All spoilers are unmarked per policy for recap pages. You Have Been Warned
Written By Brianna Yellen
Directed By Nick Gomez
Benson is taken hostage when she goes to check on another one of her sitter's clients, and must rely on her own negotiating skills and those of Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) Captain Ed Tucker (Robert John Burke), who works the escalating situation from the outside to rescue the lieutenant.
Tropes
- Break Them by Talking: Olivia does her best to diffuse the situation by speaking calmly to Joe and Roxy. She succeeds in getting Roxy to surrender to the cops and convincing Joe to let the children go.
- Continuity Nod: The rapist arrested in the beginning of the episode is the same one police attempted to locate in Community Policing. The lawyer of the perp even recounts the plot of that episode (an unarmed black man is shot mistakenly by the NYPD).
- The Drag-Along: Olivia gets dragged into a hostage situation when she thought she's just checking in on a simple domestic abuse situation.
- Hostage Situation: Benson and a family her nanny also works for are taken hostage inside the titular townhouse for the entirety of the episode.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: The Push-In Rapist from "Community Policing" is apprehended in the first quarter of the episode. And he still isn't the main focus of an episode.
- Out-of-Character Alert: While being held hostage, Olivia texts a nonsense response to her sitter that includes a reference to William Lewis (who had held her hostage and attempted to rape her in a prior episode). The sitter realizes that it means something is amiss and takes it over to the SVU office.Carisi: Guys, we got a problem here. Liv just texted this to her babysitter.
Tutuola: "Stuck at precinct all day. Pick up William at daycare. He has a playdate with Lewis today."
Barba: William Lewis? That's not good. - Unmentionables: Dodds and another EMT (possibly a cop too) were told by the hostage taker to strip and give him their kevlar suits. It's a good thing they were wearing reasonable blue underwear though.
