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You are right — I could definitely see them doing something like they did with Belzer and Florek, pushing him back to half/less than half the episodes a season due to some excus (transferred to another division for a while, then coming back, etc.) Ice already usually maxes out his "off" episodes per season, lol, so I can see them just pushing that even more. Though now apparently it may be that this is Esparza's last season (going by comments in another thread?) so who knows. I do expect some kind of shake-up for next season...they NEED it, but I feel it could either go well and be refreshing (like it was at least for season 13) or just make the show more Law & Order: Olivia Benson than it already is...

If that's the case, I'm actually glad for it. (Ducking before the Barba fans throw rocks at me.) He's become nothing but Benson's lap dog and a mere shadow of the character who first came on board in Season 14. Hey, if Chicago Justice doesn't get renewed could we maybe bring Peter Stone over to SVU? :) Philip Wincerster is amazing and the best part of that show. I'd love to see Stone get the 16th back into some kind of shape with the cases they are bringing in.

I confess, I'm worried that this might be Ice-T's last season on the show. Call me a conspiracy nut (my hero is Munch, after all), but this morning I've been thinking... - We're still waiting on the renewal announcement. While it seems pretty certain the show is coming back, I have to wonder if contract negotiations are part of the hold up. - They HAVE to be aware of the sinking ratings this season, and I swear the budget can't be what it used to be. Just look at how much the cast has shrunk already, the lack of many recurring characters let alone regulars, etc. Meanwhile I'm sure MH's salary will not budge and the network seems convinced there would be no show without her. And I have no doubt that Ice's has to be the 2nd highest salary, behind MH. - It looks now as if Ice-T has two new shows in the works - one just announced today that's a true crime show produced by Dick Wolf, the other another a new reality show with Coco. Seems to me it'd be hard to juggle those two plus SVU, unless they use him even LESS than they have already. - The way they made it sound like Fin's promotion = eventual transfer but left it up in the air makes me think they were setting up for this...or at least opening the possibility of having him make a quick exit. So, consider me officially worried. Then again, if Ice leaves then at least I can finally make a clean break with the show myself, since Fin is my last favorite character still left on the series and the only reason I'm suffering through this season.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. This was, if not one of the worst episodes, certainly one of the most boring for me to suffer through. Not just this season, but in all of SVU's history IMHO. I, too, kept waiting for some kind of twist or spin, but nope (besides the pretty lame "surprise" of the victim having relationship doubts/issues with the boyfriend), just another very basic he-said-she-said with only the hypnosis angle thrown in. And honestly I was screaming at the squad "hypnosis, you idiots!" until Barba finally stated the obvious. How dumb are we supposed to think these people are that they couldn't recognize what was going on themselves, especially after seeing the video interview of the earlier victim? It just all felt so very by-the-numbers and like yet another episode that played more like a Public Service Announcement about consent than a tv show meant to be entertaining and engaging as well as educational. They're completely forgetting that "entertaining" part. Mariska wasn't as cringe-inducingly bad as last week but these scenes just feel like SVU MadLibs at this point, they're so repetitive. ("I think I've been raped."/"I'm sorry that happened to you." etc etc etc.) The only saving graces for me were Fin's few moments of sass and Amanda's small moment poking Sonny about his girlfriend. I really miss having more personal & character moments like that. If I wasn't such a completist for this show I would have given up entirely on this show the way it's been going this year.

And of course it had to be framed around the "threat" of him being bumped out of SVU as a result. Which of course was never raised once as a possibility when Munch was promoted, and it's not like the unit has another sergeant right now, so...what the heck was that even about? MH's acting was SO bad in this episode I found it distractingly laughable. The grasping dramatically at the window grates to show her angst! The cluthing at her chest! Somewhere between having a bad case of the vapors and becoming the real Stabler 3.0 because No One Messes With Her Kid! ...and of course they are all sitting around in court except for Fin, left manning the precinct by himself. See? That's why he can't be transferred out! They need him there while Liv makes her constipated faces at judges in every episode.

Yeah, this is annoying the crap out of me as well. If you want to use that device maybe once per season, fine. But set it up well and really make it make sense. Otherwise it feels like a very cheap deus ex machina plot device. Yeah, I like Antonio and where I've found him best on this show was when they used him to be in conflict with PD Intelligence and having to try to reign things in to stick to the law. Then again, I am a die hard Homicide: LOTS fan, so every time I see Jon Seda on screen I still basically see him as Paul Falsone...it doesn't help that Dawson has been written so close to Falsone overall.

I felt like this one started out strong but fell apart toward the end for many of the reasons already mentioned. Shame, because at first it was almost like an old fashioned, twisty SVU episode to me -- the kind where you're sure the ep/case is about one thing (the Alderman's death) but then the initial crime opens up an entirely new situation (the fake kidnapping). I too was puzzled about why the investigators never talked to the girl until after the mistrial, that just seemed like idiot plotting to me. And this is the second time (I think?) already where we've had a guy break down and make an outburst confession at the end of an episode for rather ... shaky motivations. I don't like Stone relying on that so much and it feels like cheap writing to me.

This episode wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be from the previews (and how sad is it that I'm happy, this season, with an episode that isn't just plainly awful?) Saint Benson did seem a little toned down compared to other recent episodes, maybe thanks to the directing? And I loved seeing Dodds Sr. again — Peter Gallagher brings a level of acting and intensity that's generally missing from the show these days. I thought the guest cast was unusually good, too, which went a long way in elevating the material. If this season hadn't already been inundated with rich-white-pretty-he-said-she-said episodes, it would have been even better. But in focusing on Dodds and Benson (and Barba too, I guess) it seemed like the rest of the main cast was barely there. I usually like scenes where Fin is working with Carisi but they were just completely flat here. Amanda, too. The one thing I did outright hate, though, was having to have Dodds kiss up to Benson and apologize to her regarding Mike's death. Sorry but her negligence was, at least in part, a factor in his shooting and it seemed like a total personality transplant to have daddy Dodds now being so apologetic. But then, of course, in this current version of SVU Benson can do no wrong, ever, so they had to do something to retcon that series of events. I would have much rather had a nice juicy twist where the network did retaliate by airing a piece regarding Mike's death and her suspected negligence. But, eh, I guess that's too much to ask for with this show right now.

I've been rooting for the show from the start and always figure it can take half a season/10-12 episodes for things to really start to gel. And with that said I agree, I feel like things are starting to really come together and this was probably the most solid and interesting episode for me to date. Every member of the team had a part to play and they're coming into their personalities now. It raised a lot of interesting ethical points on the phone issue and I think the writing did a good job of raising questions about Stone's tactics to get justice. (Compare it to, say, SVU these days where Benson can do no wrong, even when she's basically bullying victims into testifying and no one ever questions her methods.)

This episode made me like Valdez more than I had previously - yay for a tv show giving us a happily childfree character! (It does not make one antagonistic towards men to not want kids and settle down, just for the record.) Though she does seem to be one of those annoying vegetarians who has to preach anti-meat rhetoric at anyone daring to eat meat in her presence. I do like that both Stone and Dawson just shrug that off, though :D I personally think the show is doing a good job of balancing cases with small bits of personal details. I do want to know more about these characters if I'm going to invest emotionally in this show; a couple short scenes here and there throughout isn't derailing the action. Found it sort of amusing again how there were some parallels here on CJ with recent episodes of SVU - and with CJ handling them much better, of course. Here with the attempted prosecution of a crime when there really wasn't an actual law on the books to support the case (similar to "Imposter" where Benson bullied Barba into bringing rape charges against th fake college recruiter). At least here we saw Stone actually doing something after the verdict to try to make legislative change.

They apparently dropped that deleted scene on Twitter tonight, and I am beyond pissed off. I can't believe it. I can't believe they would disrespect the show's second longest-running character by having such a major moment tossed aside as nothing but a deleted scene. Then again, I knew it wasn't going to matter on the show anyway. It's still just going to be the Benson hour; they won't show Fin any more respect or show him having any more responsibility. I was honestly so upset about this I couldn't watch tonight's new episode and I'm not sure I'll bother with the rest of this season unless friends tell me it's worth it and they treat Fin with some actual respect again.

deleting repeat comment, sorry

I honestly was so enraged to find out Fin's promotion to sergeant was dropped as a deleted scene from last week's episode that I couldn't bring myself to watch tonight. I'm still too angry. Maybe tomorrow...if I bother at all.

It's just tedious and a hurtful cliche to almost always see infertile women portrayed as broken and never able to get over the grief of it. And in shows like this one, portrayed as driven crazy by that grief and to murderous/illegal acts to steal another woman's baby. (Sort of like the "evil bisexual" is a hoary and overdone cliche as well.) As an infertile woman who then chose to work towards being happily childfree instead of pursuing treatment or adoption, I know how that choice can affect and sometimes ruin relationships, of course. But that isn't really the issue here, as I see it.

At this point, if there's no further shake-up in the writing staff or cast? I would be happy to see it ended—so I would no longer feel obligated to keep watching for completeness' sake. I know a lot of the current fans say they only watch for Raul/Barba; I'm that way with Ice-T. As long as he's still around, woefully underused or not, I'll hang on to the bitter end. What I would ideally like to see at this point? A big shake up in the cast and writing, as saved the original L&O in its final 2 seasons. We'll never fully get rid of Liv, so maybe promote her to bureau chief, let Sergeant Fin take over running the squad day-to-day, and bring in two new detectives for Rollins and Carisi to pair with. Break things up by utilizing more characters from the M.E.'s office, TARU, etc, again. Have the writers give us stories that aren't all he-said/she-said rapes and are genuine mysteries again. Realistically what I hope for? At least one new regular character, please. There needs to be that 2 sets of partner dynamic again, and for God's sake, Liv, start acting like a CO and not a junior detective. I don't know that I have hope for better writing unless the ratings continue to nose-dive and they realize that weekly PSA announcements/plots out of an afterschool special do not make for entertaining tv.

Interesting to me how SVU just had a (horrible) episode recently on whether rapists are genetically "born this way", and now we had CJ tackling something similar—only for murderers. Overall I thought this was a decent, tense episode with some good twists and turns... But then I audibly groaned and almost turned it off when the killer turned out to be "tragically" infertile and out to steal a baby. Ugh!!! Sorry but that is such a hated cliche and stereotype for me, I really wish they hadn't gone down that route. Just once, can't we get an infertile woman on tv who comes to term with it and is okay, instead of trying to perform home c-sections?

THANK YOU. You managed to summarize and pin-point the crux of my problem with what this show has become. There's no real mystery or suspense any longer. We almost always know who committed the crime (99% of the time these days, rape) right from the start, there's very little suspense or real drama beyond Benson either bullying a victim to testify or bullying Barba to prosecute. Gone are the days where the show would start with a murder or attack that had genuine puzzling elements and we would "work along" with the detectives to figure out what happened, what greater crime or crimes might be afoot. It's why I can re-watch those older episodes over and over again, and nowadays I can barely make it through a single viewing.

Looks like last night's episode saw the lowest ratings of the season so far — and it's been on pretty steady decline all season despite a small bump for the hyped 400th episode. Is anyone surprised? Is anyone at NBC actually paying attention?

For me this episode started bad (oh look another white rich she-said-he-said), got a bit more interesting in the middle, and then completely blew it with the obligatory St. Benson-pushes-a-woman-to-testify ending. Yawn. There could have been an intriguing episode about accepting or not accepting the pay-off, but not as it played out. In fact, if this had been a twisty-turny SVU 1.0-era episode I could have seen that happening. What if she had taken the payoff and used it to, say, support rape survivor/awareness organizations? Would such groups be comfortable accepting such money (if they knew where it was coming from)? Some friends and I were saying last night how, also, if this had been a 1.0 episode, we would have heard the squad members debating the ethics of taking the money or not (Munch, this is where I miss you so badly!) But no, everything has to be wrapped up in a neat little morality-lesson-bow where Benson saves not just the day but the victim's self-worth and soul. I'm so sick of this character she's become. At least we got some more Fin this time and Carisi had some endearing (to me) moments.

I'm just rolling with the show basically being Law & Order: Chicago at this point—although I thought this case made possibly more sense ending up with the SI's since it was taking place outside of Chicago proper, and the local police seemed woefully (almost comically) unable to handle things. Then again, Dawson was supposedly involved in the original case investigation, so who knows? I'm going to just have to suspend disbelief and roll with it. And overall I did like this episode quite a bit. The story was different and yet also felt quite old school L&O to me. I thought everyone had a decent part to play and we got to see a little more of their personalities evolving. Nagel and Dawson really intrigue me as partners—they both have a lot of experience and are kind of jaded and cynical, but I like that it's Nagel who's even moreso that way. And nice to see Stone genuinely angry and pissed off at this guy, instead of Mr. Super-Cool all the time.

I think I've well and truly reached my limit with this show as it is right now. When there's no Fin to add either some humor or a reality-check, the show is just way too dour, preachy, and uncomfortable to watch, for me. I literally cringe whenever Benson is on screen at this point, and the only takeaway I got from this episode is that she seriously is overdue for transferring out of SVU if she can't handle Noah "fighting" over a toy without imagining he's a rapist in the making. I keep finding everyone's performances just strangely *off* lately, this episode in particular. Either too flat, or too over-the-top. Whether it's the directing, the scripts, the actors being tired of these roles or what, I just don't feel like I recognize them anymore or find them believable characters. And season 3's "Inheritance" covered this subject matter better, anyway.

This keeps bugging the crap out of me, too. Why are the SI's handling these high-profile murder cases from the get-go? Why not just make the show Law & Order: Chicago then, and have Dawson and Nagel in Homicide or something where it would make sense for them to be chasing down suspects, making arrests, etc. I honestly was expecting something more like Trial by Jury with this series, where the SI's were looking for things that the original police investigators missed, or maybe even mis-reported, and there was sometimes conflict between the police and SI's. We only really saw that in the first episode of Justice, so I'm disappointed they're abandoning that so quickly. I get that maybe makes for a more cerebral, less action-y show, but...that's what I wanted and it's starting to annoy me now.

That basically would constitute 90% of my television viewing already (between DVDs, Netflix, and skirting between various cable channels), so I'm game :D How about just call it the Tommy Westphall Network?

"Secrets Exhumed" is one of those episodes I refuse to accept as canonical in any way, shape or form. Because I loved Dana too, and will not accept this episode's character assassination of her. (I feel similarly about "Presumed Guilty" for how it rewrote Teresa Randall's family and Fin's attitudes, plus trying to hook up Fin & Melinda when Melinda was one of the few characters who seemed happily married on the show. I guess I could just summarize this as "why I hate season 14" and move on...)

Haven't seen this mentioned here yet...apparently CBS trolled NBC over the Trump episode, ripping it from the SVU "headlines"? I really need to see this: ‘The Good Fight’ Creators Take on NBC’s ‘SVU’ Donald Trump Episode