Law & Order: SVU season 26 episode 10 recap — what happened to Anthony?

In Law & Order: SVU season 26 episode 10, "Master Key," Olivia (Mariska Hargitay) and her squad are tasked with looking into the abduction of a teenager named Anthony (Ricky Garcia). As they work to find him, they quickly learn this case is actually a homicide investigation and have to unravel webs of deceit to get to the bottom of what really happened. So are NYPD’s finest able to get to the truth and get some form of justice? Here’s what happened in Law & Order: SVU season 26 episode 10.

Where is Anthony?

At a group home, Ms. Miller (Monnae Michaell) asks if anyone has seen Anthony. She goes into his room, but he isn’t there. However, his phone is on the bed, which alarms her.

Bruno (Kevin Kane) and Silva (Juliana Aidén Martinez) arrive and are briefed that Anthony’s parents are both deceased and he’s on probation. Speaking with Ms. Miller, the cops learn it was a normal day for Anthony. Eric (Chinua Baraka Payne) shares that when they came home after school Anthony packed a sack and left. He climbed into a gold minivan with an older white guy. Another cop interrupts and says they got a ping on Anthony’s ankle monitor.

That leads to a diner, where a waitress saw Anthony with an older white man. She also notes the minivan, but the duo has already left. But Anthony’s ankle monitor is still appearing at the diner. Silva soon finds the monitor in the garbage.

The next morning, Olivia wants an update on Anthony. TARU found Anthony was googling how to remove an ankle monitor. When Velasco (Octavio Pisano) and Curry (Aimé Donna Kelly) go meet with Michael Strickland (Zach Appelman), Anthony’s CPS caseworker, they learned he was being picked on in school and one day he lost his temper and assaulted his bully. Additionally, Strickland doesn’t know of any white men who Anthony could have been in contact with.

After TARU is able to pull footage from a camera showing Anthony getting into the van, they identify the van belonging to a Colin Clark. Curry and Velasco rush to the Clark home, where Mrs. Clark (Jo Twiss) is alone and doesn’t know where her husband is. He told her he was going to a coin-collecting convention, and she has no idea who Anthony is. She suggests they speak to those he worked with.

That leads to a seedy motel, where Colin is the motel’s locksmith. However, the clerk can’t recall when he saw him last and hasn’t seen Anthony. An officer radios SVU that they found something in room 2B. Olivia and her team rush in and find Colin undressed in bed, shot to death. There’s still no sign of Anthony, but Olivia hears whimpering from next door. She leads her team to break into the room, where they find a sobbing Anthony sitting on the bed in his underwear, with blood splattered on him, holding a gun.

What happened in room 2B?

At the hospital, Olivia asks Anthony how he knew Colin. He says Colin kidnapped him off the street. Olivia tells Anthony his roommate saw him hug Colin and get in his car, but Anthony is adamant Colin had a gun and forced him into the van. Olivia questions why he left his phone at the group home. Anthony considered running away. Carisi (Peter Scanavino) then questions him about the ankle monitor. Anthony claims Colin cut it off. Carisi and Olivia look skeptical.

At the crime scene, Silva tells Bruno the gun belonged to Colin and the only bullets fired from it recently were the ones used to kill him. As they look over the crime scene, the suspect Colin wasn’t shot in bed but on the floor next to it and dragged into the bed later. Bruno doubts Anthony could lift Colin, which prompts Silva to believe someone else was in the room. Bruno calls Oliva with the theory.

Olivia gets Anthony to explain what happened in the motel room. The teen explains Colin took him to the room but started not to feel well and went into the bathroom. Anthony took the opportunity to grab the gun. When Colin came out, he got in the bed and Anthony shot him. Olivia says her detectives think he was shot on the floor, but Anthony says the officers are wrong. Carisi and Olivia leave. Outside the hospital, he tells her Anthony will be sent to juvie after he’s released from the hospital until they can prove self-defense.

Once the medical examiner confirms Silva’s theory that Colin was killed on the floor, SVU receives word that in addition to Colin and Anthony’s fingerprints being on the gun, there was another partial print found on it. TARU also found lost text messages between Anthony and Colin that expressed love for one another and talked about running away together to California.

Carisi and Olivia confront Anthony about the texts at juvie. He admits he went with Colin willingly in the van, but claims he led Colin on so Colin would help him leave New York. Anthony then lies again about what happened in the motel room. Anthony gets angry and says they're the real liars. He abruptly goes back to his cell. In his absence, Olivia tells Carisi she thinks Anthony is covering for the person who actually killed Colin.

Who is Anthony protecting?

The next day, Olivia wants her team to focus on finding out who the partial print belongs to, believing the individual has some power over Anthony. They start with Ms. Miller, who recently went to see Anthony in lockup. She is disheartened about Anthony and explains his assault charge stems from attacking an older boy; Anthony has issues with older boys because he was sexually assaulted by an older boy when he was placed with a foster family. She learned this information from Strickland.

Bruno and Silva speak with a supervisor at CPS and learn that a few parents felt that Strickland focused too much on the kids, going above and beyond, taking them for ice cream and such. The supervisor says Strickland’s methods get results. A skeptical Bruno and Silva find Strickland and ask him where he was the night of Colin’s murder. Strickland stops the line of questioning and gets a lawyer.

In an interrogation room with his attorney, Strickland confesses he was in the motel room because Anthony called him. When Strickland arrived he was furious with Colin who was lying in bed with Anthony. In the chaos, Anthony shot Colin.

Olivia and Carisi return to juvie to meet with Anthony and play the audio of Strickland’s interrogation. Anthony begrudgingly admits he called Strickland, but doesn’t get into why. Olivia pleads with Anthony to tell the truth, stop protecting Strickland and give himself a chance at life. Anthony says he doesn’t want it.

Strickland’s big scheme exposed

SVU tries to figure out the missing pieces. Curry admits she called the random numbers in Anthony’s phone, and all the men who answered sounded confused. Velasco hypothesizes that the men are all lying and it’s possible Anthony was turning tricks for these men at Strickland’s direction. Olivia tells them to follow up.

Velasco and Curry go to TARU, and the tech team found a dated Craigslist posting of Anthony with a contact number that can be traced back to Strickland. TARU can also prove not only that Strickland was the go-between for Anthony and his predators, but for other teens and their predators as well. Strickland was trafficking dozens of kids in the CPS system.

Carisi and Olivia tell Anthony he’s not Strickland’s only victim. Oliva again pleads with him for the truth. Anthony confesses he met Colin on Craigslist; he was nice to Anthony and told him he had choices. Anthony tried to get away from Strickland so he punched the kid at school to get on probation so he would have to wear an ankle monitor and Strickland couldn’t traffic him.

On the night of the murder, Anthony called Strickland from the hotel because he panicked. Strickland came and made Colin get on his knees, then put the gun in Anthony’s hands. Strickland put his hands on Anthony’s and made the teen pull the trigger. Strickland then put Colin in the bed.

Velasco and Curry arrest Strickland, while Carisi plans to push Strickland’s attorney to take a plea deal so Anthony doesn’t have to testify.

New episodes of Law and Order: SVU air on Thursdays on NBC and become available the next day on Peacock.