Written By Todd Robinson
Directed By Jud Taylor
A male escort service is investigated when the beating of one of the younger escorts casts shadows on whether their female boss has hidden motives for purposefully sending them out to dangerous clients.
Tropes
- Annoying Background Event: The SVU office is undergoing asbestos testing and some construction. Benson's desk goes missing, Fin is so afraid of asbestos that he wears a mask, and the whole squad is forced to move to a different section of the building...a cramped one. Whenever they have a briefing, the background is filled with sounds of hammers and wooden boards being moved around.
- Convenient Photograph: The detectives figure out that Darlene Sutton is the right person because her husband has a photograph of her on his desk.
- Dead Sparks: The Marshalls are clearly only staying married for appearances. They have no affection for each other and know each other's indiscretions.
- Gallows Humor: The banter between Benson & Stabler while surveying the room that has... fluids illuminated by blacklight.
- Munch and Fin's discussion about what is more likely to kill Fin than asbestos.
- Hidden Wire: Goes horrifyingly wrong when Tommy Dowd, a male escort and victim, agrees to wear a wire to get a confession out of Leslie DeSantis, his madam/the perp. She's making dinner while they talk, and when she discovers the wire she flies into a rage. The detectives, listening in, suddenly hear him
screaming in agony and barge in to discover she'd thrown a huge pot of boiling pasta water all over him. - The Horseshoe Effect: Stabler admonishes the madam Leslie DeSantis that for all her pretense of high class, she isn’t any different from a street pimp who beats his “girls”.
- Mr. Fanservice: Tommy Dowd in the cold open is shirtless. Somewhat offset by the fact that he was bleeding from a blow to the head.
- Narcissist: Darlene Sutton genuinely believes that every man wants to "ravage" her. It goes so far as to thinking that Stabler wants to "protect" her, and to also think that if she goes to prison everyone there will want her.
- Rescue Romance: The Suttons' MO. Darlene hires male escorts to have sex with her and then Gary comes in to "rescue" her from the "rapist", beat up the male escort, and have Rescue Sex while the escort is on the floor, bleeding.
- Sex in a Shared Room: Darlene has sex with the male escorts, while Gary masturbates in the closet watching...and then comes in, beats the hell out of the escort, and they have sex while the escort watches.
