Written By Eva Nagorski
Directed By Rick Rosenthal
A tight knit group of Russian immigrants impede Stabler and Benson's investigation into the case of the murder of multimillionaire Andrew Hardin.
Tropes
- Ass Shove: The victim was sodomized.....with an actual banana...
- Break Them by Talking: Olivia finally convinces Katya to help them after giving her a scathing speech about how she acts like nothing more than "a sex machine with a cash register between her legs." That hits a nerve and Olivia keeps on going until Katya agrees to meet with Alex to get him to confess to the murders.
- Brutal Honesty: The detectives are convinced Andrew's wife had nothing to do with his death because she's practically doing a happy dance he's dead and doing nothing to hide her glee. A grieving widow the woman is not.
- Bondage Is Bad: When Andrew Harlin's body was found, he was in full-on S & M gear. His wife and a number of people also describe him as having sex with anything that moves, whether men or women.
- Closet Key: Andrew pretends one of his many conquests is this for him in order to get him into bed. He is not happy when he learns the truth.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Alexander is this for Katya. He believes he owns her since he was the one to bring her over from Russia and is enraged when she rejects him, preferring to do sex work to get by.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Sonya Pietrovicz and several other characters are depicted as such.
- Driven to Suicide: When it's clear he's going to prison, Alexander plays Russian Roulette with the gun he has until he finally shoots himself in the chest.
- Extreme Omnisexual: Andrew's wife describes his sexuality as such.
- 555: Katya Ivanova's phone number is 555-0100.
- High-Class Call Girl: Katya and Sonya are ones and the concept as it's used in regards to Russian call girls is explored quite a bit in the episode.
- Hookers and Blow: The world of Russian call girls and the men they work for comes off as this, especially in the summary of what's been going on so far that Cragen gives.
- Gold Digger: Katya is this for Andrew, a situation both of them are aware of and alright with at first.
- Love Father, Love Son: One of Andrew's son's girlfriends ended up sleeping with Andrew as well. She's not creeped out about it at all.
- Never One Murder: Andrew's murder is only the start as Strizhov tries to silence anyone who may know about what he did.
- Not What It Looks Like: Katya and Sonya tied up Andrew and shoved a banana up his behind to punish him for rejecting Katya. This leads the police to think they killed him as well but Katya vehemently denies this, saying they left him like that. It turns out Alexander took the opportunity to strangle him in a jealous rage.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Strizhov deliberately acts like an idiot, deliberately telling the police he killed Andrew but saying he shot him rather than killed him. Because of this, the detectives initially believe he's not telling the truth. But he is a lot more on the ball than he appears.
- Sonya's cousin is this as well, pretending not to be able to speak or understand English until he gets drunk and then speaks in perfect English as he reveals information to the police.
- Omniglot: In addition to English and Yiddish, Munch is shown to speak some semi-fluent Russian in this episode.
- The Oner: The last shot of the episode is the camera remaining static as it follows Stabler and Benson slowly walking away down the boulevard.
- Plot Allergy: Andrew was allergic to bananas, making it clear whoever killed him knew him on a personal level.
- Proud Beauty: Katya is this.
- Quip to Black: Cassidy and Munch find Sonya and her aunt butchered with a hatchet. Que Cassidy saying, "I'll go tell babushka to stop cleaning", referring to an old woman they'd seen scrubbing the stairs moments before. Cue fade to commerical.
- Really Gets Around: It takes the detectives a while to interview all of Andrew's many sexual partners, men and women both.
- Russian Roulette: Alexander Strizhov gets three clicks before the bang.
- She Knows Too Much: Sonya is going to confess everything to the police, so Alexander murders her to keep her from talking.
- Shout-Out: Olivia compares Katya to being more like Tammy Bakker
than the modern-day Cleopatra most people describe her as. - Sinister Suffocation: Alex strangles Andrew with the rope left around his neck.
- Stage Name: One of Andrew's many conquests is a young model trying to break into porn who has the perfect stage name of Bull Dozer.
- Tempting Fate: After successfully surviving three clicks of Russian Roulette, Strizhov says"Nothing hurts me, not even this gun. See how lucky I am?" (BANG!)
- Title Drop: The "Russian Love Poem" is Strizhov's Motive Rant.
- You Need to Get Laid: Katya insults Olivia by telling her she should have more sex so she won't be such a mean bitch. Olivia brushes it off.
