Written By Allison Intrieri
Directed By James Hayman
Two teens go missing while their school is on a field trip to a local museum. However, the investigation soon reveals that the disappearance was staged to help 17-year-old Janey, who suffers from Turner syndrome and looks to be 10 instead of 17, be with her older boyfriend, a man with a predilection for young girls and previous conviction for pedophilia, and to help the boy, Connor, make good on a gambling debt by faking a ransomed kidnapping. Janey's father and grandfather still treat her like her physical age rather than her chronological one, however her mother supports Janey's wish to be treated like the 17 year old she is. Detectives are caught in the middle as they try and track down Janey's boyfriend and return Janey to her father.
This episode also marks the first appearance of Benson's replacement as Stabler's partner, Dani Beck (Connie Nielsen)
Tropes
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Janey knows Greg had an inappropriate relationship with a former employer's underage daughter and apparently has no problem with it.
- Artistic License – Law: The attempts by the officers to convict Greg is based on this. If he had been legally convicted, it would have been a horrific human rights violation by deeming it illegal to sleep with a mentally capable woman based on her genetics or physical characteristics.
- Comically Small Demand: One of the kids' fathers receives a demand for $300 in ransom money.
- Holier Than Thou: The episode features a woman who was very young looking to the point she looked underage, and her boyfriend was a convicted pedophile. The detectives were disgusted with this relationship, feeling it was unhealthy and that his only interest in her was due to her looking like a child — however, nothing illegal was being done and her appearance aside, they were in a perfectly normal relationship.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: The kid sent to pick up the ransom tells detectives he promised to keep his mouth shut, prompting the threat of jail from Fin.Kid: Jake Taylor. 556 West 112th St. Cathedral Parkway exit off Riverside is the quickest route. I swear.
- Older Than They Look: Janey is a 17-year-old girl with the body of a 10-year-old going out with an older man. The officers try to bust Greg Hartley, but Janey was legal and consenting.
- Only Sane Man: Huang. He's the only one to point out that while an adult man being attracted to a grown woman who looks like a child might be strange and even gross, it's not illegal. Not that it makes a difference.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: One of the most blatant examples in a franchise that runs on it. The entire premise is dependent on the audience being just as squicked out by the situation as the detectives are in order to overlook that they are in essence violating the personal rights of a legally adult woman.
- Teen Pregnancy: Janey tries inducing this in hopes to avoid menopause in a few years and have a child of her own, despite being only 17.
- There Should Be a Law: The detectives try to bust Greg Hartley for dating a 17-year-old girl with the body of a 10-year-old despite her being fully mentally capable and legal. Any law that arose would be a massive human rights violation as it would mean banning people with certain genetics or physical characteristics from dating or having sex.
- Totally 18: The sex is consensual and Janey loves her boyfriend. It's just that she happens to have a medical condition that makes her look like a little girl. The detectives consider her chronological, mental and emotional maturity to be a technicality.
