Xeliou66

This was slightly better than I expected - at least it wasn’t a Benson saves the world hour, and Carisi got a nice focus, but it didn’t seem to make sense that Benson was once again in charge of the hostage situation, and there were no real twists or anything - they just threw the rape in cause it’s SVU and they needed to have some sex crime. I wonder if they’ll reference this again soon, because that had to take a toll on Carisi. I still don’t sense any romantic chemistry between Carisi/Rollins, I feel they were forced together. I really missed Bruno and Fin, they are the best thing about SVU now, but it was a good episode for them to be absent given that they wouldn’t have had anything to do.

This was a really strong episode, very good plot even if it was somewhat predictable where it was going, still really compelling, and good stuff with both the investigation and trial. I particularly enjoyed Riley and Shaw, they both were great, their banter in the car was amusing and I also enjoyed Riley’s scene at the end with Brady. It was overly Brady heavy once again and I’m still not a big fan of her character and this episode didn’t make her look great given that she knew the perp was corrupt but didn’t say anything until it was too late, but I’m curious about the IA guy coming to her office at the end - is she going to be suspended or investigated, or is she going to be used to go after other dirty cops? Could be interesting. So while Brady hasn’t endeared herself to me really, this episode made things more interesting with her and I do appreciate that she is flawed and not perfect, unlike a certain SVU squad leader. I liked the trap they set for the perp and it caught me by surprise as well, really well executed twist. The cops in the squad who knew about the perp’s corruption and still didn’t say anything even after he smeared his dead partner as corrupt on the stand were sorry, I hope IAB goes after them and maybe that’s why the guy went to talk to Brady at the end. The one cop who was framed by the perp and still wouldn’t testify was spineless - Riley testified against the perp without hesitation, and Brady later testified as well, that dude should’ve followed their example instead of staying silent. The legal stuff was good, Price was solid, minimal Maroun and she wasn’t annoying, and Baxter was good even though he wasn’t used much - I liked the scenes discussing the case and talking about how to prosecute a decorated cop with a convicted drug dealer as their key witness. Overall this was probably the best episode of the season so far, strong plot for both investigation and trial, each character was used well, and while Brady didn’t become more likable she did become more fleshed out and interesting. Nice finish to an up and down fall season of L&O and I look forward to its return in January!!

Episode description Carisi tries to protect two women taken hostage in a tense standoff between police and a violent thief; Benson and Rollins devise a risky plan to get everyone to safety

Good episode - action packed and intense. Good investigation and manhunt, I liked how they figured it all out - the villains were all scum, I liked how Remy turned the brothers against each other to end the situation. I called the shot that they had inside help and since the female was the only character we saw that was working for the company I figured she was in on it, so no surprise there, still a good case. Remy’s “get Barney Fife out of there” line made me laugh, I love some of the lines Remy says. This show has consistently strong cases. Don’t care about Ray’s personal drama but at least the personal screen time is split pretty evenly between team members now.

This was a good episode, good investigation and an interesting case. I liked the way it played out, good role for everyone, and Wes is growing on me each week as team leader. But I’m afraid they are going down the Wes/Vo romance route, and I don’t want that, keep romance between main characters out of the show

Much better than I expected - I was expecting a politics fest at the start, glad it turned into a classic drug case and then the twist at the end that the frat leader was the actual killer was a good one, I didn’t see it coming that the victim wasn’t involved in drugs and the frat guy lied the whole time, good twist and a good investigation. So I guess Jubal will be out the next couple of episodes - he deserved his suspension honestly, he should know better than to get his kid special treatment like that. He screwed up and his whining at the end to Isobel irritated me, a rare time I was annoyed with Jubal - Isobel was right to stand firm. Jubal is usually very by the book so this kind of felt OOC for him. It will be interesting to see an episode without him, as he is kind of the guy who everything runs through and coordinates everything. Interesting seeing him get out in the field and shoot someone tonight. The new agent barely had any lines, she didn’t make an impact at all, I missed last week so I have no opinion on her yet. So overall a good case and investigation but Jubal’s whining annoyed me and I’m a bit sick of his kid drama - it’s getting almost as annoying as Jess LaCroix’s kid during his tenure on MW.

I’m very tempted to skip this episode given that original L&O just did an episode about campus protests and it was trash, I’m afraid this episode will just be a repeat of that and more of a political statement than an episode. If it wasn’t for the fact that I missed last week’s episode and thus haven’t seen the new agent who I hear is terrible, I would probably just skip this one because I’m sick of heavy handed episodes about campus protests. Maybe this will be better than L&O’s episode but I’m expecting the worst.

The episode’s premise sounds interesting, but I’m not looking forward to even more Brady - she’s been shoved down our throats this season and she’s just not likable. I wish she would take a backseat and let the much more likable Shaw/Riley pairing do the investigating. Hope this is a strong finish to the fall season, this is the last L&O episode until January.

Baxter was appointed by the governor, not the Mayor, part of why Jack retired was so the mayor wouldn’t have the chance to have a puppet to run the office and fire all of McCoy’s people. So there’s no tie between Baxter and the mayor. I like Baxter and I appreciate that he’s different from McCoy, but I didn’t agree with Baxter’s decision here, the murderer deserved more than 12 years. I’m still curious to see how the Baxter/Price relationship goes. I really wish Maroun had been let go and not Dixon, Maroun sucks while Dixon was a good LT. Brady wasn’t annoying here but I don’t like her and it looks like next week will be heavy on her again.

I wish they would cut out the Baxter/Price distrust or dial it back - while I’m fine with having characters with different perspective and views, I want the conflict to be between the good guys and the bad guys, not between 2 of the good guys. I like both characters usually, but I was disappointed with Baxter last night, and I don’t want it to be where Baxter and Price just don’t get along. I hope it’s dialed back again going forward. I did enjoy seeing a lot of Baxter last night and I think Tony Goldwyn does a great job playing him, but dial back the Baxter/Price distrust.

This episode was dreadful. And Maroun can leave any time - I’m so sick of her feeling sympathy for killers, and acting more like an activist than a lawyer. Shades of St Olivia Benson with her. At least there was no personal melodrama and Brady wasn’t annoying.

I didn’t like this episode at all - felt more like a political statement than an episode. Oh and I couldn’t stand Maroun, once again she’s feeling sorry for a killer, and acting more like an activist than a lawyer, and being whiny. I’m tired of her. Disappointing that Baxter bowed to the mayor at the end, felt like political pressure was clouding his judgment - he’s the one who should’ve been called a sellout by the brother, not Price. At least Brady wasn’t annoying. That’s all I have to say about this one, it was junk.

Good episode, because of Fin and Bruno and their investigative work. It was great to see them take center stage and solve a case mostly on their own with minimal Benson involvement. Bruno and Fin are the best parts of SVU now, the more of them together the better, and it was good to have a classic sexual assault investigation without soapy crap. The main case was strong. Didn’t care about Carisi and his obsession with nailing the pervert teacher guy, and of course he needed St O to step in and save the day, so cliched. But it took Benson off of the main case and allowed Fin and Bruno to get most of the glory of solving it, so that was nice. Probably the best episode of the season because of Bruno and Fin and their case.

That was McCoy, not Stone. The episode was Cruel and Unusual from Season 5. Interesting but a very sad episode with no real easily solution.

Season 20 has so many strong episodes, it’s on on Sundance today - Innocence is a strong case, it’s an episode that deviated from the L&O formula a bit with the arrest starting the episode, then a quick trial, the reinvestigating and more legal proceedings. I liked how it played out and how ultimately the guy arrested at the start was guilty - Cutter’s law professor was slimy, she was giving her students incentives to tamper with witnesses and because of the pressure on them they were meddling in legal proceedings. I liked how the detectives and DAs got to the bottom of it and I liked all of the scenes between them. And while Cutter was never a favorite, his cross of the perp’s mom here was awesome - she fell right into his trap, going off on her homophobic tangent after saying her son shared her values, that was great on Cutter’s part. And his rage at the perp’s hatefulness at the end was good as well. Four Cops Shot is an intense episode, good manhunt for the shooter. Anita was awesome here, she did great in dealing with the captain of the officers and I especially loved her speech to Lupo and Bernard when they were reluctant to hand over the officers because it would reveal 2 of them crossed some lines, Anita was great then, asking them if she died would they make her into a retroactive saint and tell everyone how perfect she was, telling them to get over the officers making some mistakes. Interestingly enough the stuff in the officers books was the final piece the DAs needed to nail the perp for murder 1, proving that the motive wasn’t the threats to arrest his mom but a dispute over money. I liked Jack saying that he didn’t go forum shopping for harsher penalties. And I liked the scene between Connie and Bernard where she asked Bernard why he saved the perp’s life if he wanted him executed and Bernard said he wasn’t the executioner and Connie said neither was she. Brazil just finished, this is another stellar episode about the attempted murder by poisoning of the scientist, and it leading to the custody dispute and then the grandparents faking the kid going missing was a wild twist. No one was sympathetic really, the scientist who was poisoned was probably the most sympathetic of the bunch, but his wife was selfish and lousy for how she handled the custody dispute, and the 2 perps the dad and the grandfather were obviously bad as nothing justifies a murder attempt. I felt for the little girl at the end, what a screwed up family situation. I liked how the DAs addressed that at the end with Jack saying it was a good day’s work and Cutter replied “but not a good day”. Cutter did a good job again here by putting the dad on the stand and getting him to admit his guilt by using his concern for his daughter. Cutter was overall better in season 20 than he was in the previous 2 seasons. This was a good episode with good detective and legal work and some interesting twists.