S23.E20: Did You Believe In Miracles?

[WendyCR72]

Airs May 5, 2022:

Quote

When a student's school reports a girl missing, the squad must track down a trusted family friend for answers. Benson gets a Mother's Day surprise.

 

[Xeliou66]

Ugh, more of super-brat Noah and showing us how wonderful of a mom St Olivia is, I’m already dreading this. The case sounds decent enough, but the St Olivia/Noah stuff may ruin the episode.

[CrystalBlue]

Only Benson gets a Mother's Day surprise and not Rolllins?  Maybe they're misleading us and the surprise isn't about Mother's Day, but an unrelated bad surprise on the day.

[illdoc]

13 hours ago, CrystalBlue said:

Maybe they're misleading us and the surprise isn't about Mother's Day, but an unrelated bad surprise on the day.

If so, then maybe I do "believe in miracles". Unfortunately, unless the unrelated bad surprise is Noah has been in a fatal accident, Noah is in the episode, so probably is just St. Olivia/Noah Mother's day fluff.

[wknt3]

19 hours ago, CrystalBlue said:

Only Benson gets a Mother's Day surprise and not Rolllins?  Maybe they're misleading us and the surprise isn't about Mother's Day, but an unrelated bad surprise on the day.

Yeah always a good idea not to take anything from the NBC promo monkeys at face value. Although there is a good possibility that they are going to give us some Benoah drama is some form or another. You just know Marska thinks the fans need it and Warren Leight has to be getting uncomfortable going so long without some major family dysfunction. I'm just glad it's NOT Rollins. Because there are only a few ways that can go ranging from bad (her mom is back) to worse (she's pregnant again) to worst (Kim is pregnant again after being victimized again and Carisi is going to be stuck taking care of her new kid) to beyond the worst (she's pregnant again and it's Stabler's) to unimaginably bad (she's pregnant again and Fin's the baby daddy!)

[dttruman]

On 5/2/2022 at 12:30 AM, CrystalBlue said:

Only Benson gets a Mother's Day surprise and not Rolllins?  Maybe they're misleading us and the surprise isn't about Mother's Day, but an unrelated bad surprise on the day.

I forget does Rollins have 2 or 3 kids? Since they haven't been a problem this season, I have lost count. But I am most grateful for the minimal amount of the family drama moments

[dttruman]

On 5/2/2022 at 8:07 PM, wknt3 said:

Carisi is going to be stuck taking care of her new kid) to beyond the worst (she's pregnant again and it's Stabler's) to unimaginably bad (she's pregnant again and Fin's the baby daddy!)

With a couple of inspirations from above here, I think I can make it even worse. Rollins is pregnant with two kids. Two eggs are fertilized, one by Stabler and the other by Fin. I was told this was a plot on a LMN movie where a girl's boyfriend got her pregnant and was later raped and impregnated by a rich guy she rejected.

[CrystalBlue]

6 hours ago, dttruman said:

I forget does Rollins have 2 or 3 kids? Since they haven't been a problem this season, I have lost count. But I am most grateful for the minimal amount of the family drama moments

She has two daughters, Jesse Rollins - Baby Daddy Lieutenant Declan Murphy, and Billie Rollins - Baby Daddy former boyfriend Al Pollack, who was a heart surgeon or cardiologist.

[wknt3]

19 hours ago, CrystalBlue said:

Baby Daddy former boyfriend Al Pollack, who was a heart surgeon or cardiologist.

"Asshole" was the word you were looking for at the end there...

[SunnyBeBe]

Great job of Livia giving the suspected hideaway location to the parents before police arrive.  Mom could easily warn the guy and he could bug out before they arrive.  Sometimes, I wonder what they are doing with this show.  
 

Can’t they get search warrant for child’s blood test?

[dttruman]

Is this getting really weird or something?

Well at the 9:45 mark, the soap opera was about to start in the squad room. Thank goodness they ran off again. By bad, it became even more over dramatic for those two to marry each other

Edited May 6, 2022 by dttruman

[SunnyBeBe]

Liv, no one can give their consent for another to violate a protective order. And, normally, a violation of a protective order is a criminal offense.  I find this story frustrating.  The parents seem sorta unfit. The girl might be better in a hospital.  

[dttruman]

3 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Liv, no one can give their consent for another to violate a protective order. And, normally, a violation of a protective order is a criminal offense.  I find this story frustrating.  The parents seem sorta unfit. The girl might be better in a hospital.  

With all that happen, can Nick actually sue for custody or parental rights for the baby? So it seems like this story line is not really over, or they left it open without a solid resolution

[SunnyBeBe]

1 minute ago, dttruman said:

With all that happen, can Nick actually sue for custody or parental rights for the baby? So it seems like this story line is not really over, or they left it open without a solid resolution

Yeah….I can see another episode where we see someone find a dead body and it’s Rev. Nick or whatever his name is.  He’ll have to go away one way or another. Lol

[WendyCR72]

6 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Yeah….I can see another episode where we see someone find a dead body and it’s Rev. Nick or whatever his name is.  He’ll have to go away one way or another. Lol

Thing is, unless the new show runner cares, it might just stay unresolved. With this mess, that may be for the best.

[scarynikki12]

I didn't turn off the tv after Original Recipe Law and Order so I watched this. My main takeaway was that there was no mention of therapy for the family individually and together. Nick raped Beth and also had sex with her parents. Beth believes that it wasn't rape but consensual sex so why is she not totally freaked out knowing that she and her parents all had sex with the same man? Add in her parents adopting "God's child" rather than letting her do the raising and getting tricked by her mother into sending Nick to prison via DNA confirmation and she's ripe for further manipulation by another predator or acting out to get revenge. Even if her parents reject therapy on religious grounds (though their church group was how Beth was able to run away so they aren't exactly reliable) it would have been nice to have a conversation. The show loves to show Concerned Olivia so it would have been an opportunity for such a moment before moving on to the Mother's Day stuff with Noah.

On a positive note the actor playing Beth did a good job. She plays unhinged brainwashed really well.

This would be a story that would be interesting to revisit in a few years when Beth is an adult. I don't know how long Nick will serve but you know Beth will be waiting for him when he gets out. His obsession will vanish the second he sees that she's not a child anymore and they could do a story where Beth thinks they'll finally have the life they were denied in tonight's episode, Nick rejects her, and she snaps and kills him. Or she could kill her parents in preparation for Nick's release and take the kid to meet him only for him to then take the kid and leave her behind. The show won't revisit it but it'd be interesting to see what they'd come up with.

[dabbrusc]

FYI, this episode was based on a real case. And what really happened is even weirder than SVU. 

 

https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81000864?s=i&trkid=13747225&vlang=en&clip=81067305

[Xeliou66]

This was a weird but good episode - I couldn’t figure out what was up with the family, they needed serious family therapy, but it was a good case and the perp was quite a creepy predator.

Each character got a nice role - Khaldun was pinch hitting for Velasco this week, but the screen time was evenly split, not too heavy on St Olivia, Fin was good as always, Rollins wasn’t irritating, and Carisi was good and in charge of the legal side and not acting as an SVU member.

While the perp was obvious from the start they did a good job of keeping suspense up and keeping the viewer wondering just what was going on.

The bad was the Noah shit, at least it didn’t affect the case and was just pointless fluff to appease the Benson lovers, and then Stabler’s appearance was done just to set up the OC crossover.

Overall this was solid, it is frustrating how the main cast is never all in the same episode together, but this was a solid case with a good role for each character and minimal personal stuff.

[Ms Blue Jay]

I kind of liked this episode.  It was weird and different with no graphic violence on screen.  I was interested enough.

[wknt3]

The Good:
The COTW. An interesting story that unlike so many  in recent years didn't feel either totally played out or stretching to try to find a new angle. It also leaned in to the reality that just about all of the cast has been doing this for years now and has seen it all before. It really felt like this was an elite squad of specialists and trusted the audience to not need everything spoon fed to them.
Carisi and Fin. Both could have used a little more material, but they were there usual solid selves.
Rollins. Not for anything she did, but for what they didn't do. She wasn't unprofessionally biased either for or against the victim's family as she so often has been in similar cases.

The Bad:
Benoah. It wasn't overwhelming in amount, but it was pretty much a waste of time and wasn't necessary to set up the crossover.
The ending. While I actually liked the crossover and thought is was competently executed for a change, the time wasted on what a great mommy Benson is could have been used to actually wrap up the case and smoothly move into the crossover instead of having to give us an awkward text box.
No Velasco. It is ridiculous that even with the slimmed down cast we still have to play games like we did back when Belzer and Florek were basically alternating episodes. Velasco's role in the OC half wasn't big enough so it was obvious that this all about budgeting and NBC stupidly dropping Hate Crimes after casting had already begun.

Overall this was a good episode. The writing was good and even the weak parts were tolerable. It was well crafted which was a refreshing change from last week.

Edited May 6, 2022 by wknt3
fix typos

[dttruman]

8 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

This would be a story that would be interesting to revisit in a few years when Beth is an adult. I don't know how long Nick will serve but you know Beth will be waiting for him when he gets out. His obsession will vanish the second he sees that she's not a child anymore and they could do a story where Beth thinks they'll finally have the life they were denied in tonight's episode, Nick rejects her, and she snaps and kills him. Or she could kill her parents in preparation for Nick's release and take the kid to meet him only for him to then take the kid and leave her behind. The show won't revisit it but it'd be interesting to see what they'd come up with.

Suggest you keep track of these story lines, because in the near future you may watch an episode of SVU that strongly resembles one of yours. I don't know if you'll be able to take legal steps or not, but I certainly wish you the best!

[dttruman]

7 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

This was a weird but good episode - I couldn’t figure out what was up with the family, they needed serious family therapy, but it was a good case and the perp was quite a creepy predator.

 

7 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

While the perp was obvious from the start they did a good job of keeping suspense up and keeping the viewer wondering just what was going on.

Exactly! It was the "not knowing" what was really going on. Was it the parents, the daughter, or Nick the predator? It was all of them hiding a little something. It wasn't really the suspense that kept me interested, it was the frustration of a couple of those little things that they threw in which I thought were a little over the top. When the father became a participant in the "Who wants to have fun with Nick" games, I thought there were too many subplots to this episode and I didn't know which one they would expand on the most.

[dttruman]

57 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

Benoah. It wasn't overwhelming in amount, but it was pretty much a a a waste of time and wasn't necessary to set up the crossover.
The ending. While I actually liked the crossover and thought is was competently executed for a change, the time wasted on what a great mommy Benson is could have been used to actually wrap up the case and smoothly flowing into the crossover instead of having to give us an awkward text box.

I agree, usually in these episodes there is someone who over dramatically or heavily insinuate a testimonial for Benson in one way or another. And here we have it in Noah, laying out the praise left and right.

[Route66]

10 hours ago, dabbrusc said:

FYI, this episode was based on a real case. And what really happened is even weirder than SVU. 

 

https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81000864?s=i&trkid=13747225&vlang=en&clip=81067305

Link doesn't work. Can you post the title?

[maya1959]

1 hour ago, Route66 said:

Link doesn't work. Can you post the title?

Abducted in plain sight

[DanielleBowden]

This episode based on the Jan Broberg case, which is fascinating and kick-you-the-stomach awful.  There is a Netflix doc on it called Abducted in Plain Sight.

 

[Pj3422]

That was a good start, but a really unsatisfying ending. I wanted to see Nick on trial (yeah, I’m old school L&O). I was Ok with Noah, but Benson isn’t the only mom on the team. Rollins deserved her due as well. 

[tennisgurl]

I think my favorite part of the episode was everyone's expressions as they continued to unravel the whole bizarre situation, even by their standards this is a lot. Especially Carisi, who had the best "are you kidding me?" look on his face while the dad explained that he had been hooking up with Nick. It took me until the courtroom to realize what this episode was based on, the actual story was, amazingly, even crazier. I thought the case of the week was pretty good, one of those tawdry dysfunctional family cases they used to do all the time, with a creepy predator, affairs left and right, kids stuck in the middle, a shocking pregnancy, with some religious stuff thrown in for flavor. Its not quite as memorable as I think it could have been, especially when the actual Jan Broberg Felt case was even more tragic and messy, but I still thought it was a good one. A decent amount of twists and turns and while I saw some things coming, like the mom having an affair with the guy, they did take some turns that I didn't expect. I also thought the main cast was alright, not many annoying speeches from Olivia and everyone was pretty professional, not spending a ton of time being judgmental and taking things too personally, and focusing on police work. 

This family is going to need all of the therapy, I wish we had gotten a bit more follow up with them, I don't really know where they go from here after every family member except for the little brother has slept with the same creep. Speaking of, did they say where the brother was in all of this? Granted, I don't know how much I trust these people with any kids, but hopefully someone is watching him. They will need to get Beth a whole ton of help if they don't want her to run back to Nick the second she's old enough. 

The guest cast was all around really good, it was nice seeing Reggie Lee from Grimm getting a nice guest spot, and the wife and daughter both did a good job at becoming more and more unhinged. I did find some acting choices to be a bit strange, like the actors were getting weird direction and were being told to act more shady than they needed to. Why were the parents acting so suspicious when the cops showed up at first? They really didn't think that she was in danger, so why were they lying to the school and acting so weird? Did they really think that anyone would care that she left school to go on a mission trip? I thought that the daughter was being held for ransom and they were told not to call the cops or that they did have something to do with it, so I guess it was just their nerves over the affairs? Why were the other church couple and the guy at the mission acting so suspicious? As far as the couple knew, the only thing wrong with the guy was that he changed his name, and the mission guy just thought they were late, why all of the secrecy? 

I don't dislike the cast from Hate Crimes, but its annoying how often they pop up. I don't much care for the OC crossovers, but at least its an actual show, while Hate Crimes isn't even a show. I know that the show is salty that their pet spin-off didn't get picked up, but just move on.

The Noah bit was pointless Olivia fluff to remind us that she's the best mom ever, but I found it pretty inoffensive. There had to have been a less awkward way to segway into the crossover though.

[edhopper]

I sat through this whole thing because of the big crossover thingy. Turns out I only needed to watch the last 5 minutes. 

At least this sex crime wasn't as horrid as they usually are, which is why I stopped watching.

[Irate Panda]

As if I weren’t scarred enough by the original doc, Abducted in Plain Sight, on which this episode was based I shouldn’t have to suffer through a Noah episode too. Can’t they age this kid to 18 so they can ship him off to college, but not Hudson University, I don’t need Benson and son working the case 🙄

Edited May 7, 2022 by Irate Panda

[tvfanatic13]

Did I mess Stabler in this?

[marceline]

8 hours ago, tvfanatic13 said:

Did I mess Stabler in this?

If you watched on Hulu, then you missed the scene. I'm genuinely grateful.

https://tvline.com/2022/05/06/law-and-order-svu-missing-scene-organized-crime-crossover-nbc-hulu/

[tvfanatic13]

35 minutes ago, marceline said:

If you watched on Hulu, then you missed the scene. I'm genuinely grateful.

https://tvline.com/2022/05/06/law-and-order-svu-missing-scene-organized-crime-crossover-nbc-hulu/

Thanks Marceline. I did watch on Hulu. 

[jabRI]

This was one episode where they really needed a psych eval on just about all of them.  Miss B.D. Wong insights!

[marceline]

51 minutes ago, jabRI said:

This was one episode where they really needed a psych eval on just about all of them.  Miss B.D. Wong insights!

Yes! Huang would've been such an asset. I miss him and Warner so much.

[dttruman]

6 hours ago, marceline said:

7 hours ago, jabRI said:

This was one episode where they really needed a psych eval on just about all of them.  Miss B.D. Wong insights!

Yes! Huang would've been such an asset. I miss him and Warner so much.

The only thing close to psych evaluations has been Benson's testimonies of late because she knows them "Oh so well" with her extensive experience. But I put this out there to all of the commentators with trial experience. Would Benson's testimony be considered credible for a victims "state of mind" evaluation?

Edited May 7, 2022 by dttruman

[Ms Blue Jay]

On 5/6/2022 at 11:24 PM, tvfanatic13 said:

Did I mess Stabler in this?

So for sure that scene was on NBC?  Because I honestly don't remember it.

[CrystalBlue]

On 5/6/2022 at 8:24 PM, tvfanatic13 said:

Did I mess Stabler in this?

So I'm not the only one asking what're y'all talking about?

[CrystalBlue]

On 5/7/2022 at 5:16 AM, tvfanatic13 said:

Thanks Marceline. I did watch on Hulu. 

Yep, I watched on Hulu too, as SVU is not on my must see ASAP or watch OTA "live" as it's broadcast on the West Coast list of shows, not anymore it's not.  I'm doomed to watch SVU until the bitter end, unless they get rid of Fin or Carisi or *gasp* both, then I'll be out.  So thanks for the link Marceline.  I'll watch it before I move on to OC's latest ep.

[CrystalBlue]

As to this episode only, because I've not seen the crossover promo or the OC yet:

This was an interesting case and I liked everything but the Mother's Day nonsense with Benoah.  Why didn't Rollins get a Mother's Day scene too?  They could've had Carisi cooking dinner for them all in the kitchen!  Or better yet, Mama Carisi invited her son's GF & 2 kiddies over to their place for Mother's Day!!

Anyway, I wasn't following the case as in the real life Abducted In Plain Sight, but it was religious fanatic-induced hijinks with everyone commiting sins (except for the 14-year-old Beth who was a minor who couldn't consent to anything, except for being able to deny getting a pregnancy test and rape kit).  Carisi's reactions to Mr. Lee's revelations cracked me up (excellent acting scene) and Fin was great as usual.  Rollins was fine in this episode.

[CrystalBlue]

2 hours ago, CrystalBlue said:

Yep, I watched on Hulu too, as SVU is not on my must see ASAP or watch OTA "live" as it's broadcast on the West Coast list of shows, not anymore it's not.  I'm doomed to watch SVU until the bitter end, unless they get rid of Fin or Carisi or *gasp* both, then I'll be out.  So thanks for the link Marceline.  I'll watch it before I move on to OC's latest ep.

UPDATED:  So the link is to an article about the scene not being shown on streaming, also comments from viewers saying not in Canada either, or even on Peacock!  That is some bogus bullshit, man!  Show won't even show their own crossover crap!

[Luna713]

For others like myself who watched on Hulu, the missing scene:

 

 

 

I thought I’d missed an entire episode when I started watching OC, and then when others in this thread were talking about Stabler I was even more confused, trying to figure out how I could have missed an entire cameo. So bizarre they dropped the segue for streaming viewers. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

15 hours ago, CrystalBlue said:

UPDATED:  So the link is to an article about the scene not being shown on streaming, also comments from viewers saying not in Canada either, or even on Peacock!  That is some bogus bullshit, man!  Show won't even show their own crossover crap!

Thank you!  How stupid!!!!!