Written By Kevin Fox
Directed By Michael Slovis
A high school teacher has sex with two of her students. However, when another student, Zack Foster, receives text messages supposedly from her instructing him to meet her at a train station and bring his passport; she does not show up and Zack is, instead, kidnapped by his wrestling coach, who has a well-hidden history of molesting his athletes. Zack is then taken to a cabin in Pennsylvania where he is tracked down by the SVU team. However, when Zack's parents refuse to allow him to testify in court, SVU turns to another victim, Nat Dennehy, who still resides in New York and also refuses to testify, even after being pressured to do so by SVU. He instead goes to the coach's house, determined to get a confession from him, but ends up beating him so badly that he dies soon after making his (coerced) confession.
Tropes
- Catfishing: It's right there in the title and how the Creepy Gym Coach gets his victims...using photographs given to him by another predatory teacher (a woman).
- Continuity Nod:
- Amanda had just given birth.
- Carisi continues to shadow Barba.
- Creepy Gym Coach: The gym teacher catfished his players by pretending to be the (female) teacher they were all already sleeping with (with her knowledge), then drugging, kidnapping, and raping them.
- Defiled Forever: Several of the victims refuse to testify for fear of being publically shamed as rape victims. ADA O'Dwyer tells Benson that Nat's life ended at age 15 (when he was raped).
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Zack's father initially thinks his son being kidnapped by a sexually predatory teacher is no problem because she's an attractive woman. Later when it is determined he was actually kidnapped and raped by his creepy gym teacher Zack's dad insists that he not testify because being raped by a man will hurt his reputation more than being raped by a woman would have.
- Downer Ending: Due to being pressured by the detectives to testify against a pedophile coach that everyone else is too afraid or ashamed to (and also the anger and trauma from his experiences), one of his victims completely snaps and records himself brutally torturing the coach to give a confession (which legally would have meant nothing since it was coerced). The coach is beaten and stabbed so badly that he dies, leaving the victim to be charged with first-degree murder. And the kicker? He has no regrets and just calmly accepts his fate.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Dodds and Olivia discuss the members of SVU and their focus/tendencies. Dodds points out that Fin is a "kicker" (as in he likes to pass work to other members of SVU). Olivia disagrees...only for Fin to come into the office and prove Dodds right by trying to pass the buck on a lead to Dodds and Carisi. Dodds looks at Olivia as if to say "I told you so".
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The squad repeatedly harrasses the reluctant Nat, deep in denial, to make him testify against the coach, making it clear the coach will go free if Nat does not testify, propelling him to find another way of ensuring the coach pays for his crimes.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Benson and Dodds are sympathetic to Nat being driven to get a confession from the coach by torturing (and eventually killing) him, especially because they pressured him to testify. Benson immediately tells Nat that he is to stay silent until he gets a lawyer - normally, the interrogation continues unabated until the clients themselves ask for an attorney to try to get evidence or a confession.
- Oblivious Mockery: Dodds notes to Olivia that as a new mother, Amanda might be more focused on motherhood than SVU, forgetting that Olivia is a single mother too.
- Rape and Revenge: Nat ends up torturing Donald Bazinski to death rather than face testifying against him in court.
- Serial Rapist: Both Donald Bazinski and Phoebe Bernap have a history of having sex with underage students.
- Take a Third Option: Faced with the choice of either humiliating himself by testifying or allowing the coach to escape punishment for his crimes, Nat opts instead to torture the coach (as it turns out, to death) so (he thinks) no one will have to testify in order to secure a conviction.
