Written by Mark Goffman
Directed by David Platt
Benson goes undercover in a women's prison after a woman (Shareeka Epps) is found raped in a garden and it's discovered that a corrections officer (Johnny Messner) is involved.
For her performance in this episode, Mariska Hargitay was nominated for a fifth consecutive time for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
This episode provides examples of:
- Amoral Attorney: Harris's union lawyer smugly sneers about how he's going to protect his client from Benson's "sleazy" undercover operation.
- Attempted Rape: Olivia almost gets raped by a corrupt prison guard but is saved by the timely intervention of Fin.Dr. Warner: Olivia, did he rape you?Benson: It's the closest I've ever come.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- The episode opens with a man with sharp tools giving a theatrical speech about wanting to get rid of some "abomination". Then cops arrive and Ashley is found raped shortly after. He's not the rapist, he's just a Cloud Cuckoolander gardener attempting to kill rats.
- During the undercover mission, the signs all point on the warden who is constantly harassing Olivia and is chummy with Fin to be the Villain of the Week. He's not, it's the higher ranking one whom stopped him from beating Olivia earlier.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Lowell Harris is introduced as a Reasonable Authority Figure within the correctional facility until The Reveal that he's the hidden Villain of the Week Olivia's looking for.
- Bittersweet Ending: Harris is ultimately arrested for the rapes, murder, and attempted rape-murder of a police officer, but Benson is visibly traumatized over her Attempted Rape. Ashley doesn't die of her drug-resistant TB, but her mother is dead as a result of Stabler's screw-up after the squad broke through Ashley's reluctance to cooperate with the investigation by promising they would protect her.
- Broken Hero: Olivia's Attempted Rape left her traumatized.
- Continuity Nod: Olivia's undercover mission in early Season 8 is brought up by Cragen.
- Contrived Coincidence: Tutuola needs a TB test before getting out of the infirmary to go rescue Benson, but the nurse just happens to run out of needles right when he is to be tested.
- Darkest Hour: Olivia's Attempted Rape is one of her most (if not the most) vulnerable in the entire series' run.
- Double-Meaning Title: The episode title refers to Olivia and Fin's covert operation on the correctional facility where Ashley's mother was raped, as well as the rapist's penis that is hidden in his pants.
- Event Title: The title mainly refers to Olivia and Fin infiltration of a correctional facility to bust a rapist warden.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: This is the episode where Fin had his famous ponytail removed.
- Fan Disservice: Olivia and the other detainees strip naked to take a shower. The scene is gloomy and far from titillating.
- Fanservice: one inmate tells Benson she needs to dress more sexy in order to get favors in prison and the camera cuts to an attractive young female inmate with her shirt rolled up remarkably high to display her midriff.
- Hidden Villain: No one knew that Lowell Harris is the Serial Rapist until he nearly raped and killed Olivia.
- Idiot Ball:
- The perp steals Ashley's rape kit, using a retired correction's officer's badge, but the squad doesn't bother investigating the owner of that retired badge who presumably knows the rapist.
- The squad sends Benson on an extremely dangerous undercover assignment as an inmate in an abusive, rape-tolerant prison when (as it turns out) they could just have sent Tutuola in undercover as a guard without running the same risk.
- Informed Attribute: Justified. Harris is said to have a mole in his penis, and confirming it is instrumental to his arrest. For obvious reasons, it wasn't shown on-screen.
- Ironic Echo:
Benson: Who's the bitch now?
- Mistaken for Pedophile: Ashley Tyler's uncle was denied custody of raising her due to the social worker finding him lying next to her shirtless.
- Never Suicide: Risa supposedly committed suicide in solitary, but her broken hyoid bone confirms she was strangled.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Stabler tells the warden about his rape investigation which causes Ashley's mom to have pot planted in her cell and be sent to solitary confinement and eventually murdered.
- Not What It Looks Like: Rick Tyler was denied custody of raising Ashley due to the social worker finding him lying next to his niece shirtless.
- Odd Name Out: Ashley Tyler's remaining family are her mother Risa and her uncle Rick.
- Prison Episode: The episode has Olivia and Fin doing a covert operation on a correctional facility.
- Prison Rape: The Villain of the Week is a Serial Rapist with this as his M.O.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The female warden at the correctional facility is this who wants whomever's raping Ashley Tyler to be gone from her prison, though she doesn't tolerate Stabler's shenanigans of impersonating a lawyer. In the end, when her chief guard Harris is revealed to be the rapist, she disgustedly orders the detectives to get him out of her prison.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Harris rapes the inmates in the correctional facility where he works as a high ranking corrections officer.
- Shower Scene: Elliot and Olivia finds Rick Tyler in the middle of a shower. On a more serious note, Olivia and her fellow detainees take one before their official incarceration.
- Smug Snake: Harris's union lawyer is gratuitously smug as he gets his rapist client out of the hands of the cops.
- Teeny Weenie: Elliot calls Rick Tyler little Ricky after seeing him in a Shower Scene.
- Toplessness from the Back: Olivia and the actual inmates in a Shower Scene, but any titillation is removed by the gloomy music and scenario.
- Uniformity Exception: Just one of the inmates wears a midriff-exposing suit, the rest wear their shapeless prison uniforms in a modest fashion.
- Unkempt Beauty: Olivia has no makeup while on prison but she still looks great as always. Also Shawna, one of Olivia's inmates, as played by the gorgeous Tawny Cypress.
- Wham Episode: Olivia has an Attempted Rape, and its effect on her will be felt in succeeding seasons.
- Would Hit a Girl: The wardens on an all-women correctional facility have no problem using excessive force whenever they see fit.
- Harris's lawyer says guards are entitled by law to hit female inmates as they see fit in order to producr compliance.
