In Law & Order: SVU season 25 episode 5, "Zone Rouge," Olivia (Mariska Hargitay) and the SVU squad get a glimmer of hope in finding Maddie (Alison Elaine) when the Pittsburgh SVU sends over a picture of a teenage boy and a hand-written note. Is it enough for Olivia to work with to find Maddie, especially with the assistance of FBI Special Agent Shannah Sykes (Jordana Spiro)?
A train, a boy and a note
On a train, a middle-aged man is sketching as he sits next to his sleeping teenage "son." He then wakes up the "boy" to go to the bathroom. The teenager just wants to be left alone, but the man is insistent the boy drink water, which he reluctantly does. As the man leaves to go to the bathroom himself, a man named Cash (Kevin Csolak) watches, sitting in the seat directly behind them.
Cash is on the phone with his girlfriend and sees the boy looking disheveled and out of it, and assumes he's high on heroin or something. The girlfriend doesn't believe him, so he snaps a photo of the boy and sends it to her. Before the boy completely fades off, he takes a piece of paper and a pen, writes a note and passes it back to Cash just before the middle-aged man returns. When Cash picks up the note it reads "Call NYPD."
Back in the SVU squad room, Fin (Ice-T) is shocked to find Captain Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly). He claims he was unaware she'd officially joined the team and is not happy to see her, but takes one of the donuts she brought in as he goes to vent to Olivia. The two are talking when Velasco (Octavio Pisano) walks in and says the Pittsburgh SVU sent over a picture of the boy from the train and the note.
Immediately, Olivia recognizes it's not a boy but Maddie. She shows the picture and note to her parents. While Eileen (Leslie Fray) recognizes the teen as Maddie, Peter (Zack Robidas) isn't as confident but says the note is in her handwriting.
Olivia then hops on a video call with the Pittsburgh SVU captain and he says the photo of Maddie was shared by a young woman and they'll have their intel try and track the young woman down to get more information from her. He also lets Olivia know that the FBI sent Agent Sykes to Pittsburgh to help with the case.
The call concludes when Velasco interrupts and claims they were able to pull security footage from a camera in Buffalo, N.Y., which shows Maddie walking with the man who was sitting next to her on the train.
Liv and Fin meet with Tanya Garcia (Leilany Celeste), the kidnapping survivor from the season 25 premiere, and show her the image of the man with Maddie. Tanya identifies the man as George (Patrick Carroll). She also explains Maddie is likely high in the photo as George likes to dissolve Fentanyl in warm water, cool the water down and have victims drink it.
Olivia heads to Pittsburgh
Olivia goes to Pittsburgh and meets Sykes. As it turns out, Cash has been identified by Pittsburgh intel as a small-time dealer, which is probably why he didn't come forward to the cops about Maddie's note. His girlfriend who came forward is named Heather (Lindsey Dresbach).
Sykes and Olivia question both Cash and Heather, and while Cash isn't helpful, Heather is a gold mine of information. She apparently found Maddie's note in Cash's pocket while doing laundry, which happened to be days after Cash received it, hence the delay in authorities getting the tip.
Heather also shares the night after Cash's travel she looked through his phone and found a new number. She says it was George's, and she has Cash’s phone in her bag. It's believed Cash actually helped George get the drugs that he used on his victims.
Intel uses the number to ping George's location on a train headed back to Pittsburgh. Olivia, Sykes and authorities go to meet the train as it pulls into the station. Before anyone can get off, Olivia and company board and look for George. Olivia spots him and he's placed under arrest. Unfortunately, Maddie isn't anywhere to be found. They only locate George's bag full of clothes and money, leading Sykes to assume he sold Maddie.
Maddie has been sold, but does Olivia find her and her buyer?
When George is brought back to the SVU squad room, Olivia and Sykes question George with his attorney present. He goads the duo about their "failures." He notes to Olivia he didn't take Maddie, but she lost the teen. George then correctly guesses Sykes previously lost a girl. It would later be revealed that Sykes' sister went missing when she was younger and was never found.
George refuses to share much about who bought Maddie, but then Fin walks in and relays they were able to recover deleted text messages from George's phone and those messages prove he sold Maddie to Leonard Fleming (Alex Parkinson), who is near Rochester, N.Y.
SVU and the FBI find Maddie in the basement of what looks to be an abandoned home. As they find her lying on a mattress, she looks up outside of the basement window and sees Leonard. Olivia spots him too and chases after him, eventually catching up with him to put him under arrest.
In the end, Maddie is taken to a hospital and reunites with her parents. Then in a twist, Sykes informs Olivia she's looking for a change and pitches being a liaison of sorts to SVU. Sykes would still work for the FBI, but she would be stationed in New York to help Olivia and her team with cases. For longtime fans of the series, it sounds like she would be the new Wong (Howard Weinstein).
New episodes of Law & Order: SVU debut on Thursdays at 9 pm ET/PT on NBC. Episodes become available the next day on Peacock.
