THE BIG PICTURE
- Kyle MacLachlan’s guest role in Season 6 of Law and Order: SVU is a memorable turn in his career, despite SVU ‘s penchant for making its guest stars the bad guy.
- The SVU episode “Conscience” follows a young boy who is found to be murdered by his 13-year-old neighbor, who shows no remorse for his actions.
- MacLachlan’s grieving character takes matters into his own hands to get justice for his son, and in turn, delivers one of SVU ‘s most unforgettable twists.
With roles in film and television such as Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Dune, and more, Kyle MacLachlan is a treasure in Hollywood. He’s played every type of role imaginable with finesse every time. From an obsessive mama’s boy in Sex and the City to the manipulative yet charming Orson in Desperate Housewives, and of course, Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks. Whatever the role, MacLachlan has a certain charm about him that makes it hard to look away whenever he’s on-screen. So when he landed a guest spot on Law and Order: SVU, fans were thrilled. But the thing about SVU’s guest stars is that, more often than not, they are involved in an emotional and traumatic storyline, where they’re either the victim, the grieving loved one of the victims or the perp. In MacLachlan’s case, he played the grieving loved one.
MacLachlan appeared in the hit procedural show’s Season 6 episode “Conscience.” In it, he played the character of Dr. Brett Morton, the father of the episode’s five-year-old victim, Henry Morton (Michael and Max Iles). MacLachlan’s character is a psychiatrist, and his calm and collected nature, even in such a high-stakes moment, puts the detectives off at first. Even more so when Henry is found dead, and his father identifies the body with impressive composure, even asking Dr. Warner (Tamara Tunie) for the details of his cause of death. He then demands to know who killed his son, asking Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and Benson (Mariska Hargitay) who their suspects are. Stabler says they’re still looking into it but promises to tell Dr. Morton as soon as they have a definitive answer. However, that answer isn’t so cut and dry and opens up a plethora of jaw-dropping twists. One of which just so happens to put MacLachlan’s character in the hot seat.
“Conscience” Is Full of Shocking Twists
SVU is rarely cut and dry in its investigations. There’s usually a wrench thrown into the investigation that throws the detectives for a loop, whether it be new evidence, an issue in court, or even having the wrong suspect. In “Conscience,” they have the wrong perp, but the real one is so shocking it’s hard to blame the detectives for not suspecting them sooner. At the beginning of the episode, Henry goes missing at a birthday party, seemingly vanishing into thin air and somehow not being noticed by any security cameras. The Morton’s 13-year-old neighbor, Jake (Jordan Garrett), tells the detectives that he saw a man watching Henry from across the street, so naturally, they look into suspects that fit Jake’s description. They land on Billy Turner (P.J. Brown), who’s a registered sex offender in the area. Jake picks him out in a lineup, but when the detectives question Turner, he has an alibi that makes it impossible for him to be Henry’s killer.
The medical examiner pulls some of the stones that had been used to cut off Henry’s airway and finds fingerprints clear as day on them. The only problem is the fingerprints don’t match anyone in the system, and more concerningly, they are too small to even belong to an adult, meaning they must belong to a child. But they don’t match Henry’s fingerprints, which puzzles the detectives even more. But a closer look at the pebbles leads the detectives to a startling discovery. The pebbles aren’t a match to any fingerprints in the system, but they are a perfect match to the pebbles found in the yard of the Morton’s next-door neighbors. AKA, the home of Jake, the one who initially picked Billy Turner out of the lineup. He admits that he did kill Henry, explaining that he was chasing a neighbor’s cat and accidentally fell on it, which killed the cat. Henry said he was going to tell on him, which panicked Jake, as he believed his parents would send him back to the behavioral camp they sent him to a month prior. Dr. Morton takes pity on Jake despite his involvement in his son’s death. He buys into Jake’s story of it being an accident and even believes that he truly is sorry for what he did, and tries to convince the detectives to be lenient with him. But his good intentions quickly turn around to bite him.
‘SVU’s “Conscience” Has an Unforgettable Twist
Jake claims he was abused at said behavioral camp, but when A.D.A. Casey Novak (Diane Neal) and Dr. Huang (B.D. Wong) look into these claims, they discover Jake was the abuser and would threaten the other kids at the camp if they told on him. They also learn that the camp informed Jake’s mother of this and suggested he be institutionalized, but she refused. Novak then attempts to get Jake’s case moved to the Supreme Court, where he can be tried as an adult, and exposes his lies to the courtroom, including Dr. Morton. Morton begins yelling at Jake, losing the composure he had held onto all episode and finally snapping, which results in him getting pulled out of court by the court officers. As the court is adjourned, Jake comes up to Dr. Morton and apologizes for everything that happened, but the sinister smile on his face tells Morton that he’s not sorry at all. Morton begins shouting at the boy again as he walks away with his mother. Jake continues to taunt him by giving him that same twisted smile as he walks away, and Dr. Morton suddenly loses it. He lunges toward a court officer and grabs the gun from his hip, firing it directly at Jake without a moment of hesitation.
The jury finds Dr. Morton not guilty of the murder, leaving Stabler and Novak with their own complicated feelings towards the case. On one hand, they can sympathize with Morton’s grief, but on the other, he knowingly took the life of a young boy. When Morton confronts them outside the courthouse, Stabler accuses him of manipulating them just like Jake, but Morton has a counteroffer. He says that the difference between him and Jake is that, upon his release, Jake would kill again, whereas he never will. It’s a complex note to leave on, and it’s unforgettable in how complicated it all is. On one hand, Morton is a grieving father who finally reached a breaking point in his grief-stricken state. But on the other hand, he knew what he was doing when he took the officer’s gun, and he even admits such a thing to Stabler and Novak outside the courthouse.
“Conscience” Is an Unforgettable ‘SVU’ Episode
SVU has never shied away from heavy topics. It’s right there in the opening credits. The detectives investigate crimes that are considered “especially heinous,” and “Conscience” is no different. But what does set it apart is just how bleak it gets. “Conscience” isn’t the first or last time we see a child be the murderer, and it certainly isn’t the last, but it is one of the most memorable for many reasons. For starters, we aren’t led to even suspect Jake at first. He seems like any other witness, and his young age certainly benefits him in not being an immediate red flag to the detectives or the audience. But we also don’t often see such twisted motivation, or lack thereof, when it comes to underage offenders. We’ve seen plenty of cases where a child is bullied and eventually snaps or where the child is abused and continues the cycle of abuse. All of which are twisted and unsettling. But Jake had no motive and was simply a disturbed young boy without remorse.
Not to mention, we don’t often see the child characters harmed in front of our eyes. Yes, we’ve seen countless young victims, but it’s always the aftermath and not the actual act, which is just as gut-wrenching and hard to watch. But seeing Dr. Morton turn the gun on Jake is such a shocking moment. It happens so quickly there’s no way to anticipate it or process it before it happens, and because of that, it sits heavily on the viewer even long after it happens. There’s no denying that Jake deserved to be punished and locked up for what he did, but killing him was such a drastic way of doing so, and despite being the episode’s bad guy, it’s still difficult to watch a kid die before our eyes. The entire episode can be debated in so many ways. Could Jake have been rehabilitated or not? Should Dr. Morton have been found guilty or not? There are so many ways to look at the episode, but the one thing that can be agreed on is that “Conscience” is an unforgettable hour of SVU, and one that you won’t be able to get out of your head any time soon.
