Written By Kam Miller
Directed By David Platt
Comic books are the key to finding a young woman who detectives believe is the victim of copycat serial killer with a penchant for mutilating his victim's corpses.
Tropes
- Art Imitates Life: In-Universe. In an especially twisted version, Morten's Loony Fans made comic books of his murders and then additional ones of subsequent killings he could have done.
- Life Imitates Art: The murder follows the comic books, and resembles Issue #9 (the first fictional killing) and Cecilia's (faked kidnapping and murder) is for Issue #10.
- Cat Fight: One almost breaks out in the courtroom between Cecilia and some other female Loony Fan who is also in love with Morton.
- Consulting a Convicted Killer: The SVU need the assistance of convicted serial killer Robert Morten to catch a perp that appears to be copying (and continuing) his work. Morten is a Mad Artist who poses his victims in grotesque ways, supposedly for art.
- Cult: Morton's Loony Fans are essentially a cult of psychos devoted to a murderer.
- Exact Words: To have Robert Morten as a rebuttal witness against Cecilia, Morten requested to be transferred to a Federal prison since they supposedly have better food and better facilities. Novak honors that agreement...but since Morten didn't specify which Federal prison it was, Novak selected "Florence Supermax
which, to an Attention Whore like Morten, is pretty much a Hellhole Prison. - Gory Discretion Shot: When investigators find a woman's chopped-off and buried breasts the camera pans up as the box is opened, so all we see is the disgusted reaction of the investigator.
- Groupie Brigade: Morten has an entire fan club of loony fans who idolize him and even publish graphic art based on his work.
- Indirect Serial Killer: Morten has multiple crazy fans who believe that he's a great artist and want to do his work for him after he's imprisoned for the series of murders that he physically committed. One of his fans sends a pizza bomb to Olivia (though it had a fault so it didn't kill anyone), and Cecilia murders a woman and then fakes her own kidnapping.
- Interrogation by Vandalism: Elliot tears one of Morten's pictures to motivate him to talk.
- Ironic Echo: "How do you like my work?"
- Jack the Ripoff: Cecilia tries to win Morton back by killing women and arranging them in a particular fashion. At the trial, he (who considers his killings true art) looks over the crime scene and says that her work "lacks enthusiasm". He wants nothing more to do with her.
- Justice by Other Legal Means: Morten can't be prosecuted for the events of the episode because of his immunity deal. That said, due to a loophole in the deal's wording he can be transferred to the infamous ADX Florence supermax prison since he's proved himself to be extremely dangerous even when imprisoned.
- Let Me at Him!: After Morten leads the detectives to where Cecilia buried Tina Snow's breasts, Morten smugly asks for a "peek". A disgusted Benson tries to attack him, but is stopped by Stabler.
- Longer-Than-Life Sentence: It's mentioned that Morten is serving multiple life sentences. As such, when Casey tells him if he doesn't testify on behalf of the prosecution he'll be found in contempt of court, he simply scoffs.
- Mad Bomber: A fan of Morten's tries to kill Benson by putting a bomb in a pizza box and delivering it to SVU. It luckily didn't kill anyone.
- Monster Fangirl: Robert Morten has almost a dozen followers who commit murders, as he encourages them to be creative and to impress him. In the end, he gets sent to a supermax prison where he will have no contact with anyone on the outside.
- Small Reference Pools: The detectives find a blood painting referencing the Venus de Milo. It still took them running it through symbol recognition software to recognize it.
- The Svengali: Morten, hence the title.
- Tempting Fate: Fin gives Lake a pizza box, and cautions him "It'll kill ya". A few seconds later, the box explodes.
- This Means War!: Fin is less than happy about a bomb going off in the squad room."Somebody tried to bust my eardrums, I'm gonna bust their ass!"
- Villainous Breakdown:
- Morton has a great one when he realizes just how much Casey screwed him (see Exact Words).
- Cecilia has one when Morton denounces her work as that of a "talentless hack".
- Wacky Cravings: Briefly mentioned:Elliot: I gotta go home, my pregnant wife is looking for peanut butter and tacos.
Chester: Dude, say no more. - Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Cecilia faked her kidnapping and gave herself shallow cuts on her breasts to look like a victim.
