Recap / Law & Order: Special Victims Unit S4 E6 "Angels"

Written By Robert F Campbell and Jonathan Greene

Directed By Arthur W. Forney

A boy is found dead hiding in a bus that started from Manhattan and a second, older boy is caught trying to escape. The two boys are from Central America and they were in the custody of Bret Jansen, a member of a Wall Street law firm who is found slaughtered in his bed. Questioning of the surviving boy and discovery of a videotape of Jansen and another male molesting similar boys leads to a ring of wealthy pedophiles using a travel agency to smuggle in boys. Will Arnett guest stars.

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Tropes:

• Asshole Victim:
  • Bret Jansen was definitely this. After his private life is exposed, it is hard to feel bad for him. (For once, this is decidedly not paired with a Sympathetic Murderer — the killer is just as much a scumbag as the victim.)
    Stabler: Let's be honest. Killing Jansen was a public service.
  • Tony Damon was trafficking children for sex. Which doesn't make Stabler beating a confession out of him any less of a crime.
• Dating Catwoman: Downplayed, but Alex Cabot is shown having dinner with defense attorney Trevor Langan. Olivia jokingly comments that she's "dining with the enemy".
• Even Evil Has Standards: A rather sick example with Dr. Walt Massey. While the guy is a pedophile who married a battered mother so he could engage in a sexual relationship with one of her underage sons, he killed Jansen because he was incensed by the latter's treatment of Ernesto and Jose in other respects; he thought Jansen should "love" them like Massey "loved" his stepson.
• Everybody Did It: Pretty much everyone in Jensen's social circle that SVU interviews was involved in Jensen's pedophilia and human trafficking ring.
• Foreshadowing: When the detectives first talk to Walt, he admits to having performed dental work on Jansen's "sons". However, when speaking to Jansen's secretary, she believes Jansen had no children, and therefore no knowledge of the boys. It turns out Jansen only spoke of his boys with other pedophiles in his inner circle, which leads the detectives to realize Walt is one of them (and Jansen's killer).
• Gory Discretion Shot: When the team searches Jansen's loft, it initially seems that he's nowhere to be found...and then his body is discovered in the master bedroom, the detectives observing that not only was his throat slit, but the killer also sliced off Jansen's testicles. However, while some obvious blood splatter is visible on the deceased's body and his bed, that's the extent of his injuries as seen by viewers.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Stabler beats up Tony Damon in the interrogation room. No qualifiers, no discussion of consequences, he just does it.
  Damon: I need a doctor!
  Stabler: You're gonna need a morgue, pal!
• Laser-Guided Karma: Pointed all around at the dozens of dirty pedophiles who are caught. Oh, and Tony Damon will face federal charges for using his Travel Agency to sell children, while Walt is off to death row for sexually abusing one of his stepsons and killing Jansen.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently, the Queens SVU squad was given a case involving a dead hooker by the Manhattan SVU squad, which is why the Queens detective is more than happy to return the favor with the dead kid on the bus by handing the case to Stabler.
• Pride Before a Fall: Tony Damon is a slick, Smug Snake who uses his travel agency business to arrange sex tours for wealthy pedophiles. After he's caught and interrogated (along with some roughing up from Stabler), Damon reveals himself to be a sniveling coward.
• Sex Tourism: Tony Damon abuses his position as a travel agent to arrange for child predators to be able to rape children in foreign countries.
• Slimeball:
  • Tony is a sleazy travel agent who facilitates child predation in the US and in foreign developing countries.
  • Tony's client Dr. Stewart Lynch also qualifies; while known in the medical community as a surgeon who specializes in hand repair and operates on disfigured children in Third World countries, he also treats the young boys who have been repeatedly sexually abused by his pedophile pals, as well as keeping three young foreign boys as his "sons" and abusing them himself.
• Smug Snake: Tony is an arrogant travel agent who abuses his position to enable child predation domestically and abroad.