Written By Dawn De Noon
Directed By Peter Leto
A man calls the police after finding a dead woman in his bed after a night of heavy drinking. During the trial, secrets of ADA Paxton's past and private life get revealed.
Tropes
- Abhorrent Admirer: A downplayed example, but when Stabler and Benson meet Paxton at the bar she seems to begin hitting on Stabler. In response he looks uncomfortable and quickly excuses himself.
- Break the Haughty: Paxton undergoes this throughout the episode.
- Bludgeoned to Death: The Victim of the Week is killed with a sledgehammer to the skull.
- Chekhov's Gun: Paxton orders the production of a lurid, realistic video reconstruction of the crime with Dalton's face on it and smirks to Dalton that she can't use it in court, she only produced it for his benefit. Naturally she accidentally shows it at trial, causing the mistrial that lets Dalton go free.
- Curse Cut Short: When the squad talk about Paxton's meltdown at court, Stabler says, "That woman was a walking clusterf—", but stops himself when he sees Paxton herself entering the room.
- Deadpan Snarker: Dalton gets off a nice one, outsnarking resident snark master Detective Munch.Munch: Let's play a little free association. You say the first thing that pops into your head: Roe v. Wade.
Dalton: Two ways to get across a creek. - Double-Meaning Title: The victim is killed via hammer to skull, and Dalton, her alleged murderer, can't remember a thing because he got drunk—aka "hammered"—the previous night and alcohol is affecting his memory. Paxton then shows up to court hammered.
- Downer Ending: Paxton's alcoholism comes to a head during Dalton's trial, and the resulting fallout leaves Dalton with double jeopardy against the charges. Paxton herself tearfully apologizes to the SVU detectives before departing for court-ordered rehab. Dalton walks away with no criminal record but now has to live with the fact that he murdered someone he didn't know and that he will never be able to remember why, not to mention that the court of public opinion is unlikely to ever let him live it down.
- Easy Amnesia: Subverted; everyone is quick to believe this of Dalton, but his amnesia is medically justified by his being in an alcoholic blackout. The memory of his attack on the victim simply never formed, and never will.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Sonya's downfall wouldn't have happened had she not commissioned a version of the crime reconstruction video with Dalton's face on it, a video that was never admissible in court and that she only made to punish Dalton.
- Hypocrite: Sonya Paxton. In the episode, she tries a man who claims to not have any knowledge of a murder he committed due to an alcoholic blackout, arguing that his blackout doesn't excuse him because, as she says, "alcoholism is not a disease". It later becomes clear that she's got a drinking problem herself, eventually arriving to court while drunk and getting her reputation ruined when she failed a breathalyzer test in court. Sadly Truth in Television for a lot of people dealing with alcoholism.
- It's All About Me: Benson lampshades Dalton's Protagonist-Centered Morality at the end of the episode in one last attempt to make him confess.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Dalton at the end; witnessing Paxton's fall made him realize that he had committed the murder he was accused of, but because he was in an alcoholic blackout, he will never be able to remember what exactly happened. Although he gets out of criminal charges, he now has to live the rest of his life knowing that he brutally murdered someone and never having any idea why.
- Similarly, Paxton regrets how her alcoholism ruined her professionalism and derailed her prosecution of Dalton.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Paxton's actions lead to a mistrial for the defendant, and because prosecutorial misconduct was involved, double jeopardy attaches, meaning he can never be re-tried.
- Off on a Technicality: Because Paxton's actions at Dalton's trial amount to prosecutorial misconduct, Dalton gets not just a mistrial but double jeopardy. Benson outright calls him "the luckiest man alive".
- Villain Has a Point: Paxton, much as she makes herself unlikeable, is right that Dalton always shirks responsibility for his actions, claiming his business partner "practically forced" down his throat the first drink that caused him to go on a bender (when he knew that even one drink would render him unsafe to the public). He also claims that he "took responsibility" for the first woman he sexually assaulted, by which he means he bought her silence.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Dalton thinks he's starring in a remake of The Fugitive, and if he evades arrest long enough he'll be able to uncover the fiendish conspiracy framing him and go free. But it's not that kind of plot.
- You Are What You Hate: Paxton is merciless towards Dalton for being an alcoholic and using that as an excuse for committing murder. Then it turns out that Paxton herself is an alcoholic, which causes her to screw up the case.
