skittl3862

The whole court argument was illogical, as are all the others of late. When Stone was examining the mother, he said "The doctor told you your baby would have this disease and you didn't want an abortion, and now want to abort it 10 months late!" or whatever. That's not what she said had happened at all. She told Barba the doctor said there was a CHANCE the baby would have the disease, and she chose to risk it. A chance is not "Your doctor told you that 100% certainty that your baby would be braindead in 24/7 pain and dependent on machines." She didn't reframe his accusation, despite us as the audience just hearing the real story 10 minutes previous, and just took it. Then Stone equates pulling the plug on a braindead child as totally the same as murdering a functional child with Down Syndrome or a sore throat (?!?) and no one called him out. Was he purposefully trying to blow the case for Barba's sake? If this is him trying to be good, how on earth does this prove to the NY DA's office that he's good enough to move to Chicago to NY? Probably imagining all the income he was walking away from because he couldn't take this garbage anymore.

Lol. He killed a baby? At least Stabler shot a killer. I guess it's better than "Is this because I'm a lesbian?", but not by that much. Plot was lame. I didn't care about the parents. I really don't care about the new ADA. They spent almost as much time integrated him into the story as they did on Barba actually leaving. Benson's repeated pleas in defense of Barba were so over the top and I feel only existed to give Mariska enough screentime to justify letting the plot not be about her for 5 minutes. Wish we could have seen the other characters say goodbye to him instead of just her. Good riddance, SVU. Raul was the only thing that kept me around these last few years, but I couldn't even bring myself to watch this season. Only tuned in to see the last hurrah. Can't say I've missed it, and this episode gave me no reason to want to return.

He wanted out: Raúl Esparza exits Law & Order: SVU after six seasons

The ridiculousness of the timeline of this episode could have been saved for me if the scene with Tyrion trying to convince Dany not to go was at the beginning of the episode instead of the middle. It would set up that the plan all along was for Dany coming to the Wall to wait for them, instead of this many experienced military commanders sitting in a room and deciding "Yes, this is a perfectly reasonable plan. 6 important characters versus a bajillion White Walkers. We will have no contingency plan. What could possibly go wrong?" We also wouldn't have this absurdity that Gendry, ravens and dragons now make better time across Westeros than the Concorde jet. Then Gendry could have taken hours to get back to the wall to draw out the tension of the lake stand-off, but not the weeks (literally) it should have taken to notify Dany and her to arrive to save them. Viserion's death was tragic, but the part that really got me was that when everyone else was watching the dragon crash and die, Jorah was watching Dany. Unlike everyone else, he could pull his eyes away from witnessing this shocking, majestic scene, because he cared more about her.

Does Rachel's hair look like it's been highlighted to anyone else or is it my TV? Every time she turned her head last night, it looked like she has frosted tips or grey or something. Super shiny hair reflection from the lights? I should mention I watch the livestream 99% of the time and rarely see the show in HD on the big TV screen so maybe this is normal.

I watched a few season 1 episodes last week where the victims were into BDSM and they were more respectful and professional than they were last season with Father Eugene- in 2017, post-50 Shades. The milder aspects are practically mainstream these days, so for the Special Victims Unit- who deal nearly-exclusively with sex crimes and are so open-minded to the point of preachy about trans issues and affirmative consent- to squeal and giggle when they find out someone likes to be dominated is so ridiculous and inappropriate. Speaking of nearly-exclusively sex crimes, remember when SVU also used to do cases with kids and child abuse? I'd also like to see those again. I remember a scene (I forget which episode) where they were talking about porn and Benson was so anti-porn and Finn stood his ground and said the industry has changed, there are women-owned companies and producers, and Benson blew it off as "hookers turned madams". When was the last time you saw an issue where Benson was on the wrong side of history? When was the last time someone on SVU stood up to Benson and was right? Speaking of porn, cam girls. Not my thing, but an increasingly popular thing. Why not address an aspect of porn where women are literally controlling it instead of every portrayal of porn on SVU being an out-dated negative view? Have an episode where a cam girl is being stalked by a fan and is concerned for her safety so she comes to SVU and have it not devolve into a "She asked for it by engaging in risky business" victim blaming, but treat her just as respectfully as the girl in Next Chapter who had 4 (?!) separate stalkers just for being a basic pretty white girl.

I want to see a non-judgmental, non-salacious portrayal of BDSM. They're 18 years past-due for not making jokes every time they find cuffs and a ball gag in someone's bedroom.

Ming Na's sister was murdered while trying to save their younger sister, who was paying a debt for her immigration by working as a prostitute. The episode starts with them finding the first sister's kids hiding in a closet and crying because they've been alone for days. The little girl only speaks Chinese and they bring in Huang to help translate.

I think the last 3 seasons have given me enough to last a lifetime. I'd like to see an episode start with a dead body. I can't recall the last time the victim was dead and they had to solve the case with no complainant, no witnesses and just the hard evidence. I'd also like a false accusation episode again, but I'm sure the powers that be and certain groups of fans would be apoplectic if SVU ever again portrayed that sometimes people do make false accusations. There was a very famous rape case that became national news at a nearby high school. It became a dog-whistle for anti-immigration sentiment and Sean Spicer talked about it at the White House, and all this hysteria about "How could this happen, who is to blame, the poor girl!" And as they investigated, it turns out she lied. They found texts between the girl and the guys and they had arranged it all the day before. Now 2 teenagers are being deported with their families, because this girl lied about being raped. But god help us if the current writers at SVU ever in a million years admit that reality. They'd rather have perfect unicorn victims.

Maskell was abusing young boys so the Catholic Church's solution is send him to an all-girls school! That will fix everything! Those fuckers. I live in Maryland. I will be contacting my Maryland State Senator on Monday about the statue of limitations on child sex abuse in our state, and send a very special fuck you to Mike Miller and Joe Vallario, two dinosaurs well past their prime and completely out of step with the Maryland values. And shocker, both of them are Catholic. I can't believe in 2017 and post-Spotlight, the Catholic Church is continuing to get away with this. I don't think Billy Schmidt was involved in the murder. I think he was just odd and gay and his sister-in-law sensationalized unrelated incidents because of the nun connection. I think the whole necklace thing was a serious stretch. I think Gerry Koob is innocent. Edgar seemed like he has dementia, but his wife's story of him coming home covered in blood seems more plausible than Billy's weird nun obsession. Regardless of who killed her, I'm sure the Catholic Church was behind it. All that evidence going missing isn't something that Baltimore City police would make happen to clear a drunken wife-beater. The Catholic Church and their defenders are the worst.

I don't think Gerry Koob is guilty. His reaction to all of this doesn't seem like someone who committed murder and covered it up. He's a former priest and now minister; he's hardly Robert Durst. I'm sure the police tried to nail it on "the boyfriend" back in 1969, but they didn't charge him. And a newbie priest Koob wasn't nearly important enough compared to Maskell to get special cover-up favors. I liked that they showed the cop looking into the cold case was shook about the missing evidence. The fact that all the evidence involving Father Maskell and Sister Cathy has accidentally been destroyed or gone missing is inexcusable and highly suspicious.

As I watched The Burial, I didn't know how there could be 3 more episodes, because I thought the trial would be the obvious conclusion. So much for the justice system. Barbara's gay brother-in-law Billy Schmidt seems really unlikely. Gay men in drag as nuns seems like just a weird 60s gay thing, not a threat because she "knew too much". Billy was probably psychologically screwed up by virtue of being a gay man in the 1960s. That doesn't make him a murderer. But I got chills when they slowly panned to the nun mannequin in the attic. That's just fucking creepy.

Yes, I remember thinking that at the time. There have been a few other episodes this season with the assaults shown in the cold open as well. The show can't use the excuse "It's for the survivors!" to justify having garbage plots with 100% conviction rates, white young innocent female victims, and cases with no grey areas, only good and evil- all while depicting graphic assaults at the top of the hour. That's more triggering than a not-guilty verdict.

Does anyone else watch MSNBC online? I can't get the MSNBC website to load properly on Chrome or Firefox. Hoping it will be resolved by tonight. Unless Rachel is out again, in which case this tech concern can be pushed off for another night.

Agreed. I'm so over the 100% conviction rates, especially with the incredibly weak prosecutions they throw together for Barba.

I'm aware they interact, I guess I meant overlap in the sense of racial friction between Middle Eastern Muslims and Hispanics and whether this was a known thing or if SVU invented it.

I didn't like this episode. Not the worst ever, not the worst this season (No Surrender is the answer for both those) but the writing was clunky to the point of cringe-worthy. This episode went so far beyond heavy-handed. Where do I even start? This whole episode was like a smorgasbord of every real life buzz issue- the rise in hate crimes, the Muslim ban, ICE deportations, sanctuary cities, protesting, Syria. It was too much. Every single one of these issues could have been addressed in their own episode instead of devoting an entire season to "Pretty White Woman Raped by Rich White Man" stories and cramming all the brown people into the finale. And literally all the brown people. The Muslims versus Latinos rivalry that they set up in the first hour was odd. It that even a thing in real life? I wouldn't think those ethnic groups would have much overlap, let alone enough to justify the anti-Latino comments made by the Muslims and vice versa. I hated how every single SVU character has the same educated liberal leftist coastal elitist (pick your term) opinions on immigration, and every single guest actor made some sort of racially offensive comment. Even the minorities. Sorry, I don't buy that 50-something Irish American NYPD Chief Dodds is some social justice warrior Mary Sue who is very upset about deporting illegal immigrants, and shocked at the thought of hate crimes occurring in NYC, that Rollins is from the south and is A-OK on illegal immigration, and we don't get a throwaway line from Carisi about how his grandparents learned English when they moved here. I mean, look at this thread alone, there are people with differing opinions. I don't buy that every single character has a super-PC attitude about these complex social issues. We used to see disagreements on issues within the squad- Benson and Stabler clashing on LGBT issues, Benson and Fin clashing on porn. Now the SVU squad all speak like they are starring in a sensitivity training video from human resources. Why was the entire trial about IDing the perps? A double rape, double homicide by 3 drunk guys and there's literally no physical evidence to tie them to the crime scene? They brought in Yusef, Hector, Soledad and Carleen all for the sake of making this ID stick; they couldn't have cast a single CSU tech to say "I have DNA and partial prints!"? Remember when SVU used to solve crimes based on evidence? All that effort just for Carleen to say "Yeah, my husband has no alibi for that night" doesn't put him or the other guy in the restaurant. I was really bothered- especially in an episode where they are literally lecturing us about racism- by Benson blackmailing the Hispanic wife with ICE deportation because she wouldn't cooperate and not give her husband an alibi, but addressing the white wife of the racist rapist murderer as a poor sad abuse victim for backing her husband's alibi. We get an overt microaggression where the white woman gets preferential treatment from Olivia Benson for the same crime. The Latina is threatened and the white woman is coddled. What the hell, show? Alvarez has aged horribly.

In the Buzzfeed article, they said that Dee Dee claimed they lost everything in Katrina, including her childhood medical records. She probably made up a new DOB for her and used that every time.

I think they just like each other, and Lawrence engages with her. She's not super chatty with Chris or any of LOD's subs. Was anyone else kind of concerned about Rachel literally spelling out for Trump how he can make the investigation go away? I know he probably doesn't watch MSNBC, but still. We don't live in a world where he wouldn't use that advice.

Wasn't there "spoiler" news a few months ago about casting a girlfriend for one of the main characters? What ever happened to that? Cutting room floor?

See, but I would have preferred Carisi (resident One Catholic Character) speak to Anne about her religious beliefs versus Benson. I've never heard Benson speak about God once in 18 years and suddenly she's giving a sermon full of generic platitudes about God's love like she knows better than the girl who was raised in a religious environment. At least Carisi is a practicing Catholic, and had personal experience with reconciling the moral failures of church leaders with his beliefs just last year. But that scenario wouldn't give us- once again- Benson personally saving the victim.

Yeah, I'm surprised that the show didn't mention it in passing. I've heard a lot about cases in South Africa specifically. It was also confusing because they kept referring to it as "curative rape", which is a term I've never heard. It's called corrective rape. Like, if you google the term curative rape, the first result is the Wikipedia article for corrective rape. So I'm not sure why the SVU writers didn't use the more commonly used term. I thought the same thing. Most extreme Christian sects still have some sort of Biblical basis. Like the fundamentalist Mormons and their 30 brides: David and Solomon both had hundreds of wives, so polygamy is in the Bible, or the Quiverfull people, who literally get their name from the verse about men who have tons of kids being blessed. Even the Handmaid's Tale has a Bible passage about Jacob to back that whole practice. No one on the show challenged them to prove this was part of their religious doctrine at all- which should have been a central aspect of their "First Amendment religious freedom" case in the courtroom. Provide some proof that this was a central belief in their religion. All they had was the reverend- who was involved with the crime- talking out of his ass about homosexuality being a sin. They don't have a Bible verse about fixing gays using sex? A pamphlet? An example of a sermon given to their congregation? It was such a shoddy legal defense that Barba should have been able to have their "First Amendment" excuse thrown out before it even went to trial.

Fun fact: Lucas was played by Casey Cott, who is the younger brother of Corey Cott, who played the rapist in Rape Interrupted. I know corrective rape is a real thing, but in places like Africa and the Caribbean, not white evangelical communities in America. I don't understand why a religious group this backwards and brainwashed would travel to NY in the first place. They should be living in a commune and not watching TV, and wearing long dresses with collars up to their neckline (I see you, Anne's mom with your shirt unbuttoned to your sternum! Shameful harlot!) Even the Duggars are more worldly than these people are portrayed. The "twist" of discovering all the other boys being paid for rape is so implausible. How many gay kids can there be in a single church in small town Indiana? Benson curing Anne's internalized homophobia in a single conversation was a little much. I know it's a 41 minute episode, but one brief exchange undoing years of psychological abuse from her family and church was a bit of a leap. It's not the most egregious of Benson from this season, but it made me roll my eyes. I'm also uncertain how they continued to pursue the case even after Anne told her she didn't want to press charges. They can't charge Lucas and go to trial without a victim. The final scene with Anne and Lucas was good. It sounded like it was from the perspective of someone like Anne as a young religious person coming to terms with her sexuality. Usually SVU takes these conclusion scenes and gives the victim of the week dialogue that sounds like it was written by Olivia Benson herself- just super liberal, feminist, enlightened and not at all appropriate for a young girl from the Midwest who was in a religious cult until 5 minutes ago. "Church girl? You must be a virgin." Oy. SVU can't even write a believable shitty pickup line.

I'm surprised how little discussion there was of Gypsy as a victim in relation to the crime. The salacious aspects with the boyfriend made it out to be more Bonnie and Clyde than The Burning Bed. She didn't kill her mother because Dee Dee punished her for not making curfew or whatever like Jasmine Richardson. She endured years of torture at the hands of her mother. Obviously murder is not ok, but if Gypsy snapped one day and killed her mother herself, I think the public reaction would have been very different. I think Gypsy belongs in a psychiatric hospital, not prison. There's no way she will be a functional human being when she's cast out into society in 2024.

I think it's a major fault of the show. The producers and writers try to present themselves as being champions of sexual assault survivors, and yet the show presents a very, very narrow view of what a "rape victim" looks like. It actually perpetuates the myth that rape is committed out of sexual desire and not power. SVU shows only pretty white middle class 20-something women are raped. Not older women, not women of color, not men, not queer people, not overweight or mentally challenged or homeless- even though all of these sub-groups are not only as likely, but even more likely to be raped than the characters portrayed every week on the show. Maybe once or twice as season, we'll get something outside their norm like the hockey kid or the trans woman. Other than that, if you took a picture of the actress playing the main victim every week on SVU and posted them all side by side, it would start to look like a serial killer with a specific type. Having the show that champions rape victims portray rape victims this way only reinforces the real life response to anyone who doesn't fit this image of a pretty young thing: "Who would want to rape you?"