Written By Julie Martin and Warren Leight
Directed By Adam Bernstein
When the SVU team are called to save a little girl from falling off a balcony, their investigation into the mother reveals a Dark and Troubled Past that lead to this.
This episode provides examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Jenny's stepdad, who's revealed to have died in a car accident years before. After learning the full extent of what he did to her, Barba simply says "I hope he suffered."
- Broken Bird: Jenny.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Jenny's worldview is so warped by the horrible abuse she suffered (and likely her mother's victim-blaming reaction) that she actually believes it's normal for an adult man to behave sexually towards a child. This leads to her decision to leave her daughter home alone for a weekend while she's in jail rather than leave her with her own stepfather, as she's convinced that the latter would lead to her daughter being raped (in reality, her ex isn't much of a parent and is generally a pretty miserable human being, but there's no reason to believe he's a pedophile, except for the fact that Jenny thinks all men would be naturally attracted to a young girl).
- Dark and Troubled Past: Jenny was raped by her stepfather, and was made to perform in child pornography as "Lacey", and her dismissive mother shrugged everything off as Jenny (a preteen at this point) being promiscuous. Jenny later got addicted to drugs, moved in with a man who pimped her out, and then said man gave her to his brother as a "wife" when she got pregnant.
- Despair Event Horizon: Jenny has one when Benson and Rollins inform her that the Lacy videos are still being distributed (which she had just barely found out about as she had repressed the memories of their creation). This causes a mental breakdown in which she shows up at Dr. Lindstrom’s office while he’s in session with Olivia and tries to force herself on him stripping her robe off leaving her in nothing but her underwear insisting that she’s Lacy. Olivia and Peter are able to quickly talk her down, reducing her to tears after being comforted by both of them.Dr. Lindstrom: You don't need to be Lacy ever again.
- Karma Houdini: Jenny's mother suffers no repercussions for her treatment of Jenny, not even a verbal smackdown, since the detectives play up to her belief she did nothing wrong, to get information, and then just leave her be. They clearly want to charge her, but as much as Barba agrees with them, he recognizes that the case would be too hard to make legally.
- Loophole Abuse: Barba finds a way to use "joint-and-several-liability" to force a CEO (who was among the list of people who looked at one of the Lacey Unknown videos) to pay for the sum total restitution the forensic team said Jenny was entitled to, rather than force her to collect it bit-by-bit from each offender.
- Mama Bear: Jenny's instincts around her daughter are a bit skewed (due to her own repressed trauma) leading to some questionable decision-making and a tendency to see danger that doesn't really exist (for example, believing that her husband will rape her daughter if he gets the chance), but she's clearly determined to ensure that her daughter has a happy and safe childhood and never has to go through what Jenny did as a child; later in the episode, it's largely for her daughter's sake that she works so hard to overcome her problems. It's especially notable in contrast to Jenny's own mother, who not only allowed the abuse to happen but blamed Jenny for it.
- Marital Rape License: Jenny's husband raped her repeatedly, so the team decides to, per Barba, "see if he's dumb enough to confess to something he doesn't realize is a crime." He does, even chuckling and saying "you can't rape your wife."
- My God, What Have I Done?: Jenny delivers a victim statement at the sentencing hearing of a man who was convicted for downloading her images; afterwards, the man tearfully apologizes to her in open court, and later sends her $20,000 in restitution.
- Please, I Will Do Anything!: During interrogation Amaro slightly raises his voice at Jenny (he's justifiably angry at her for abandoning her child for days but he doesn't do or say anything out of line) and she gets scared and quickly promises she'll do anything he wants. Such overreaction leads the detectives to think she must have been abused to the point where she's afraid of all men.
- Red Herring: When Jenny tells the detectives that she refuses to leave her daughter Maddie alone around her husband Gary, they immediately assume that Gary is abusing Maddie. He isn't, but the investigation into that ends up revealing that he is abusing Jenny.
- Revisiting the Cold Case: Inadvertently. The FBI was never able to identify Lacy, referring to her as Lacy Unknown. O’ Connell exclaimed that there was doubt that she’d be found at all and he was surprised she was still alive given the level of abuse she had suffered.
- Take a Third Option: Caught between Jenny having no restitution from the men who watched her Lacey Unknown videos, and the daunting tasks of taking each and every one to court, Barba realizes that the law actually technically holds each man liable for all the damages, and therefore he can force a wealthy CEO (who has more than enough net worth to cover the seven-figure sum) to give Jenny the full amount that she is owed, using the man's upcoming sentencing as leverage. Said CEO can either take the hit or chase down the other pedophiles to recover each of their share; either way, it's his problem now.
- Tranquil Fury: After hearing the details of what Jenny went through at the hands of her stepfather, Barba is clearly struggling to hold back his rage when he asks where the man is now. His response to hearing that the man is dead is, "I hope he suffered."
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: According to Jenny's mother, Jenny tried to unzip a mall Santa's pants when she was seven. The detectives clearly recognize the scenario as a red flag that a child has been sexually abused, but Jenny's mother just took it as more proof that Jenny was "trouble".
- Useless Bystander Parent: Jenny's mother turned a blind eye to what her husband was doing to Jenny, unless it was to blame Jenny herself for it.
