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"Alternate"
SVU, Episode 9.01
Production number: 9003
First aired: 25 September 2007
  th of 502 produced in SVU  
th of 502 released in SVU
  th of 1271 released in all  
Benson Janis Donovan Alternate
Written By
Neal Baer & Dawn DeNoon

Directed By
David Platt

Plot[]

In the ninth season premiere, Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler suspect that Janis Donovan, a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder, may have harmed her own daughter. Their investigation is met with initial resistance from Dr. Henry Carlisle. Captain Don Cragen is temporarily reassigned due to problems with his detectives last season. The detectives end up discovering that Janis has 4 other alternate personalities. As the episode progresses, the detectives witness these personalities, culminating when one of Janis's personalities throws a chair across the room. Later in the episode, Janis and her sister Cass are reunited after serving time in jail. The day after Janis and her sister go home together, their parents are found murdered in their beds. Janis's fingerprints are found on the gun. When Janis goes to trial, she displays one of her alternate personalities, choking ADA Novak. Janis is then found not guilty by reason of mental defect.

Stabler and Benson visit the former cellmate of Cass who agrees to talk after a deal. She reveals that Cass and Janis cooked up a scam from letters.

At the end of the episode, it is discovered that everything was an act by Janis's sister in order to fake a motive to kill their parents in revenge for being abused by them. When Detective Stabler and Benson go to visit Janis in the psychiatric hospital, Janis confesses to everything assuming she got away with it, but then the detectives arrest her sister in front of Janis, who was also visiting with her sister, for being a co-conspirator and is taken away in cuffs, while Janis has to look in horror.

Summary[]

Episode summary

Cast[]

Main cast[]

Recurring cast[]

Guest cast[]

References[]

Quotes[]

Benson: What's going on?
Cragen: I've been, uh... temporarily reassigned. Chief of D's office.
Benson: Why?
Cragen: You aided your fugitive brother. Elliot covered up his kid's DUI. Fin's stepson butchered two people and walked. Somebody's gotta take the heat.

Stabler: You want insane? Guess who they put in charge.
Munch: I had nothing to do with that. If drafted, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.
Tutuola: You are lying like a politician.

Lake: It was an honor serving under you, sir.
Cragen: I'm not dead yet, Detective Lake.

Dr. Henry Carlisle: [in response to Benson & Stabler's remarks about his patient] That's not violent.
Stabler: How about calling her baby a dirty slut and scrubbing her raw?
Dr. Henry Carlisle: [pause] That's not good.

Stabler: [to Janis] What did you do with your baby, Janis?
Janis Donovan: [in a little girl's voice] I'm not big enough to have a baby. And my name's not Janis. It's Tammy.

Janis Donovan: [in a Russian accent after slapping Elliot] You! Get out of my face! I want a lawyer!
Stabler: [as Janis is being cuffed] You just assaulted a police officer so maybe he'll give you a discount. Two charges for the price of one.
Janis Donovan: Screw you! You can't take a slap? Grow some balls!

Tutuola: I'll call in Huang and tell him to bring the butterfly net.

Dr. Huang: From what you're telling me, she has Dissociative Identity Disorder, or what we used to call multiple personalities.
Stabler: Right, and I call it a crock.

Dr. Huang: Tell me about her alters.
Benson: Her alternate personalities? So far we've seen a shrink, a little girl and a tough Russian.
Stabler: And I bet she does a mean Christopher Walken too. Look, she's playing us.

Benson: Tammy told us that Burt took her. She was about to tell me where when Petra showed up and bitch-slapped Elliot.
Stabler: I'd sure like to have five minutes with Burt.

Dr. Huang: People with D.I.D. can be easily hypnotized. If I can put her under, then maybe I can bring out the alter who took the baby.
Munch: That's a great plan, but you can't talk to her.
Stabler: Munch, no offense, but I don't care if they crown you Chief of D's. I'm not taking orders from you.
Munch: It's not an order, Detective. You can't talk to Froot Loops because her attorney's already in there.

Hashi Horowitz: [to Janis] You're making a bad decision. I strenuously urge you to reconsider.
Janis Donovan: [to Olivia] Who are you?
Benson: I'm Detective Benson. Who are you?
Janis Donovan: I'm Dori. Would you please tell this a-hole that I didn't do anything wrong so I don't need a lawyer.
benson: Well, it sounds like she's changed her mind, Heshy.
Hashi Horowitz: Which mind? Janis's, Petra's or Dori's?

Hashi Horowitz: I still say you're making a big mistake. Call on me if you change one of your minds.

Tutuola: Special Victims Unit. I think you need to adjust your TV. The baby we're looking for is Caucasian
Novak: And the circus begins.

Kathleen Stabler: [to Elliot about Kathy] She's not supposed to be pregnant. You're too old. I'm in college. People will think it's mine.

[about Janis Donovan]
Benson: I don't think she's competent to stand trial.
Novak: She confessed to killing her parents in cold blood.
Stabler: She didn't. Burt did.
Benson: Actually, Dori flipped on Burt.
Novak: They're all the same person, so I don't care how many names she goes by, I'm putting her body in jail.

Lake: I'm not saying I didn't see crazies in Brooklyn, but you guys are cuckoo magnets.
Tutuola: You should've been here for the case when the white supremacist shot Munch in his ass. He's still gotta sit on a special pillow.

[after Cragen relieves him of command of the SVU]
Munch: Thank God you're back. I don't know how you do it. This job sucks!

Hashi Horowitz: My client suffers from dissociative identity disorder. She has five documented personalities.
Judge Walter Bradley: Should we swear them all in separately?

Novak: We can't just blindly accept Janis was unaware of her actions based on her word otherwise, every murderer is going to use this defense. "I didn't do it. My imaginary friend did." It's bunk.


Background information and notes[]

  • "Janis" is almost certainly a deliberate pun on "Janus", the name of the two-faced Roman god of doors and gates.
  • This is the first episode Richard Belzer is credited as Sergeant John Munch. It is revealed in this episode that John Munch has been promoted to sergeant, as he mentions that he took the sergeant's exam on a bar bet.
    • In the Homicide: Life on the Street episode Fire: Part 1 in 1995, Munch had planned to take the exam then but failed to show up after he could not find his lucky socks that morning.
  • The consequences from the previous episode, the SVU Season 8 season finale "Screwed" are revealed:
    • Olivia was temporarily suspended as a result of her helping her brother, Simon Marsden, while he was a fugitive in the episode "Florida" but Cragen was able to save her job by pulling some strings.
    • Kathleen received community service instead of jail time after her DUI which happened in the episode "Blood".
    • Elliot has moved back home and Kathy is still pregnant.
  • Fin references the events of "Raw", when he brings up Munch being shot.
  • Other Law & Order franchise episodes that deal with multiple personalities include the Law & Order episode "Switch" and the Criminal Intent episode "Three-In-One".
  • Cordite hasn't been used as a firearm propellant since the 1960's, and it was only used in European manufactured ammunition. Modern ammunition, including shotgun shells use double-based smokeless gunpowder, which is made of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. Cordite used nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin although in different amounts and with different additives so Cordite and modern gunpowder do smell somewhat similar though anyone with experience should be able to distinguish the two smells.
  • This season, photographs of cast members during opening theme/credits are all outdoors, not indoors.

Episode scene cards[]

1 2 3

Office of
Doctor Henry Carlisle
14 East 72nd Street
Wednesday, August 8

Prince of Peace Church
1689 Bleecker Street
Wednesday, August 8

Donovan Residence
276 Fieldston Road
Riverdale, New York
Thursday, August 9

4 5 6

Grellman
Psychiatric Hospital
Troy, New York
Thursday, August 9

Trial Part 38
Tuesday, September 18

Bedford Hills
Correctional Facility For Women
Westchester County, NY
Wednesday, September 19

Previous episode:
"Screwed"
"Alternate"
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Season 9
Next episode:
"Avatar"
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