txhorns79

It's not like Dick Wolf is writing these episodes himself. I presume elite private schools are a well that has been gone to a number of times because they show up in the news every now and then for acting badly or doing something crazy sounding. Also, just the general drama inherent in those schools with wealthy, demanding parents, stressed out students and all the pressure on the staff.

I don't mind her. I do notice that she is a bigger presence on the police side of the show than Dixon and Van Buren typically were. I mean, it's an interrogation in a case where the police think you murdered someone. It's going to be a high stress situation regardless. I thought Brady made a mistake in telling the girl she could go home, but it was a situation that could go either way. I believe she did ask the girl if she wanted a break during the interrogation and the girl refused.

Would they? It's very hard to re-open a claim where the person voluntarily pled guilty and allocuted. You typically need good cause. You have to have a very good argument for the Judge as to why your prior testimony, given under oath, about killing the victim should be set aside and your plea withdrawn. You also need the cooperation of the defendant, and I doubt this one would agree to anything that could potentially lead to her daughter being jailed.

I rolled my eyes at his storming off when Teddy told him the other woman kissed her. Though I'll give the writers some credit and perhaps Teddy getting kissed by the doctor reminded him of her lies about Allison and how he unknowingly ended up agreeing to name their kid after Teddy's dead girlfriend.

I'd probably say it's more that he is not particularly confrontational when it comes to his friends, even when he has a legitimate problem, and would rather let things go than bother Janine.

I had asked a teacher friend what would happen if a parent threatened a teacher. She said her first stop would be either the vice principal or principal to let them know what happened and to fill out a report. Depending on the type of threat, the next call might be the police. A letter would go out to the parent advising them they were not welcome on campus for the rest of the school year and that any further communications between the teacher and the parent go through the vice principal.

Grace's behavior made me so mad. It was stupid and reckless, and it's pure luck that she was not harmed. I hate when an otherwise smart character is required to behave in such a dumb fashion for the sake of a storyline.

The only surprise for me was that she didn't confess to Owen that she had always loved him, and that was the only reason she was hard on him, followed by a request to avenge her.

It's funny. Back when Hillary Clinton did a sketch with Amy Poehler during the Dem primaries in '08, they had a very similar joke about her laugh. Gives you a good idea of how little things have changed for female politicians 16 years later.

It does feel like they are always a step behind, or being played by someone they should obviously not trust. As a side note, I did appreciate Grace pointing out to Kate that she looked like a complete mess. Kate needs someone to tell her every now and then that it's okay to comb her hair, and not look like she slept in her clothes.

They made an off hand comment that he had been arrested. They said he was just hired to seduce Kelsey, so he wasn't a major player in the scheme. I thought they said she was 18 when the seduction occurred. The ending didn't make a huge amount of sense to me. I would have loved to have been there when Kelsey tried to claim to her bosses that she was doing an undercover story about sextortion. I presume the perp sent out everything on her to her friends and colleagues, including a sex tape. Was she trying to claim to them that she had sex with the guy and sent him legit naked pics for her story? I was also curious if her credibility would be undermined if the case went to trial by lying on air about what happened. I'm probably overthinking things.

I'll say upfront that yes, it is completely ridiculous that Hal managed to kill the President with his news about the VP. It makes a great twist, but it is also very silly. Also, by the end of the season, how much actual time has passed since Hal was blown up? For someone who went through extremely traumatic surgery, it felt like he's almost recovered in just a couple of weeks time. Also, is it wrong that I feel like the criticism we sometimes hear about Kate, that she is out of her depth as Ambassador, is right? Allison Janney was excellent. So much scheming and she really did run rings around Kate. I'm curious how it will work out next season.

If you are talking about the episode from Season 9, Juvenile, my recollection was the 30-something was in family court because she was a juvenile when the crime occurred, and under the law in effect at that time (the '70s), she could not be charged as an adult.

I'm pretty sure in real life teachers can put hands on students when the student is engaging in activities that could lead to physical harm, property damage, etc. Otherwise, two students could get into a violent fight, and the teachers would be powerless to stop anything.

The principal wasn't completely innocent. He didn't follow protocol when he learned a student may have a gun. He also lied when asked whether he searched the kid's backpack. I felt like a lot of his testimony was "poor me, it's just so hard to be a middle school principal." This isn't to say he was as culpable as the shooter, but I do believe he had a real chance to prevent the teacher from being killed and his choices failed that man. I liked the episode. It was not an easy case, and unlike an episode where Olivia Benson is suddenly a person whose expertise in sexual assault and trauma is known worldwide, there were real shades of gray. I also remembered that the actor playing the husband was a recurring character on SVU for many seasons as a tech until I think they killed him off.

I don't know. I felt like this episode was a little mean spirited, maybe? It felt like some of the comments being made to Janine and Gregory were less in good fun, and more just putting them down again and again. I will also say that I don't believe that Barbara, even in a bad moment, would ever instruct the students to hide something from their parents. It felt very off brand for her. The same with her not knowing that Pat Sajak had retired. If she's as big a fan of the show as she made herself out to be, it seems almost impossible that she would not know that. I did like Ava's costume, and laughed that someone thought she was just "Grace Jones with a sword." Yeah, even if they don't know Pat Sajak, I'd think they would recognize the wheel.

A thousand times this. I was impressed that within a minute of seeing his son in a coma, Owen made the entire situation about himself and left the hospital in the middle of a snowstorm to service his own ego and needs.

Yes, the screw up ultimately belongs to all of them, but it was her idea. She's also the one who ran over the hospital when the strategy appeared to be failing to get the husband to pull the plug so the victim could be officially dead before the case went to the jury. I don't recall Nolan or Baxter giving her their blessing to do that, nor am I impressed by that kind of behavior.

I've been catching up on these episodes and no, he does not deserve to throw any "told you so" at anyone. He was extremely reckless. That his recklessness was later validated does not change that. And I cannot even get into the ridiculousness of Carlos' daddy being the one to investigate him, but that's a different comment. And why were Vega's kids at TK's sobriety party? Has TK even met them?

I just rolled my eyes. Just from the perspective that he was supposed to be Captain Stubing from The Love Boat, Captain Stubing had white hair and spent many episodes dressed in a white captain's shirt, white shorts and white knee socks.

Yes, I think Beltran said other doctors had been able to use a research position to get a fellowship similar to the one that Schmidt lost out on. That's my thought. I presume he's going to take the chaplain with him, as a way to explain why they are rushing that relationship, so he can go out with a happy ending.

She recommended an untested case strategy of proclaiming a brain dead woman to be fully deceased so the DA could bring a murder charge instead of attempted murder. Absent her last minute action in convincing the husband to pull the plug, it sounded like there was a good chance they were going to lose. As to whether it would be healthy for the husband to keep his wife alive, that's an issue, but not one for the ADA to be addressing.

In fairness to him, I would have presumed if the interns were coming to me about how a patient cannot afford the cost of a restorative therapy, that they would have explained what the therapy entailed. That they all spent time with the patient telling him about the therapy without letting him know about how much of his time and life would need to be dedicated to it before it worked was a failure on their parts. I will admit I legit laughed that Jo's solution to having the car surrounded by gay pastor and Linc, when neither she nor Levi had any interest in speaking to them, was simply to drive away.

I don't know. She had a guy pull the plug on his wife solely to save the case from her screw up. It was so weird. It felt like the way to go with the guy was to point out that he never examined this woman, never reviewed her records, and that just because some other person "woke up" from brain death, that's meaningless in terms of this woman. Instead, Nolan set the guy up for a theological debate and let him drone on with an emotion laden hypothetical.

I thought she was just trying to distract the IT guy so he didn't take too good a look at the new equipment and wonder where it came from.