History Recap / LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnitS14E5ManhattanVigil

* DaylightHorror: Wyatt Morris was kidnapped during daytime.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Lewis Hodda seems detached, agitated, and has unusual speech patterns. Dr. Huang describes him as "scarred" from an abusive childhood, claiming that the abuse made him highly suggestible when threatened violence, but Huang never puts a name to whatever condition the guy might have.

* BilingualBonus: Mrs. Rodriguez cries out "¡Pendejos!" in her anguish. This means asshole, idiot, or fuckers in Spanish.

* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Lomatin is clearly off his rocker, but it turns out that he actually had picked up on something.

* AdultFear: Kidnapping and your child's UncertainDoom is the driving theme of the episode.

The kidnapping of a young boy from a a street corner reminds Benson and Cragen of a similar, unsolved abduction that occurred in the same neighborhood 13 years earlier.

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In [[TheNineties 1999]], Delores Rodriguez (Creator/LizaColonZayas) puts up posters for her missing son, Hector. The following year, Dolores prays for her son by his wall, while David (Creator/HamishLinklater) and Laurie Morris (Creator/MiliAvital), pass by with their newborn. In the present day, a newly divorced David collects his son Wyatt (Creator/LukeFava) on the way to a baseball game. While they are in the subway, a man in a red baseball cap points out that David has dropped a $20 bill and when David picks it up, the man grabs Wyatt and takes him onto the train. After the train leaves, David goes up to the street to call 911. Detectives Olivia Benson (Creator/MariskaHargitay) and Nick Amaro (Creator/DannyPino) arrive on scene and Benson recognizes the neighborhood and remembers Hector Rodriguez's disappearance. After receiving conflicting eyewitness statements, the detectives initially suspect Laurie or David, as they are in a custody battle. David later reveals that he and Wyatt went to a café, and the waitress (Creator/MadisonMcKinley) remembers seeing a man that matches the suspect.

Detectives Amanda Rollins (Creator/KelliGiddish), Fin Tutuola (Music/IceT) and JustForFun/JohnMunch (Creator/RichardBelzer) question a shopkeeper (Creator/RamseyFaragallah) who saw Wyatt with a man in a red baseball cap. The man bought hair dye and Munch recognizes the M.O. is the same as Hector's kidnapper. The detectives start to believe that Wyatt and Hector's cases are linked. Benson and Amaro speak with Hector's mother and learn that she received a letter from police officer Steve Lomatin (Creator/AlexKarpovsky), who found Hector's lunchbox. When Lomatin later finds Wyatt's baseball cap, he is brought in for questioning. Lomatin shows Rollins and Fin his archive, explaining that there is a connection between the disappearance of young boys and fires in their neighborhood shortly after. Lomatin believes that the kidnapper is placing the bodies of the boys in old buildings and then setting them on fire to hide the evidence.

Rollins finds that there were no fires after Hector disappeared, but a nearby building had its basement floor concreted after a flood. Captain Donald Cragen (Creator/DannFlorek) gives the order to dig up the floor and Hector's body is found. Upon learning that his father owns the building that Hector's body was found in, David helps the detectives locate the building manager, Lewis Hoda (Creator/TomSizemore), who he is in a dispute with. The detectives bring Lewis in for questioning. He admits to setting the building fires and Amaro eventually gets him to confess to kidnapping Wyatt. Benson retrieves Wyatt from a warehouse and he is reunited with his parents. Benson later comforts Delores at Hector's wall mural.

* BittersweetEnding: Turns out Hector Rodriguez is really DeadAllAlong, but [[FinallyFoundTheBody his remains are finally found]] and his murderer is put to justice. The latest victim, Wyatt Morris, is also spared the same fate and his parents [[MaybeEverAfter are heavily hinted to reconcile]] because of the ordeal.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* OlderThanTheyLook: Lomatin barely aged in since 1999. It doesn't helped that unlike Olivia and Munch, the footage showing him in that year isn't StockFootage.

* UncertainDoom: Hector Rodriguez was missing since 1999 and both his mother and SVU are unsure of his status (though the latter team expected the worse). Unfortunately he really is DeadAllAlong.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Mrs. Rodriguez cries out "¡Pendejos!" in her anguish. ([[BilingualBonus That means "fuckers".]])

* CastingGag: Due to being the show's MilestoneCelebration, the episode brought back as many actors from [[Recap/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnitS1E1Payback the pilot episode]] as possible, namely; Creator/MiliAvital, Creator/GordanaRashovich, and Creator/RamseyFaragallah.

* ActorAllusion: Amaro takes a visit to the Series/ColdCase unit.

* MilestoneCelebration: The series' 300th episode.

* TimePassesMontage: The episode starts with the disappearance of Hector Rodriguez in 1999, showing Morningside Heights and a mural dedicated to him changing over the years.

* StringTheory: Steve Lomatin has a wall of evidence trying to solve not just Hector's kidnapping but Wyatt's as well.