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| “ | I'm a tough woman, and I'm a tough mother, because I want what's best for Martin. Because my career wasn't the most important thing in my life. He was. He needed me. | „ |
| ~ Connie rationalizing sexually and emotionally abusing her son. |
Connie Parish is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Bubble Wrapped". She is the emotionally and sexually abusive mother of rapist Martin Parish, who kills his victim to get him out of trouble and eliminate what she sees as a rival for her affections.
She was portrayed by Michelle Gomez.
Early life[]
Connie was born into a wealthy family and raised by her father, a real estate magnate. While he taught her everything about the real estate business, he was an absent, neglectful parent in every other way, caring more for his properties than his own child. Her father's neglect bred in Connie a pathological need to completely control the people in her life, and to harm them if they "failed" to give her the constant attention and praise she craved.
As an adult, Connie married Peter Parish, with whom she had a son, Martin. She was jealous and possessive of both of them, and Peter eventually left her for Martin's nanny. Furiously jealous, Connie began poisoning his food with an industrial abrasive her builders used to mix cement, nearly killing him. When he figured out that she was poisoning him, Peter divorced her.
While retrieving the last of his things. Peter walked in on Connie in bed with 12-year-old Martin, trying to breastfeed him. Peter saw immediately that Connie had replaced him as her lover with their own son, and tried to take Martin away from her, but the boy refused.
Reasoning that a dysfunctional mother was better than no mother at all, Peter left Martin with Connie, who continued to abuse him emotionally and sexually well into adulthood, dominating him and refusing to let him have friends, girlfriends, or any kind of life of his own. Her abuse turned Martin into an emotionally stunted manchild incapable of surviving without his mother. She married another man, but she soon drove her second husband away with her controlling behavior and obviously unhealthy relationship with her son.
He also began abusing cocaine to numb the trauma of what she was doing to him, frequently abusing the drug with Mona Stewart, Connie's employee with whom he tried, but largely failed, to have a relationship. Determined to keep Martin under her thumb and eliminate what she saw as a romantic rival, she poisoned both their stashes of cocaine with the same abrasive chemical she used to poison Peter.
In "Bubble Wrap"[]
Connie reluctantly attends a therapy session with Martin, during which he accuses her of trying to run his life. She counters that all she wants is for them to have a close relationship. After the session, she takes him along to look at her new property and has loud sex with the contractor in the upstairs bedroom while Martin listens uncomfortably. After they are done, Connie tells Martin to have dinner with her, but he angrily refuses; when she says that no one refuses her, he replies that he just did.
Later that night, however, Martin shows up at Connie's mansion, begging for her help; he confesses that he has just raped Mona and that he needs her to protect him. She comforts him and says that she will not let anyone hurt him.
When Mona reports the rape to the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, Captain Olivia Benson and Sergeant Fin Tutuola question Martin, who insists that he and Mona only cuddled. Connie immediately takes charge of the situation, telling Benson and Tutuola that Mona is trying to extort money from her. Nevertheless, Benson gets a warrant for Martin's arrest, and walk in on him and Connie in bed together. Benson arrests Martin for rape over Connie's furious objections.
Connie pulls strings to make sure Martin is released from jail on his own recognizance. After the arraignment, she meets with Benson and says that she is merely trying to do everything she can to protect her son, just as Benson would do for her own son, Noah.
When Mona is found dead of what appears to be a cocaine overdose, an autopsy reveals that her lungs are severely scarred. Benson sends Detective Grace Muncy and Officer Tonie Churlish to search Connie's mansion, where they find the chemicals she used to poison Mona and Martin. Carisi then charges Connie with murder and Benson and Tutuola arrest her.
Connie's lawyer gets her released on bail, and she goes to SVU's precinct house to collect Martin. When she gets there, however, she is surprised to see Peter, whom Benson and Tutuola had tracked down so he could tell Martin the truth about his mother. Martin disowns her, while Benson tells her that what she did to her son was abuse, not love. Connie insists that she is a good mother who puts her son's welfare before her own, but Benson retorts that she just wanted Martin to belong to her forever, and that is her fault that he is the way he is.
In the end, Martin takes responsibility for raping Mona and goes to prison, while Connie takes a plea bargain in which she pleads guilty to manslaughter rather than murder and goes to prison, as well.
External links[]
- Connie Parish on the Law & Order Wiki
