skittl3862

I think either because they showed her being raped. Well, "raped". Normally they don't show actual sex acts with the semi-nudity and thrusting. Yes. And she invited him to dinner. How is this remotely appropriate? Why couldn't this scene have taken place in his house with his dad present? Why did the defense attorney infantilize the son on the stand? "You were confused about what was going on." He's a 15 year old boy. He probably watches more porn on a daily basis than the entire courtroom combined. Of course he knows what sex is. The other teenage boy's line that "He killed his god" was absolutely awful and should have been cut long before it made it to air. This episode subject matter was not that deep, and with the exception of that line, the boys weren't portrayed as anything more than normal friends. If I were on that jury, I don't think I could have convicted her beyond a reasonable doubt. The "naked selfies"- from what I saw, it could have been a boy taking a selfie with a sleeping woman to show off to his friends. He could have gone upstairs and jerked off on the towel in her bedroom. He could have been raping her. There was no smoking gun evidence. As a viewing audience, Benson's repeated assertions that she knew something was off about the mom, and her reaction to the pictures obviously sway us towards SVU's perspective, but I don't think they made a very good legal case. Even with her switching defenses on the stand and admitting guilt for statutory rape, I don't think they made a case for murder based on the evidence. The kid being a sensitive nerd who didn't want to shoot Bambi's mom while hunting doesn't mean he couldn't have snapped when he saw his friend having sex with his mom. The only people who know what happened were the dead kid, the shooter and the mom. I liked the scene with the homicide cop and Fin with Trey's parents. It was a little heavy-handed, but it was better than all the years of lily-white Cragan, Benson and Stabler brushing off (completely legitimate) concerns of racial bias from NYPD. Like that's crazy talk to even suggest because the cops are always the good guys. It's 2017. We've seen the videos. We know they're not. I'm glad SVU is acknowledging that to balance out the pro-cop propaganda on Blue Bloods. Overall, I liked it. A few clunky lines and the son was a terrible actor, but the plot was good. Not really a landmark episode as others have said, but to be honest, I don't remember 100, 200 or 300 being particularly noteworthy either.

I don't think Olivia Benson has been made out to be a sex object in recent years so much as writers forgot to give her a personal life for 12 seasons and it wasn't until Stabler and all his family drama left that they bothered to give her some attention. A 45+ year old woman who hasn't had a long term relationship in over a decade? Really? In the last 5 years, she's only dated 3 men onscreen- David Haden, Cassidy and Tucker. None of these relationships have been portrayed as particularly sexy, IMO, at least compared with the rest of TV. I think she was shown in bed with Haden once, from the collar bone up. Rollins' entire pregnancy storyline was handled terribly and Murphy being the baby daddy after all that secretive build-up made it even worse. If they insisted on making her (completely single) character pregnant instead of just having Kelly wear big coats and stand behind desks like most shows do these days, Murphy was the best they could do? Especially since by the time of the big reveal, Donal Logue was already committed to a lead role on another show on another network and obviously couldn't commit to future appearances. Why not make up a random boyfriend to be in the background of those at-home scenes instead of hauling Carisi in? I came back because I saw an older episode of SVU over the weekend and thought it was the same actress who played Sarah. Nope. The victims are just completely interchangeable actresses. Just ONCE could they have an Asian woman without it being an offensive Chinatown gangs storyline? Or a pretty young black woman in college? Or a Hispanic woman who isn't a maid? Or- god forbid- any woman who weighs over 130lbs?

The following exchange: "You're here already?" "Word travels fast when police shoot a young black man." Amaro's 180, Community Policing Ironic because Tucker was on opposite sides of the exchange in each episode.

The show didn't show much of Noah and Tucker, but the Season 17 finale showed him including Noah in his statements in their relationship, and in the season 18 premiere, we find out they brought Noah with them to Paris. Both episodes end with them holding hands. If they wanted to portray Tucker as someone who didn't want a kid in his life, they would have shown him interacting with Noah like they did with Barba- holding the kid at arms-length and complaining about the messy floor. The idea that Olivia's relationship with Noah was suffering because of Tucker was never actually shown or mentioned until the break-up scene. In fact, her job was the real issue- not more than 10 minutes before "Noah is my priority", Benson was on the phone with Lucy asking her to stay late and said she didn't know what time she'd be home. It was just really sloppy. Why bother writing about their personal lives at all if they're going to be so half-assed about it?

Yeah, it was so oddly phrased. That's why I was expecting it to turn into a "She couldn't consent because she was impaired" storyline, because the SVU detectives practically demanded he produce a notarized affidavit of consent from Sarah. Sarah said "I think I was drugged", so Benson asking if she had anything to drink isn't victim blaming, it's a legitimate inquiry to figure out how she was drugged. If she didn't drink anything, then they should look for injection points or some sort of inhaled substance. It was all so clunky and heavy-handed. Are these people writing a police procedural, or an HR instructional video on how cops should handle rape cases?

I just realized what the fake dementia reminded me of. On The Fall (spoiler for season 3): Part of me thought maybe Barba would catch him in some lie, and after the son's confession about his ex-wife, there would be evidence of a long-term pattern and more victims would come forward that he couldn't blame on dementia. But that's too deep for SVU writers. "We will!"

I thought the same thing. If they're declaring he has dementia and is mentally incompetent- why did they do all that silly "What's a cell phone? What's a personal computer?" nonsense instead of requiring he be examined by a psychologist? Back in the day, they would have brought Huang. They can't bring in a day player to say "I'm a psychologist and I examined him and and found no evidence that he has dementia and doesn't know what year it is"? There are actual tests for people who have dementia. And if someone is being declared incompetent and going with a plea of not guilty due to mental defect, I can't believe there's literally no discussion of the psychological aspect of this condition. Also, why did Barba withdraw his question that said "Did you know drugging women to rape them was illegal in 1975 too?" That was completely relevant and valid! Believing it's 1975 doesn't excuse rape. Dementia doesn't give someone a free pass for committing crimes and getting off scot-free. If anything, they'd institutionalized as a risk to themselves or others. In the real world, a billionaire white old man would get a slap on the wrist for this rape. That's a lot better than being forced into a secure hospital facility, and being medicated and spoon-fed for a condition he doesn't actually have. It's completely ludicrous that his lawyer went with this defense. I also don't understand why he went from furiously objecting in civil court to going along with it in criminal court. If he were in on the plan and ok with it, why didn't he play up the "I'm crazy and it's 1975" in civil court too? I like that the grandson was ultimately innocent. And Sarah remembered that she had consented to sex with him, and felt bad for accusing him before she knew all the details. Her confusion obviously doesn't negate the fact that she was actually raped later that night. I thought it was going be another case where they were both drunk and neither remembered all the details, so legally neither can consent, but he's the rapist and she's the victim, because adult men are never rape victims in SVU world. I'm surprised only Sarah, the girlfriend and the son's ex-wife were confirmed victims. No way would that guy have only 3 victims spanning 20+ years. I would have preferred some sort of conclusion scene where after his conviction, all sorts of women start to come forward, like what happened with Bill Cosby.

People forget that. During the Stabler Years, up to 1/4 of the episodes each season had child cases. Now we get maybe one a year. I'm not sure if Stabler, the resident father character, leaving caused the shift in tone or Warren Leight just didn't care about those stories anymore. It's unfortunate. Those were some of my favorite episodes during the 1.0 years. Julie Martin tweeted that the child actor calls him Tucker and they couldn't convince him to change. I will give them that because it's kind of cute. For a moment, I wondered if Olivia seeing doctor mom promising to help party mom for the sake of Theo convinced Olivia that having someone else in her life to help with Noah would be a positive, and maybe relying on your nanny too much could be a bad thing, and if Tucker wants to retire, he could help with Noah, who he obviously enjoyed spending time with in the finale and the premiere. Nope. Too nuanced for these writers. Olivia has to be the martyr who does it all on her own.

Oh well. It was...something while it lasted. Why was the ending with the obviously negligent mother was swept aside like it's some happy resolution? Theo wants nothing to do with his mom because he's been brainwashed by the nanny. The doctor mom who hired a private investigator to sue for custody now wants be a happy family with her party girl ex who was passed out in a drunken stupor while her child was kidnapped. God help us if SVU be more concerned with child abuse than killing screentime with Rollisi (does ANYONE want this to happen?). Also, in a 2017 New York City family courtroom, I can't imagine why doctor mom, a same sex non-biological parent who raised him for 4+ years, wouldn't be considered as an option over foster care. They gave Benson a baby just because she found him on a raid. Yes.

I'll admit I'm probably biased towards Tucker because I think Robert John Burke is a total DILF. :) But I also never saw Tucker as the crazed Javert who spends his life targeting the SVU detectives, like Olivia described him to Amaro in Deadly Ambition. From our real world of Sandra Blands and Freddie Greys, I don't think Tucker investigating a suspect's death in police custody makes him the bad guy. I liked the idea of Olivia and Tucker together, but I don't think the show has handled their romantic relationship well at all. Like you said, give Olivia a guy and give them few cute scenes and no drama. But the writers managed to botch it. I don't think SVU has that much steam left, so I'm not sure why they can't leave well-enough alone with Olivia's personal life and let this be it. I guess we'll see.

I think the only person Mariska has had great chemistry with is Chris Meloni. And I say this as a non-EO shipper. Benson and Stabler are kind of legendary, second only to maybe Mulder and Scully. Every boyfriend character on the show has paled in comparison to the (non-romantic) connection we saw between those characters for years, but it's kind of unfair to hold Robert John Burke or Dean Winters to the standard one of of the best male-female pairings in TV history. They tried that for 12 years. The off-screen "Darn, I have to cancel my date" relationships. They didn't even give the men names- they'd have some flippant "How's the boyfriend?" reference. It was half-assed and just made Olivia come across as sad and perpetually single. The first time we saw a boyfriend onscreen was Closet in season 9- and only because it related to their case. I agree we don't need the onscreen drama. I'd be fine with the occasional brief at-home scene with a boyfriend without a heavy focus on their relationship- like the scene with Olivia and Tucker having dessert at the bar and commenting on the dumb reality show. I don't know why they couldn't do that with Tucker instead of inventing relationship drama. I disagree. I don't think Tucker was ever so terrible that he would need to crawl on his belly across hot coals to make it up to Benson. He showed up twice a year when a victim was physically harmed in SVU custody. He could be a jerk, but the SVU characters made him out to be Snidely Whiplash twirling his mustache with this raging vendetta, instead of an investigator who has to explain to 1PP and the media why a healthy young suspect died while Stabler cuffed him, or why Rollins shot and killed her sister's boyfriend, or why Amaro jumped into a hot pursuit while off-duty and shot an unarmed black kid. It's not like he launched an investigation because Stabler submitted gas receipts on days when he used the car for personal reasons. From my perspective, there was a shift after Post-Mortem Blues. I think after Olivia stands by her story, even when he gives her the easy out of claiming she killed Lewis in self defense, he respects her in a way he didn't at the beginning of the episode. Their interactions in Season 16 reflect a thawing in their relationship. By the end of the season, he's suggesting she go for lieutenant to be able to keep SVU and giving her advice about Amaro- like a "rabbi"- a superior that she can go to for advice. Then in Community Policing, she comes by to let him know personally that the cops he's investigating killed an innocent person. It was a mutually beneficial work relationship by the time Townhouse Incident happened, so it's not like they never interacted onscreen between Perverted when he investigated her for murder, and Manhattan Transfer, when Barba figures out they're sleeping together. I'm fine with the development of the romantic relationship taking place predominantly off-screen, and us seeing the highlights- the first drink, the case that involves him, the time where he stood by her when her colleague was shot. For me, the real issue is why did Warren Leight wait until literally his final episode after 4 years in control to establish a serious relationship with Benson, and then expect the new showrunner to honor that?

I don't understand the logic of Tucker thinking Benson should retire with him. A. She's younger, B. She's a lower rank, so she still may want to progress, and C. Even if he wants to stop to smell the roses and explore, she has a child who is about to start school. They can't just pick up and fly to Paris whenever. Also the dialogue in that scene was kinda cringey. I don't think SVU has ever done well with the romantic relationships- Stabler and wife, Amaro and wife, Benson and whoever. That's why they always resort to unhappy marriages. (They've also shown exactly one positive sex scene to approximately 400 rape scenes, but that's a whole different can of worms.) Benson and Tucker had more chemistry when they were discussing rape cases than when they're talking about their relationship. I don't need SVU to turn into a soap opera of Grey's proportions, but at least write a decent scene. The coworker stalking her in a "not creepy" way could have been portrayed better. They made him out to be an actual creeper instead of a guy with a crush trying to figure out if she was single so he could ask her out. I know lots of people who "stalk" via social media, etc. because our generation puts everything out there. "This guy I like posted a Snapchat with this girl- do you think they're hooking up? They're following each other on Snapchat, but not on Instagram, so it can't be serious, right? And she's posting pics on her Instagram with this other guy and he commented with a kissy face emoji, so they're probably together." It's weird, but it's a reality. I don't think anyone these days would actually stake out someone's apartment and confront her boyfriend just to confirm if she's single, and I don't think this woman needed to have 3 separate stalkers. Benson shooting the guy who had a gun to Carisi's head reminded me of Fault. When someone had a gun to Stabler's head and Benson didn't want to shoot and risk Stabler getting shot. Never really an EO shipper, but that episode always tugs a little. Apparently she doesn't feel the same about Carisi as she did about Stabler.

For me, the best of SVU is seasons 2-7. That's "real" SVU to me; the episodes I've seen probably 100 times and still sit through again and again. I can take or leave season 1. Season 8 took a nosedrive with Dani Beck and kind of rebounded through the end of the season. Then the Campy Years, as mentioned above. I stopped watching by the time Stabler left. I've never seen a single episode of season 13. Seasons 14-16, I mainly tuned in for only the episodes that my friend told me had enough Barba to be worth my time (I'm a longtime Raul Esparza fan from the Broadway days). Amaro leaving got me back into the new episodes season 17. I really, really disliked his character.

Like you said, lookism. Most of the cis women on TV are more attractive than real women too. Sabel Gonzales is just as thin and pretty as every other young actress who has played a rape victim on SVU.

Huang: You gamble, Elliot? Stabler: Only with birth control.

After all the trans stories done on SVU, I think they finally did well. A little preachy and PSA at times, but an actual trans actress? Not a sex worker? Supportive family? Supportive boyfriend? Everyone (except bad guys) using correct terms and pronouns? It was good to see to see how far we've come. Then I started imagining how that all could change, and it got a little too real for me. Not really the escapism I was looking for this week. Raul Esparza always makes me happy though. He was especially good this week.

I didn't say being in a vulnerable state gives someone a pass to take advantage of her. The fault still lies with the perpetrator for committing a crime against her. But since you made that distinction, let's say that instead of getting raped, Janie got black-out drunk, passed out on the subway and her purse was stolen. She's a victim of a crime. Being drunk and passed out isn't an invitation to steal anymore than it is an invitation to rape. But would you consider her being passed-out drunk to be a contributing factor in the theft? Would she have been as likely a target if she were awake and alert? It doesn't make it her fault for being robbed, but it did make her more vulnerable to be robbed. There's a difference between blaming a victim for a crime committed against them, and acknowledging that we still live in an imperfect world where women are left with the burden of being cautious so they make it home safely every night. If your friend or daughter went out, got so drunk she blacked out and stumbled home alone, would you tell her that worries you? Would you offer to pick her up next time? Would you watch her back a little more closely while you're out together just in case? Or do you throw caution to the wind because who cares, even if anything happens to her, it's not her fault? The last adult male rape victim I can remember them investigating was Carisi's brother-in-law in Parole Violations Season 16. Female perp. Her sentence was far weaker than Ellis's plea deal, for the record. The last child (not teen) investigated was Season 15. This isn't a new trend for season 18. I counted back 20+ episodes before I found one where the victim wasn't a teen or adult female. And I can't imagine fan reaction to a false accusation these days if they thought Making a Rapist was too much victim blaming.

Benson proposed Jenna the pole vaulter meeting with her rapist as a way to get him to admit something on tape, force a plea and also avoid a trial. And she was immediately on board. Her exact words were "Can we do it, like, now?" Hardly the same as Janie sobbing that she can't eat, she can't sleep, she shouldn't have to do this and all she wants is an apology. Jenna was obviously emotionally stronger in the aftermath than Janie. In Making a Rapist, people complained they forced the mother to testify and now suddenly in this episode, they think Benson should have forced Janie to testify too. What is wrong with Benson (i.e. the writers) reading the situation, reading the victim, and choosing different paths to justice accordingly? SVU's formula is already paint-by-numbers; I don't want identical victims, identical crimes, identical trials and identical convictions every week.

Actually that came up in another SVU episode- Gray. The counselor at Hudson tried to promote a "sober buddy system" and Kathleen Stabler said everyone wants to be her buddy because she doesn't drink. I've never heard of it in real life.

It could have been he started to remember what happened that night and felt guilty. He was drunk too; they kept focusing on the victim regaining memories, but not him. They brought him in, had him sober up in the interrogation room with a cup of coffee and expected an accurate account of what happened. I had 2 glasses of wine last night and this morning, I couldn't remember what shoes I wore yesterday because I was foggy. Yeah, I don't like the show/current climate/SJW viewers conflating "victim blaming" with any suggestion the victim is anything less than Mother Teresa. What if Janie got blacked-out drunk, walked out into traffic and got run over by a car? Her drunkenness would be taken into account in the investigation of the traffic accident. "Victim blaming" was supposed to mean the a-holes who see a rape victim and say "She was wearing a short skirt, she was drunk, it was her sole responsibility to stop the rape from happening." Janie was drinking and alone, which left her in a vulnerable situation to be preyed upon. That's not victim blaming. The difference between the last episode with athlete and this episode is that in the athlete's case, there wasn't enough of a case to force a plea deal. Without the trial, the rapist would walk scot-free. Same with the Hudson admissions episode- if they didn't take it to trial, there was no motivation for him to take a plea, because the law was on his side. In this episode, the rapist was willing to plead guilty to a felony, be on probation for 10 years, register as a sex offender and apologize to the victim. He would be found guilty without a trial, and the victim (not Benson) was fine with it. I saw someone make this complaint on Twitter as well, but what was Olivia supposed to do? The girl was sobbing and said she was going to therapy daily and it wasn't helping, and she just wants this all to be over. Should Olivia have kept pressuring her to take it to trial anyway? Risk the emotional well-being of an already unstable victim for the chance of getting a harsher sentence? "Yay, we got jail time but she'll never emotionally recover from the ordeal and possibly attempt suicide!" Some people don't seem to care about portraying the realistic impact on the victim, because it's a procedural and we say goodbye to Janie after this week and don't have to think about the fact that, regardless of probation or jail time, her face is still all over the internet as "Dumpster Girl" and she has a long road of recovery ahead of her. I want to see a just conclusion for the victim, not a crusade for Benson (and the show) to nail the rapists to the wall and make an example of them at all costs. Maybe Benson learned from her mistakes in the Hudson episode.

I think it could just be that Benson knows how far he's come and knows how much improvement he's made, but doesn't realize that he's average, or below average, when the NYC private preschools want only the above-average children, because then they can brag how their alumni go to Ivy League universities (and Hudson apparently) and charge a lot of money. Most middle class suburban preschools just want 3-year-olds who can walk, talk and use the bathroom. And as someone who used to work in early childhood development, most parents tend to overestimate their children's abilities, especially firstborns.

I agree. I think this guy was committing fraud, but not rape, which is where the trial seemed to be leading in this episode as well. Rape was too much of a stretch. I think there are cases where the fraud definitely counts as rape (identical twins switching places, Revenge of the Nerds moonbounce, etc.) and the case is to be made, but not this case. I didn't see it that way. I think he had a valid point- and the show emphasized that in the scene at the bar with the overheard conversations- everyone has probably lied to impress someone they want to sleep with. Usually the lies are water under the bridge in the long run. Rollins didn't think it was rape either, and she's an SVU detective and a woman. I don't think it makes them insensitive to rape victims; the definition of rape as they enforce it doesn't match this situation. If anything, I thought that scene made Benson look prudish, for lack of a better term, for acting like she can't possibly imagine a situation in which anyone lie for the sake of impressing a potential sexual partner. "Times have changed" doesn't mean that a guy inflating his salary or suggesting he knows a famous person turns an otherwise consensual sexual encounter into rape.

Rape by deception does have legal precedent. Israel has a couple cases that are similar to this, which is probably what inspired it. One man was convicted of fraud because he told women he was a neurosurgeon. Another man claimed to be a government official and promised when state benefits if they had sex with him, and he was charged with rape. So the premise wasn't completely out of left field for me. It's a real legal discussion and many states have bills pending, but people are concerned it leads to a slippery slope, which the show addressed with the judge and Barba. I guess I liked having a case that was a little outside the formula. I get sick of the weekly "Pretty young woman is raped by an evil man, Benson holds her hand while she cries, it goes to trial and the evil man is convicted and send to jail." It's like watching an after-school special. In the early seasons, there were a lot more episodes where the cases weren't straight forward, the victims weren't always portrayed as innocent angels but complicated human beings, the cops aren't magically always in the right, and there weren't always neat, satisfying endings. I miss that. I want to watch a compelling TV show, not a PSA. Especially since we're in a world where we see Brock Turners getting a slap on the wrist for rapes; the story SVU is peddling isn't realistic. Every time one of these real life cases happens and reminds us the real state of rape law in America, the fairy tale TV endings become more and more grating. I liked Benson and Fin paired up together. The first three episodes this season had more Fin than all of Season 17 combined. I'm glad Ice-T is being given interesting work instead of just popping up for a punchline. The show really did a disservice to the character in the years after Munch left. The kid's suicide in the end- eh, I could have done without. I would have preferred an ending where the guy got off and they were all left wondering if they did the right thing.

Isn't that what Buchanan and Barba were discussing re: the plea deal? That a lesser charge would be less jail time, but combined with his time served, it's still 20 years in prison? That doesn't make it ok. Did Benson and Stabler ever bad-cop a young female suspect (Hilary Duff, Hayden Panettiere, those types) and say "Oh, you're so pretty, you're totally going to be Big Bertha's bitch in prison!"? I don't recall a single instance, but maybe it may have happened once. But threatening male prison rape was constantly used in interrogations. Cops who work in the sex crimes division especially shouldn't be using rape threats as a intimidation tactic.

Not unpopular with me. The two episodes back to back only highlights the bias. Ana was raped? Oh no, terrorist attack excused, let's pursue her rapist! Sean was raped? Too bad, we're going to treat him with contempt as a suspect, mock him for sticking around for his massive (completely legitimate) lawsuit against the city, then be offended when Barba implies there's any impropriety with Fin's active role finding a crucial piece of evidence in this second investigation. Why didn't Elizabeth Marvel run to defend Sean and appeal to Benson's sense of decency for a rape victim like she did last week?