Written By Lisa Marie Petersen and Dawn De Noon
Directed By Michael Fields
Russell Ramsay, a man with a prior statutory rape conviction is accused of having raped Siobhan Miller at a hotel opening, a case that John Munch (Richard Belzer) takes very seriously after meeting the accused's girlfriend. However, upon digging more deeply into the case, Munch learns that the victim's brother, Beau, is actually a con artist.
"Taken" provides examples of:
- Acquitted Too Late: The episode starts off with Siobhan stumbling out of an elevator during a hotel opening. The staff shuttles her off to the side, and Russell Ramsay (who is on the sex offender registry as a pedophile for having otherwise consensual sex with his girlfriend who was below the age of consent at the time) is later arrested. Turns out it's a scam to get money from the hotel, the supposedly under-age "victim" was in her 20s rather than her teens, the sex was consensual, and the "suspect" was a patsy set up by Siobhan and her family. Unfortunately, by the time anyone remembers that they have an innocent man in jail, Russell had already been killed in prison (pedophiles being very unpopular in prison populations). Fortunately, that made Siobhan and her accomplices legally culpable for murder.
- False Rape Accusation: Concocted by the whole family, as it turns out.
- The Family That Slays Together: The Millers, although they didn't intend for Ramsay to be killed (they still put him in an extremely dangerous and violent situation). Brother, sister, and sister-in-law are all Con Artists, and we even learn that the siblings' off-screen parents are ones, too.
- Gender-Blender Name: In order to get a job at the hotel, Kyle takes on the identity of some Terry Wilde, a hotel clerk with a good resume. It turns out the real Terry is a woman.
- Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Essentially the Miller family's plot.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Siobhan's monotonous, remorseless delivery of her confession that she set Russell up purposefully and intentionally is exactly how Alex and Munch take her down, mere moments later, once she gets off the stand and they reveal that Ramsay actually died due to her accusation, and so she's on the hook for manslaughter, too.
- Justice by Other Legal Means: Siobhan manages to make an extremely generous plea deal for probation if she tells them everything about the scam. However, this very confession is what allows her to be thrown in prison for a much harsher crime she at least didn't intend (though totally caused): the manslaughter of Russell Ramsay, after confessing that she and her family deliberately targeted him.
- Killed Offscreen:
- Serena Benson, Olivia's mother, dies after an alcohol induced fall. This isn't shown on screen, but Captain Donald Cragen informs Benson about her mother's death.
- Happens to Russell Ramsay while in prison as a result of Prison Rape.
- More Deadly Than the Male: It's Siobhan's sister-in-law who beats the hell out of her and makes it look like Ramsay did it, but it's Siobhan herself who concocted and motivated the whole plan.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If Siobhan hadn't been so keen to take the deal and tell everyone exactly how they planned the con, she would've gone to prison for her con artistry, but not for manslaughter, which Alex ends up getting her on.
- Prison Rape:
- Ramsay is on the receiving end of it, which ultimately leads to his death.
- Beau Miller is threatened with this at the end.
- Roguish Romani: The family of con artists have all the earmarks of Irish Travellers, but are never referred to as such in the episode.
- Skewed Priorities: At the end of the episode, the team feels victorious due the fact that they got Siobhan and her family, not at all concerned over the fact that an innocent man had died because of their actions. The only one who feels bad about it is Munch, who takes the time to talk to Ramsey's girlfriend.
- Sudden Downer Ending: The con artist family is exposed, they don't get their money, and they're going to prison (although Siobhan is getting an unjustifiably light sentence due to being the first to flip). Then Munch learns that Ramsay has died from being raped and brutally beaten, rather than being reunited with his loving girlfriend. About the only silver lining is that Siobhan now faces the prison time she deserves, but it seems like small comfort in comparison to everything else that's gone wrong.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Siobhan. First with her rape story. Then, when the family has been caught, she immediately starts whimpering that her brother forced her into it.
