Written By Dawn De Noon
Directed By Chris Zalla
The police commissioner requests that SVU handle a unique case: the theft of fertilized frozen embryos from a sperm bank. The suspects range from a couple going through a nasty divorce to a dwarf with a grudge against the clinic, but eventually the detectives settle on an overzealous religious couple (Mark Moses and Janine Turner) who oppose the sperm bank's activities on moral grounds. Meanwhile, Benson ponders her own decisions on motherhood.
Tropes
- Asshole Victim: It's pretty somewhat hard to feel any sympathy for James Grall after he's murdered following his arraignment given the fact that he accidentally had his wife assault someone and put him in the hospital and not because they stole and destroyed embryos.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Kelly Ryland is briefly mentioned by the clinic's doctor early in the episode. It later turns out that her husband is the one who murdered James Grall; Kelly was recently killed in Iraq and the frozen embryos were all that he had left of her.
- The secretary at the sperm bank is in the beginning of the episode as a witness to the robbery, and later turns out to have been in on it the whole time. She's also the one who ends up identifying James Grall's murderer.
- Death Seeker: Implied for Scott Ryland by the end of the episode; he openly states that he doesn't care whether he goes to jail or not because, with the love of his life dead and his last link to her gone, he has nothing left to live for.
- Disability Alibi: One of the sperm bank's clients that the detectives question, Jocelyn Miller, clears herself by pointing out that someone would have undoubtedly taken notice if the thief was four feet tall.
- Downer Ending: The embryos end up destroyed, robbing at least several people of their last chance to have biological children. James Grall is murdered in front of not only his wife but a bunch of TV cameras, and Victoria will have to live alone with the guilt and trauma of her and her husband's actions forever. James's killer Scott Ryland loses his wife and all of her embryos, leaving him facing jail time with the last connection to his wife gone.
- Everyone Has Standards: Benson and Stabler are both noticeably sympathetic to Scott Ryland once they realize what his motives for the murder were; when they track him down at the airport, they allow him to finish watching his late wife's procession before arresting him. Stabler flat out says that even though Scott will have to do jail time, the jury and judge will more than likely understand why he did what he did, which might help him get a lighter sentence, not that Scott really cares though.
- Victoria Grall feels genuinely guilty for her part in the embryos being destroyed, and when her husband tries to use their criminal trial to drum up more publicity for their religious group, she refuses to have any part of it.
- Innocently Insensitive: At one point Munch makes a joke to Benson about having children, not realizing that A. it's a sensitive topic for her in general and especially so during this particular case, and B. she and Stabler have been fighting about this throughout the episode. Benson assumes that Stabler was talking with Munch behind her back and storms off.
- I Take Offense to That Last One: Overlaps with Comically Missing the Point.Victoria Grall: There are organizations out there that will arrange for the adoption of unwanted embryos.Lake: That's great, especially for all those gay and lesbian couples in the market.Victoria Grall: They are only put in suitable homes.Fin: Straight, Christian, and white.Victoria Grall: We're not racist! There are Christians of all colors.
- Lonely Funeral: Kelly Ryland's procession, which is only attended by her husband Scott and a handful of Kelly's fellow soldiers. Scott bitterly lampshades how small the turnout is compared to all the attention the Gralls got.
- My God, What Have I Done?: James and Victoria are overcome with guilt after their actions cause the destruction of the embryos, which is murder in their eyes. James does attempt to spin it in their favor and get their group some more attention, but Victoria feels so terrible that she refuses to have any part of it.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Elliot managed to make a few Innocently Insensitive to Olivia remarks before he realized how close to home the case is for her, and his attempts to reconcile are increasingly awkward and only serve to piss her off more.
- Race Against the Clock: The detectives quickly learn that they have at most three days to find the embryos before they go out of temp and lose their viability. Unfortunately, the thieves decide to wait as long as they can before they mail them back to the clinic, and also fail to consider that the delivery might be delayed, which it is thanks to the delivery being checked for overnight delivery, but not early morning. As a result, by the time the detectives track down the package and get it back to the clinic, they're too late.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Subverted; Scott and Kelly Ryland were attempting to invoke this by freezing some of Kelly's eggs, but they were stolen and destroyed by James and Victoria Grall.
- Sorrowful Stutter: The widower of the soldier killed in action broke down while speaking to detectives, stating how his wife's destroyed embryos will never get the chance to become children and how they will never know what an amazing mother they had prior to her own death.
- Shutting Up Now: After mentioning Olivia's biological clock, Elliot adds, "I'm gonna shut up," when she glares a him.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Scott Ryland's wife, Kelly, had her eggs frozen before she was deployed to Iraq so that they could have a child in the event of her untimely death. Not only did that untimely death happen out of nowhere, but Kelly's frozen eggs are among the ones stolen by James and Victoria Grall and they end up being destroyed, and said theft and destruction happened before Kelly's body even made it back to the United States. And then he had to witness James attempting to use the entire incident to make his group look better. It's a small wonder that Scott is absolutely broken by the time he murders James.
- Title Drop: The Chief of Detectives, as pompously as possible: "The victims: about a hundred fertilized embryos. Now Don doesn't believe this falls under your purview, but those are potential children who have been kidnapped. If they're not Special Victims, who is?"
