whole thing.
Speaker 2: And is the school still open and thriving, you bet?
Speaker 1: And I think in twenty twenty it was ranked in
Speaker 1: some niche it's called the Niche Survey the third best
Speaker 1: K through twelve private school in the country and the
Speaker 1: twelfth best private high school in the country. So it's
Speaker 1: still thriving and doing fine.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: But you know, since this story came out, they found
Speaker 1: additional Saint Paul School, Exeter, and over all kinds of
Speaker 1: private schools and boarding schools in the Northeast.
Speaker 2: They uncovered a lot of these kind of abuses. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because you don't need as many rules, like if you're private,
Speaker 2: like I taught physical education at a Jewish school and
Speaker 2: I didn't have a degree. Yeah, you can do whatever
Speaker 2: you want. It seems like in private schools you can
Speaker 2: hire whatever.
Speaker 1: And they do sort of have their own like little
Speaker 1: ecosystem going on. But they are not above the law, unfortunately, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean not unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, they're not above the law.
Speaker 1: So in terms of covering up their crimes, unfortunate for them.
Speaker 1: You guys actually have to listen to the law. Sorry,
Speaker 1: So you know, it was very similar, I feel like
Speaker 1: the real case to the case in the episode, where
Speaker 1: in real life they did want some financial compensation, whereas
Speaker 1: in the episode they were like, we just want an apology.
Speaker 1: But I think also they just wanted the school. In
Speaker 1: real life, they just wanted Horace Man to acknowledge it.
Speaker 1: And I think that when they finally did that in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, that was when people were able to start,
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully healing and you know, just not feeling
Speaker 1: gas lit and crazy that this school won't acknowledge what
Speaker 1: was going on for three decades at your school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like the new kind of hopefully it's
Speaker 2: not just a trend. But it seems like kids, like
Speaker 2: parents aren't forcing their kids to hug people they don't
Speaker 2: want to hug their before explicit and like how to
Speaker 2: handle situations like this, And I hope, I hope it
Speaker 2: helps stop it being able to be like a whole
Speaker 2: school situation, you know, like kids being taught this from
Speaker 2: a younger age. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: Look, ultimately, a heavy case, a heavy crime, but a
Speaker 1: star setted episode. I mean, we got Anthony Rapp, we
Speaker 1: had Elliott Gould. We had all these you know, Charles Groden,
Speaker 1: Charles Groden, Oh my god, I love that movie Clifford.
Speaker 2: It's so crazy. Have you ever seen it? No, Maybe
Speaker 2: we'll hang out and we'll watch Clifford in American History
Speaker 2: as a double feature.
Speaker 1: That's the most insane double feature of all time. If
Speaker 1: you think you have a better, more insane double feature
Speaker 1: than Clifford and American History acts, please dm us.
Speaker 2: We will put a poll up. That is so funny.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do that, all right, Hang tight, because here
Speaker 1: comes our interview with our guests.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get to our guest.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that some of you listeners are
Speaker 1: going to be real jazz for this one. We today
Speaker 1: are talking to a star of stage and screen, the
Speaker 1: man who plays Lieutenant Commander Paul Stammetz in Star Trek
Speaker 1: Discovery and who No Big Deal originated the role of
Speaker 1: Mark Cohen in a little musical you may have heard
Speaker 1: of called Rent, but you know him this week as
Speaker 1: Nathan Forrester in the episode's Lessons Learned. Guys, please just
Speaker 1: get a load of our chat with Anthony Rapp. Obviously
Speaker 1: you've done two episodes, two pretty well known episodes. But well,
Speaker 1: today we're talking about lessons learned, but we also are
Speaker 1: going to ask you some questions about Bound as well.
Speaker 1: But when terms of lessons learned, like, this was your
Speaker 1: second role on the show, So did they just come
Speaker 1: to you and say, hey, do you want to come back,
Speaker 1: we have this cool part for you or whatever?
Speaker 3: Yeah, both times they actually reached out, and I was
Speaker 3: for years one of what I felt like, I was
Speaker 3: one of the only actors left in New York who
Speaker 3: had not been on any of the Law and Orders.
Speaker 3: And that was even after my really good friend and
Speaker 3: original Red cast mate Jesse Martin being one of the
Speaker 3: leads on Lawn Right, I was never on any of them.
Speaker 3: I was like looking around, like when is it gonna happen?
Speaker 3: So I was really honored that I didn't even have
Speaker 3: to audition, that they just asked me to do it,
Speaker 3: you know. Bound. It was partly because they I think,
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was like concurrent they had,
Speaker 3: I guess, Jane Krakowski myself in mind together, but they
Speaker 3: just felt like we would be a convincing brother and sister.
Speaker 3: And then I don't know, honestly, like why they thought
Speaker 3: of before Lessons Learned, but again that they just reached
Speaker 3: out and offered it to me. It was really really
Speaker 3: a thrill and an honor to be asked back. And
Speaker 3: I know that that's that's also a different a different
Speaker 3: kind of badge of honor for New York based actors
Speaker 3: is like how many times have you been on any honor?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: So, how was working with Charles Grodin and Lessons Learned?
Speaker 1: I mean, he's kind of he's a legend, and you
Speaker 1: had to have this like confrontational, like screw you dad
Speaker 1: kind of moment with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was that was one of the very biggest
Speaker 3: thrills of doing that episode was learning that he was
Speaker 3: going to be playing my father. I was a huge
Speaker 3: fan of his, especially Midnight Run Like that was one
Speaker 3: of in my younger days. That was a movie that
Speaker 3: I just it was one of those movies that you
Speaker 3: going in. I didn't expect it to be as excellent
Speaker 3: as it was. It was just continually surprising, and he
Speaker 3: was so good in it. And then of course I'd
Speaker 3: seen other things that he'd done, So when I learned
Speaker 3: that he was going to be part of it, I
Speaker 3: was excited, hopeful, that he was going to be a
Speaker 3: cool person, because whenever you meet people you really admire,
Speaker 3: you always hope that. And then he was beyond a
Speaker 3: coal person and he was so he was so like
Speaker 3: willing to like hang out and talk and share stories
Speaker 3: and he I don't know if you're aware of this,
Speaker 3: but I don't know if it's still the case, but
Speaker 3: he was deeply he was talking mostly about a cause
Speaker 3: that he's been deeply involved in for a long time,
Speaker 3: which is trying to exonerate working toward exoneration of women
Speaker 3: who are wrongly accused wow slash, trying to improve the
Speaker 3: way that they're treated while they're incarcerated. So it was
Speaker 3: like one of his he's like, all you like that's
Speaker 3: that was like his whole work, outside of any kind
Speaker 3: of show but stuff was all of that, and I think,
Speaker 3: if I remember correctly, he was like when we were
Speaker 3: done shooting, he was going right up again upstate to
Speaker 3: spend time at the prison where he was currently engaged
Speaker 3: in working with some prisoners up there. So that was
Speaker 3: really impressive.
Speaker 2: Wow, this is kind of a silly question, but I
Speaker 2: did notice that your character in this episode was wearing
Speaker 2: a variety of Wilco T shirts. Was that something that
Speaker 2: you were like, hey, this guy seems like he would
Speaker 2: like Wilco. Or was the wardrobe department, like, hey, you're
Speaker 2: a Wilco fan.
Speaker 3: There was a wardor of department that I was like, absolutely,
Speaker 3: that makes total sense to me. So, yeah, it's fit,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean guys like trying to like half
Speaker 3: assed make it in music or do a banding, So
Speaker 3: what makes us a band that would ring true? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it seemed like it was the right kind of
Speaker 3: band that he would wear.
Speaker 1: Yes, totally and in this episode, Like I mean, I
Speaker 1: personally was living in New York at the time that
Speaker 1: your episode aired and at the time that the horus
Speaker 1: Man's story kind of broke.
Speaker 2: Did you know a lot about that story going into this?
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like there was a bunch of
Speaker 1: media coverage about it, but I don't know what you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really didn't. I mean, I do know. I'm
Speaker 3: generally aware that as you and law and order in
Speaker 3: general take their story through their inspiration for their stories
Speaker 3: from headlines or from actual cases. So I don't remember
Speaker 3: being directly aware, but it certainly rang true to me,
Speaker 3: and it made a lot of sense, and it felt
Speaker 3: like something really important to talk about. You know, Institutional
Speaker 3: cover up is a I mean, it is just a
Speaker 3: sad reality in so many ways, as we've just seen,
Speaker 3: you know, when I don't know when this will be airing,
Speaker 3: but you know, the George Floyd case was an example.
Speaker 3: If there were if there weren't for that camera there knew.
Speaker 3: The press release was that he died, you know, from
Speaker 3: a medical condition, and that may have been it, you know,
Speaker 3: and that's there's so many, so many cases of institutional
Speaker 3: cover up and of sort of the old boy the
Speaker 3: notion of an old boy network that protect their own,
Speaker 3: you know. And I did a play years and years
Speaker 3: ago called Sophistry with Ethan Hawk and Jonathan Mark Sherman,
Speaker 3: and that was that was based on something that had
Speaker 3: happened at Bettington College where they where John thea Musham
Speaker 3: and went to school where there was you know, whenever
Speaker 3: you have situations with with the beloved or powerful figure
Speaker 3: at an institution, it just gets it can get so
Speaker 3: weirdly complicated in so many ways. So I think that
Speaker 3: this episode was deeply important in terms of exposing that
Speaker 3: talking about that, pointing to that and trying to reckon
Speaker 3: with it, and that the law is in many ways
Speaker 3: hamstrong at times, you know, to get evidence.
Speaker 1: Is really hard, Yeah, especially these cases that are that
Speaker 1: are old and there's statut of limitations and things like that, And.
Speaker 2: It adds like to the annoyance when things go down
Speaker 2: and people are like, we'll go to the cops or
Speaker 2: do this or do that, and it's like, it's so
Speaker 2: much harder than that, and why, Like, it's frustrating when
Speaker 2: people don't see how difficult it is to come forward
Speaker 2: or have anything. Then positive happen from that. Anyways, on
Speaker 2: I guess a lighter note, is there any of your
Speaker 2: rent casts made so that you would love to see
Speaker 2: on SVU?
Speaker 3: Well, honestly don't know who all's been on which of
Speaker 3: the which ones has? I mean, I always am so
Speaker 3: happy when Moist and Jermaine Ready just in front of
Speaker 3: a camera get to do just to show saying Daffy
Speaker 3: rubin Vega has she been?
Speaker 2: I think Daphney Rubin Vega has been on one, if
Speaker 2: not SVU, I think she's been on the Mothership, but
Speaker 2: I think I'm almost positive she has.
Speaker 3: I mean Freddie Walker, I mean all of them anyway, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: just like at this point, come on.
Speaker 2: Is that what you get recognized the most from or
Speaker 2: now with the Star Trek fan universe?
Speaker 3: Is that it's hard to tell these things. It's probably
Speaker 3: a mixture of both. It does happen, and it happens
Speaker 3: like when I travel internationally, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 3: a wild thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can kind of feel like I can.
Speaker 3: Feel it happening, like I don't know if when you
Speaker 3: talk to other people who get recognized, like you can
Speaker 3: kind of like it's like almost like I feel like
Speaker 3: an energetic, you know, magnetic vibration coming. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm getting recognized.
Speaker 2: You know, because somebody is usually staring at you for
Speaker 2: a few minutes before, so I think you're feeling the
Speaker 2: power of the stair for Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Played poker pretty regularly when it's not pandemic time, like
Speaker 3: you know. And my friend Kurt, he's really closer in mind.
Speaker 3: When we sit at a table together, he will try
Speaker 3: to like have me guess, like if he sees that
Speaker 3: somebody's recognizing me or they're going to ask me, He's like,
Speaker 3: what do you think they recognized your from? So we
Speaker 3: have this little thing like trying, I guess, and a
Speaker 3: lot of times I can, like sometimes there it's like
Speaker 3: road trip or Days Confused. Yeah, you know so, but
Speaker 3: sometimes we're surprised. Sometimes we're surprised.
Speaker 2: We're big, dazed and huge. Yeah, And like Adventures in Babysitting,
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't believe that that was like your
Speaker 2: Is that like your first that's like your first major
Speaker 2: credit Adventures and Babysitting, that's my first film. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow, And I was fifteen when I did it.
Speaker 2: He knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: While you were on the set of Days, did it
Speaker 2: feel extra special, like did you know everyone was gonna
Speaker 2: be awesome forever?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I didn't know that. You never know that,
Speaker 3: but it thought incredibly special. It was a wonderful project
Speaker 3: to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like everybody became so hugely famous after
Speaker 1: that in that movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, that's just sort of like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's cool that happened, you know. I mean I loved
Speaker 3: watching Parker Posi work. I loved watching Matt mcconne work.
Speaker 3: I don't know necessarily that means they're going to be superstars, right,
Speaker 3: I'm not surprised that they're superstars. You know, I think
Speaker 3: they deserve it. But yeah, it was a really really
Speaker 3: special experience of people coming together and Rick Link later
Speaker 3: creating a wonderfully collaborative creative environment in which we felt
Speaker 3: very free to do our thing. And there was a
Speaker 3: lot of purity in that experience that I would love
Speaker 3: to be a part of everything I do, and sometimes
Speaker 3: it gets close to that, but that's it was extra special. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can I ask a quick question about SPU because you
Speaker 1: did do the two episodes, So Bound was in two
Speaker 1: thousand and four, Lessons Learned was in two thousan twelve,
Speaker 1: so eight years passed between you go doing these two
Speaker 1: Did you feel any like differences on the set between
Speaker 1: like the two times?
Speaker 3: Huge difference. So the main consistent piece was Marishia and
Speaker 3: both times she was wonderful, and it was especially impressive
Speaker 3: to come back eight years later and see how hard
Speaker 3: she works, that she's you know, so involved as not
Speaker 3: just as the star but also as a producer. She
Speaker 3: cares as much eight years later as she did eight
Speaker 3: years before, and having been on various film sets and
Speaker 3: TV shows. You know, the number one on the call
Speaker 3: sheet they called me like that's the term we call
Speaker 3: it the league. They set a tone, and the tone
Speaker 3: that she sets is a wonderful tone that uh, and
Speaker 3: she's she was incredibly welcoming both times, so I so
Speaker 3: appreciate her and appreciate that about the spirtsial times. The
Speaker 3: number two was very different both times. It was Chris
Speaker 3: Maloney the first time, and then it was, uh, it
Speaker 3: was great, it was great, great, great. Chris Maloney was
Speaker 3: not great to me. To me, like in terms of
Speaker 3: how he treated me, it was not great great, that's terrible,
Speaker 3: not great. Mariska one hundred percent beautiful experience working with
Speaker 3: Jane Krakowski, one hundred percent beautiful experience. Chris Maloney was
Speaker 3: having issues and I was lying dead on the floor
Speaker 3: in my own blood for far too long while Chris
Speaker 3: Molley worked out some of his issues. I mean it
Speaker 3: was his his issues were like his own frustrations with
Speaker 3: what he was doing. But he just it just didn't
Speaker 3: you know, he wasn't at all gracious about the fact
Speaker 3: that I was lying on the ground in my own
Speaker 3: blood for like a really long time while he was,
Speaker 3: you know, having his issues. So yeah, Marishka genius. I
Speaker 3: love it, and you know, like a shining example of
Speaker 3: what that person in that position should how they should
Speaker 3: always connect to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's truly what many people have told us. That
Speaker 1: she's just like sets the whole tone and she's just
Speaker 1: so wonderful and well dying to talk to her one day.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1: So in your first episode, while you were innocent, you
Speaker 1: were kind of a jerk, and then in your second
Speaker 1: episode you were a victim. So like, let's say they're
Speaker 1: having you come back for your third SVU. You're a
Speaker 1: totally new character. What what are you itching to play?
Speaker 1: Do you want to be like a serial killer like
Speaker 1: a cool teacher?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got to do it. I got to I
Speaker 3: don't know if you were here. The show was very
Speaker 3: shortly called Kidnapped. It was a while ago, okay, but
Speaker 3: I got to play a serial killer on that, and
Speaker 3: it was it was a really cool like world to
Speaker 3: dig into and just sort of like explore, you know,
Speaker 3: as an actor. So yeah, that it would be cool
Speaker 3: to play somebody kind of diabolical, you know. I think
Speaker 3: it's really one of the jobs of an actor is
Speaker 3: to pull a mirror up to all sizes of the
Speaker 3: human experience and you know, for better or worse. There
Speaker 3: are serial killers, maniacs, narcissistic personality disorder, people who are president,
Speaker 3: stuff like that. So I think that it's important to
Speaker 3: have opportunities to live inside those characters, to kind of
Speaker 3: show the world who they are as a way of
Speaker 3: helping understand more aspects of the human condition and how
Speaker 3: you combat that.
Speaker 2: And do you end up having to like have empathy
Speaker 2: for the evil people you play? Are you abble to
Speaker 2: not do that and still understand you kind of have.
Speaker 3: To have You have to live in their shoes. So
Speaker 3: you know, every person is the star of their own story,
Speaker 3: so you have to find some way to You can't
Speaker 3: condescend to them. That doesn't mean that I personally will
Speaker 3: ever agree with them or believe that they're right, but
Speaker 3: they have to believe that, so you can't. That's my business,
Speaker 3: my you know, philosophical approach to acting. I can't judge
Speaker 3: them while I'm playing. So when I was in school ties,
Speaker 3: i played a virulent anti Semite. So it was really hard,
Speaker 3: Like I had to spend one day of shooting, I
Speaker 3: had to spend thirteen hours just saying terrible things. Terrible
Speaker 3: things had to come out of my mouth for thirteen hours.
Speaker 3: I did, however, have to find why is this person?
Speaker 3: What is driving this person to behave this way? And
Speaker 3: you know, I could ultimately kind of understand that people
Speaker 3: who exhibit this so much, they're threatened, they're afraid, is
Speaker 3: what they grow up with. It's a way, it's a
Speaker 3: defense mechanism, all those things. So I can understand that
Speaker 3: as a human being. Doesn't mean I will ever agree
Speaker 3: with him, but I do have to commit fully to
Speaker 3: it while I'm playing, right, I have to honor it
Speaker 3: as their argument beings who behave this way, and it's
Speaker 3: my job to bring the truth of that to the
Speaker 3: forefront when I'm playing it because because the story. I
Speaker 3: would never do it if it was a story that
Speaker 3: was trying to say this is the right way to think,
Speaker 3: if this was if the story was in it right,
Speaker 3: But I had an obligation to play it to the
Speaker 3: help that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool. Can we so can we talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about your Star Trek character because my husband
Speaker 2: was telling me that your character is openly gay and
Speaker 2: is the only is like the first openly gay character
Speaker 2: on Star Trek, Yes, which is shocking because Star Trek
Speaker 2: has always been like very racially diverse, and like, you know,
Speaker 2: my husband's like a huge star trek person. So it's
Speaker 2: just interesting that it took like till, you know, twenty
Speaker 2: seventeen or I'm sorry, whenever the show began for you
Speaker 2: that it would be that it would take that long
Speaker 2: for them to be an openly gay character.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so Jonathan Franks, who was the original Wriker
Speaker 3: in Next Gen, he's become a friend. He's directed several
Speaker 3: of our episodes. He's a great person and he's very
Speaker 3: open talking about his experiences being on the show. There
Speaker 3: were times when they were doing Next Generation where they
Speaker 3: were agitating for some kind of gay storyline, gay characters,
Speaker 3: and at the time, the network was just saying no, no, no. So,
Speaker 3: you know, Gene Roddenbert, we talked to George Taka back
Speaker 3: in the day about maybe Supa could be gay. But
Speaker 3: it's like Gene Rodberts, like, I want to, but the
Speaker 3: network would never allow. It's hard enough to get a
Speaker 3: black woman on the bridge. It's hard enough to you know,
Speaker 3: do to have you on the bridge. You know, we
Speaker 3: got to take the steps that we can take them.
Speaker 3: So there's always been from the inside a desire for it.
Speaker 3: It just sadly took too long. And at the same time,
Speaker 3: I'm incredibly honored that I am that I get to
Speaker 3: carry that mantle. And then alongside me is Wilson Cruiz
Speaker 3: has placed my character's partner, and now we have the
Speaker 3: first ever non binary character played by a non binary actor,
Speaker 3: Blue del Barrio, and the first ever trans character played
Speaker 3: by a transactor, Ian Alexander So and take Nataro is
Speaker 3: like a recurring character of lesbian character. So it's like
Speaker 3: it's the queerest track ever, we like to say, you know,
Speaker 3: but it's been profoundly embraced by the fandom, the straight
Speaker 3: end and queer fandom.
Speaker 2: I love it. It's like when it rains, it pores.
Speaker 3: And Cruta has had a very big queer fanom forever, yeah,
Speaker 3: alongside all the tons of other fans also, So there's
Speaker 3: been a hunger for it.
Speaker 2: I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad the floodgates are open now and everybody's
Speaker 1: coming to the Star Trek party.
Speaker 2: What else are you up to?
Speaker 1: Do you have other projects that are going on besides
Speaker 1: or are you just like focused on Star Trek right
Speaker 1: now or.
Speaker 3: That's the big active project I have. I'm also I
Speaker 3: write sometimes and I was invited to contribute a story
Speaker 3: to an anthology that's coming out this summer called Swordstone Table,
Speaker 3: and it's like modern and alternate universe takes on some
Speaker 3: of the Arthurian legends and it's by queer and writers
Speaker 3: of color. It's like taking those seeds and kind of
Speaker 3: spitting them out. So I contributed a story to that
Speaker 3: anthology that I'm really proud of being a part of that.
Speaker 3: So that comes out. I think it's June or July
Speaker 3: that it comes out.
Speaker 2: Are you dying to get back on stage or you're
Speaker 2: having a.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm not dying to I mean I would love
Speaker 3: sitting back the stage. Yeah, but you know I would
Speaker 3: love for stage to be back so I can also
Speaker 3: be an audience member.
Speaker 2: Well that's what I was gonna say. That was my
Speaker 2: next question is do you have like a dream theater
Speaker 2: going experience that you like think about during like I
Speaker 2: have thought about this year where you're like, I can't
Speaker 2: wait to grab dinner there, go there see this play
Speaker 2: that you know or shows that you missed out on
Speaker 2: because the pandemic happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there were things that were in the pipeline.
Speaker 3: It's hard to even remember exactly what was happening because
Speaker 3: I've been here also in Toronto, so it's I mean,
Speaker 3: I got I was lucky to see Slave Play, you know,
Speaker 3: before it closed. It was an extraordinary evening of theater.
Speaker 3: My brother had a play on Broadway called The Sound
Speaker 3: Inside that with Mary Louise Parker. That was a beautiful,
Speaker 3: a beautiful play, you know, So things like that. You know,
Speaker 3: I got to see the original cast of Hamilton several times,
Speaker 3: you know, but just anything that I can go in
Speaker 3: the theater and what the Constitution means to me was
Speaker 3: one of the things that I saw in the last
Speaker 3: couple of years before you know, before it being changed.
Speaker 3: These are the kinds of experiences that I want to
Speaker 3: go to the theater to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we also were kind of wondering, like how
Speaker 1: does it work, Like after you're like a Broadway legend
Speaker 1: who's been in rent and you want to go see
Speaker 1: Broadway shows, do they just give you like a legend
Speaker 1: card and you just get in, or like do you
Speaker 1: stuff the shows.
Speaker 3: Go to shows? Yeah, you don't. These producers do not
Speaker 3: get free tickets. They get free tickets to Tony voters
Speaker 3: and press, and that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1: Oh No, I wanted to hear like a cool card
Speaker 1: you guys all had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean so my fiance wanted he you know,
Speaker 3: I didn't really want to see necessarily, but he wanted to,
Speaker 3: so I wanted to take him to see Hello Dolly.
Speaker 3: So I was like, I could. What I can do
Speaker 3: is I can write to my manager and saying, can
Speaker 3: you help your raise tickets? But it's not the pay
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 2: But they did, you see.
Speaker 3: Bet No, we didn't go because they wanted They wouldn't
Speaker 3: even offer regular tickets. They would only offer the ultra
Speaker 3: premium tickets. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm not paying
Speaker 3: almost two thousand dollars to go to see that to
Speaker 3: learn how a dollar I'm just not doing it, So
Speaker 3: forgive me, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 2: I went twice. I did it. I said a lot.
Speaker 3: I'm happy for you.
Speaker 2: I had to see her. Oh that was cool. That
Speaker 2: was so fun.
Speaker 1: I feel like my high school self is totally freaking out.
Speaker 1: My best friend has like a Rent tattoo, Like we
Speaker 1: were so into Rent in high school and to talk
Speaker 1: to him was a total dream. So I'm so happy
Speaker 1: he took the time to talk to us. Now let's
Speaker 1: get into our post mortem. Lisa, what'd you learn from
Speaker 1: lessons learned? What are the lessons that you learned?
Speaker 2: Honestly, I learned that I go YadA, YadA, YadA way
Speaker 2: too much in this episode. I was I was like
Speaker 2: a Seinfeld episode. I kept like, so you know then
Speaker 2: that happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, I learned that people really thought the seventies
Speaker 1: were like a lawless wasteland of job molestation, and I
Speaker 1: can't believe it's just not generally accepted that a teacher
Speaker 1: should not have any kind of sexual touch with a student.
Speaker 2: But here, Yeah, I wish I learned more, But I
Speaker 2: think it's like, I guess I learned that I was
Speaker 2: right in the world is the worst and that institutional
Speaker 2: rape is fucked up and we need to burn the
Speaker 2: patriarchy to the ground. I don't know, I can't even
Speaker 2: Yeah that I learned that parents will still continue to
Speaker 2: send their kids to a rape school, Like I don't know,
Speaker 2: that seems crazy, That's what I was going to say.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I learned that, like it's sort of like
Speaker 1: reputation and all that it seems to be more important
Speaker 1: than like doing the right thing for a lot of
Speaker 1: parents in terms of like elite private schools, like I
Speaker 1: would have respected a school that, like you said, nipped
Speaker 1: it in the bud was like, we took care of
Speaker 1: this problem, but this school is still completely thriving after
Speaker 1: this massive scandal from almost a decade ago.
Speaker 2: Ranked Yeah highly. I learned that the costume department's pretty
Speaker 2: cool with their will co subliginal messages like I mean,
Speaker 2: we need we need to talk to someone from the
Speaker 2: costume department. It is just too they are too good,
Speaker 2: not we need scoop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're And I think the will go shirt
Speaker 1: goes on our list of questions. Yeah, and I guess
Speaker 1: keep your eyes open, Like if your son clearly has
Speaker 1: all these struggles and is like not thriving, it might
Speaker 1: be because you let him be exposed to a child
Speaker 1: molester for a long time because you just love your
Speaker 1: own high school so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, don't love your high school. Yeah that's weird.
Speaker 2: It's weird. It's weird. Stop loving your high school so much. Geez, Okay,
Speaker 2: I love my high school. I'm sorry. Do you have
Speaker 2: a class ring and a shirt? What do you have?
Speaker 2: I still have my senior shirt, not a class ring.
Speaker 2: I have my swim team shirt, but it's a baseball
Speaker 2: cut and I love baseball three quarter length shirts a lot.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was editor of the yearbook, I was
Speaker 2: treasurer of the school. I had a great time.
Speaker 1: But I'm not like I can't look at any of
Speaker 1: the bad problems that have happened in my high school
Speaker 1: because it's.
Speaker 2: Too great of a place. Yeah, if there's any changes
Speaker 2: in your child in behavior, wardrobe, attitude, grades, anything, don't
Speaker 2: just ignore it. Don't just go I guess hormones or
Speaker 2: they're a loser, Like something happened. Something happened.
Speaker 1: Investigating right, pay attention to your child's moods. And for
Speaker 1: this week's what would Sister Peg Do, which is our
Speaker 1: weekly segment where we direct you guys towards resources or
Speaker 1: organizations that can give you more information on the topic
Speaker 1: we covered in today's episode, I just kind of want
Speaker 1: to point everybody to the New York Times article that
Speaker 1: blew the whole roof off of this scandal by Amos Camille,
Speaker 1: who is a or camel I'm sorry if I'm saying
Speaker 1: his name incorrectly, but we will have that linked in
Speaker 1: our show notes and in our Instagram stories. You can
Speaker 1: find all of our what would Sister peg do segments
Speaker 1: in a highlight on our Instagram. By the way, if
Speaker 1: you want to go back and support any of the
Speaker 1: organizations we've linked to you in the past.
Speaker 2: Also, you said Amos, and that reminded me of Famous
Speaker 2: Amos Cookies, and that reminded me that he was on
Speaker 2: an episode of Shark Tank if that interests any of
Speaker 2: our listeners.
Speaker 1: But any of the guy who invented famous amous cookies
Speaker 1: was on an episode of Shark Tank.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with like a new product. They are my favorite cookies.
Speaker 2: I love them so much. I thought you were going
Speaker 2: to say, shut up, why are you talking? No, I
Speaker 2: can't believe it. They grasped you. No.
Speaker 1: They are so good and crunchy and that is really
Speaker 1: really exciting. And I'm sorry that we just bounced right
Speaker 1: from a expos on school molestation to cookies, but that's
Speaker 1: kind of what this podcast is.
Speaker 2: So wait, are you a crunchy cookie over a soft cookie? Girl?
Speaker 1: It depends like if it's soft from like a bakery, yes,
Speaker 1: but like if I'm buying it in a grocery store,
Speaker 1: like I like a tats I like a famous Amos crunchy.
Speaker 2: Oh tates don't like unions or something. Yeah, tastes but
Speaker 2: they're delicious. Yeahh god, now I want an oreo. Okay.
Speaker 2: Next week's episode will be Collateral Damages Season seventeen, episode fifteen.
Speaker 2: As always, Hulu, Peacock, your local library, message us on
Speaker 2: the internet. We're around, Send us some memes, and we're
Speaker 2: so grateful for anyone that listens and likes us. Thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: see you guys next week. Bye bye. That's Messed Up
Speaker 2: as an exactly right production.
Speaker 1: If you have compliments you'd like to give us or
Speaker 1: episodes you'd like us to cover, shoot us an email
Speaker 1: at That's Messed uppod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Follow the podcast on Instagram at That's Messed Up Pod
Speaker 2: and on Twitter at messed Up Pod, and follow us
Speaker 2: personally at Kara Clank and at Glitter Cheese.
Speaker 1: As always, please see our show notes for sources and
Speaker 1: more information.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much much to SBU super fan and
Speaker 2: our incredible producer, Hannah Kyle Kraton.
Speaker 1: And to our sound engineer and personal hero Analie Snilson, and.
Speaker 2: To Henry Koperski for our theme song. To Carly Jean
Speaker 2: Andrews for our artwork.
Speaker 1: Thanks to our executive producers Georgia Hardstar, Karen Kilgarrif, Daniel Kramer,
Speaker 1: and everybody at Exactly Right Media.
Speaker 2: Listen, subscribe, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're an advertiser
Speaker 2: interested in advertising on our show, go to midroll dot
Speaker 2: com slash ads Done Done