Written By Julie Martin, Celine C Robinson, and Robert Brooks Cohen
Directed By Jean De Segonzac
Notable video game developer Raina Punjabi solidifies the launch of her first game amid a stream of online insults, intimidation and death threats from the male-dominated gaming community. When one of her (predominantly female) employees is assaulted at a gamer convention, Detective Tutuola investigates the crime. Raina, however, refuses to delay the launch, even as she herself is kidnapped, and the NYPD must play along with the gaming-obsessed captors to get her back.
Raina Punjabi is preparing to debut her first video game, Amazonian Warriors, but finds herself being threatened numerous times by the male-dominated gaming community, who believe that women can't excel in the video game development and gaming overall. SVU is called in once one of Punjabi's employees is assaulted at a gamer convention, and it involves a game known as "Kill Or Be Slaughtered" (K.O.B.S.). Fin takes personal interest due to being an avid video gamer himself, but is still able to discern reality from the world of video games, unlike other gamers.
Later, when Punjabi is giving an online interview via webcam, her house is raided by the NYPD ESU SWAT team in the middle of the podcast. Investigation reveals that the ESU were alerted to Punjabi's house by a phony 911 call, or "swatting", another indication that the K.O.B.S. gamers are stepping up their game against Punjabi. Despite all that, Punjabi still goes ahead with the official launch, but the SVU team backup the security detail at her presentation. After they kick out several guests for disrupting the presentation with laser pointers, the lights go out and all heck breaks loose. In the confusion to evacuate everyone, Punjabi gets separated from the SVU team and they lose sight of her. Security camera footage show a phony security guard escorting Punjabi into a van in an alleyway that drives off with her as a hostage, and a Jumbotron shows the masked K.O.B.S. kidnappers taunting the NYPD with how they'll have to play Real Life like K.O.B.S. if they want to save Punjabi.
After further watching the kidnappers torture, rape, force her to lie and admit gaming is not for women, and even tell her fiancé that she was only using him to advance her career, they soon track the lair of the kidnappers where they posted the videos online and find that the guns kept in the house are missing. Punjabi then calls the NYPD while under duress as one of the kidnappers has one of the missing pistols aimed at her to summon them to where she's being held hostage. Knowing it could be a trap, and remembering how K.O.B.S. ends with the police being called in and then getting literally slaughtered, they head to the location, heavily armed with ESU SWAT backup, and upon breaching the building, find Punjabi, with the missing shotgun taped to her hands so it was aimed at the NYPD. After the SVU team order the ESU SWAT officers to hold their fire because Punjabi can't lower the weapon because of her plight, while Olivia cuts her free, Carisi and Rollins head to the roof, where after being fired on by one of the kidnappers, they find another, Anthony, who surrenders willingly, explaining that his two buddies have lost it, unable to discern Real Life from video games, and was helping the NYPD find them and stop their rampage when he tagged his house as to where they did the videos. As Rollins arrest him, Carisi finds the third member, Pierce, but when he tries to fire on Carisi, not expecting the recoil of the gun to be so strong compared to in his video games, he knocks himself over and leaves himself vulnerable to arrest. That's when the ringleader, Ryan, appears and has Carisi dead to rights, taunting him to "Prepare to be slaughtered". Rollins arrives, but it seems Ryan has all the cards and prepares to shoot and kill Carisi and Rollins, but Fin ambushes Ryan from behind and threatens to shoot him if he doesn't surrender. Ryan pulls an I Surrender, Suckers move on Fin, but is swiftly shot dead with three bullets from Fin with deadly accuracy, while Pierce is arrested and kept at gunpoint by arriving ESU SWAT, finally seeing that Real Life is not the same as his video games as in Real Life, you get shot, you don't respawn, ever.
Back at the precinct, Fin knows he's on administrative leave until after the IAB investigation to his Officer Involved Shooting is cleared, but Olivia knows it was a good shot. However, despite their efforts in saving Punjabi, the effects the K.O.B.S. kidnappers had on her have traumatized her for life, giving up on her game and future, emotionally scarred into admitting that the kidnappers were right: Video games are not for women.
Tropes
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: One of Punjabi's kidnappers says (apparently being serious) that shooting a gun in a video game is exactly like in real life.
- Bittersweet Ending: Raina is saved, but her experience has traumatized her into quitting the video game industry.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The main villains torture and rape Punjabi while broadcasting it over the Internet; force her to falsely admit onscreen that she's only using her lover to get ahead in her career; and ultimately — despite her being saved in the end — send her over the Despair Event Horizon and cause her to quit her passion. Why? Because they don't believe in Gamer Chicks.
- Evil Is Petty: The villains want to kill Punjabi for making a game they don't like! Note that the game hadn't even been released yet: They hated the game developer, and her game, simply because she happened to be female. (The fact that she was not white may or may not have had something to do with it, too.)
- Patched Together from the Headlines: The episode has a plot drawn from both controversies surrounding female game developers and the Isla Vista shootings. The episode title is also a play on The Imitation Game, despite that film having nothing to do with the episode.
- Shout-Out: The episode shares its name with the Working Title of Batman Begins. At the end, Punjabi has a gun duct-taped to her hands, similar to The Dark Knight.
