Written By Amanda Green
Directed By David Platt
A little girl is found on the streets with her throat slashed and near death. She is taken to the hospital and since she is unable to talk, the only clue to her attacker is a drawing she made of an demon. The detectives' investigation leads them to an priest named Theo Burdett, who is accused by his neighbor of performing satanic rituals. Turns out he performs a form of syncretism by using animal sacrifice that he picked up from Africa and that he is the girl's adoptive father. Her name is Miriam and she hails from Uganda, where she was a sex slave used by warlords and was saved by Father Theo alongside a man named Elijah Okello, a former child soldier that befriended Miriam, whom she has been seeing. The priest distrusts him because of his past and Elijah becomes the prime suspect. When he is located and brought to questioning, he tells he would never harm her and was trying to make justice for his "little sister" against the man responsible for abusing her.
Stabler is convinced he is innocent, specially after he breaks down and reveals his past haunts him and he wanted to do some good at least once in his life. Their next clue is led to an Ugandan refugee called Samuel that lives near the place where Miriam was attacked, and he acts in a very suspicious manner. Stabler researches some pictures from Uganda and sees Samuel resembles a warlord particularly violent named Joseph Serumaga that gained the nickname "Devil of Gulu" after torching a church with innocents inside, finally making the connection between Miram's drawing. Stabler confronts Samuel/Serumaga at his job, who snaps after the detective figures out the truth, but he is brought down. The SVU contacts the International Criminal Court, who intends to send him to the Hague so he can be tried. Unfortunately, its revealed that Elijah is illegally staying in the USA and the Court wants to deport him back to Uganda for his crimes.
Stabler protests, since he knows Elijah was forced by the warlords to do what he did and is genuinely remorseful, but if he is deported he will be marked for death. Then the worst possible thing happens: Elijah snaps when the agents comes to arrest him, managed to disarm them and takes several people inside Theo's church, including the good priest, Miriam and many children. Elliot and Fin convince the deportation agent to enter the church so they can talk Elijah out. They convince him to let all the hostages go, but demands that Elliot and Theo stay. He plans on killing himself, since he is a dead man walking and he can't live with what he did. Theo attempts to sway him stating that suicide is an sin and his trials were no different than Jesus, but he begins experiencing a heart attack. Stabler succeeds in getting Elijah to surrender his gun so they can get medical attention to Father Theo. However, after seeing a crowd of reporters, he charges them and gets shot down by an SWAT officer. Elijah dies, but tells Miriam that he sacrificed himself so that people would see the horror of the child soldiers. Stabler watches a montage of images of child soldiers with Theo and the two agree to spread Elijah's story and hope someone will listen and help bring an end to the horror.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- African Terrorists: Joseph Serumaga was an Ugandan warlord responsible for setting fire on a church with women and children inside, gaining the nickname "Devil of Gulu".
- Artistic License – History: Stabler says that the word "Infantry" comes from Ancient Rome where the youngest soldiers ("infants") were put in the front line. In reality, the term arose in 16th century Spain, where royal princes not in line of succession called "infantes" were given command over foot soldiers, and these were named in turn Infantería.
- Badass Adorable: Miriam after Serumaga is arrested. She asks to see him, walks calmly into the room, looks him in the eye, spits in his face, then smiles and walks away as he's raging at her over it.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Of a somewhat literal sense. During the final act of the episode, when Stabler and Fin arrive in the church that Elijah has taken hostage, the camera keeps focusing on one of the gunmen positioned outside the church. He ends up shooting Elijah.
- Child Soldiers: The episode's theme.
- Creepy Catholicism: Stabler references this trope when talking about Father Theo being a suspect, stating that he still got nightmares about Sister Mary Margaret and her mustache.
- Informed Ability: When talking about Elijah singing in his church's choir with Miriam, Father Theo describes his voice as "beautiful, clear and pure." We never get to hear Elijah sing for ourselves.
- Like Brother and Sister: Elijah and Miriam's relationship. He outright calls her "little sister".
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Elijah tries to kill the man responsible for abusing his friend and helps the police in taking him down, but this puts him on the radar of ICE; his asylum petition was denied because of his own deeds as a child soldier, so he's now in the country illegally and they intend to deport him to Uganda, where he will likely be killed by the terrorist militias.
- Offstage Villainy: Joseph Serumaga's various crimes were spoken of, but never shown.
- Scary Black Man:
- Mike Colter plays Serumaga (the Devil of Gulu) to a terrifying degree.
- In-universe, a racist neighbor of the Burdetts perceives Father Theo as this, though it quickly becomes clear it's unwarranted.
- She Knows Too Much: Though it's never expressly confirmed, Serumaga, who was living under a false identity, probably tried to kill Miriam because he realized she could reveal who he really was.
- Spiteful Spit: Miriam does this to Serumaga after he is arrested.
- Suicide is Shameful: Elijah tries to kill himself in the church, but Theo and Stabler successfully talk him out of it. However, he decides to die on his own terms by pressing others to do the job for him.
- Would Hurt a Child: Joseph Serumaga not only raped Miriam for years back in Africa, but then when he ran into her in America, he tried to kill her to prevent his true identity from being exposed.
