Folie a Deux (Law & Order: Criminal Intent)

"Folie a Deux" is an eighth-season episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent and the 162nd episode overall.

Plot

In this episode, Detectives Goren and Eames investigate when a couple’s 2-year-old daughter mysteriously disappears from her room during a robbery at the hotel, where her parents dined.

As they investigate, they learn that a family member (Lynn Redgrave) is financially supporting the couple, while also dying of a heart condition. Glass fragments and a stolen key-card become substantial evidence which leads them to the robber, although there is no child with him. Further investigation leads Goren and Eames to receive a ransom call. However, they learn that someone relatively close to the family was taking advantage of the crime, attempting to win money over in the process.

In the final scene of the episode, the detectives find out the parents have been giving a false description. There never was a child at the hotel. As they uncover a shocking conspiracy, Goren and Eames learn that the unstable mother (Piper Perabo) has been delusional about the months-ago accidental death of her daughter, prompting her husband (Luke Kirby) to exploit her condition in order to continue receiving financial support from his rich but childless aunt.

Trivia

• Folie à deux is a shared psychotic disorder, as Goren was reading about in the last scene of this episode.
• The episode seems to have been inspired by the Madeleine McCann and Caylee Anthony cases.
• The episode also featured Goren knowing the names and works of two female poets, one of the poets being Elizabeth Barret Browning

Cast

External links

• Folie a Deux (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website