Elliot tries to call Eli, but Eli ignores his calls. Eli is at the docks somewhere, watching some drunk Santas. He meets a girl, Mia, and tells her his mom was murdered and he couldn't bring himself to go to court today to learn the verdict about her murderer.

Mia invites Eli back to her place. She starts to suspect that he's underage but doesn't want to know how old he is. She teases him about his reaction to a tequila shot. Eli gives her pills, impressing her.

Somewhat predictably, Eli wakes up in the middle of the night and goes to tell Mia he has to get home, only to find her dead. Eli freaks out and runs away, going down the stairs because a neighbor is staring at him. He tries to get a cab home but the cab driver drives away.

At the Stabler house, Bernie is freaking out. She's convinced this is her fault. It was her pills. Why doesn't Elliot just admit he wishes he never asked her to move in? Stabler reassures her he's glad she's here. His phone rings. It's Eli. He's at a pay phone. He's half out of it but Elliot gets an address out of him and tells him to stay put while he comes to get him.

Despite having just told Elliot that she's tired of it being a one-way street, Olivia accompanies him on the drive to get Eli. Elliot says something is not right. Olivia says Eli is alive and had the sense to call Elliot. They will deal with this one step at a time. Elliot instinctively reaches for her hand.

Unsurprisingly, when they get to the pay phone, Eli is nowhere to be seen. Elliot screams his name.

Meanwhile, Eli is at a bridge somewhere, sitting on the edge and looking down...

A cop finds Eli. He talks him down from the bridge after a lot of rambling and attempts to establish rapport. The cop calls Elliot, who arrives at the precinct with Olivia. Eli is being held and will be transferred to a psych hospital for evaluation.

Elliot and Olivia visit Eli. He's all freaked out. They get him to tell them what happened last night. He is crying. They were his pills and Mia is dead. Olivia focuses on whether Eli might have had sex he couldn't consent to. Elliot focuses on keeping Eli's name out of this.

Olivia goes to Mia's apartment, where local police have found her body. The cops won't talk to her because she's from a different jurisdiction. Olivia manages to overhear the ME talking to a cop. She calls Elliot. Mia was suffocated. She thinks she was murdered last night.

A detective tells Elliot that they are arresting Eli. If he is innocent, that will be proven and charges will be dropped. But Elliot won't be allowed to see Eli in the mental hospital he's being remanded to as he is in police custody.

Eli is put in a lineup and the neighbor, Swafford, IDs him and says he seemed antsy.

Elliot freaks out. He goes to work and demands Jett look into the girl's history. Bell doesn't like it. They don't have jurisdiction and could get in trouble. Elliot doesn't think Fort Lee police will take this seriously. Bell reluctantly okays it. Within minutes, Jett discovers that Mia was an escort and the place she took Eli to was a shady motel that has hidden cameras. She gets the footage and it proves that Swafford killed Mia and Eli found her dead.

At the mental hospital, Elliot is throwing his weight around, wanting to see his son, while Olivia gets him to calm down and gets the nurse on duty to call the doctor for them. The doctor wants to talk to Elliot.

In the waiting room, Elliot wants to know about Olivia's life and especially her dating life. She tells him how she wasn't ready to marry Ed and then he died, leaving out his last name. Elliot is sorry. The doctor interrupts. He tells Elliot, who doesn't want to hear it, that while Eli isn't bipolar, he does suffer from severe anxiety and that part of why he was contemplating suicide is that he was afraid Elliot had been through too much and wouldn't be able to handle learning that he contributed to Mia's death.

During an interrogation, Swafford confesses that he was hired to kill Mia. He was supposed to make it look like Eli did it. But Eli ruined his plan by passing out instead of leaving after he and Mia drank and did drugs together. So he had to smother her while Eli was asleep in the next room. He was hired via cryptocurrency by someone at Rikers.

Elliot knows who that is, but first he thanks Olivia for her help and invites her to Christmas. She isn't sure she wants to go yet.

Elliot talks to Wheatley who claims he doesn't want any more bad blood with Elliot's family and that Dana was the only one with access to his cryptocurrency.

Elliot and Bell go to talk to Angela, who seems to be very out of it thanks to her injuries. But after they leave, Dana comes in and a clearly alert and with it Angela warns her that she needs to disappear. Richard can arrange it for her.

Barba informs Wheatley that the DA's office has decided not to pursue a new trial. Wheatley is free to go. Wheatley again tries to convince Barba to work for him. Barba is not interested.

Bell interrupts Christmas at the Stablers to give Elliot the bad news.