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Check out the media thread for the article links and discussion! Don't know off hand, but she might be familiar because she looked a lot like Benson. Especially in the dark with those oversized glasses - at first I thought that was Liv going for her gun.

The Good: Velasco gets a promotion. He still gets crapped on unnecessarily on his way out the door, but it was nice to see him getting some love and bringing everyone together. If he is going to get pushed out for Mariska's power play at least he got a nice send off. Fin. It's nice to see him getting some solid material, both as comic relief and as the voice of cynical wisdom. The show is so much better when that element that he and Munch used to bring to every episode is there. The whole squad out in the field, interviewing people and running down leads. Even working with MEs and CSU! It is nice to see they actually remember how to do this - with the ADA appropriately consulted too! Bruno reminding us of just how much Kevin Kane's raw charisma elevates an episode. A solid script. Good story, used everyone and didn't bog down too much in any of the usual pitfalls. The Bad: A missed opportunity with Silva still around to take advantage of having someone newer around to show the audience that this is a truly twisted and unusual case. And speaking of Silva looks like she is getting unceremoniously dumped like every other young female detective the past decade. I guess she is guilty of not playing a slightly younger version of Benson who is not too threatening to MH's ego. Overall this was a solid ending that would leave me optimistic for next season if it wasn't for seeing the articles about where TPTB want to go with the show. At least this season ended on a high note.

Rollins Returns: Kelli Giddish Rejoins ‘Law & Order: SVU’ As Series Regular For Season 27 ‘Law & Order: SVU’ to Bring Back Kelli Giddish as Series Regular for Season 27 And there goes my hopes for them to build on the momentum of a good season. Not seeing how this works creatively unless you replace Curry with 2 young theater actors trying to break into TV. And even then it probably means Fin and Bruno are there even less...

Come on. What kind of brainless moron would try to stop the distribution of vaccines against a life threatening epidemic? That would be terrible writing. Completely unbelievable...

‘Law & Order: SVU’: Two Executive Producers Depart Ahead Of Season 27 It seems like the turnover continues. I like this change a lot better than the cast cuts - if there is going to be an EP departing on the technical side I'd prefer a new editor as the directing has been mostly good, given the limitations of budget and a lead that doesn't seem to always take direction, but it says he'll still be around on a per episode basis and it's not necessarily a great loss - the folks behind the cameras are still solid pros and I'm sure they will keep doing fine as long as Mariska stays too busy with OC to decide she wants to direct more than once a year or so. However cutting a high salaried writer who is obviously out of fresh ideas and has spent most of the last 10 years as part of the problem and not the solution is a good move and increases the odds that a new showrunner can build on the momentum they have developed this season.

The Good: The opener. If you are going to show the crime, this was a good way of doing it. We didn't see the whole thing from the beginning so we didn't know more than the squad and it added to the whodunnit aspect instead of hurting it. The COTW. It was actually well done as far as a twisted and elaborate crime without getting campy or needing the cops to be psychic to solve the case. Carisi had a lot of good material for an episode with no courtroom scenes. The guest cast. They had a lot of material that was challenging to do without going OTT or underplaying too much and coming off wooden and they mostly pulled it off. The Bad: No Bruno again. Everyone but Benson, Carisi, and Fin was interchangeable and had no real reason to be there other than to fill space. While it's better than having the captain do all of the fieldwork, it's still lazy writing. And even Fin was underused to some extent - this case cried out for some snark about rich white people and their entitled kids. Overall this was a a pretty good episode. Classic SVU formula done competently without too much OTT Benson worship. The acting and technical aspects were mostly well done. The major flaw that kept this from being a very good to excellent episode was a script that never really rose above adequate - with a little polish to add some dark humor in the right places, and add some nuance and personality to the secondary characters it would have been excellent. Instead it was just pretty good. Hopefully they raise their game a bit for the finale.

I have a hard time believing that you could ever find 12 people to unanimously convict anyone for stabbing Stephen A. Smith regardless of alleged motive or relationship...

Pisano will probably get work from Wolf elsewhere as long as he doesn't complain publicly. He was good when they actually bothered to write something for him even when the material wasn't good. Speaking of which isn't it time for a new generically good looking vaguely ethnic younger male detective on OC? I think so since I just changed my oil...

‘Law & Order: SVU’: Juliana Martinez & Octavio Pisano Leaving After Season 26 Well doesn't this just suck. Another young female case member unceremoniously booted without being given a chance. While I've often thought we had one too many detectives this year (after so long having too few) this is not necessarily whom we need to cut. No news yet on if they are bringing in someone new, but this would mean we are left with a team of grizzled veterans. I do like them all, but that is bad for storytelling. Both in having mostly leads too old to chase down perps and being heavy on characters who have already been through most of the variations of depravity already. They would be better off keeping Silva and going back to the original idea of Curry pulling strings to come to SVU as a second captain with no command responsibilities to change the system and work outside of the usual procedures. One episode a month when Ice is in South Beach or one of the others is furloughed. If they are so hard up on budget, maybe we don't need so many Rollins special guest star episodes? They could then use OP's salary to pay for some recurring specialists like MEs, CSU, a counselor, etc. It seems like a step backwards, just when things are looking up with a new showrunner and a decent season. ☹️

The Good: We actually saw canvassing! And interviews with witnesses who weren't secretly perps or accessories! It's a May Day Miracle! The direction was pretty good. There was a fair amount of action and location shoots and they did a good job of shooting it without needing a lot of quick cuts or heavy handed musical cues. This was a pretty pedestrian script, but it was very well executed despite the current shoestring budgets. The Bad: No Fin and no Bruno? I guess they didn't want anyone with the charisma to accidentally uspstage the Super Mommies. I miss the old days when even when they pulled this budget bullcrap on us they at least had the professionalism to give us a line of dialogue to explain why people weren't there for a big case. Mariska's acting at the farm. When did she decide that they way to convey emotional depth and empathy was to make faces like she is experiencing gastrointestinal distress? Carisi's role here seemed kind of pointless and rushed. The legal case took up less than 4 minutes of screen time and he added nothing that couldn't have been done by someone else during the investigation. Not even any Rollisi action of note. I'd rather have had her and Fin get some scenes together. Overall this a perfectly cromulent episode. Nothing overly objectionable, but it also didn't do more than fill out the episode order. Hopefully next week will be something more than a blandly competent mix of SVU tropes.

They couldn't have the current mayor on. TV shows need to have believable characters...

And it's actually a good metric for most parts of the healthcare system. It forces healthcare professionals to pay attention to "bedside manner" and to think about the processes and seriously think about what is necessary for efficiency and better outcomes, and what is merely convenient for them, so that there is an incentive to think about patients as people when policies and procedures are created. But there is a big difference between outpatient orthopedic surgery and emergency medicine in terms of what is possible, and how in much of the outcome and patient experience is in the control of those being scored. The patient doesn't know that the long wait time was caused by another department not wanting to take them, or that the pain they experienced during a procedure would happen anywhere. Which is fairly common with any large organization or system - there is almost always one department or organization where one size fits all metrics break down - with my current employer I have watched this fight play out with the collections department not scoring as well on customer surveys as say, business lending. Fortunately the decision makers where a little bit more understanding and decided that they needed to find a different way to measure interactions.

It was mentioned early in the first season, but it hasn't come up much (at all?) since then. A little Googling comes up with Episode 1.3 "Just Tuesday" as the one where it was revealed.

I'm guessing we won't be seeing Larry David on the show any time soon... Larry David: My Dinner With Adolf

I don't think Benson understands the concept of "dial it back" at all. Her dials look like this at all times... In any case I don't think there is any question about how Benson and Maroun would interact. Benson would take charge from moment one and Maroun would follow with maybe the occasional polite suggestion that what Liv wanted wasn't actually, you know, legal. Then the case would go down in flames until Benson took the stand and/or convinced the victim to testify and cross examined the perp herself, brushing aside the judge's objections about not being an actual attorney...