Written By Bryan Goluboff
Directed By Alex Chapple
The murder of a young woman in Brighton Beach leads the team to a thriving mail-order-bride business, and hopes to hunt down culprit. Meanwhile, the other half of SVU exposes a blackmail scam run by the Russian Mafia. When the two cases are revealed to be related, Cragen goes undercover to bust the ring wide open but may have bit off more than he could chew...
Tropes
- A Day in the Limelight: Captain Cragen goes undercover and reveals some Hidden Depths.
- Bald of Evil: Liev Bodrov doesn't have a hair on his head and is a ruthless mob boss.
- Becoming the Mask: Lena did in fact have a 4 year old daughter who was abducted and killed. Liev took down the killers and Lena became indebted to him ever since, eventually growing to enjoy his schemes.
- Big "NO!": Lena lets one out when Liev is shot dead by SVU. She screams that it's because she will never find her daughter now that he's dead but after The Reveal, it's more likely she was mourning him or just screaming for dramatic effect.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Lena was this the whole time playing SVU and her own group like a fiddle.
- The Butcher: Liev Bodrov has this as a title in the Bratva.
- Death of a Child: Lena's daughter Anna has long been dead. This makes it easier for Lena to fool SVU into thinking her daughter is being held captive by Liev.
- Disposing of a Body: The episode's victim has her face sanded off, her teeth pulled and her fingertips clipped off. It turns out that this is because they're passing a random girl off as Lena, who they want to keep alive in order to continue using her in their scheme. It's later revealed they've done this to multiple girls who they passed off as Lena.
- Femme Fatale: Lena reveals herself to be one when she steals a gun from an officer and shoots him dead. Her multiple smirks as SVU arrests her says it all.
- Foreshadowing: When Fin and Nick tease Cragen about his undercover date with Lena, he says he knows what to do and that it's always best to stick as closely to the truth as possible. This comes back later in the episode twice - 1) Lena lying about her daughter Anna being held captive and showing SVU her photo. 2) Cragen telling Lena he never had children because his wife miscarried and then they tried adopting but it didn't work out.
- Hidden Depths: Cragen tells Lena that he's a widower whose wife Marge died a long time ago. They had a miscarriage and tried adopting but it never worked out, because he was too busy with work. Olivia's expression while hearing this on the wire implies that this is all true, and Cragen confirms it in his comment to her at the end of the episode.
- I Have Your Wife: Daniel Carter was told the Bratva had his wife Lena and paid for a $100,000 ransom, unaware she was in on the scam. On Lena's side, she claims to have been forced to play along because her daughter is held hostage by Liev Bodrov, but this turns out to be a lie.
- The Mafiya: The main antagonists in this episode involve the Bratva.
- Mail-Order Bride: Lena was one of these to Daniel Carter before her (faked) death.
- Prison Rape: Fin threatens the guy who hosts yourczarina . com's server with this.
