"I’m teaching her to go undercover. She’s a natural.”
- Reese
Unlike the previous episode, “Baby Blue” is highly entertaining. I watched the commercials for it multiple times because it made me laugh so much. We have two plots this week, the first being that Elias’s father, Gianni Moretti, is being released from prison. Carter and Reese are there to meet him and Carter tries to offer Moretti protection but he declines. Reese is there because it looks like the Machine gave them Moretti’s number. Finch however, is on his own at the moment as he’s gotten the number of one Lela Smith. Her social security number was only issued two months ago. He goes to the only address he has (a hospital) and finds out she’s a patient…and a 6-month old baby girl who was left at the hospital under New York’s Safe Haven law. Let me tell you, she is the cutest little thing! Not long after Finch shows up, two guys show up claiming they have to transfer Lela. Finch notes their boots (it’s always the shoes that give away the bad guys in scrubs) and does something rash. He kidnaps Lela while Reese and Carter have a shootout with some of Elias’s people. Looks like Moretti is getting that protective custody after all.
Reese gets back to HQ to find Lela in a makeshift playpen (made of books) playing with one of Finch’s ties. It’s adorable. They don’t know who Lela’s parents are but the clinic where she was dropped off received $50,000 around the time she was born and $10,000 each month after. Likely, the goons that showed up were going to smuggle her out of the country and dump her in some third world orphanage. Finch goes to have a little rendezvous with Carter (and pick up some diapers and bottles) while Reese has some quality time with the baby. I have to admit, John Reese and baby do not go together in my head. Nor does it make any kind of sense to Carter. She feels like her hands are tied because other than not arresting Finch (which she says several times), she can’t do much. Finch tells her to look into the clinic. Meanwhile, back at the precinct, one of the corrupt cops strong arms Lionel into following Carter to see where she’s stashed Moretti. He clearly doesn’t look too happy about it. At least he’s trying to be a better cop and human being.
Carter does pay a visit to the clinic but she get5s sidelined by the director. He insists they don’t’ know anything about Lela’s parents. But Mary (the nurse) seems a little more knowledgeable so Carter leaves a card (and says she’s with SVU no homicide). Over at HQ, Reese and Finch have discovered that the donor of the $50,000 is Patrocian Construction. In a rather hilarious bit, Reese is holding Lela while looking at a picture of the Patrocian family and he points to the two men in the picture and asks “Dada?” He got a funny look from Finch and a giggle out of me. Reese heads out to do a little surveillance on the Patrocian clan while Finch tries to get Lela to drink a bottle (again more giggling on my part). It appears that the parents might be covering for the son. Carter gets a call from Mary and learns that Lela came in with a silver bracelet with the initials C.C. carved on it. Finch does a little digging and they come up with Claudia Cruz, a receptionist who left the company eight months ago (the timing a bit off and honestly, the baby playing Lela is NOT 6 months old). Anyway, Carter finds a report that Claudia died in a fire four days earlier. Thinks are looking pretty hinky.
Carter, Finch and Reese have a little meeting in public and Carter chides John for bringing Lela along. He explains he’s teaching her to go undercover. Okay, how cute is that? Carter is going to go over the autopsy and case report with a mentor from the fire department and look at the scene. Going over the scene, Carter is convinced that it was not an accident. She was hit with something (a pipe) and the smoke detector was compromised. Finch goes to talks to Claudia’s parents. It becomes clear fairly quickly that Claudia was pregnant. Her mother shows Finch a photo of Claudia and Brad (the son) so Reese follows him. But Brad’s not Lela’s father. He’s gay. So it’s time to look at Papa Patrocian. Reese is about to head off when he asks about Lela. Finch turns around to see her gone.
IN what is probably one of my favorite scenes of the episode, Reese and Finch are looking for Lela and they find her with a tear gas grenade. Apparently Reese was supposed to move his arsenal. They are arguing like a married couple and it just cracks me up. Finch is going to take Lela to her grandparents so she’ll be safe (he’s put them in a safe house) but things don’t go well. The house wasn’t very safe and thugs end up making off with Lela. Meanwhile, Carter gets back to the precinct and gets a call from the other cop babysitting Moretti. She lies to Lionel about why he called and rushes off, leaving Lionel to take the evidence from Claudia’s apartment down to the lab.
Reese is on the war path now. He goes to the Patrocian home and starts wailing on the dad, only to get a text from Carter saying it was the wife who killed Claudia. She swears she can’t get in touch with the people she hired because the number has been disconnected. So he heads to a bar and knocks some heads together but still doesn’t get what he wants. So he makes a really tough call, he goes to see Elias for help. Elias gets him an address and Reese almost intercepts the kidnappers but Elias shows up again. He wants Moretti’s location (which we know John knows) and he locks Reese and Lela in a freezer truck (with the air turned on) with a baby monitor. Reese can save Lela if he just tells Elias where Moretti is. Reese rights it for as long as he can (he even manages to break free of the bar he’s been handcuffed to and curls up around Lela to try and keep her warm. He finally gives in and tells Elias where Moretti is stashed. Guess Lionel doesn’t have to rat out Carter. He followed her and saw where Moretti was but lies to the corrupt cop about what he saw. Elias’s people shoot the other cop watching Moretti and nab him, dragging him out to the same spot where Reese went to ask for help. Carter is so upset with all that’s happened, especially since Reese was the one who gave up the location, that she says she’s done. The only good thing in all of this is that Reese and Finch manage to unite Lela safely with her grandparents.
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