Written by Wendy West
Directed By Jean De Segonzac
An accused child molester may get found not guilty when the primary witness, one of his former victims, must confront his past to testify but can't bring himself to do so.
Tropes
- Amoral Attorney: Holt's lawyer tries to gain access to Holt's house before the police can obtain a search warrant to remove evidence of his wrongdoing. During arraignment, he tries to downplay his client's criminal liability by claiming the court is under political pressure to convict child abusers. He fails at both, with the arraignment and trial judges neither swayed nor sympathetic.
- Asshole Victim: Downplayed, but still applies. Evan was molested at least twice as a minor by Holt, but lived in denial and grew up to do the same to another child under Holt's eye. However, he's still somewhat sympathetic because he willingly accepts he committed a crime and even states at the end of the episode that the cycle will stop with him.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Stabler makes it clear Evan's trauma does not excuse him becoming a child molester himself.
- Gory Discretion Shot: When Munch, Benson and Jeffries find Holt's video room, Munch plays a video already on the player. We only hear the video, but based on their reactions, it appears to be explicit. The same goes later when the whole squad has to inventory hundreds more. We only see the beginning of the video, then the camera goes to reaction shots of the detectives as we hear the boys complain that "it hurts".
- Longer-Than-Life Sentence: The judge sentences Holt to 115 years, the maximum as allowed by law. He will be eligible for parole after 38 years; at 60, this doesn't bode well for him.
- Time-Shifted Actor: The squad goes through 13 years of piano tapes with Evan, from youth to adulthood.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Larry Holt is loved by the community who believe he's a kind-hearted man who teaches music. The SVU wonder if the community secretly knew and just turned a blind eye.
