Written By Ken Storer
Directed By Helen Shaver
A woman is found dead in her apartment and her strict, overbearing bully of an employer (Kate Burton) is one of the prime suspects. However, given the high-strung environment of the wine company's offices, nearly everyone is a suspect...
Tropes
- Accidental Murder: Justin only pushed Ellen out of frustration, he didn't take into account that she'll trip to her glass table and the vase shattering and puncturing her neck.
- Ass Shove: After accidentally killing Ellen, Justin shoves a wine bottle up her rectum to make it look like she got drunk and fell over. He had learned the "trick" from his mother, an alcoholic former opera singer.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Corrine, who appears to be around college age, describes herself as such for Luscious Grape.
- Bad Boss: Annette in spades: she's a mentally unstable narcissist with an explosive temper and little empathy towards anyone. Her dog got all her money while her abused employees got nothing after she held a news conference to publicly blame everyone except herself for her misfortunes and then shot herself in the head.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Annette Cole committed suicide rather than live with the fallout of her true personality becoming known and the video of her abuse going viral.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Annette, who initially claims that she was like a big sister to Ellen before the truth came out.
- Boom, Headshot!: How Annette offs herself.
- Brain Bleach: Olivia response to the Ass Shove "trick" above is calling it something she wish she never knew.
- The Bully: Annette. Stabler even lampshades how reminiscent of a schoolyard bully that she is.
- Car Fu: Corinne strikes Bruce with a car and breaks his leg, falsely believing that he was the one who killed Ellen and blew their chances to buy out Annette after the merger and become rich.
- The Casanova: Justin, who is always talking about his exploits with women and was even the one who was supposed to "close the deal" with Ellen to get her to join the rest of the employees in taking over control of the company from Annette. Her rejection of him angered him so much that he accidentally killed her by pushing her onto the wine glasses she had.
- Convicted by Public Opinion: The public turns on Annette rapidly after the abuse tape is released, sending her hate mail, harassing her both in public and over the phone and even creating numerous social media files of the tape.
- Cute and Psycho: Corrine is cute, looks perky, and willing to run over a person just because they had a disagreement.
- Deadline News: Annette commits suicide at the live press conference due to the aftermath of the tape of her abusing her staff is released and her reputation is ruined.
- Defiant to the End: Annette did not spare the media and the cops from her Dying Curse below.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Annette commits suicide third quarter into the episode. And while her Bad Boss tendencies did influence much of the actions of the other guest characters, she's ultimately revealed to not be Ellen's killer.
- The Dog Bites Back: After years of Annette's abuse, Ellen finally had enough and mailed her videos to a TV station before her murder. As soon as they get out, Annette is ruined.Stabler: Well, well, well, the church mouse finally roared.
- Driven to Suicide: Annette shoots herself after video footage of her abusing a timid business partner is leaked and her business is ruined. She castigates her late partner, the media, her employees and police at a press conference before killing herself, saying it was their fault.
- Dying Curse: Annette gives "The Reason You Suck" Speech to everyone who insulted her before pulling the trigger on herself.Annette: Thank you all for coming. I just wanna say that um... I-I never meant to harm anybody. I'm mortified by how I must look on that tape. But *sniff*, To my business partners, lemme me say this... Screw you for abandoning me in my time of need. To my customers, who cancelled orders and left hateful messages, you can all go to hell too.
Bruce: Annette, stop this.
Annette: To the press who turned on me, and to the NYPD, who hounded me mercilessly, you're scum! All of you! And to my family at Luscious Grape, my lying, backstabbing, ungrateful family. You're all fired, each and everyone of you. You're as lazy and useless as that bitch Ellen was, dragging me down, so far, the company I built with my own two hands! I just want you to remember one thing: You made me do this. - Entitled Bitch: When SVU confronts Annette just as she’s on her way to a press conference, she proclaims her plans to sue the NYPD for emotional distress. Unfortunately for her, she’s mobbed by the press as they question her repeatedly of her abuse of Ellen. Annette then has the audacity to demand help from SVU, but Stable quickly shuts her down with this little exchange-Annette: Protect me it’s your job!
Stabler: You’re the bully, show’em who’s boss. - Expy: Annette is this of Leona Helmsley, right down to her obscene wealth, superior and abrasive personality and leaving everything to her dog after her death. Also, her suicide at the press conference was inspired by R. Budd Dwyer, although unlike her, he was more likely than not innocent of his crime.
- Fag Hag: Ellen was one to Bruce, or as the office called her, a "fruit fly."
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Justin virtually says this to Ellen verbatim to get her to join the other employees of buying out Annette instead of telling the world about the hostile work environment.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The camera pans to the blood splattering the wall just as Annette pulls the trigger on herself.
- Greed: What drove Ellen's coworkers to putting up with Annette's constant abuse. When Huang suggests they're suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome," Benson relates it may simply be hanging around for the money and turns out to be right.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: Everyone at Luscious Grape has to put on a show of a happy work environment due to Annette's insistence and so that their lucrative business merger will go through.
- I Didn't Mean to Kill Him: Justin accidentally shoves Ellen down after she rejected him, she hits her head and cuts herself on a wine glass. He is extremely remorseful and tried to apologize, but then realized that she was fatally injured.
- I Reject Your Reality: As part of her issues, Annette can never see herself in the wrong. In fact, in her mind she was the one bullied by Ellen, ignoring the woman was a total wreck. She brushes off talk of throwing a cup at Ellen in a crowded restaurant and accuses the NYPD of leaking the tapes as "Ellen would never do that to me," while Benson openly asks how deluded she is. Her final rant continues to have Annette paint herself as the victim just before killing herself.
- Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Annette's Bad Boss video went viral around the same time the news is covering it.
- Jerkass: The owner of the expensive handbag company, My Leather Fantasy. He harasses his clients verbally and is glad whenever they leave a poor review about him online, knowing that the attention will give him more ad revenue and customers.
- Lack of Empathy: All of Ellen's co-workers cared more about getting the money from the Luscious Grape merger than about the mental anguish Ellen was under because of Annette's maltreatment. Bruce (who claims to have been Ellen's friend) even derides her for "losing her mind" and accuses her of having been "weak."Benson: You all killed Ellen. With your greed. Your friend needed you and you turned your backs on her!
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Justin tries to cover his Accidental Murder of Ellen by making it look like she was heavily drunk when she tripped.
- Married to the Job: Ellen, justifiably; her parents are dead, she's an only child with no close friends outside of work and even less of any kind of suitors.
- Ms. Fanservice: Cindi, The Muse of Andreas, is introduced wearing a very flattering cocktail dress and is later seen nude modeling for him.
- Narcissist / The Sociopath: After Annette's Spiteful Suicide, Huang describes her as a mix of these.Huang: What do you get when you mix a sociopath and a narcissist: a ticking time bomb.
- Nervous Wreck: Poor Ellen, who was left so frazzled by Annette's treatment that she resumed drinking after years of sobriety.
- Never My Fault: Annette, even to the bitter end, refused to admit to her numerous wrongdoings or faults.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lampshaded and crossing with Pyrrhic Victory: Ellen exposes to the world what a toxic workplace Lucious Grape is and how miserable Annette is making everyone. Not only does Annette end up firing her employees after the truth comes out, kills herself and leaves her vast fortune to her dog, but her employees hated Ellen for her lack of cooperation of buying out Annette for millions of dollars and Justin ends up killing her (albeit accidentally).
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Annette is implied to be this, calling her openly gay employee Bruce "a big fruit".
- Plot-Triggering Death: Ellen's death drives the entire episode.
- Slashed Throat: How Ellen was killed, having a champagne glass puncture her jugular.
- Soapbox Sadie: Cindi is implied to be one, mistaking a blank canvas covered with Ellen's blood as an illustration against "white privilege".
- Spiteful Suicide: Annette does this by blowing her brains out in a live press conference.
- Treated Worse than the Pet: Annette abuses her employees at Luscious Grape despite claiming to treat them as family. When the truth comes out, she shoots herself in the head at a press conference, leaving her employees nothing while giving her entire estate and all her money to her dog.
- The Voice: Justin's mother could only be heard nagging him from upstairs.
- With Friends Like These...: Luscious Grape claims to be like a family and everyone insists Ellen was their friend. It was all so they could take the company from Annette, but even then, they start mercilessly killing each other off.
- Would Hit a Girl: Justin's Accidental Murder of Ellen is the episode's main plot.
