S21.E08: We Dream of Machine Elves

[dttruman]

Episode info from Googling "law & order: special victims unit season 21 episode 8, We Dream of Machine Elves"

Rollins goes under cover to find a suspect who is drugging and assaulting tourists, while Benson helps the victims sort out their memories from their hallucinations.

Actors information from Fandom

Main cast

Mariska Hargitay as Captain Olivia Benson

Kelli Giddish as Detective Amanda Rollins

Ice-T as Sergeant Odafin Tutuola

Peter Scanavino as A.D.A. Dominick Carisi, Jr.

Jamie Gray Hyder as Detective Katriona Tamin

Recurring cast

Ryan Buggle as Noah Porter-Benson

Amy Hargreaves as Dr. Alexis Hanover

Demore Barnes as Deputy Chief Christian Garland

Stephen Wallem as Rudy Syndergaard

Guest cast

James Healy, Jr. as Carl Williams

Andy Mientus as Caleb Williams

Eve O'Brien as Anais Adler

Sarah Catherine Hook as Meghan Gale

Kyle Fox Douglas as Rhys

[dttruman]

From the episode information it looks like Benson just got her degree in Psychology. I hope Hanover makes a strong appearance here or supervises her enough to legitimize Benson's work with these victims.

[WendyCR72]

This title...was someone drinking or smoking some good illegal stuff when this was thought up?

[wknt3]

Don't want to be a jerk, but I think there a couple of typos in your topic title. First it should be E08. Secondly it looks like auto correct has turned the episode title into complete nonsense...

[WendyCR72]

I am not the mod for this forum; however, since one of the issues was just changing the episode number, I corrected that.

[dttruman]

55 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

Don't want to be a jerk, but I think there a couple of typos in your topic title. First it should be E08. Secondly it looks like auto correct has turned the episode title into complete nonsense...

You are definitely not a jerk and thank you for the episode number correction notice, but someone (WENDYCR72) beat me to it. As for the episode title, I had nothing to do with that and that title is listed everywhere else. So maybe it's a Leight thing?

23 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:

I am not the mod for this forum; however, since one of the issues was just changing the episode number, I corrected that.

Thank you for fixing my carelessness. I always strive to be objective and accurate, but sometimes I mess up and I am not afraid to admit when I make a mistake.

[WendyCR72]

1 minute ago, dttruman said:

Thank you for fixing my carelessness. I always strive to be objective and accurate, but sometimes I mess up and I am not afraid to admit when I make a mistake.

Hey, I have made the same mistake with episodes; I bet many have. Don't worry about it.  🙂

And checking listings, the title is indeed right. (And, yes, adds up to 21 letters befitting S21 so Leight can have his little peccadillo.)

[wknt3]

3 minutes ago, dttruman said:

You are definitely not a jerk and thank you for the episode number correction notice, but someone (WENDYCR72) beat me to it. As for the episode title, I had nothing to do with that and that title is listed everywhere else. So maybe it's a Leight thing?

Thank you for fixing my carelessness. I always strive to be objective and accurate, but sometimes I mess up and I am not afraid to admit when I make a mistake.

Yeah that is Leight thing where he is more interested in having 21 letters in the title (to match the season number) than in having a title that reflects the contents or makes sense. It was intended as a joke about how it seems more random words instead of a sensible title, not actual speculation about your reading or typing skills!
 

1 minute ago, WendyCR72 said:

Hey, I have made the same mistake with episodes; I bet many have. Don't worry about it.  🙂

I have done it too! Heck I've done worse when tvguide.com posted the wrong title for an epsiode duplicating from a previous season - luckily it was Blue Bloods and nobody is paying much attention to the details this season, not even the writers and actors...

[CrystalBlue]

25 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:

Hey, I have made the same mistake with episodes; I bet many have. Don't worry about it.  🙂

And checking listings, the title is indeed right. (And, yes, adds up to 21 letters befitting S21 so Leight can have his little peccadillo.)

Just as long as it was corrected by the time I read this is all that matters.  Carry on.  😄

[Xeliou66]

This episode title has to take the cake as the strangest episode title in the 1000+ episodes of the L&O franchise. 

[WendyCR72]

4 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

This episode title has to take the cake as the strangest episode title in the 1000+ episodes of the L&O franchise. 

Definitely. In terms of the longest, I think Criminal Intent still holds the record: "Please Note We Are No Longer Accepting Recommendations From Henry Kissinger", from Season 7. Whew.

[dttruman]

4 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

This episode title has to take the cake as the strangest episode title in the 1000+ episodes of the L&O franchise. 

If you think that may upset you a little, I Googled ahead for the next episode "Can't Be Held Accountable". Since you admire and respect Benson (like myself and a few others here) for following the rules and orders of superiors and respecting fellow workers the last few years. I wonder how Benson will react to Tamin?

"A fellow detective asks the SVU for help when he suspects his two daughters are being groomed by a serial predator; Kat disobeys the captain's orders."

2 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Definitely. In terms longest, I think Criminal Intent still holds the record: "Please Note We Are No Longer Accepting Recommendations From Henry Kissinger", from Season 7. Whew.

At least this title is more coherent than the SVU title for episode 8.

[dttruman]

Time for another apology, and this one goes to Xeliou66. He was the first one who made us aware of this weird title for episode 8. He mentioned this in the "Spoilers and Speculations for Season 21" discussion back on Oct 19th.

It's hard for me to keep up with all these discussions.

[dttruman]

After watching the first 20 minutes of this, I can now understand what Leight takes to get his inspirations for episodes.

When they present the evidence to Carisi, and he said that they need more to go on, (It's character assassination time) when Fin is made the bad guy to criticize Carisi and it's Benson who plays the good guy and sticks up for Carisi

Edited November 15, 2019 by dttruman

[Iguessnot]

I didn't understand anything. Rollins inhaled and was acting weird, but nothing came of it. I don't know what to think of the doctor. 

The mom doesn't have the aha response to her daughter after a 1 minute meeting and Rollins and Benson just turn their backs like she's hopeless.

This episode was a trip. That's all I've got.

[Gigi43]

So Carisi either has to play cop or do his job -correctly - and be the bad guy? Screw that.

Give Rollins an episode and it all falls apart. Adler has probably met tons of women but remembered her immediately?  Yeah okay. Maybe the Family Rollins took DMT together and that's how they got that way. Everytime they said DMT I thought of DMT enthusiast Joe Rogan and I've never heard it mentioned outside of the podcast.

Wasn't fond of it over all. 

[dttruman]

31 minutes ago, Iguessnot said:

I didn't understand anything. Rollins inhaled and was acting weird, but nothing came of it. I don't know what to think of the doctor. 

Yeah, I am still kind of lost also. Were those 4 guys that were in that girl's hallucination, did they actually rape her? I know they said something about taking the drugs and that made it consensual, but I don't see it that way. It's like forced to drink alcohol isn't?

Rollins looked like she is still damaged goods. Benson never should have let her go undercover, because she was almost defending Adler. They should have definitely had the consulting shrink in on this case, so she could be more objective.

Edited November 15, 2019 by dttruman

[Iguessnot]

17 minutes ago, dttruman said:

Yeah, I am still kind of lost also. Were those 4 guys that were in that girl's hallucination, did they actually rape her? I know they said something about taking the drugs and that made it consensual, but I don't see it that way. It's like forced to drink alcohol isn't?

I almost forgot all this. The victim was only looking for her friends, but this pimp Anais kidnaps her, drugs her in the ride yet she and her accomplices get off scot free. In fact Anais is portrayed as a poor motherless child at the end. My mind kept remembering that episode when some college girl chose to get drunk, made advances on a dude and he got prison when she couldn't even remember what happened. 

[preeya]

2 hours ago, dttruman said:

After watching the first 20 minutes of this, I can now understand what Leight takes to get his inspirations for episodes.

When they present the evidence to Carisi, and he said that they need more to go on, (It's character assassination time) when Fin is made the bad guy to criticize Carisi and it's Benson who plays the good guy and sticks up for Carisi

And next time it will be the exact opposite or some other deviation.

[Xeliou66]

What a weird episode, I really don’t know what to make of it. 

The premise was interesting, but I didn’t think it was executed well. There were too many questions left open, who exactly were the rapists that raped the girls? And what was their point in doing so? Was it for a scientific experiment? I would’ve liked more closure to the case to see who all got charged and with what, instead of the final scene of the mother/daughter, I wish we had either seen the arraignment or Carisi giving the squad a wrap up of the case. 

I hated the cheesy opening with the hallucinations and the music playing over it, it would’ve been better if the episode had just opened with the victim being found in the park.

Carisi had a very light role, he was very good when he was on screen, I liked how he wasn’t being pushed around by anyone and I liked that he was going ahead with charging everyone involved. But he didn’t have enough screentime. And what was with Carisi’s makeshift desk in the courtroom? Why was he working there and not at his office? 

The new chief was really good tonight, I still miss Dodds but I like Garland, he’s cool, intelligent and analytical. 

Rollins irritated me once again, she had a major blind spot for the perp, apparently just because of a lecture years ago, that was ridiculous, and how did he remember Rollins name? Benson had every right to question Rollins judgment and I don’t think she should’ve let her continue to take the lead on this case.

Overall this could’ve been much better than it was, there were just too many loose ends and too much of Rollins, and not enough of Carisi. 

53 minutes ago, Iguessnot said:

I almost forgot all this. The victim was only looking for her friends, but this pimp Anais kidnaps her, drugs her in the ride yet she and her accomplices get off scot free. In fact Anais is portrayed as a poor motherless child at the end. My mind kept remembering that episode when some college girl chose to get drunk, made advances on a dude and he got prison when she couldn't even remember what happened. 

Anais didn’t get off scot free, she was going to be charged, did you miss the end where Carisi said he was charging them all? 

[HunterHunted]

Where was Rollins' great psychological training and insight when she was being a reckless imbecile, gambling, getting into highly inadvisable romantic situations, and dealing with her fucked up family? Maybe it decided to go on a sabbatical for 10 years. It was joined by Adler's photographic memory because how on earth is he able to remember her now as opposed to the many many many times Benson's squad has been on TV and in the papers.

Also fuck you Anais. None of those women had indicated that they wanted to have minds forcibly awoken via drugs. It's not like Anais was standing on a street corner like the DMT version of a Hare Krishna or a Scientologist spouting off the wonders of DMT. Hell naw! The girl was looking for her friends, Anais offers to help, and then the drug the poor woman. Let me guess. I'm looking for my friends and my phone just died are apparently code for my life sucks and please drug, kidnap and rape me. If these assholes cared that much about psychologically opening people they'd head down to the financial district or park themselves in front of Hermes and Van Cleef. Please tell us how many people at Morgan Stanley that you pulled this shit on. Nope, these assholes picked vulnerable targets like a tourist and a foreigner.

[dttruman]

3 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Anais didn’t get off scot free, she was going to be charged, did you miss the end where Carisi said he was charging them all? 

I think we all kind of caught most of that, but like you mentioned earlier, everything was kind of vague as to what they would be charged with.

[SarahPrtr]

5 hours ago, Gigi43 said:

Give Rollins an episode and it all falls apart. Adler has probably met tons of women but remembered her immediately?  Yeah okay. Maybe the Family Rollins took DMT together and that's how they got that way.

5 hours ago, dttruman said:

Rollins looked like she is still damaged goods. Benson never should have let her go undercover, because she was almost defending Adler.

2 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

Where was Rollins' great psychological training and insight when she was being a reckless imbecile, gambling, getting into highly inadvisable romantic situations, and dealing with her fucked up family? Maybe it decided to go on a sabbatical for 10 years.

You know the intro at the beginning of every episode?  The part where he says "In New York city, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit."

We're all in trouble if someone like freaking Rollins is considered to be 'elite'.  WTF!?!  They couldn't get someone better than HER in the whole of New York City???  For any Arrested Development fans, think of Michael/George Michael saying "..... Her... ??"

Okay, don't stone me because I'm about to compliment Benson on something and it pains me to do so, but I do admire the fact that she hasn't lost her sensitivity when dealing with victims, even after all these years.  Yes, the whispering is there and it's unnecessary, and the sensitivity part only applies to female victims, but at least she listens to them without rushing them.  More than I can say for Rollins.

Leight loves Peter Scanavino, so probably wants to give Peter good stuff to work with, but they've made Carisi's new role too wishy-washy.  Maybe they regret mentioning Carisi being in law school at the beginning and should have made it like Carisi was considering studying law and did a semester of it in college, but did something else instead.  We had another character who was a cop before becoming an ADA like Jo Marlowe (Sharon Stone), but she wasn't shown as a cop for many seasons before becoming an ADA.  Carisi jumping out of the van and climbing up the stairs last week would have been even more enjoyable if the whole time we weren't wondering "Why is he doing that???"

[dttruman]

Did anyone else think that Leight and Martin were very sloppy with the plot on for this episode? It seemed like they wanted to give the spotlight to Rollins, but they messed that up even more than their regular blunders. Considering Rollins behavioral patterns this season, how can she be trusted to investigate this Adler guy objectively. We were given a little privy to that when they showed that Rollins had taken some of that drug when she was undercover. They failed miserably when they didn't use Dr. Hanover's character enough. Benson was relying mostly on Rollins' assessment on the psychological goings on here. Hanover should have been brought in to observe Rollins interrogating Adler. Where is Dr Huang when you really need him?

Leight and Martin chose to minimize the plight of the special victims and just chose to focus how Adler manipulated his wife and daughter. They were just an afterthought near the end of the episode. Why was it so much more important to try and bring a mother and daughter back together than get definite justice for the victims?

Edited November 16, 2019 by dttruman

[wknt3]

The Good:
The opening credits. It was nice to see Kat added and a final shot with at least a full basketball team worth of characters again.
It was nice to see that Benson was the last one on the scene instead of the first and that they let the rest of the team investigate while she made suggestions and handled interviews. It really seems like maybe they are permanently shifting to realizing that Benson can be the lead without doing everything.
Adam Arkin. Despite the issues with the writing he really did a great job. No surprise of course since he's an old pro and this was squarely in his wheelhouse, but he still deserves credit for elevating the material and his scene partners.
Chief Garland. I wish that they had done a better job on why he was so involved from the jump (yet another example of how they seem to have lost the ability to do quick exposition) but it is nice to have a character who is professional and dispassionate without being cynical, and smart and caring without becoming an advocate instead of an investigator.

The Bad:
Holy crap was the CGI depiction of the hallucinations bad. I mean just terrible. If you don't have the budget and the expertise to do it right just give us a blur filter, show us the victim and leave it to our imagination.
The title. Yeah we've covered it already, but it's even worse having seen the episode and realizing they wasted all that time coming up with a "clever" 21 letter title that could have been used actually fixing all the script issues.
The script. Tons of sloppiness all over the place. Lots of poor transitions from one plot point to another. Lots of threads that went nowhere so we could focus on Rollins and our guest star. Speaking of the guest star it annoys me that they chose to give the character the last name of a famous psychotherapist without any thematic connection I could determine. And then they didn't even bother to give us a true ending to the case so that we could get the treacly moment at the end in the psych ward. I don't know if there were some sort of BTS issues leading to a rush job (and 4 credited writers) but there were issues with both plotting and scripting and it could have used a couple more drafts.
Fin. This was the one character that has been consistent through all the ups and downs of the show, but they seem to have forgotten how to write him. His snarky realism has turned into bitter cynicism and his dumping on Carisi was totally OOC.

Overall this was a mess. It could have been worse, and I will give them some credit for doing a Rollins centered episode that does not give us an appearance from her family, a relapse into gambling or other self destructive behavior, a new relationship, or openly attacking victims. And I suppose a possibly interesting idea poorly executed is better than another d-bag CEO type assaulting a young professional woman, but "not as bad as it could have been" is not good enough especially when they have shown the last couple years that they can do better. This was a misfire, and it's probably best to forget it and move on being grateful that it was at least an occasionally interesting failure.

[dttruman]

1 hour ago, wknt3 said:

Adam Arkin. Despite the issues with the writing he really did a great job. No surprise of course since he's an old pro and this was squarely in his wheelhouse, but he still deserves credit for elevating the material and his scene partners.

Totally agree here. The writers (and producers) tried to write in many excuses to follow their logic of the plot and Arkin's acting couldn't save it. When they used the excuse that taking the drugs was consensual for a medical experiment, you usually need some kind of written release.

[Iguessnot]

8 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Anais didn’t get off scot free, she was going to be charged, did you miss the end where Carisi said he was charging them all? 

Yeah, I missed it. I assumed the doctor was going to be charged -- with something, only because he was interrogated and then went bonkers. Maybe it was my attention span, but the dudes were like ghosts. Hardly no attention was given to them. I remember hearing they would claim it was consensual. One victim left the country, the others delusional.  I saw Anais treated like a snowflake. I saw no charges. No courtroom.  

[Xeliou66]

4 hours ago, dttruman said:

Did anyone else think that Leight and Martin were very sloppy with the plot on for this episode? It seemed like they wanted to give the spotlight to Rollins, but they messed that up even more than their regular blunders. Considering Rollins behavioral patterns this season, how can she be trusted to investigate this Adler guy objectively. We were given a little privy to that when they showed that Rollins had taken some of that drug when she was undercover. They failed miserably when they didn't use Dr. Hanover's character enough. Benson were relying mostly on Rollins' assessment on the psychological goings on here. Hanover should have brought in to observe Rollins interrogating Adler. Where is Dr Huang when you really need him?

Leight and Martin chose to minimize the plight of the special victims and just chose to focus how Adler manipulated his wife and daughter. They were just an afterthought near the end of the episode. Why was it so much more important to try and bring a mother and daughter back together than get definitely justice for the victims?

I agree, this was a sloppy plot. They forgot all about the actual victims, instead focusing on the perp and his family, as a result it felt like there were a lot of loose ends at the end of the episode. 

I thought Hanover was supposed to be in the episode, but she wasn’t apparently. A psych expert was desperately needed once again in this episode, Huang is sorely missed. Rollins was way too biased once again, she really drives me nuts, she has no business being at SVU.

And I agree about Fin looking bad in this episode, his behavior with Carisi was very OOC and what was with his dumping on psychiatry/therapy as well (Kat too for that matter?). It would seem like Fin would know that therapy can be very helpful for some people, and he always respected Dr Huang, so what was with his sudden crapping on psychiatry? It seemed like they just threw Fin under the bus in order to make Benson look better, for example having her come to Carisi’s defense.

This was one of the weakest episodes of the season, either this one or the abortion episode has been the worst of season 21 so far. 

[preeya]

Here is my biggest exception with this show, and I don't profess to be an expert in NYPD hierarchy, but can someone explain how and why is SVU always the first to respond to a crime scene? Who determines who handles the investigation? After-all every crime doesn't fall under the purview of SVU, yet they are always first on the scene without knowing any facts of the crime. In my mind I would think "regular detectives" would be dispatched and if the crime warrants it would be turned over to Benson's crew. 

[tennisgurl]

The best part of this episode was the batshit crazy title, which sounds like an indie psychedelic band that would have opened for Jefferson Starship in 1967. 

This episode had a decently interesting idea, and at least wasnt another "rich dickhead forces himself on rich white woman" story, but after a streak of decent to good episodes, this episode was back on board the hot mess express. It honestly seemed like thirty different plot threads and episodes crammed into one weird episode, and the second half of the episode seemed to be almost a totally different episode than the one we started with. It seemed like halfway through they wanted make this seem like the consent was ambiguous and that the women in the drug trails may or may not have consented to sex before they all started doing drugs but...thats not what was happening! The poor girl in the opening scene was at a bachelorette party and was looking for a ride back to her hotel, not to "have her mind expanded" or whatever! She wasnt looking to deal with depression or sexual abuse, she just wanted to charge her phone, and was lied to, drugged, kidnapped, raped, forced to dig her own grave, and then left naked in the park. That is absolutely kidnapping, drugging, and rape, but we seemed to forget that halfway through to focus on the perp and his creepy cult/family. They just forgot about the actual victims, and we never got closure on any of them, except for kind of the Swedish girl who went home and seemed at least kind of alright, what happened to the opening credit girl? Did she ever come down from her high? And the woman in psych, did they find out who she was, did they help her? It all was forgotten to focus on Rollins and her excuse making for this creep and his weird family. And that kid in the top hat, his parents showed up and said he was brainwashed and then...we never see the kid again? Are all of these people brainwashed? Who were the rapists? What was the point of kidnapping these women? Is he just a garden variety sicko hiding under academia as an excuse for his perversions and abuse? How long has he been doing this? There are so many questions unanswered, I was honestly shocked when I realized the episode was over, there were so many plot threads that were still hanging around. 

So why did Anais seemingly end up getting the sympathetic edit? You could maybe say that she was brainwashed by her father, but they never really went into that, all I saw was her luring vulnerable young women into a creepy drug den, including her drugging them, tying them to beds, having them raped, and then leaving them mentally broken due to trauma and an overdose of psychedelics. I dont feel bad for her, she had to know that she wasnt helping these woman! She was kidnapping them! Yeah she was being charged I guess, but we dont know how things will actually end, and it seems like Rollins and company are already planning on making her a victim. 

The cracks that Finn and Kat made about therapy and how dumb it is seemed really weird, and rather out of character for Finn who I am pretty sure has seen a therapist both on and off-screen, and is certainly disturbing for cops working in special victims. I mean, what would Kat recommend a rape survivor do to try and cope with their trauma? Just walk it off? 

Why is Rollins so obsessed with this guy that she saw speak one freaking time years ago?! Have they not seen a billion times that people they seem like awesome people in public could have skeletons in their closet? And he recognized her after years? And them putting Rollins in the sexy young thing role to get closer to bad guys is just getting embarrassing. 

On the plus side, Garland continues to be a pretty good addition to the cast, and I like how he is gelling with everyone, walking the line between being understanding of victims and also playing politics and making sure that everything is done on the up and up legally. 

Nice seeing Kat in the opening credits, lord knows they need more than two detectives, and I like her for the most part. I am curious how she would deal with more of a variety of cases that this show used to have, like child abuse cases, and how her tough vibe would work with kids or different kind of victims.

LOL this show doesent do that anymore.  

Edited November 16, 2019 by tennisgurl

[dttruman]

2 hours ago, preeya said:

After-all every crime doesn't fall under the purview of SVU, yet they are always first on the scene without knowing any facts of the crime. In my mind I would think "regular detectives" would be dispatched and if the crime warrants it would be turned over to Benson's crew. 

And yet at the beginning of the season, they make a major play for sympathy from the viewers, when they say they are so under staffed. but they will never address that. They will only complain that they still need more help.

[dttruman]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

The best part of this episode was the batshit crazy title, which sounds like an indie psychedelic band that would have opened for Jefferson Starship in 1967. 

This episode had a decently interesting idea, and at least wasnt another "rich dickhead forces himself on rich white woman" story, but after a streak of decent to good episodes, this episode was back on board the hot mess express. It honestly seemed like thirty different plot threads and episodes crammed into one weird episode, and the second half of the episode seemed to be almost a totally different episode than the one we started with. It seemed like halfway through they wanted make this seem like the consent was ambiguous and that the women in the drug trails may or may not have consented to sex before they all started doing drugs but...thats not what was happening! The poor girl in the opening scene was at a bachelorette party and was looking for a ride back to her hotel, not to "have her mind expanded" or whatever! She wasnt looking to deal with depression or sexual abuse, she just wanted to charge her phone, and was lied to, drugged, kidnapped, raped, forced to dig her own grave, and then left naked in the park. That is absolutely kidnapping, drugging, and rape, but we seemed to forget that halfway through to focus on the perp and his creepy cult/family. They just forgot about the actual victims, and we never got closure on any of them, except for kind of the Swedish girl who went home and seemed at least kind of alright, what happened to the opening credit girl? Did she ever come down from her high? And the woman in psych, did they find out who she was, did they help her? It all was forgotten to focus on Rollins and her excuse making for this creep and his weird family. And that kid in the top hat, his parents showed up and said he was brainwashed and then...we never see the kid again? Are all of these people brainwashed? Who were the rapists? What was the point of kidnapping these women? Is he just a garden variety sicko hiding under academia as an excuse for his perversions and abuse? How long has he been doing this? There are so many questions unanswered, I was honestly shocked when I realized the episode was over, there were so many plot threads that were still hanging around. 

So when did Anais seemingly end up getting the sympathetic edit? You could maybe say that she was brainwashed by her father, but they never really went into that, all I saw was her luring vulnerable young women into a creepy drug den, including her drugging them, tying them to beds, having them raped, and then leaving them mentally broken due to trauma and an overdose of psychedelics. I dont feel bad for her, she had to know that she wasnt helping these woman! She was kidnapping them! Yeah she was being charged I guess, but we dont know how things will actually end, and it seems like Rollins and company are already planning on making her a victim. 

The cracks that Finn and Kat made about therapy and how dumb it is seemed really weird, and rather out of character for Finn who I am pretty sure has seen a therapist both on and off-screen, and is certainly disturbing for cops working in special victims. I mean, what would Kat recommend a rape survivor do to try and cope with their trauma? Just walk it off? 

Why is Rollins so obsessed with this guy that she saw speak one freaking time years ago?! Have they not seen a billion times that people they seem like awesome people in public could have skeletons in their closet? And he recognized her after years? And them putting Rollins in the sexy young thing role to get closer to bad guys is just getting embarrassing. 

On the plus side, Garland continues to be a pretty good addition to the cast, and I like how he is gelling with everyone, walking the line between being understanding of victims and also playing politics and making sure that everything is done on the up and up legally. 

Nice seeing Kat in the opening credits, lord knows they need more than two detectives, and I like her for the most part. I am curious how she would deal with more of a variety of cases that this show used to have, like child abuse cases, and how her tough vibe would work with kids or different kind of victims.

LOL this show doesent do that anymore.  

You didn't leave a damn thing out! Well said my friend!!!

[TzuShih]

Er...um......after emphasis on how all the drugged young ladies were still psychologically unstable, WHY oh WHY was Olivia pushed to drive solo - with no backup - the young Swedish victim on a "city tour" of her torturous, psychedelic memories?!?  (I can't possibly be the ONLY viewer finding this nonsensical.) ☹️

[preeya]

39 minutes ago, TzuShih said:

(I can't possibly be the ONLY viewer finding this nonsensical.) ☹️

There are so many nonsensical things happening in every episode, it's difficult to recall all of them and then put them here.

But you are correct. As a matter of fact there should have been psych consults for all the victims. That does not mean they should be done by Dr. Olivia Benson.

Edited November 16, 2019 by preeya

[dttruman]

34 minutes ago, TzuShih said:

WHY oh WHY was Olivia pushed to drive solo - with no backup - the young Swedish victim on a "city tour" of her torturous, psychedelic memories?!? 

Wasn't it very convenient that she had to go back to Sweden at that particular time?

[wknt3]

9 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

This was one of the weakest episodes of the season, either this one or the abortion episode has been the worst of season 21 so far. 

The abortion episode is worse IMO. The directing and acting wasn't as good (certainly nobody was on the level of Adam Arkin) and it was flawed in less interesting ways. This was an incoherent presentation of a potentially interesting story which trumps a more coherent, but still slapdash take on a bad idea in my book.
 

5 hours ago, preeya said:

Here is my biggest exception with this show, and I don't profess to be an expert in NYPD hierarchy, but can someone explain how and why is SVU always the first to respond to a crime scene? Who determines who handles the investigation? After-all every crime doesn't fall under the purview of SVU, yet they are always first on the scene without knowing any facts of the crime. In my mind I would think "regular detectives" would be dispatched and if the crime warrants it would be turned over to Benson's crew. 

This is mostly a matter of budget cutting as well as not wanting to devote the time to exposition and realism these days. It used to be clear that there were a large number of uniformed officers and often others such as precinct detectives and CSU who arrived before SVU. And they would explain why they were there if it wasn't a clear cut SVU case where they would have been called in from the get go, such as a 911 call reporting a rape. They would often know the general outlines and ask for more information/confirmation so that we could learn what was happening. But they don't want to spend money on recurring CSU/ME types or even large numbers of extras. And time spent on this sort of exposition is time that can't be spent on Benoah or showing the victims being inspired to go on by whispering and making concerned faces.

[h8omb]

So this woman has been institutionalized for 20 years and her doctor thought it would be a great idea to reintroduce her to her daughter with Benson and Rollins standing right there gawking at her?

[howiveaddict]

18 minutes ago, h8omb said:

So this woman has been institutionalized for 20 years and her doctor thought it would be a great idea to reintroduce her to her daughter with Benson and Rollins standing right there gawking at her?

I don't think the woman had a perception of time or even really realize it was her daughter. I think they did it more so the daughter would know that her mother was still alive before she went to jail.

Enjoyed the Jefferson Airplane White Rabbit at the beginning, even if the CGI was cheezy.

[tinkerbell]

Something that bugged me.

The doctor was a psychiatrist, an MD. Psychiatry is a medical specialty.  Rollins tells him that she is studying for her Masters in psychiatry. There's no such thing.

You can study psychology in graduate school, and get a master's or PhD,  or a PsyD. But theres no masters in psychiatry.  And a psychiatrist would know that. 

[SarahPrtr]

7 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

The best part of this episode was the batshit crazy title, which sounds like an indie psychedelic band that would have opened for Jefferson Starship in 1967.

The title reminded me of something from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

[CrystalBlue]

Now we know why we got such a druggy episode title:  hallucinogenic drugs!

Kat is in the credits now.

The best part of the ep was the "White Rabbit" intro.

Amanda had a crush on that shrink back in the day.  When she was lost before she was found.

Again, no Benoah.  Yay.

Agree with all the above posters about why the episode was such a mess, despite having Alan Arkin involved.

[Steph Sometimes]

If only this had aired years ago. This would've been a perfect episode for Speed Weed.

Episode started out interesting but then it was too much Rollins. I was more interested in the victims and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize the girl at the beginning and his daughter were the same person. Also. Shut up Rollins.

[SarahPrtr]

Why TF is it always so difficult for the writers to come up with intelligent, strong and competent female characters who are neither pushovers nor bitches?  Or a total freaking mess who always brings their personal life shit to work???  Is it really that hard to write a female character like that?!  To be good at their jobs but have a normal, regular personal life?  Is that too generic and god forbid... boring??

[wanderingstar]

Carisi: I need at least a patina of probable cause.

Fin (incredulous): Patina?

Oh that cracked me up so much. As did Fin calling Dr. Adler a freak.

The cold open was genuinely eerie. The use of White Rabbit was a bit on the nose, but I still liked it.

Adam Arkin's name in the credits almost always means whatever character he is playing will be the perp, or perp-adjacent, right?

Edited November 16, 2019 by Gillian Rosh
Added a comment I forgot to include in my original posting.

[dreamer]

So that's what SVU is like in the alternate reality? Okay, cool.

[dttruman]

On 11/16/2019 at 5:00 AM, SarahPrtr said:

Why TF is it always so difficult for the writers to come up with intelligent, strong and competent female characters who are neither pushovers nor bitches?  Or a total freaking mess who always brings their personal life shit to work???  Is it really that hard to write a female character like that?!  To be good at their jobs but have a normal, regular personal life?  Is that too generic and god forbid... boring??

They seem to bring that or those troubled regular characters into their episodes almost every other week.. I don't mind them doing it a couple of times, but they constantly bombard us with those type of characters or with some wacky social or political agenda in the episode.

Edited November 18, 2019 by dttruman

[incandescent]

Hey, Rollins, I know that you have a blind spot for men that you think are smarter than you...

Ain't that the truth!!

[amass]

Dorothy Megan Gale from Kansas... bit on the nose

[dttruman]

2 hours ago, incandescent said:

Hey, Rollins, I know that you have a blind spot for men that you think are smarter than you...

Ain't that the truth!!

(This is going a ways back) But did she think that bartender (she picked up) when she went out with Carisi, that he was very smart?

[zoey1996]

On 11/12/2019 at 4:30 PM, dttruman said:

We Dream of Machine Elves

On 11/15/2019 at 10:35 PM, SarahPrtr said:

The title reminded me of something from Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Harks back to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? a novel by Richard K. Dick (968).