Written By Michael R Perry
Directed by Constantine Makris
SVU investigates the death of a financial analyst named Layla Briggs, where it's first believed that it was caused by suicide or accidentally from autoerotic asphyxiation; however, the investigation reveals that the victim was involved in BDSM and leads SVU into the world of securities fraud & money laundering, headed by a financial mogul named Frank Martin.
Tropes
- Ambiguously Brown: Invoked in-universe. Sho's real last name is Torres, implying she's Latina, but she looks ethnically ambiguous enough to pass for Asian.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Amy ends up with a nasty facial injury that borders on an Eye Scream with how bad it is, courtesy of Martin when she won't help him evade the police.
- Blatant Lies: Tucker tries to claim he got a room with two beds in it, both for himself, so he'd have a better chance at getting a decent mattress. Benson and Stabler don't buy it for a second.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Martin has one of each working for him. Layla, the victim, is blonde. Amy, his assistant and girlfriend, is a redhead. Sho-Ling, one of his analysts and also possibly his girlfriend, is brunette.
- Bondage Is Bad: The entire episode focuses on the ethics of BDSM.
- Brains and Bondage: The main suspects are all highly intelligent Manhattan business people who happen to also like BDSM.
- Break the Haughty: Sho's arrogance breaks when the detectives reveal Frank killed her boyfriend. After that, she tells them whatever they want to know, sobbing through her tears.
- Childhood Friends: A sinister form in the case of Martin and Tucker. They've been committing heinous crimes since they were teens and are still deeply involved in helping each other make money and gain power, all the way up to helping each other cover up a murder.
- Cleanup Crew: Layla's mother is revealed to have done this. She didn't want Layla to be found in such a degrading position, hung up and dressed in her kinky latex gear. She cleans her up, including the rest of the crime scene, and dresses her in the robe the detectives find her in. Her well-meaning actions hamper the investigation since the site is now tampered.
- Disappeared Dad: Layla's mother states she thinks Layla's father dying when she was fifteen is what led her into the world of bondage.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Stabler and Elliot handle Martin with the "good cop" gloves, complete with a bit of Obfuscating Stupidity as they make themselves out to be bumbling pencil-pushers who barely know how to act as detectives.
- He Knows Too Much: The reason the head of the charity foundation (and Sho-Ling's boyfriend) is killed by Frank.
- I Was Young and Needed the Money: Sho was found by Frank in a strip club dancing in a cage covered in florescent paint to pay the bills. He gave her a chance to break into the world of finance and reinvent herself as a glamorous Wall Street analyst.
- Like Father, Unlike Son: Layla's mother is a very conservative, quiet, and chaste woman. Layla was into kinky, wild BDSM scenarios from the time she was a teenager.
- Love Dodecahedron: Layla was having sex with both Martin and Tucker and had sex with David in the past before. Amy says Martin is her boyfriend and is implied to have been sleeping with Sho-Ling as well in order to give her a leg up on their career. Sho-Ling also had a boyfriend in the form of David, who ran the charity organization Martin and Tucker were using for their embezzlement scheme.
- Never One Murder: Layla's murder is only the start, as Frank ends up having to keep killing to keep his secrets.
- Never Suicide: The detectives debate at first, due to the ambiguous way Layla was found, whether it was auto-erotica asphyxiation gone wrong, her sexual partner going too far and panicking once they realized she was dead, a suicide, or a murder.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Munch goes undercover as "John DeMunch", a powerful diamonds dealer. To do so, all he does is put on a vague somewhat European accent and have Cassidy act as his assistant.
- Playing Both Sides: The detectives go hard on Martin and Tucker in order to figure out who did what. In the end, Martin is indicted on embezzlement and David's murder while Tucker has Layla's murder pinned on him, courtesy of the two of them flipping on one another.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Martin and Tucker claim torturing girls in their youth didn't really matter because "they were just colored girls."
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Jeffries gives a short one to Tucker, dressing him down and revealing she thinks he's just a crass redneck beneath the refined Southern veneer.
- Shout-Out: Munch, king of this trope, mentions Olive North
when they find Frank has shredded all the incriminating documents in his office, leaving enough remains for the detectives to literally kick around like kids in a mud puddle. Sho-Ling snarkily tells them "James Bond" when they press her for a name. - Simple Country Lawyer: Tucker is an auditor, not a lawyer, but otherwise fits the spirit of the trope as he completely fools the detectives he had nothing to do with the crimes because he's just a simple Southern boy.
- Sinister Suffocation: Tucker started to strangle Layla consensually but wanted to see how far he could go. Ultimately
- Stage Name: Sho-Ling Fu's real name is Angela Torres. It was changed by Frank to make her sound more "exotic."
- Teens Are Monsters: Martin and Tucker used to tie girls to trees and rape them in their home state of Tennessee when they were just teenagers, laughing as they watched them scream and try to struggle free.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Layla's mother said she noticed her daughter had pierced nipples when she was naked in the shower. This wouldn't have been odd on its own but the fact she was fifteen when this incident occurred is what makes it troubling.
- Two First Names: Frank Martin and Frederick Tucker both have last names that often serve as first names. It's Foreshadowing that the two of them are connected in the crimes Martin is being accused of.
- Would Hit a Girl: Frank leaves one of his assistants with a nasty facial injury after she initially refuses to help him flee the country.
