Written By Warren Leight
Directed By Arthur W. Forney
Two surprise sniper attacks on the NYPD leave the SVU squad scrambling for answers, only for a surprising link to Fin's old Narcotics partner to be revealed as the attacks continue to escalate.
Tropes
- Cop Killer: Gloria's first victim is Det. Amanda Rollins (though she survives). Later she kills a traffic cop who wrote a ticket on her car.
- Disability Alibi: Luis tries to confess to the murders to protect Gloria, but Amanda quickly realizes that with his injury he couldn't possibly flee the first crime scene as fast as the shooter did.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Benito Escobar, He is a major Smug Snake who doesn't even flinch at a Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique. But when he finds out his girlfriend (the mother of his child) was murdered, that facade falls apart and he's left a sobbing mess. He also genuinely loves the kid.
- Faking the Dead: Gloria seems to attempt this by burning her car with the body of a traffic cop inside, but the police see trough this immediately and it doesn't take long time to verify whose body it is.
- Florence Nightingale Effect: Ana was a prison nurse who fell in love and became pregnant by one of the prisoners, Escobar.
- Flush the Evidence: Drug dealer Earl Talley runs to the bathroom to flush his drug stash minutes before police arrive.
- It's All About Me: What happened to Gloria was a tragedy but it doesn't excuse her murdering innocent people, especially not a mother and child whose only crime was living in the house she used to live in.
- I've Come Too Far: When Gloria takes a mother and child hostage, Fin tries to talk her down and it almost seems like he's getting through to her until Gloria says it's too late for both her and the hostages and moves to execute them. Thankfully, Fin is able to neutralize her before she can.
- The Mob Boss Is Scarier: One of Escobar's contacts refuses to talk, because if he does, "That man will peel off my face, sew it into a soccer ball, and kick it into my mother's yard."
- Not Helping Your Case: Gloria claims she was unfairly expelled from the police academy just because she was depressed over her mother's death. Considering she says it while on a killing spree, her not passing the psych eval is not that surprising.
- Plot Armor: Out of all people Gloria shoots, Amanda, being a main character, is the only one who survives.
- Revenge by Proxy: Gloria takes her rage on people who are close to those who she thinks wronged her.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Gloria Montero was the daughter of Fin's former partner. Angry at the wrongs that cost her her mother's life, her father's job, their home and her potential part of the Army and Police, she sought to murder those connected to those who wronged them.
- Spree Killer: Gloria.
- Take Me Instead: Attempted when Fin speaks with his old Narcotics partner concerning multiple sniper attacks connected with them, only to be presented with the weapon and a convincing Motive Rant centering on abandonment and betrayal. However it is rapidly made evident that motivation and marksmanship skill would not have let a man with a half-crippled leg escape the scene of the first shootingnote as swiftly as the shooter did; whereas his twenty five year old daughter who was living with him, washed out of the U. S. Army and NYPD Academy only due to emotional problems, and was still at large was a different matter entirely.
- In the climactic scene, Fin tells Gloria to shoot him rather than the civilian hostages.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Gloria Montero, whose father's taking a bullet for Fin set off a Disaster Dominoes in their family, and who decides to deal with this by going on a killing spree.
