Recap pages are Spoilers Off per policy and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned
Written By Robert F Campbell and Jonathan Greene
Directed By Steve Shill
An engagement party ends in quadruple homicide, leading detectives to search for a serial killer with an axe to grind against NYC's wealthy citizens.
Tropes
- Abusive Offspring: As if it wasn't bad enough that he raped his younger brother, Charlie is shown to be abusive and violent to his father, beating him up and generally terrorizing him.
- Character Focus: The episode revolves around Fin and Detective Dave Deuthorn (who is temporarily reassigned to SVU from homicide) being the main investigators.
- The Bus Came Back: Detective Deuthorn returns in this episode; again being the first respondent to a rape/homicide and getting the SVU squad involved.
- Depraved Bisexual: Charlie Baker. Depraved doesn't even begin to cover it!
- Domestic Abuse: It eventually comes out that Charlie has been smacking his father around for a while. And raped his brother.
- Evil Is Petty: Even when Charlie is caught and is bound to be executed, he keeps refusing to tell detectives where he hid the women he kidnapped purely out of spite. His motives for his crimes are also because he resents the wealth of his victims.
- Extreme Doormat: Billy does everything his brother tells him to do, no matter how terrible.
- Hate Sink: Charlie is the worst one. He is a callous, a sadist, a sociopath and a selfish sick man who has no remorse for forcing his victims to rape each other and murder them. He is willing to frame his brother Billy and takes advantage of his meek personality. He makes his brother think he can't do anything without him, making it easy for him to manipulate Billy in committing these evil deeds.
- Lifesaving Misfortune: Two of the guests at the ill-fated dinner party survive simply because they were late.
- Manipulative Bastard: Charlie has had his family wrapped around his finger for years, convinced his brother to commit mass murder, and planned to frame him alone for the crimes.
- Out of Focus: Although this episode shows the entire squad's efforts of finding the killer, much of the episode focuses on Fin and Deuthorn as the main detectives.
- Perilous Marriage Proposal: Charlie's first shown victims were all at an engagement party together, where he forced the guests to rape each other and then massacred them.
- Rape by Proxy: Charlie forces his victims to rape each other. Even the SVU Detectives are taken aback.
- Spree Killer: Charlie kills or has Billy kill 10 people within a week.
- Useless Bystander Parent: Played with. Charlie and Billy's father clearly thinks he is this as he didn't intervene when Charlie raped Billy, but Charlie is such a domineering psychopath that it's still very possible to understand him.
- Villainous Incest: Charlie raped his younger brother, Billy, probably more than once.
