Written By Ed Zuckerman
Directed By Alex Chapple
Captain Cragen returns to help his detectives expose a sex trafficking operation with possible terrorist connections. When the investigation is halted by Eames, the detectives must get creative and soon discover that one of the trafficked girls may not actually be a victim...
Tropes
- Ambiguous Situation: Goren's current status is left vague, with Eames only mentioning that he "moved on".
- And Starring: The guest stars lineup ends with "And Kathryn Erbe as Alexandra Eames".
- Auto Erotica: The MO of the prostitution ring is hire a cab driver and have the hookers do their thing with the customers backseat.
- Birds of a Feather: The final scene has Benson and Eames bonding over the fact that their longtime male partners moved on with their lives and left them behind.
- The Bus Came Back: This is Alexandra Eames' first appearance since the conclusion of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
- Call-Back: During Benson and Eames' interrogation of Sophia, Eames takes a page out of her old partner Robert Goren's playbook by leaning sideways to keep eye contact with her.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: The married business man is doing Pilar when the car accident happens. Later on, Mikey is arrested while bathing.
- Crossover: Played With. Eames' appearance essentially makes this episode one with Law & Order: Criminal Intent since Eames was a main character there. However, the show concluded a year-and-a-half before the episode.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: After Olivia realizes Sofia is missing, it quickly becomes apparent that something about her doesn't add up. Then it starts to dawn on them.Cragen: (looking through the traffickers' logs) There's no Sofia in here. She didn't book any dates.
Rollins: She had at least one. She was with a john that night.
Cragen: It's not in the book.
Fin: She and the John weren't having sex. They were just talking.
Amaro: What language?
Fin: Something foreign. I couldn't hear.
Amaro: Anna said Sofia had her own room in the house. And she's new.
(Beat)
Olivia: The intercepted communications about the terrorism — did they say it was a he? - Fat Idiot: Mikey is described by the other characters as not very bright. His father's frustrated tone when speaking to him more or less confirms this.
- Freudian Excuse: The terrorist Sofia explains the reason she's looking for vengeance on the U.S. is that her father was an innocent doctor who was trying to treat the victims of a drone attack when a second drone came back and he was killed in the explosion.
- He's Back!: Cragen finally returns to duty.
- Idiot Ball: Good god, Homeland Security. They're looking for a terrorist coming into the country using a visa from the same supplier used by the human trafficking ring SVU is trying to shut down, and yet it doesn't occur to a single one of them to at least rule out the possibility that the trafficking ring is connected to/being used as a cover for the terrorists, let alone the possibility that one of these "trafficked girls" might actually be their target. Indeed they seem to have no clue that their terrorist is female even though they are tracking her through her papers which would indicate her sex. Even after they learn that they missed their target, they immediately come to the conclusion that the SVU investigation tipped them off, even though the news would have had to travel improbably quickly in order to give the terrorist a chance to catch wind of it and change "his" plans in time. It's the SVU team who finally put it together; Homeland Security has to be read in by them.
- Kicked Upstairs: Eames is promoted to Lieutenant a year after the Grand Finale of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
- Modesty Towel: Since Mikey is arrested naked, he was handed a towel to cover himself.
- Samus Is a Girl: Everyone assumes that the terrorist they are looking for is a man. It occurs to them almost too late that he is really a she.
- Scannable Man: All the girls in Mikey and Lou's operation have barcode tattoos on their neck to show they're owned by them, although they're likely symbolic rather than actually functional.
- True Final Boss: Sofia is revealed to be part of the terrorist group Eames is after not long after the father and son tandem of Lou and Mikey are dealt with.
- A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Sofia is a terrorist masquerading as a trafficked girl.
- You Killed My Father: Sofia blames the United States government for having killed her father during the war on terror.
