Recap: In terms of creepiness and watchability this episode scored high. In terms of realism, believabilty, or anything approaching how an actual crime would occur or a real investigation would unfold, tonight’s episode was the lowest point of the season.
We start with a four-year-old boy calling 911 because Mommy is asleep and won’t wake up. The operator uses cell-phone tracking technology to pinpoint his location. Moments later, Olivia and Nick bust through the boy’s door. They find his mother, bloody and unconscious, on the floor.
After a commercial break, we learn that mom just had too much to drink and slipped and fell. And here, folks, is where the case would have ended in real life.
But we know the show isn’t over because no pretty 16-year-old girls have yet made their appearances. Not to worry; they soon do. In droves.
Turns out, mom fell after fighting with her 16-year-old daughter about the man the girl was seeing. The girl then left and spent the night out. SVU launches into a full-scale investigation of the girl. We’re talking ATM records, credit-card tracking, cell phone tracing, and library searches justified by the Patriot Act and a FISA warrant.
After unleashing the full force of the criminal-justice arsenal to locate one rebellious teenager who’s been out of contact with her mom for eight hours, the detectives learn that the girl went to visit her biological father – mom’s sperm donor.