"1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-12, please respond to a 10-101 ... sighting of tropes seen in this episode":
Berserk Button: The usually cool Malloy has lessons he once had to teach Reed – keeping cool when the bad guys run their mouths off – thrown back at him, when Reed, having witnessed his one-time training officer blow his stack after he's put a child molester in handcuffs and charged him with sexual assault (among a litany of other charges), has to tell Malloy to back off.
Never My Fault: Averted. Malloy accepts full responsibility for his actions and at no point attempts to excuse or justify them when being questioned by Mac or Captain Moore.
Pædo Hunt: There is a 6-year-old girl that's gone missing, and a serial child pedophile living in the neighborhood. He gets to her first ... and all that can be said is the results are graphic. Don't worry ... Mac tells Malloy (in the final act) that the little girl, although badly hurt, has survived emergency surgery and will make a full (physical) recovery.
Police Brutality: Malloy loses his cool for one of the few times in the series, and his actions toward a child molester – shoving him against a wall, bumping his head into said wall, twisting his wrists and putting the cuffs on too tightly – might not only jeopardize charges against the man (he had raped a 6-year-old girl), but could also derail his ambition to be Sergeant, of which he was weeks away from realizing.
Reasonable Authority Figure: While making it very clear that Malloy's actions were wrong, Captain Moore does take into account Malloy's service record and willingness to accept the punishment without question when he decides to suspend Malloy for four days without pay. He also tells Malloy that this incident may hinder his opportunities for advancement so he better be ready to explain himself when asked by a promotions board.
