Original subtitles

.

- In the criminal justice system,

sexually based offenses

are considered especially heinous.

In New York City, the dedicated detectives

who investigate these vicious felonies

are members of an elite squad

known as the Special Victims Unit.

These are their stories.

- You're a pill sometimes, you know that?

- I answered your question.

- "I don't know" is not an answer.

- Would you rather me lie to you?

- I'd rather you just tell me straight.

- And I'd like to enjoy this cup of coffee

before I'm interrogated. - Oh, you guys,

it's not too late to swap partners again.

- You know, I set him up with a mom from Jessie's school.

She's super cute, not crazy.

And he won't make his mind up if he

wants to see her again or not.

- Uh, Rollins, you know better than that.

You don't set up your partner on dates.

- Oh--

- Come on, he's not wrong.

- I was being nice.

- The date was fine.

We went to dinner. We saw a movie.

I gave it a shot.

I just feel like I have enough on my plate right now.

- So you don't like her.

- Oh, my God.

- I don't have time for paperwork, man!

Just tell me who's in charge!

Who's in charge, man?

Who I gotta talk to?

- Hi, there.

Hi, I'm Captain Benson.

How can I help you?

Oh, hello.

Uh, how about you come join me in my office?

Hi, follow me.

Okay, so tell us what happened.

- I'm helping him clean up in the bath this morning.

All of a sudden he pulls away.

Says it hurts.

- Did you see what was wrong?

- He had, um, bruises on his back.

On his legs too.

- Okay, did he say anything else in the moment?

- No, like--

I tried asking what happened. He wouldn't tell me.

- Mom doesn't know what happened either?

- She passed.

Cancer. Last year.

- Oh, I'm so sorry.

- Listen, I get that you have questions,

but I just want this dealt with.

- Okay. - Mr. DeMarco,

asking questions is how we deal with it.

Okay, so has Michael seen a doctor yet?

- No, that's a waste of time.

As soon as I saw it, I came straight here.

- So what do you mean, "that's a waste of time?"

- Because I know who did it!

- Who did it? - [exhales sharply]

Brandon Klein.

He's a high school kid.

Babysits when I gotta work weekends.

He's my best friend's oldest.

Known Michael since he was born.

- Okay, well, we'll talk to Brandon.

Um, but what makes you so sure that it was him?

- Because Michael was fine yesterday

before Brandon had him.

And if you stop questioning me

and go ahead and pick him up, you'd know.

- Sorry, Daddy.

- All right, Mr. DeMarco, listen to me.

If something did happen to Michael,

then we need to make sure that we get this right.

- And that starts with getting him to the hospital.

I know you said he had a bath, but any evidence

at all can be helpful. - Mm-hmm.

- Would that take a while?

- It takes as long as it takes.

But before, uh, we do that,

I would like to talk to Michael alone.

- No, no.

He's my kid.

I wanna hear what he says.

- Okay, that's fine,

as long as you let me do the talking

and, for Michael's sake, that you--

you hold it together, okay?

Okay.

So, Michael, my name is Olivia.

Hey, you want something to drink?

No?

Well, that is a cool toy.

Is that--is that a superhero?

Yeah? Does he have super powers?

- He eats bad guys.

- He eats them?

Wow.

And how does he know who's bad?

- I tell him.

- You tell him.

Well, that kind of--

that kind of makes you a superhero, too, doesn't it?

Have you told him to eat any bad guys lately?

- Brandon.

- Uh-huh. And why's that?

- He makes me take naps.

I hate naps.

- Yeah, me too.

I hated naps.

Is that--is that the only reason

that Brandon's a bad guy?

- Answer her, Michael. - Hey--

- Maybe we should take a walk. - It's okay.

Hey, look. It's okay.

Nobody's mad at you.

I think your dad is just-- you know,

he's just upset because he knows you got hurt.

And we're all just trying to figure out

how--how that happened.

Right?

- Not Brandon.

Brandon's friend.

The man.

- What man, Michael?

Look at me, son. - Mr. DeMarco.

- Tell me what he did to you right now.

- You have to back up! - You need to do something!

- Stop!

We took pictures, Daddy.

I wasn't supposed to tell.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

.

- I don't know what this is about,

but his parents are on the way.

- No, Brandon's 17.

We can talk to him without them.

Thanks.

We're Special Victims, Brandon.

Detective Bruno, Sergeant Rollins.

- I was in the middle of a chemistry test.

I don't wanna fail.

- I think you know a chemistry test

is the last of your problems.

- We're here to talk about Michael DeMarco.

- M-Michael?

- Sit down.

Now, since you know lying is only

gonna make things worse for you,

you're gonna tell us everything.

- I--I don't know how to say this.

- Figure it out.

- I, uh, have thoughts.

- What kind of thoughts?

- About kids.

And I know it's wrong, and I hate it.

I-I've tried to turn them off.

- You have thoughts about Michael?

- Yes, but I never touched Michael.

- You expect us to believe that?

- Yes, because it's the truth.

- Who was it, Brandon?

Who did you take Michael to see?

- I--I met him on this forum online for people like me.

He said he knew what I was going through,

that he could help me control it.

- Give us a name.

- I only know him by his first name--

Lloyd.

- I--I told him about Michael.

He wanted to meet him. - Where?

- In some empty apartment in the West Village.

He's, like, a real estate guy or something.

- And you brought Michael there?

- I said no so many times, but he threatened me.

He said he'd tell my family about me.

- And that's more important to you

than protecting a little boy?

- He said he just wanted photos.

Called it "content."

Said he was some producer for some other website

on the dark net.

I don't even know what that is.

When we got there, Michael wouldn't listen.

So Lloyd grabbed him, made him take off his clothes.

I didn't want Michael to get hurt.

- You hand-delivered a five-year-old child

to a stranger, Brandon,

and you didn't want him to get hurt?

- I told you, Lloyd made me.

And it was just pictures. That's all that happened.

I swear.

That's not so bad, right?

♪ ♪

- It's beautiful, right?

Like I said, if you love it, don't leave it.

- I do kind of love it.

- You sure there's no room on the price?

- Well, I'll talk to the owner,

but we've already got two solid offers.

- Does that mean we're too late?

This place is gorgeous.

Great natural light. Private yard.

What do you think?

- I think we're ready to close.

How you doing, Lloyd?

♪ ♪

- This is obviously a big misunderstanding.

- You mean you didn't talk a high school kid

into bringing you a five-year-old boy?

- I mean, people tell stories.

Like cops, you guys fabricate stuff all the--

- We found your camera in your car.

- Nothing on that. You can't pin that on me.

- That's because you wiped the SD card.

But we will recover what you erased.

- Something tells me that's not all we're gonna find.

- And we didn't fabricate the fingertip bruising

that we found on Michael's thigh.

We didn't fabricate that.

So how'd you get into real estate?

- What?

- Your job.

Any good at it?

- Yeah, I'm good.

Natural gift. - A gift? Wow.

So a gift for which part?

- Selling,

or, like I say, guiding people into decisions.

- Oh, that's kind of like what we do, actually.

Do you have any pointers?

- Pointers?

- Pointers on making a deal.

Like I said, we know exactly what you

put that little boy through.

- And now you are gonna tell us about the website.

- I don't know about any webs--

- You do know. Stop.

Don't even try

to pretend that you don't know

what we're talking about because we know

that you produce content for a dark net website.

And now you're gonna tell us how we get there.

♪ ♪

Sears, tell me that Lloyd's credentials checked out.

- Yes, they did. - Oh, thank God.

Thank you for the assist because the dark net is--

- The dark net isn't the hard part.

It just means decentralized internet.

The Gate is a child sexual abuse material website.

Homepage claims it only features

children here in New York.

- That's atypical.

Most CSAM sites aren't location-specific.

- Apparently, it's one of its selling points.

- Did you find the photos of Michael DeMarco?

- Uploaded last night.

But there are hundreds more files on this thing--

images, videos.

- How many more victims are there?

- First glance? Dozens.

I'll need time to know more.

One other so-called selling point

you should brace yourself for--

- Babies and toddlers?

- The only material allowed on The Gate

is of children five and under.

♪ ♪

.

- We spent the last few hours helping Sears figure out

how this thing works.

- Do we know when this began?

- Earliest posts are from last year.

Over a thousand active user accounts.

- Intel gave us some insight on how CSAM sites like these go.

So users view the materials.

The moderators oversee them.

They--they do the day-to-day.

They run the site's messaging platform.

- And producers like Lloyd are actually making this stuff?

- Only one person knows who they are.

Creator and admin--Gatekeeper.

Producers submit their content to him.

He uploads it through his account.

- Why the extra step?

- Approval and security.

Gatekeeper scrubs the files of metadata.

Anything that could tell us

a date, time, or location is wiped.

But wiping it isn't the only way

Gatekeeper keeps the site secure.

- So "The Gate remains impenetrable.

"Proceed as normal.

Happy viewing."

- Sites like this assume law enforcement's

trying to breach.

Gatekeeper throws up a canary every day to let the users

know that hasn't happened.

- Okay-- - Peace of mind for predators.

- We take away those canaries, and the users know that

the whole site's been compromised--

- And then the whole thing falls apart.

No gatekeeper, no gate.

- So we need to find him.

We need to get into his account.

We'll recover the data on the producers

and then hold him long enough for the site to go down.

- Problem is, we're in through Lloyd's account,

and my access is limited.

I need to get back to HQ.

- While you're doing that, we need to identify

as many victims as we can.

- The only way to ID them is one file at a time.

We've gotta look at every video, photo individually.

- Yeah.

- Hope there's something in there that

tells us who these kids are.

- I can load up some hard drives,

leave them behind for you.

- All right, it's a very long day,

so let's start fresh tomorrow, okay?

And we will do this

together.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- Morning, Cap. - Bruno, what is this?

- Crime board.

- What did you do?

- What needed to be done.

- How much of this did you get through?

- All of it.

I figured I'd save you some time.

- Bruno,

I don't remember asking you to do that.

Hey, I need you to look at me.

Bruno, you know that we don't do

things like this by ourselves.

- All right, I, uh--

I just really just wanted to get us ahead.

And I just thought, you know, everybody else

has a family to go home to, so--

- Oh, that's your excuse for taking the bullet on this

and going through hours and hours

of child abuse material by yourself?

- Okay, it was a little above and beyond--

- A little? - Okay, but it's already done.

And I found some things that could really help us out.

Across all the site's material, the crimes vary.

We're looking at exploitation and creating CSAM.

But in some of the cases, we're also looking at

forcible touching and various kinds of sexual abuse.

Now, I count 26 different kids.

- Any luck ID'ing them?

- Most of the files don't help, and the abusers are good

at hiding the who and where, right?

But some of them slipped up.

So one video takes place in a young girl's bedroom.

She's about four or five,

blonde hair.

She's got a lot of dolphin stuffed animals.

The--the abuser molests her.

And we see this carpet with this distinctive pattern.

Now, he's good at keeping his face off camera,

but we know he's white, male, no discernible accent.

- Maybe Real Time Crime gets lucky with the manufacturer,

gives us a direction.

- Yeah, and what also helps us is that

the video catches a glimpse

of the World Trade through a window.

- Enough to pinpoint a location?

- TARU's confident. We should hear from them soon.

But my second lead is the one that

I think we can actually move on.

- Okay. - So it's another video.

It was uploaded, like, a week ago,

and it takes place in what looks like a classroom.

- A classroom? - Yeah.

Uh, the abuser has the girl undress.

It's another young girl,

light brown hair.

And, uh, on her T-shirt, I can see this.

- Wait, I recognize that-- the Codignotto School.

Upper West Side, pre-K and kindergarten,

private, fancy.

- And a teacher sick enough to do this

in his own classroom.

- We got his voice on video.

And he says his victim's name-- Gemma.

- Okay, so then we will leave now.

Rollins, you and I will find Gemma.

You identify the classroom

and try to match this son of a bitch up to his voice.

- Hey--

- I already got a lot of heat from Benson.

- I wanted to say... thank you.

You didn't have to do this by yourself.

- And maybe don't do it again either.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- This is insane! I didn't do anything!

You have the wrong guy!

- Yeah, it doesn't sound like it, Mr. Smith.

Walk!

- You sure it's Gemma?

- Um, we're pretty confident.

But we'll know more after we go through his computer

and his phone.

- And you're sure he didn't touch her?

- We only know what we saw on the video,

but we're gonna need to talk to Gemma.

And we're gonna take her to the doctor, okay?

- And what if he did something more than make her undress?

- Then we will make sure that he pays for it.

- And there's a video, which is just out there?

Once something is on the internet, it's there forever!

[phone dings]

- I personally will not stop until that site

is taken down, okay?

Rollins.

Okay.

Uh, Sears has something.

- Remember when I said I had to poke holes in the site

to find Gatekeeper? - Yeah?

- I might have poked too hard.

- How do you know that?

- Because we got a message into Lloyd's account

from one of the moderators.

- "Need to talk tonight.

In person."

- Okay.

Are there any other messages from them to Lloyd

or any other connections?

- None that I could find.

- Which means either they know each other offsite,

or they know we're cops and this is some kind of trap.

- Or...

this is an opportunity.

Moderator gets us one step closer to Gatekeeper

to shut this whole thing down.

Set the meet.

- Okay, we just-- there's no way of knowing

who this moderator is,

what they want,

what they're planning.

- I know that this is a little risky,

but I also know that we can control it.

- Standing by for a while.

What time is it now?

- 7:45. You all right?

- I'm just antsy.

The moderator's 45 minutes late.

How much longer we gonna wait here?

- Maybe not long.

Got an incoming on your right-- male subject, white, 40s.

There's a second subject, an Asian female.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

We're right here, Bruno.

♪ ♪

- I'm meeting someone.

- So are we.

- Might be each other.

♪ ♪

- So how about we just skip to the part

where we introduce ourselves?

♪ ♪

NYPD! - Whoa, whoa--

- Now.

- Do not move! - Hey, hey.

- Hey, hey, hey. Whoa, whoa, whoa!

- Do not move your hands!

I will shoot you. Do not move that hand!

- Let's talk. - Hands!

- This isn't what you think. - Slowly.

Slow-ly.

- He asked for an introduction.

♪ ♪

Craig Lynch.

- Lauren Fei, FBI Special Task Force.

- [exhales sharply] Okay.

Let's talk.

♪ ♪

.

- The whole fake meet thing necessary?

- Well, we had to find out who was inside

the account you infiltrated.

- Yeah, how'd you know it was infiltrated?

- Login patterns changed.

Up went the red flag.

Felt like law enforcement,

which is why we called the meet.

- A federal task force is running a child abuse website.

How did that come to be?

- Six months ago, the U.S. Attorney's Office

reached out to us about a CSAM distribution case

out of Putnam County.

Turns out the suspect was a moderator on The Gate.

- And you flipped him to get inside.

- Same way you did.

- Okay, so you knowingly allowed The Gate

and the Gatekeeper to continue operating

for six months.

Why?

- Because it led us to something bigger.

Moderators oversee every user

and every private message between them.

We started reviewing those messages,

and that's when we found what we believe

is a group of traffickers

coordinating the sale of children.

- Coordinating how?

- They're using the site to communicate.

- Why wasn't SVU notified?

- Because we have reason to believe it crosses state lines.

- So what have you done about it?

- As of now, surveil.

We know children are being trafficked,

but we don't know exactly yet where, when, or how.

- So six months in, and you've got nothing to show for it.

- Just because our intel isn't actionable yet

doesn't mean it's not credible.

- And by waiting to take action,

people like Lloyd and Eric are out there abusing kids.

- Babies.

- If we make too many producer arrests,

we compromise The Gate and our operation with it.

- So the FBI is okay sacrificing victims like ours,

using them as collateral damage--

- While you figure out what your operation actually is.

- An operation that could rescue children from being

sold for sex, Captain.

- Which brings us to what I imagine

is the real reason

why you actually called the meet,

is to ask us to stop making arrests?

- We're being overly courteous by explaining ourselves.

And we're not asking.

Lloyd Harris's account will be deleted along with your access.

A few producer arrests, we can contain.

But any more than that blows our cover.

- Then I want you out of my squad room

because there is nothing left to talk about.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- [sighs]

♪ ♪

- We're just gonna let them walk away?

- As opposed to, what, waste our breath?

- We can't just let this happen.

- It's not gonna happen, Bruno.

- What are you thinking, Liv?

- I don't know.

♪ ♪

- I just don't really believe in, like, therapy.

- Okay, well, this part isn't therapy.

So Survivor Services helps you navigate the court system,

and they are gonna compensate you for any time

that you miss work.

- Real money? - Real money.

And they will connect you

with a counselor for you

and for Michael.

And Mr. DeMarco, I strongly advise that you

take them up on that

because it's important,

whether you believe in therapy or not.

- I'm not gonna talk to some stranger about our problems.

- Well, I'll tell you what's not helping right now,

is you.

- What's that supposed to mean?

- That means that your feelings are valid,

and it's okay for you to be angry.

But what's not okay

is teaching Michael

that anger is the only way to cope with what happened.

- You sounded like Michael's mom just now.

[soft music]

She was always on me for getting mad at stupid stuff.

And I got a lot better,

let more things roll off my back.

But...

♪ ♪

I'm slipping since she died.

I know I am.

- So what do you think would help with that?

- Yeah, yeah, I know.

A therapist. - Yeah.

- All right.

Maybe he's little enough that he'll forget about all this.

- I--

I don't think so.

But he can learn

how to process it.

And so can you.

♪ ♪

- So this is gonna stick with him?

Forever?

- Mr. DeMarco and Michael,

ready for you two.

- Come on, papa.

[imitates whooshing]

♪ ♪

- The Feds leaving that site open is unconscionable,

and you're justifying it. - Oh, no.

I'm saying that you have to weigh all the factors.

If keeping the site open is leading them

to child traffickers, I get that argument.

- We can only worry about the crimes we know about,

not the ones that might happen

or the ones we might find out about.

- I-- - True or false, Fin--

access to child abuse material

only encourages more child abuse?

- Both of you have valid points.

I'm just not gonna get in between you two.

- Okay, listen, shutting down the site,

it doesn't stop anything.

I mean, they'll just go somewhere else.

- Yeah, but if it makes it 1% harder for the abuser,

then it's better doing that than sitting on our hands

and doing nothing.

- You don't think it's better to know and track

everybody who's involved?

- So you'd be okay with your kids on that website?

- Bruno-- - Is that a real question?

- Look, I'm just saying it recruits more abusers.

So evidently you're okay with that.

- I think you know that's not true.

- There's dozens of kids on that website

we couldn't identify, and we're just supposed to

leave them behind for the FBI?

- No one is getting left behind.

We're continuing with the investigation

of finding Gatekeeper.

- Even if it blows up the task force?

- Especially if it blows up the task force.

- Well, if Fei and Lynch are right, Liv,

you're--you're burning their trafficking case.

- It's a case that we can't wait for--

while other kids get abused?

- That just gives the Feds more reason to burn you.

- And I don't care if nobody likes it.

We have to help who we can right now.

And even one more baby

is hurt by that site...

- The task force nuked Lloyd's account,

so how are we getting in?

- Sears just traced Gatekeeper to an IP in Tribeca,

and she said that we are minutes away

from getting a street address.

[suspenseful music]

- Move, move, move!

- NYPD!

♪ ♪

- Clear the hall! - Clear!

- Clear! - Clear!

Clear!

- Move, move, move, move, move!

- Moving!

- In, in! - Clear!

- NYPD! Don't move! - [shrieks, breathing heavily]

- Who else is in the house?

- No--no one right now.

- What does that mean?

- Um, my daughter.

She--she's not home.

- Got another bedroom.

♪ ♪

.

- Her--her name is iris.

- Where is she?

- With my brother at the park. Why?

- We ask the questions. How long have you lived here?

- Uh, five years.

Since she was born.

- Got a laptop.

- How many computers you got in here?

- Uh, just one. Sorry. What are you doing with it?

- Are you afraid we might find something?

- I don't know what you're talking about.

- Oh, you don't? - Bagging another.

- I thought you said there was only one.

- No, that--that's my brother's, Sam's.

- Does he live here too?

- Well, he's been staying with us since he got laid off.

Is he in trouble?

- Is there a reason he would be?

- Well, I don't know. - You don't know?

- Uh, he's quiet.

He spends a ton of time on that computer.

And with Iris.

- "'Real isn't how you are made,' said the skin horse.

'It's a thing that happens to you.

'When a child loves you for a long, long time,

not just to play with, but really loves you'"--

- "Then you become real."

I love that book so much.

- I like it too. - Yeah?

That's my favorite part. What's your favorite part?

- I like when the rabbit goes into the stocking

and makes all the milk and cookies.

- Oh.

- Then he comes out and grabs one of the toys.

- Come on, Iris. It's time to go, okay?

- NYPD! - Sam! Sam! Sam!

- No! - Iris! Iris!

[shouting, grunting]

Iris, don't worry, my love!

- Sam! - It's okay!

Iris-- - Hey!

You don't get to talk to her anymore.

You're under arrest.

- Please.

♪ ♪

- You recognize any of these, Sam?

You should because they're all yours.

Now, our analyst is, uh, having some trouble accessing them.

Uh, do you know why that is?

Hmm? I'll tell you why.

It's because you locked them down--

encryption that she says is gonna take days to hack.

- I don't know anything about that.

- You don't know. - Yeah.

Then how did we find you, Sam?

Was it--was it a coincidence that an IP address

led us to your sister's apartment?

Or that a video of your niece being assaulted in her bedroom

ended up on The Gate.

- Iris is my everything.

I would never hurt her. - Sam, stop.

Whether you admit that you're Gatekeeper doesn't matter.

You're looking at enough to put you away for life.

Sexual abuse of your niece.

Operating a child exploitation ring.

And when we get into your computer,

sadly, there'll be so much more.

- Then why am I still here?

- 'Cause your laptop leads us to every predator

who ever filmed something for your site.

And we're gonna find them.

- And why would I help with that?

- Because you have nothing to lose.

The Gate dies without your next canary,

and we get in anyway.

So the one thing that you can do for yourself--

and for us--is to simply not make us wait.

- I already said I don't know.

I don't wanna talk anymore.

- [clicks tongue]

Well...

what if

we had something to offer you?

[soft tense music]

Or...

someone.

I mean, maybe the court would allow...

Monthly phone calls.

- [softly] Cap.

♪ ♪

- Weekly.

- Don't push it.

- Actually, I want visits.

Can the court do that?

♪ ♪

- Cap, I need to talk to you.

♪ ♪

- Yeah.

Yeah.

♪ ♪

They can.

♪ ♪

- Then I need my laptop.

♪ ♪

- So we're just offering kids up as bait now?

- Sam will see Iris again over my dead body.

- We don't usually gratify child sexual predators

with photos of their own victims.

- Bruno, you know that we offer whatever we want.

- That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about whatever's going on with you, Cap.

- Okay, it was an innocent picture, and it worked.

And now Sears has everything

she needs to find more producers.

And we arrest them, we identify the victims,

and we watch The Gate die.

- Liv!

Incoming task force.

- Captain Benson.

Do you have any idea what you've just done?

- Yes, I arrested the man responsible for The Gate

and for the abuse of our victims.

- Sam Caldwell is in NYPD custody.

- Not anymore.

A federal detainer from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Marshals are on their way up.

And honestly, I'm not sure what you expected.

- Well, I expected a reaction, but I hoped

that it wouldn't come to this.

- After you went over our heads,

arrested Gatekeeper, who you knew was an asset--

- The monster in that room, you call an asset?

- Considering that without him, the task force falls apart--

- That was kind of the idea.

- An idea that's left us with no choice.

- Because you wanted to become Gatekeeper.

- The site gets run by us or not at all.

This is about preserving our operation,

rescuing trafficked children.

- The only thing you're preserving

is a site that gives your and our perps

a place to continue doing this.

- The site's the only place that

will allow us to find them.

- And you're okay with replacing its creator to do it?

- We have to replace the creator because of you.

And we're done talking.

- Then listen!

Michael DeMarco.

Gemma Burns.

Sam's niece, Iris,

which I'm guessing you didn't even know about

because it's not your priority, is it?

- Step back.

- The government doesn't wanna arrest child abusers.

They wanna run a child porn site to themselves.

- You are out of line. - These are babies!

Man, look at them! Babies!

- Bruno, step back now.

Now.

[tense music]

- Go. Now.

- And turn over everything you've recovered

from Sam Caldwell.

This is over.

- Let's go.

♪ ♪

.

[door squeaks open]

- Look, Sarge, I screwed up.

I get it. It was dumb.

I'm sorry. It won't happen again.

- A few weeks after I came to SVU from Narcotics,

Cragen had me talk to this four-year-old boy.

His mother thought it was his Little League coach

that got to him, and she was right.

That little boy told me everything

that happened to him.

He was braver than most cops I've ever met.

I never wanted to kill anybody more

than I wanted to kill that dude.

30 years later, I still think about it.

- Where is he now?

- He stroked out waiting on an appeal.

For a while, this job is all I thought about.

I mean, everything else took a back seat--

family, friends, plans.

And dating?

I mean, who wants to go out with somebody like me?

Forget about it.

With all this evil stuck in my head.

It took a while to get straight with that.

[exhales deeply]

There's a difference between doing this job

and letting it become you.

You feel me?

- Yeah, Fin.

But I don't know how we're gonna fix this.

- Stand up, Terry.

Let me fill you in on this plan.

- Captain Benson, I filed a request

for an operational review by the DOJ.

- Yeah? A review of what?

- Leadership at Manhattan SVU and the decision-making

that got us there yesterday.

- Okay, I think we both know what got us to this point.

And if you came down here just to intimidate me,

you're really wasting your time.

- I came down here to let you know that

there are consequences, Captain Benson.

And I'll do everything I can to make sure that you face them.

- Ah, well, good luck with that.

Oh, and, um, you might wanna hold off on the DOJ.

- What does that mean?

- It means that there's gonna be a lot more

to review after today.

Because if the task force wants to keep running

a CSAM website themselves,

then I'm gonna make sure that

there's nothing left of it to run.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- And by doing that, you're blowing our chance

to get the people we think are moving kids.

- I need to look at the victims that are in front of me,

Agent Fei, not the ones that I can't see.

- Great.

So when the next two-year-old gets taken to Bangkok

to be raped, we'll make sure to tell her

that you had to look at the victims in front of you.

♪ ♪

- Hey, you're coming with us.

Let's go.

♪ ♪

- Carisi checked with the DOJ.

They charged Sam.

And with what we have on him, he's never getting out.

- We hear back from Sears?

- Yes, and Sears said that she's pulling everything

she can from The Gate.

And she said that she has almost all

of Computer Crimes helping to find more producers.

And she said that today's canary never went out,

meaning that users are leaving the site.

- The site's dying.

Good. - Yeah.

- And the fallout on this?

- Well, uh,

I'm here when DOJ wants to talk to me.

But right now, Bruno, what I wanna talk about is--

is you.

So you're gonna take some time off.

- Wait. What?

- Yeah, it's nothing formal.

It's just, you know, accrued leave.

- I did my job on this, Cap.

- You did, and you did it well.

Nobody is denying that.

- I watched those videos because somebody had to.

- That's not the problem. - Then what is?

- Pretending that it didn't mess you up.

- [scoffs]

Same way you pretend nothing messes you up?

- This isn't about me, Bruno.

- I mean, you got us up against the Feds.

You risk your career-- you risk all of ours.

I don't see you taking any time off.

- I know that you think that this is about punishment,

but it's not.

It's about protection.

Because I do expect my detectives go above and beyond,

but not at their own expense.

- Okay.

I hear you.

But maybe I was just...

following your lead.

- Good night, Bruno.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[wolf howls]