Written By Jose Molina
Directed by Alex Zakrzewski
When a student is found raped and murdered and evidence reveals a forensics expert committed the act, SVU's investigation focuses on a criminology professor that Cragen had arrested decades earlier for similar crimes and who had been romantically involved with the deceased. However, evidence soon exonerates him and SVU is left scrambling to find a new suspect.
Tropes
- Backstab Backfire: Javier Vega had a gun to the head of Kyle Luhrman, intending to kill him, but was eventually convinced to spare his life and let the police take Kyle into custody for a crime he committed. As Javier walks away, Kyle picks up the discarded gun and attempts to shoot Javier in the backâonly to be gunned down by a police sniper.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: The killer wraps police tape around the dump site. Civilians assume its real and avoid the area, and local patrol cops assume its an active crime scene and don't investigate or question it. A local vendor finally complains about how its costing him business, and he has never seen a cop at it. The patrol officer radios it in, and dispatch has no idea what he's talking about. Only then do the police investigate it, by which point any evidence on Rebecca is long gone or tainted.
- Cassandra Truth: Vega tells the cops right away that someone is framing him but they don't bother to follow up because Cragen has a bad history with him.
- Contrived Coincidence: Kyle intended to frame Vega for Rebecca's murder. He couldn't have known that the case would end up being investigated by the cop who arrested Vega for the murder of Joanna Lewis.
- Crazy-Prepared: Kyle Luhrman is skilled in forensics enough to muddy finding DNA evidence in Rebecca Wheeler. He clips her nails cause she scratched him, used a turkey baster with alcohol to wipe away any sperm, and cordoned off her dump site with police tape, leaving her unfound for days. Even when they find the car he drove, he wiped down all his prints... except from the nail clippers.
- He uses the brand of condoms Vega uses even though he's planning to take the condom with him when he goes, just in case the condom breaks and some of it is left in the victim.
- Entitled to Have You: Kyle was in love with Rebecca. She was engaged to Vega, so Kyle killed her and framed him.
- The Farmer and the Viper:
- Cragen arrested Vega for theft when he was a teenage drug addict. Vega was facing prison time, but expressed a desire to get clean so Cragen recommended leniency. Vega then went out and murdered a woman.
- After Cragen did everything he could to get Vega out of jail as quickly as possible, Vega filed a Frivolous Lawsuit against him. Then he went out and kidnapped Kyle to perform a Vigilante Execution.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: Vega files one against Cragen, knowing full well that Cragen was following evidence planted by someone who gained his expertise in criminology from Vega's classes.
- It's All My Fault: Cragen takes responsibility for Kyle having framed Vega.
- The Killer Was Left-Handed: Warner determines Rebecca was strangled by a left-handed killer, which Javier Vega is.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: After Vega's daughter files a lawsuit against Cragen, which should preclude any further involvement in her father's situation, as he lampshades, she nevertheless comes to him for help finding her father later on.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- The cops bully Rudy so hard during their first interview of him that when they need to speak to him again, he goes into hiding and they don't find him until after they have convicted the wrong guy.
- Cragen lets slip to Vega the information he needs to figure out who Rebecca's killer is, inducing Vega to kidnap him.
- Never My Fault:
- The whole team, with the laudable exception of Cragen, bends over backwards to rationalize away their responsibility for the false conviction.
- Vega blames Cragen for arresting him for Rebecca's murder without ever acknowledging that he looked guilty because he was expertly framed, by someone who learned all about criminology from him, or that he looked guilty because he did once murder a woman, or that he was in an inappropriate relationship with a student, which he knew was inappropriate which is why he had to keep it a secret and therefore there was no evidence of the relationship for the police to find.
- The Nose Knows: Olivia smells the perfume in Javier Vega's car as having lilies and roses, which she says no woman under 60 would wear, while Gabrielle has sandalwood and bergamot.
- Red Herring: Rudy Lemke is this, being a crackhead who was last seen at Rebecca's apartment before she died. Javier Vega is also this as the killer.
- Reformed, but Rejected: Elliot believes in "once a criminal always a criminal," especially with Javier Vega.
- Snarking Thanks: Captain Cragen meets Javier Vega, a professor who it turns out he previously arrested for a serious crime when he was still a detective, and immediately suspects him of murdering the victim (who was in a relationship with him). Long story short, he ends up arresting him and destroying his career before realizing he's innocent. He apologizes and assures him he'll capture the real killer, earning a very bitter "My hero".
- Vigilante Execution: Vega intended to do this, but was talked out of it.
