The detectives investigate the murder of an executive of a prominent charity who was into S&M. The clues lead them to Gov. Shalvoy and his wife Rita. She is accused of setting the murder plot in motion to help sell a Senate seat her husband was ready to give out. Having been stonewalled already by Shalvoy, McCoy are determined to make any charges stick.
Tropes in this episode
- Bondage Is Bad: During his conversation with Cutter, Shalvoy says he is not one of those "S&M freaks". Cutter reminds him that there is overlap between the sex workers he visits and the ones who service clients into S&M, and they are likely to be chatty about his activities.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: In the prior season episode "Excalibur", the Shalvoys managed to worm their way out of a scandal. This time, when they try to stonewall the investigation, McCoy gets the governor to provide information that will convict his wife in return for getting his indictment dropped, and Cutter bluffs Shalvoy into resigning.
- Refuge in Audacity: Cutter gets Shalvoy to resign by saying he found Shalvoy kept seeing prostitutes even after the original investigation and offers to keep that information quiet if Shalvoy resigns. Which he does. As for the list of prostitutes Shalvoy visited, it was just a blank paper.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Based on former governor Ron Blagojevich.
- Villainous Breakdown: Rita Shalvoy has one when her husband manages to bypass spousal privilege to tell the DAs about how he saw her retrieve a diamond necklace she used as payment. She goes into a rant about having to share a bed with him and his prostitutes.
