S21.E09: Can't Be Held Accountable

[dttruman]

Episode info from Googling "law & order: special victims unit season 21 episode 9, Can't Be Held Accountable"

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.

Cast info (as of 11/19/2019) from Fandom and IMdB

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

Zuleikha Robinson as Bureau Chief Vanessa Hadid

Amy Hargreaves as Dr. Alexis Hanove

And others

Vincent Kartheiser

Christy Matino ...Teenage Girl

Grace Narducci ...Ivy Bucci

Nicholas Turturro

[dttruman]

I wonder how much Benson will let Tamin slide by on, for disobeying a direct order. I wonder if this will be another "parent takes the law into their own hands" episode?

[Xeliou66]

Apparently this is part 1 of a 2 part episode, part 2 will air when the show comes back in January, part 2 is titled Must Be Held Accountable, at least that’s what I’ve heard. 

I hope Kat doesn’t go way over the line here, I’ve liked her so far and I don’t want to see her turned into an unprofessional screw up like Rollins is. Benson again has no business coming down hard on anyone for crossing the line given how many times she’s behaved unprofessionally and disobeyed orders, but now that she’s the captain she has to keep the squad in line. 

The synopsis for this episode doesn’t sound all that interesting to be honest. 

[dttruman]

4 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Apparently this is part 1 of a 2 part episode, part 2 will air when the show comes back in January, part 2 is titled Must Be Held Accountable, at least that’s what I’ve heard. 

If part 2 of this episode is shown in January, I wonder if something radical is going to happen in part 1 of the episode. If that radical thing that happens Thursday is not taken well by the viewers or is so idiotic, will they do some rewriting and some re-shooting so as to make it a better ending? After all, they will have at least a month to correct their blunder.

[wknt3]

6 hours ago, dttruman said:

Nicholas Turturro

Interesting. I wonder if he is playing the detective worried about his daughters? The same one he played last season? Hopefully they give him something to do instead of largely wasting him like last time.
 

5 hours ago, dttruman said:

I wonder how much Benson will let Tamin slide by on, for disobeying a direct order. I wonder if this will be another "parent takes the law into their own hands" episode?

5 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I hope Kat doesn’t go way over the line here, I’ve liked her so far and I don’t want to see her turned into an unprofessional screw up like Rollins is. Benson again has no business coming down hard on anyone for crossing the line given how many times she’s behaved unprofessionally and disobeyed orders, but now that she’s the captain she has to keep the squad in line.

Yeah I'm curious to see how this plays out. It's a bit of a return to one of the show's favorite plots with the detective going against orders. In fact it's so old school I wonder if it's because Kat is hit by the Sledgehammer of Angst and  Takes!It!Personally!? They haven't done it much in recent years and when they have it hasn't worked given the character dynamics and history (I'm not a Rollins defender, but I was so hoping for her to tear Benson a new one about what a hypocrite she was being when she talked about following orders), but it could work here since Kat is new and wasn't around to see Benson doing the same thing previously. I'd be ecstatic if they went the McCoy/Cutter route from the Mothership and had Benson actually acknowledging her past and saying she didn't want to see her subordinates making the same mistakes, but I'm not expecting it by any means.

Quote

The synopsis for this episode doesn’t sound all that interesting to be honest. 

It's all in the execution. There is a lot of potential here if done right, particularly if they are trying for that classic SVU feel. And as we saw with the last episode there is not necessarily a correlation between an interesting sounding plot and good television.

[dttruman]

7 hours ago, wknt3 said:

Yeah I'm curious to see how this plays out. It's a bit of a return to one of the show's favorite plots with the detective going against orders. In fact it's so old school I wonder if it's because Kat is hit by the Sledgehammer of Angst and  Takes!It!Personally!? They haven't done it much in recent years and when they have it hasn't worked given the character dynamics and history (I'm not a Rollins defender, but I was so hoping for her to tear Benson a new one about what a hypocrite she was being when she talked about following orders), but it could work here since Kat is new and wasn't around to see Benson doing the same thing previously. I'd be ecstatic if they went the McCoy/Cutter route from the Mothership and had Benson actually acknowledging her past and saying she didn't want to see her subordinates making the same mistakes, but I'm not expecting it by any means.

Yes I agree, it will be interesting if they do it right and probably very disappointing if they don't. Do you think they didn't do it with Rollins because they didn't wanted to tarnish Benson's "Doesn't Do Wrong" image? Or do you think they were working on making their relationship something like "Cagney & Lacey"?

As for Tamin being new, I wouldn't say it would be out of the question for her to know about Benson's style of "bucking the system" past considering the notoriety of most of those incidents. I almost don't want them to follow the McCoy/Cutter route, because that will mean Benson will be sitting down with Tamin and then she'll go into one of her long whispered speeches about how hard it was for her to make tough choices. It also wouldn't surprise me if Benson tells Tamin, she is lucky to have a superior who can guide and direct her.

9 hours ago, wknt3 said:

It's all in the execution. There is a lot of potential here if done right, particularly if they are trying for that classic SVU feel. And as we saw with the last episode there is not necessarily a correlation between an interesting sounding plot and good television.

If they do it cheaply or if a lot of things go unexplained, it will definitely bomb.

[Gigi43]

In the Anothny Edward's  episode it seemed to imply him asking Benson to break a rule was her reason for doing so... repeatedly. So I'm not expecting much from her in the way of self reflection that's realistic. Amaro wasn't with SVU for that long when he and Liv -the senior detective- knowingly let the woman with MS take a murder wrap for her teenage daughter. I doubt we'll get a McCoy/Cutter writing where it's having to deal with basically your next generation. It'll be Liv on her high horse with Kat as if she's perfect. Because Benson always gets the writing of being right or having some one else to blame when wrong. 

I wonder if Vincent Kartheiser will be the Perp if Nick Turturro is the cop again. I'm interested to see how he'll play it. 

[CrystalBlue]

I'm excited to see Nick Turturro again.  Let's not waste his talent this time, Show.

I don't hate neither do I love Kat.  So far I'm neutral about her but am happy there's another D in the SVU.  Kat seems like she can go off the rails easily.  I didn't care for her "you white guys'" speech after she came on board but she redeemed herself after that.  Interested in seeing how she disobeys orders.  My prediction is she'll come up smelling like roses after saving the day, despite technically disobeying orders from Capt. St. O, which will result in another whispered speech and more female bonding will ensue.

[dttruman]

I guess the writers didn't want to make this Getz's death a murder. There would have been many more conspiracies. Is Rollins still in denial and being too judgemental and hypocritical?

Edited November 22, 2019 by dttruman

[Gigi43]

They're doing an Espstein-esque episode and here I am traumatized by the mention of Father Rollins. He's definitely showing up soon but haven't we suffered enough?

Edited November 22, 2019 by Gigi43

[dttruman]

What the HELL are they doing to Fin. Are they slowly but surely turning him into a Benson or Rollins who likes to criticize the ADAs?

[ShortyMac]

The title gave away the outcome of the episode.

Rollins being held hostage is zero suspense. I guess TPTB finally got tired of doing it to Olivia. She'll be fine.

Oh, he kidnaps her, too? Damn. 

The show comes back on 1/9.

[ams1001]

So....the judge thinks a 15 year old should be able to choose to have sex with adult men for money...so the actual law doesn't matter?

[dttruman]

6 hours ago, ShortyMac said:

The title gave away the outcome of the episode.

Rollins being held hostage is zero suspense. I guess TPTB finally got tired of doing it to Olivia. She'll be fine.

Oh, he kidnaps her, too? Damn. 

The show comes back on 1/9.

Considering what we saw at the beginning, I wonder how they go from a major hostage situation to bringing down Getz? I wonder if they are going to skim over a lot of stuff so they can expedite things a lot faster. Maybe some more unanswered questions like the last episode.

Edited November 22, 2019 by dttruman

[ams1001]

I get that he's not in a very rational frame of mind, but how does he think taking a cop (and her therapist?) hostage is going to help put this guy in prison?

[dttruman]

1 minute ago, ams1001 said:

So....the judge thinks a 15 year old should be able to choose to have sex with adult men for money...so the actual law doesn't matter?

I am still trying to figure out a change of venue and judge without notifying the prosecution? I am not an expert on procedural law or protocol for this, but it just seems too unbelievable to me.

[dttruman]

31 minutes ago, ams1001 said:

I get that he's not in a very rational frame of mind, but how does he think taking a cop (and her therapist?) hostage is going to help put this guy in prison?

I am afraid that we'll get to witness Rollins pouring her heart out about all her problems for about 15 minutes of the Jan 9th episode, then he'll kidnap her.

Edited November 22, 2019 by dttruman

[breezy424]

Wow.  Did I miss it?  Is this an actual episode that Olivia doesn't do her trademark slow nod.?

The episode was pretty good but the ending with Rollins being kidnapped just makes me roll my eyes.

Kat is growing on me.  It seems that Rollins hates her and Fin is enjoying her going all rogue.

I can't stand Hadid.  I still want more Sonny time.

It will be interesting how this all plays out in January.

[dttruman]

Someone is going to have to explain something to me about the use of a fake ID here. Is it Getz's attorney's assertion that Getz didn't know that she was under age at the time? That "fake ID" ploy seems like both sides should know about this long before this goes to sentencing.

[dttruman]

2 minutes ago, breezy424 said:

I can't stand Hadid.  I still want more Sonny time.

Did they leave some important material out again? Why would she dump on Carisi like that? I thought an ADA would have meetings with their boss to discuss a case that is to be pled out or to be taken to trial? I can understand the boss chewing the ADA for getting out foxed during a trial, but this didn't even make it there.

[ChristiKRN]

I’m calling it now.  Between the stress of raising 2 young kids, whatever that debacle from last week was about, possibility of her father re-entering her life and having a gun held to her head then kidnapped,  Rollins is about ready to head off the deep end again.  

[HunterHunted]

7 hours ago, CrystalBlue said:

I don't hate neither do I love Kat.  So far I'm neutral about her but am happy there's another D in the SVU.  Kat seems like she can go off the rails easily.  I didn't care for her "you white guys'" speech after she came on board but she redeemed herself after that.  Interested in seeing how she disobeys orders.  My prediction is she'll come up smelling like roses after saving the day, despite technically disobeying orders from Capt. St. O, which will result in another whispered speech and more female bonding will ensue.

What Kat did was incredibly stupid. Kat was the first person to talk about payment to ignore what Getz was doing. Dumb. It's a thing we call entrapment and it taints EVERYTHING else you find after it and makes that evidence inadmissible. So bravo Kat. However, the stupidity standing ovation goes to Fin and Olivia who scolded Kat, but still tried to go along with this scheme. Getz could have been raping toddlers and there wouldn't have been shit they could do other than rush in to get the children, but he couldn't have been prosecuted for any of it.

Hey Triple Threat Dad (he's not just a dad; he's a retired police detective AND a kidnapper), kids under 18 need work permits to model in New York. Inform SVU of what is happening. Neither your 15 nor 12 year have a work permits. Pester the New York Bureau of Labor so that Getz' company will ghost the girls because they're unnecessary headaches. And the company doesn't need audits of their books and records.

https://www.labor.ny.gov/workerprotection/laborstandards/secure/ChildModelFAQs.shtm

1 hour ago, dttruman said:

Someone is going to have to explain something to me about the use of a fake ID here. Is it Getz's attorney's assertion that Getz didn't know that she was under age at the time? That "fake ID" ploy seems like both sides should know about this long before this goes to sentencing.

Both sides would know that she had a fake ID. But as Carisi said, it's not an available defense for sexual contact with minors. It might be a defense for violating child labor laws. However, an actual employer would figure it out because her social and birth date wouldn't match when they had to withhold her earnings for taxes.

This is why this episode was a dumber version of what Epstein did. Epstein was likely fully funding the sketchy modeling agencies he used to book underaged models, but his finances were murky as hell and it wasn't so easy to track all that down. Getz literally owns this business, serves as its CEO, creative director, and head of marketing. When questioned as to why there a ton of underaged girls there, he says they are models for my company. Then where are any of their work permits? How did your HR and legal miss the fact that this girl's age on her ID doesn't match up with SSA? How has the IRS, SSA, and NY state recorded zero earnings or tax withholding for any of these girls? Their books must have been a disaster. Maybe you can't get him on raping minors, but you've got him dead to rights on massive labor law violations and corporate tax fraud. And that would have allowed the police to get a warrant to investigate what the hell that business was doing.

2 hours ago, dttruman said:

I am still trying to figure out a change of venue and judge without notifying the prosecution? I am not an expert on procedural law or protocol for this, but it just seems too unbelievable to me.

It wasn't a change of venue. A change of venue means you literally change the city/jurisdiction where the case is tried like moving the case from Manhattan to Ithaca or state vs federal. I'm not certain, but I think you can ex parte request that a judge recuse him or herself. After the judge has recused herself, her clerk should have contacted the prosecutor's office to let them know and when it was assigned to the new judge, his clerk should gave contacted the prosecutor's office to give them a heads up. They shouldn't have to find out from a friendly bailiff.

If Getz is this powerful, why is he ordering thugs to beat up the dad without actually checking to see if the dad has a younger sister or perhaps even threatening the younger sister. Kat told Getz' girlfriend that she was a social worker who worked with troubled kids. It's completely within the realm of a possibility that a person with that kind of job might be the victim of violence from a kid or their parent. How do you find out who she is? Go to the Social Work Board's website and type in her name. Nothing comes up, then you ask one of the numerous investigators who work your companies to do a background check. There's no one by that name. This is when you send your threatening goons, not to beat up the dad, but to inform dad that "Getz knows what dad, dad's old precinct, and the SVU are up to with 'sis' trying to entrap and prosecute him. If they don't quit it, Getz is going to the Chief of Police and the mayor."

2 hours ago, ams1001 said:

I get that he's not in a very rational frame of mind, but how does he think taking a cop (and her therapist?) hostage is going to help put this guy in prison?

Because we ALWAYS give kidnappers and people who take hostages everything they demand when they are holding people hostage. Dude used to be a police officer. If anyone should know that we almost never acquiesce to kidnappers' demands, it's him!

Why would you think this would be a winning strategy? First, I kidnap a police detective and therapist at gun point. Next, I demand that the police find and bring me a rich and powerful sexual predator who legally just left on his yacht. Then, the NYPD, the coast guard, US Navy, the State Department, CIA, and Interpol will search for this dude wherever he might be on the globe. When they find him, they'll bring him back to me so I can shoot him between the eyes. It's a foolproof plan. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

2 hours ago, ams1001 said:

So....the judge thinks a 15 year old should be able to choose to have sex with adult men for money...so the actual law doesn't matter?

This episode was a disaster. It was written so unbelievably poorly that you can't even make sense of what the writers were trying to do with this part here. Such a clown show.

Actually, I know what they were trying to do, but the writing sucked. However the judge could have said that the 15 year old brought her 12 year old sister to one of these parties knowing full well what goes on there. That sounds like she's a co-conspirator. The judge excludes all of her testimony because it's uncorroborated testimony from an unindicted co-conspirator. That would have been completely legal for the judge to do and he could have still laid the blame on the po,ice and DA.

Edited November 22, 2019 by HunterHunted

[Xeliou66]

This episode was supposed to be shocking and dramatic but it was all stuff we’ve seen before. Rich white pedophile/rapist in a he said/she said case, and then the end with Rollins being taken hostage, like we haven’t had hostage situations before, I’m sick of Rollins and her drama and part of me was hoping Frank would shoot her, that would’ve been shocking!!

I’m sick of Hadid, she seems like a plot device more than a character, at times it seems like she cares about justice and at times she’s just an asshole, I want more Carisi without her being involved, maybe she will go as a result of this case. And it’s a disgrace that they haven’t mentioned a new DA, since we all know Jack McCoy wouldn’t back off of prosecuting scum like this guy and would do whatever it takes to put him away, so it’s obvious we’ve got a new DA, but not explicitly saying so is really pathetic. 

I’m sick of Fin making snide remarks to Carisi, this has happened in back to back episodes, what happened to the friendship they had last season? It seems like they don’t know what to do with Fin right now, so he’s becoming just a surly stooge. 

Benson surprisingly was okay once again, I didn’t like her telling Carisi to go home at the end, she’s not his boss anymore, but other than that she was okay, one thing that has been good this season is they’ve toned down the St Olivia worship a couple of notches. 

And why were we shown that the Epstein stand in was going to kill himself in jail? I have no idea how they will put him away but it spoils the ending, and it’s a cowardly way out of doing the Epstein story, if they found the Epstein character dead in jail and uncovered a conspiracy that would be an interesting episode, but NBC doesn’t want to do that because it would upset the elitists who are connected to the network executives. 

I won’t even comment on how stupid it is of Frank to abduct Rollins, but he clearly isn’t thinking straight. 

I hope that asshole Judge “let em go Joe” goes down as a result of this case. 

Frankly I just don’t care what happens - I don’t care about Rollins and I dread having more drama for her, I don’t care how the case gets resolved since we’ve seen the rich white scumbag perp many times and we already know he’s going to kill himself in jail eventually, and there’s no suspense because we know Rollins won’t get killed. So while this was supposed to be some shocking and dramatic fall finale, it fell flat for me.

[SarahPrtr]

For the US audience, could you please tell me the reason why the next episode won't air until January?  Is it because they start airing Christmas shows around this time?

[MaryHedwig]

36 minutes ago, SarahPrtr said:

For the US audience, could you please tell me the reason why the next episode won't air until January?  Is it because they start airing Christmas shows around this time?

Well. It's tradition but I have always assumed that during the holiday season- which begins with Thanksgiving- we all too busy to watch TV and the shows ratings would go down.

[Mockingbird]

Sure, writers. We’re all on pins and needles about whether Rollins will survive this cliffhanger. 

[dttruman]

4 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

What Kat did was incredibly stupid. Kat was the first person to talk about payment to ignore what Getz was doing. Dumb. It's a thing we call entrapment and it taints EVERYTHING else you find after it and makes that evidence inadmissible. So bravo Kat. However, the stupidity standing ovation goes to Fin and Olivia who scolded Kat, but still tried to go along with this scheme. Getz could have been raping toddlers and there wouldn't have been shit they could do other than rush in to get the children, but he couldn't have been prosecuted for any of it.

Hey Triple Threat Dad (he's not just a dad; he's a retired police detective AND a kidnapper), kids under 18 need work permits to model in New York. Inform SVU of what is happening. Neither your 15 nor 12 year have a work permits. Pester the New York Bureau of Labor so that Getz' company will ghost the girls because they're unnecessary headaches. And the company doesn't need audits of their books and records.

https://www.labor.ny.gov/workerprotection/laborstandards/secure/ChildModelFAQs.shtm

Both sides would know that she had a fake ID. But as Carisi said, it's not an available defense for sexual contact with minors. It might be a defense for violating child labor laws. However, an actual employer would figure it out because her social and birth date wouldn't match when they had to withhold her earnings for taxes.

This is why this episode was a dumber version of what Epstein did. Epstein was likely fully funding the sketchy modeling agencies he used to book underaged models, but his finances were murky as hell and it wasn't so easy to track all that down. Getz literally owns this business, serves as its CEO, creative director, and head of marketing. When questioned as to why there a ton of underaged girls there, he says they are models for my company. Then where are any of their work permits? How did your HR and legal miss the fact that this girl's age on her ID doesn't match up with SSA? How has the IRS, SSA, and NY state recorded zero earnings or tax withholding for any of these girls? Their books must have been a disaster. Maybe you can't get him on raping minors, but you've got him dead to rights on massive labor law violations and corporate tax fraud. And that would have allowed the police to get a warrant to investigate what the hell that business was doing.

It wasn't a change of venue. A change of venue means you literally change the city/jurisdiction where the case is tried like moving the case from Manhattan to Ithaca or state vs federal. I'm not certain, but I think you can ex parte request that a judge recuse him or herself. After the judge has recused herself, her clerk should have contacted the prosecutor's office to let them know and when it was assigned to the new judge, his clerk should gave contacted the prosecutor's office to give them a heads up. They shouldn't have to find out from a friendly bailiff.

If Getz is this powerful, why is he ordering thugs to beat up the dad without actually checking to see if the dad has a younger sister or perhaps even threatening the younger sister. Kat told Getz' girlfriend that she was a social worker who worked with troubled kids. It's completely within the realm of a possibility that a person with that kind of job might be the victim of violence from a kid or their parent. How do you find out who she is? Go to the Social Work Board's website and type in her name. Nothing comes up, then you ask one of the numerous investigators who work your companies to do a background check. There's no one by that name. This is when you send your threatening goons, not to beat up the dad, but to inform dad that "Getz knows what dad, dad's old precinct, and the SVU are up to with 'sis' trying to entrap and prosecute him. If they don't quit it, Getz is going to the Chief of Police and the mayor."

Because we ALWAYS give kidnappers and people who take hostages everything they demand when they are holding people hostage. Dude used to be a police officer. If anyone should know that we almost never acquiesce to kidnappers' demands, it's him!

Why would you think this would be a winning strategy? First, I kidnap a police detective and therapist at gun point. Next, I demand that the police find and bring me a rich and powerful sexual predator who legally just left on his yacht. Then, the NYPD, the coast guard, US Navy, the State Department, CIA, and Interpol will search for this dude wherever he might be on the globe. When they find him, they'll bring him back to me so I can shoot him between the eyes. It's a foolproof plan. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

This episode was a disaster. It was written so unbelievably poorly that you can't even make sense of what the writers were trying to do with this part here. Such a clown show.

Actually, I know what they were trying to do, but the writing sucked. However the judge could have said that the 15 year old brought her 12 year old sister to one of these parties knowing full well what goes on there. That sounds like she's a co-conspirator. The judge excludes all of her testimony because it's uncorroborated testimony from an unindicted co-conspirator. That would have been completely legal for the judge to do and he could have still laid the blame on the po,ice and DA.

Thank you for setting me straight on a couple of items and for explaining them so even a novice or at most a "Perry Mason" fan can understand the law better.

As for the major flaw that HUNTERHUNTED has so nicely pointed out, they forgot to pay someone to do the proper research again.

Edited November 22, 2019 by dttruman

[dttruman]

3 hours ago, SarahPrtr said:

For the US audience, could you please tell me the reason why the next episode won't air until January?  Is it because they start airing Christmas shows around this time?

On behalf of the rest of the USA we apologize for that. It's NBC's feeble attempt at trying to create a cliffhanger. Their only problem with it, is that nobody will care.

[dttruman]

4 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I’m sick of Fin making snide remarks to Carisi, this has happened in back to back episodes, what happened to the friendship they had last season? It seems like they don’t know what to do with Fin right now, so he’s becoming just a surly stooge. 

Benson surprisingly was okay once again, I didn’t like her telling Carisi to go home at the end, she’s not his boss anymore, but other than that she was okay, one thing that has been good this season is they’ve toned down the St Olivia worship a couple of notches. 

I don't think they are trying to tone down Benson. I think they still want to keep Benson on her pedestal, it's just that they are lowering the likability of the other characters. Bottom line, the writers (and producers) are making the other characters look bad, w/o overtly making up specific scenarios to make Benson look good.

[dttruman]

2 hours ago, Mockingbird said:

Sure, writers. We’re all on pins and needles about whether Rollins will survive this cliffhanger.

I wonder how many will be hoping she survives this ordeal and how many will be hoping she doesn't?

[dttruman]

4 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I’m sick of Hadid, she seems like a plot device more than a character, at times it seems like she cares about justice and at times she’s just an asshole, I want more Carisi without her being involved, maybe she will go as a result of this case. And it’s a disgrace that they haven’t mentioned a new DA, since we all know Jack McCoy wouldn’t back off of prosecuting scum like this guy and would do whatever it takes to put him away, so it’s obvious we’ve got a new DA, but not explicitly saying so is really pathetic. 

If Hadid continues to stay on as Carisi's boss, do you think this might drive Carisi to resign as an ADA, but pick up his old position as a member of the SVU?

[Gigi43]

The writing and directing were awful. They were trying to go for the older sister Ivy being under some thrall but the scenes played as she sold her sister for $100 so Eff her. She knew what went on their it happened to her. And as others have said it would have made more sense if the judge said Ivy willingly brought her sister so she was involved of her own free will. Aren't there laws where if you're a teenager you can consent under age unless that's 16+ and those laws are suppose to protect 18yr Olds and 16yr olds from being able to date without it being a crime.

This show can't resist making all men bad guys. The mom showed up at the end and was trashy so it's like they couldn't just have a dad who loves his kids and is a good guy ex-cop. He had to kidnap Rollins because... Men just snap like that in SVU world. If Fin (tho he's being annoying with the ADA stuff) Or Carisi were taken hostage I'd care. But Rollins?  Hey he has to do what he has to do to save his kids even the stupid one. 

[wknt3]

The Good:
Kat. They did a pretty good job of this time of striking a balance so that she came off as new and a bit brash, while still showing that she was an experienced undercover and a talented investigator.
Fin. While there still some off notes this episode (he should be the one striking the middle ground between the squad and Carisi, sometimes being a bit unhappy that their former colleague won't let them take shortcuts, and sometimes telling Rollins that they still need to build cases that won't get thrown out of court and he has bosses too) it was made up by him telling Rollins to chill about Kat calling an audible. That was totally in character for him and consistent with his history (I would have loved some mention of how he played things a lot more fast and lose when he started, but I can see why the writers are hoping we forget Season 2 when watching this episode)
Nicholas Turturro. They still aren't making the best use of his talents, but he was really good with what he had and this makes up a bit for bringing in such a big gun to spice up a bottle episode and leaving almost his entire performance on the cutting room floor.
It's nice to see that they still seem to be trying to keep everyone involved in every episode and not having Benson do everything even in the big sweeps events.
Somebody in the SVU family was kidnapped and it wasn't Noah!

The Bad:
Wow was this a collection of all of Warren Leight's most annoying recurring favorite plots. Detective having parental issues? Check. Detective in therapy telling instead of showing the audience what they are feeling? Check. Family drama everywhere? Check. Rollins going off the rails? Check. Female detective being kidnapped in a big cliffhanger? Check. Plus bonus points for giving us everyone's least favorite SVU plot device across all show runners - the elite detectives blundering into a hostage situation! Hopefully after the second half this will get it out of his system until May.
Rollins. By the end of the episode I was rooting for her to be shot instead of kidnapped. Let's be clear writers - she is absolutely the last character we want to see criticizing anybody about not following the rules! And she was a just a mess throughout the rest of the episode as well. And it sounds like we're going to get her dad and see her and Carisi having a big cathartic moment too. Barf. About the only redeeming moment was that she seems to have sought counseling on her own, but that's not nearly enough.
Hadid. As I think somebody already wrote above she is a plot device more than a character, delivering exposition and making sure Carisi doesn't look too bad to the audience.
Sloppy writing. It felt rushed at times and meandering at others and there a lot of failures of logic, both internal and external. Like last week it felt like they were shooting from a first draft, although perhaps that was because of the next point.
Poor direction. There were a lot of questionable acting choices and questionable framing/shot selection. The daughters were very inconsistent which might have been deliberate because of the stress, but they didn't show that. Another example involving the daughters was the line about the "rookie UC" screwing up. I'm pretty sure that this was intended to be showing her just sort of latching on to what her dad was saying and showing that he was already coming unglued and ranting before the attack, but as played it was just a teenage girl spewing cop jargon out of nowhere.

Overall this was a disappointing cliffhanger that was not without it's good moments, and was trying to give us a classic SVU story (even if it was some of my least favorite parts of the classic years) but couldn't pull it off. I hope the second half can at least redeem it somewhat so that it rises to meh instead of following the trend throughout this episode where it started out OK and kept getting worse. Let's get back on track please.

[HunterHunted]

4 hours ago, SarahPrtr said:

For the US audience, could you please tell me the reason why the next episode won't air until January?  Is it because they start airing Christmas shows around this time?

3 hours ago, MaryHedwig said:

Well. It's tradition but I have always assumed that during the holiday season- which begins with Thanksgiving- we all too busy to watch TV and the shows ratings would go down.

48 minutes ago, dttruman said:

On behalf of the rest of the USA we apologize for that. It's NBC's feeble attempt at trying to create a cliffhanger. Their only problem with it, is that nobody will care.

The hiatus occurs partially because of the holidays; although not holiday specials because the winter hiatus started super early in the history of television before networks were really thinking of holiday specials. Honestly, the hiatuses are largely a result of the Nielsen ratings system. When the television ratings system was established in the 50s, they picked 4 months when they sampled viewership: November, February, May, and July. These are called sweeps. Some tv markets are also sampled during October and January. The television ratings determine how much the networks can charge advertisers. The networks tend to save all of their big story, big guest stars, and big cliffhangers for those periods. So yeah, it's basically because of sweeps.

[ams1001]

2 hours ago, Gigi43 said:

The writing and directing were awful. They were trying to go for the older sister Ivy being under some thrall but the scenes played as she sold her sister for $100 so Eff her. She knew what went on their it happened to her. And as others have said it would have made more sense if the judge said Ivy willingly brought her sister so she was involved of her own free will. Aren't there laws where if you're a teenager you can consent under age unless that's 16+ and those laws are suppose to protect 18yr Olds and 16yr olds from being able to date without it being a crime.

According to this site, New York's age of consent is 17, and they do not have a close-in-age exemption. So 16 and under cannot legally consent, regardless of the age of the partner (technically, if both partners are underage, they could both be prosecuted).

[SarahPrtr]

4 hours ago, dttruman said:

If Hadid continues to stay on as Carisi's boss, do you think this might drive Carisi to resign as an ADA, but pick up his old position as a member of the SVU?

Maybe the writers are trying to see if the viewers like Carisi as an ADA and change a few things here and there for the season 21 ending.  They may take him back to the squad after this season (or the next, depending on the ratings) and give him some proper courtroom scenes, but again, anyone who has put themselves through law school will probably want to practice law afterwards, not just for a few months, especially when they studied as an adult out of their own choice, and not because it was something their parents wanted.  I'm guessing Carisi has a LOT of student loans right now.

[EtheltoTillie]

What the heck was this mess?  So this is the long-awaited "Jeffrey Epstein" episode.  We see Pete Campbell die in a cell in the first scene, so we know he has to end up back there.  So why do we need a kidnapping of Rollins? 

The judge essentially ruled that statutory rape laws were unconstitutional.  Isn't that going to get an appeal and a great deal of attention from the public?  He was not acquitted.  The charge was dismissed, so it wouldn't be double jeopardy. 

[MamaMax]

My biggest question: why haven't the showrunners hired @HunterHunted by now??

I forgot that Nicolas Turturro was on last season and for a second, I hoped passionately that we were getting a NYPD Blue crossover!

[MerBearHou]

Of course, the judge had to recuse herself -- she's the cousin of the detective whose daughters were the victims!  (Aida and John Turturro IRL -- hehe)

Edited November 22, 2019 by MerBearHou
Oops -- I thought they were siblings

[EtheltoTillie]

1 hour ago, MamaMax said:

My biggest question: why haven't the showrunners hired @HunterHunted by now??

I forgot that Nicolas Turturro was on last season and for a second, I hoped passionately that we were getting a NYPD Blue crossover!

Aida Turturro is also related.  She played the first judge!  

Oh, someone else just posted the same thing! 

Edited November 22, 2019 by GussieK
ETA Cross posting with MerBerHou.

[SarahPrtr]

2 hours ago, GussieK said:

What the heck was this mess?  So this is the long-awaited "Jeffrey Epstein" episode.  We see Pete Campbell die in a cell in the first scene, so we know he has to end up back there.  So why do we need a kidnapping of Rollins? 

I wish we could give a multiple range of likes, because I also wanted to give a laugh rating for your post!  Referring to VK as Pete Campbell, I suddenly laughed so hard!  Also reminded me of the time when I saw Jared Leto in Requiem for a Dream and wondered "What is Jordan Catalano doing on Coney Island??"

[dttruman]

2 hours ago, GussieK said:

The judge essentially ruled that statutory rape laws were unconstitutional.  Isn't that going to get an appeal and a great deal of attention from the public?  He was not acquitted.  The charge was dismissed, so it wouldn't be double jeopardy. 

I sure would like to hear from Hunterhunted on this. Not the real deep indepth details of it, but just the overall aspects of it and if it has merit in this episode? Or is it just another poorly used reason or excuse, like they do so often?

[tennisgurl]

I should have known that the writers could only resist their beloved "evil smug rich white guy abuses pretty young white girl in a he said/she said situation mixed with ripped from the headlines" story for so long. We actually had a run of shockingly decent episodes, but ended with last weeks nonsense and the hot mess that was this episode. 

They did have some good guest stars, like Vincent Kartheiser and Nick Turturro, but not even they could have this crap, especially as the director apparently gave them directions like "Vince, your being pretty smug, but I need you be even smugger! Unimaginable levels of smug!" "Nick, bulge your eyes out even more! Budge them damn it I wanna see your veins!" So this Not Epstein guy just has his girlfriend scout out random girls, they dont get any parent approved contracts, he manages to find this judge who thinks that the law is stupid and he is just going to ignore them when he feels like it, and the cop dad decides that, despite being a cop who should have some idea how the law works, the best way to get this super rich and powerful guy in jail should be holding a detective (and her shrink?) hostage so that Rollings can, I dont know, wave a magic wand that gets Not Epstein into a jail cell? Or because he has a hostage and can insist they, like, send in the navy to catch this guy and put him through the whole court system? Because the NYPD is well known for negotiating with hostage takers and giving them everything they want? I get that the guy is supposedly losing his mind after what happened to his daughters, but this is just stupid! And if this is supposed to be the big cliff hanger...this might matter if I actually cared about Rollins, which I dont, or didnt know how all of this would end, and since we already saw Not Epstein kill himself at the start of the episode, we already know he ends up in jail and dead, so not exactly a huge cliffhanger to get us through this hiatus! 

This is also another episode where some evil guy can basically get a young woman to do everything they ask without even much effort, so much so that she almost sold her little sister out for a new prada bag or something, which even if she is being manipulated and abused (which she is) thats still a pretty messed up thing to do, which will never be addressed because victims can do no wrong. Its not like I dont buy it, and I did feel bad for her being sucked in like that, but this show really needs to do a better job at explaining ow things can escalate so quickly between abusers and people they abuse and how much they can control them. I am just waiting to find out that his girlfriend/recruiter was a former model he abused and groomed and that she will be a victim in the end and turn on him after a "he took advantage of you" lecture from Olivia and a big tear session. While it did turn out that something bad really was happening to Ivy and she was being abused and taken advantage of, it was kind of ridiculous that her dads first indicators that someone must be abusing her was that she was wearing makeup, short skirts, and making calls. Like...being a teenage girl? 

What is with Finn lately being a dick to Carisi? Is this the only way the writers know how to create conflict among characters, have them become assholes for no reason? I liked Kat at first, and she is good undercover, but in SVU you is a real lose cannon. Finn needs to really rein her in, she could have easily messed up the entire case by going off script, and while her super intense "Imma kick your ass evil Mr. Man!" attitude certainly works well for current SVU, I cant imagine how she would deal with some of the earlier cases that actually didnt just deal with an endless line of evil dudes and abused crying women and had some actual nuance. Like, how would she have handled that episode from several season ago with the crazy home school mom who manipulated her teenage son into killing his younger brother by making him think he had to "save" him from being raped to death in foster care, or the smart but mentally unstable college kid who was possibly being abused by her therapist? I dont see her handling all of that particularly well. Of course, we dont get many episodes like those anymore, so I guess Kat is lucky. 

Kind of interesting that Judge Team Rape mentioned that if girls at 15 can consent to getting abortions without parental permission they can consent to sex, when that was something some of us mentioned in the abortion episode this season, and how it would be interesting how Olivia would have handled it if someone had pointed that out if she actually had gotten pregnant with her older boyfriend that she cant consent to have sex but can have an abortion before it was all made moot by her being raped by her step father, but of course thats not the real issue here, its just that this judge is a dickhead who thinks that people should just be able to rape teenagers and manipulate them into prostitution and thats cool. How is he allowed to do this, why is there not an appeal they can make? Maybe its possible, but I am going to need more information here. 

[dttruman]

16 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

Why would you think this would be a winning strategy? First, I kidnap a police detective and therapist at gun point. Next, I demand that the police find and bring me a rich and powerful sexual predator who legally just left on his yacht. Then, the NYPD, the coast guard, US Navy, the State Department, CIA, and Interpol will search for this dude wherever he might be on the globe. When they find him, they'll bring him back to me so I can shoot him between the eyes. It's a foolproof plan. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

I guess we have to accept the fact that the father is a little distraught and it's not his fault that he is making an unwise decision. Yeah, everybody is going to buy that subplot premise. It's not like we haven't seen anything like that before.

[wknt3]

On 11/22/2019 at 6:10 AM, dttruman said:

If Hadid continues to stay on as Carisi's boss, do you think this might drive Carisi to resign as an ADA, but pick up his old position as a member of the SVU?

I think that they definitely wanted to leave the option open in case the audience didn't accept Carisi in the new role or the new cop character didn't work out (and even speculated in the earlier episode threads that it might be a fake out) but I don't think they will go there unless they drop Kelli Giddish for Season 22 and cut the budget yet again meaning a return to day player/recurring guest star ADAs if they even bother to have one in a particular episode. I think she will stay until the end of the season when she either sees the light and converts to the True Faith of St. Benson and is forced out by the Evil System and it's lackey the unnamed DA, or her duplicity will be uncovered by Benson and Carisi (but mostly by Benson) and they will force her out.
 

On 11/22/2019 at 11:38 AM, MamaMax said:

My biggest question: why haven't the showrunners hired @HunterHunted by now??

Because they don't care. There are plenty of people working for Dick Wolf and even specifically for SVU that know police procedures, forensics, law, etc. who are either being ignored or not being asked. Heck some of this stuff you would know just by watching old episodes of Law & Order! It is obvious that Leight cares about this less than Chernuchin or most of us, and even under Chernuchin it was often disregarded because it would require them to spend either money or time to maintain a bit of realism and the higher ups have decided that those resources are better spent elsewhere.

Edited November 29, 2019 by wknt3
hit send too soon

[preeya]

17 hours ago, SarahPrtr said:

For the US audience, could you please tell me the reason why the next episode won't air until January?  Is it because they start airing Christmas shows around this time?

It's called "fall finale."  All shows stop around Thanksgiving week and don't return until after the holidays (early 2020).

[dttruman]

6 minutes ago, preeya said:

17 hours ago, SarahPrtr said:

For the US audience, could you please tell me the reason why the next episode won't air until January?  Is it because they start airing Christmas shows around this time?

It's called "fall finale."  All shows stop around Thanksgiving week and don't return until after the holidays (early 2020).

This is just one of those special times. They may have done it in the past, but I can't remember them doing it any time soon. Can anybody else remember when they have done this before and if it was recent or not?

[preeya]

9 hours ago, GussieK said:

What the heck was this mess?  So this is the long-awaited "Jeffrey Epstein" episode.  We see Pete Campbell die in a cell in the first scene, so we know he has to end up back there.  So why do we need a kidnapping of Rollins? 

The judge essentially ruled that statutory rape laws were unconstitutional.  Isn't that going to get an appeal and a great deal of attention from the public?  He was not acquitted.  The charge was dismissed, so it wouldn't be double jeopardy. 

"MESS" is putting it mildly. Nick Turturro should be ashamed of himself. After playing stand up cops Martinez (NYPD Blue) & Renzulli (Blue Bloods) he takes on a role as Bucci that is so foolish. The show runners and writers need to take a long hard look in the mirror because with this "Epstein case" they have failed miserably. 

Edited November 23, 2019 by preeya

[preeya]

1 hour ago, dttruman said:

This is just one of those special times. They may have done it in the past, but I can't remember them doing it any time soon. Can anybody else remember when they have done this before and if it was recent or not?

This episode of SVU's "fall finale" just happened to be a "to be continued." Had it not been "TBC" the next full episode would not have been aired until after the New Year.

[txhorns79]

1 hour ago, preeya said:

It's called "fall finale."  All shows stop around Thanksgiving week and don't return until after the holidays (early 2020).

It's the end of November sweeps.  The stations start airing new episodes in January to help goose the ratings for February sweeps. 

6 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

How is he allowed to do this, why is there not an appeal they can make? Maybe its possible, but I am going to need more information here. 

I think the argument being made was that because he pled guilty to a lesser, included charge, double jeopardy attached to the bigger charges and he cannot be tried again.  The reality is that no New York City Judge who wanted to stay on the bench would say those kind of things in open court about a 15 year old rape victim in the middle of what appeared to be a very prominent case.  The backlash would be severe.  The comment about abortion was simply to further troll the audience.

And yes, if one party in a case is seeking to recuse a Judge, there's no way that happens without the other party's knowledge.   You don't just show up at Court and find that a Judge has been recused.  

Finally, I don't even begin to understand the bonkers logic of taking Amanda and her shrink hostage as a way to try and get at Pete Campbell.