Expect unmarked spoilers in these pages. You Have Been Warned.
Written By Jonathan Greene
Directed By Peter Leto
A woman is kidnapped from a building owned by a high-powered, wealthy businessman in a case eerily similar to that of one from over two decades earlier. The man who was convicted of that crime, however, still claims his innocence and an attorney from back then now admits that she knew all along that one of her own clients was guilty of the murder.
Tropes
- A Fool for a Client: Ingrid Block represents herself in her trial. She does it well enough and gets an acquittal though. Granted, she is a lawyer.
- Bathroom Brawl: The victim is snatched into a restroom just before a convenient power outage cuts the security cameras.
- Connected All Along: Thomas Rooney murders Richard Morgan as the latter was entering the elevator at the SVU precinct. SVU were flabbergasted as to how he knew Morgan was in SVU. Turns out Ingrid called Rooney and told him where Morgan was, hoping that Rooney could do what she couldn't—bring Morgan to justice.
- Continuity Nod: Victor Tate was brought up during Ingrid's trial. He was later visited by Stabler and Hardy.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Ingrid Block. SVU even refers to her once as Ice Queen when talking about her initial icy demeanor, though throughout the episode it's revealed that she's somewhat of a Broken Bird.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Despite better judgment, Ingrid Block decided to confess what she knows to Benson in order to set Daniel Hardy free. In so doing, she was arrested for her part in concealing the truth.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Stabler arrests a defense attorney after she admits that she could have stopped another man from being found guilty of her client's crimes. While attorney client privilege protects her she still let an innocent man rot in jail for twenty years. Stabler does eventually decide he went too far.
- The lawyer's decision to give her client up, even though he's dead, also qualifies. According to the rules of privilege, she should have kept his secret forever no matter what the consequences, but she decided she couldn't have that on her conscience.
- To Be Lawful or Good: The dilemma in the moral in the episode's Halfway Plot Switch: should a lawyer follow the law and preserve attorney-client privilege or should they follow their consience.Hardy: You knew, and you didn't say anything.
Block: The law says I couldn't.
Hardy: THE LAW!?- After she acquits Block Judge Donnell reprimands Alex for "blatantly using our system of justice as a means to a political end."
- At the end of the episode, after Block admits to arranging Morgan's death:Stabler: The law doesn't always guarantee justice.
Block: (smiling) But this time, I did.
