S24.E03: Mirror Effect

[WendyCR72]

Airing October 6, 2022:

Quote

Benson tries to help a pop star in a volatile relationship. Rollins struggles with taking the stress of work home with her. Fin teaches a rookie a lesson in respecting fellow officers.

[dttruman]

13 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Airing October 6, 2022:

Quote

Benson tries to help a pop star in a volatile relationship. Rollins struggles with taking the stress of work home with her. Fin teaches a rookie a lesson in respecting fellow officers.

"Benson tries to help a pop star in a volatile relationship", I wonder how much of this will mirror "Funny Valentine"? And it took me a long time to find this episode.

"Rollins struggles with taking the stress of work home with her.", Soap Opera alert!!!!

"Fin teaches a rookie a lesson in respecting fellow officers.", Is this a rookie police officer or a rookie SVU detective?

[dttruman]

It looks like they maybe slowly easing Rollins out on PTSD reason, which is OK with me. At least they aren't throwing the character under the bus and going with something outrageous and stupid.

[Iguessnot]

This was a strange one. I felt very unbalanced watching this. I get that Amanda is suffering but the full face puppy looks throughout the show were too much. There was no nuance to her portrayal. Almost cartoonish.

I did not care one bit about the case. The way the father was inserted into the story was awkward and really didn't make sense.

Who is this Olivia person? Much more level headed but a complete 180 from the usual Olivia and with no explanation.But if they are going to have a level headed Benson, they need to have good cases. This was a typical Olivia crusader case, but she wasn't crusading, so it all fell flat.

[Xeliou66]

This episode was just dull as dirt - a he said/she said case between 2 rich famous people, we’ve seen it numerous times. Nothing was original about this and I didn’t care one iota about these people. Also don’t give a rat’s ass about Rollins and her drama, and this episode was heavy on that, Rollins once again started judging the victim, and she showed why she shouldn’t be working SVU, and Benson responds by telling her how great she is. Blah. Other than that, Benson was slightly more tolerable than usual, but that’s not saying much. Fin was reduced to whining about Muncy being there for no reason, he has been on screen for all of about 3 minutes this season and he just came off as a crybaby tonight, Muncy is fitting in fine, but her and Velasco didn’t get much more screen time. Only part of this I liked was Carisi in court, he was good as a prosecutor as always and had some good lines, especially at the end when he told Austin it was over. Other than those scenes, the episode was a complete unoriginal snooze-fest with a lot of irritating Rollins drama. 

[Serena McClain]

3 hours ago, Iguessnot said:

This was a strange one. I felt very unbalanced watching this. I get that Amanda is suffering but the full face puppy looks throughout the show were too much. There was no nuance to her portrayal. Almost cartoonish.

I did not care one bit about the case. The way the father was inserted into the story was awkward and really didn't make sense.

Who is this Olivia person? Much more level headed but a complete 180 from the usual Olivia and with no explanation.But if they are going to have a level headed Benson, they need to have good cases. This was a typical Olivia crusader case, but she wasn't crusading, so it all fell flat.

Amanda has been shot for the 15th time and is undergoing some serious mental withdrawal. She is also a mother and comes from a family with a wacky sister and mother that is also coming to mind, certainly with this case and even referenced such to Olivia after they talked to the victim's mother for the first time. The way they are showing this is absolutely reasonable. 

The father being there made sense because it shows why Austin was the way he was and to give him a bit of conflict to uncover his own demons. And the father was there also to give Austin a bit of hope of him being able to change his own life since he was able to do so. As underutilized as he was, him being there made sense and was not confusing. 

Olivia was tame this time around, something you guys should be satisfied for since she is always getting hate for being too righteous and commanding, though she is a captain. The case was also find, it was laid back and simple and the format was a bit different which was a nice touch. 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Serena McClain

[wknt3]

The Good:
Carisi. Lots of good legal material and courtroom scenes this week, and he was lovable in the surprisingly tolerable family drama scenes. It was nice to see no crapping over the DAs office and Benson taking his legal advice like they are both professionals.
Benson(!) She was actually acting like a cop and CO throughout most of the episode. It's a nice change of pace.
Rollins(!!!) Now that they are writing her off they are actually writing her decently. And this is actually a halfway decent depiction of trauma.

The Bad:
Fin is wasted yet again in a glorified cameo as cranky old man telling the new girl to get off his lawn. I mean just give him the week off if you don't have anything decent for him.
The new girl. I hope the writers get over the whole schtick about these whiny entitled millennials. You know what they've also called? Your target demo! And it's ridiculous to try to have us believe that she doesn't understand basic professionalism.
Velasco was also underused this week. Odd as he should be the neutral sounding board and the investigator with some experience and someone who could relate to the perp and victim.
The COTW. I was bored and hated the real life case which I am not going to mention by name so the trolls don't find us in the search engines. And I felt the same way this week especially as they didn't have the guts to say that everyone involved was terrible, but a crime is still a crime. They had to make the victim sympathetic in the end and the squad compassionate and understanding when it would have been far more interesting to have them as detached professionals with varied points of view who agreed that they didn't really like anyone involved.
The opening. We are back to the same amateurish editing and sound mixing to try to cover up that they are trying to shoot this on an 80s basic cable budget.

Overall this was a dud. I hope that once Rollins departs they will take what worked from this episode like Benson as leader instead of superhero and ditch the rest. Muncy's cluelessness can go off to the land of SVU failed ideas with Carisi's mustache and Chester Lake, Fin can actually get something interesting, and we can have an episode that is something other than blandly competent.

[dttruman]

8 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Rollins once again started judging the victim, and she showed why she shouldn’t be working SVU, and Benson responds by telling her how great she is. Blah. Other than that, Benson was slightly more tolerable than usual, but that’s not saying much.

I died laughing when Benson said Rollins was better than 10 detectives or something like that

Edited October 7, 2022 by dttruman

[dttruman]

8 hours ago, Iguessnot said:

Who is this Olivia person? Much more level headed but a complete 180 from the usual Olivia and with no explanation.But if they are going to have a level headed Benson, they need to have good cases. This was a typical Olivia crusader case, but she wasn't crusading, so it all fell flat.

Do you think there was still remnants of the old Benson, where she kept advising and counseling Kelsey and after the trial where she gets into the limo with her and tells her to move on. I thought that was vintage Benson. Granted there was a shrink on the show, but at the very beginning, for Rollins. I thought there should have been a counselor in this episode to help advise Kelsey, not Benson. At least Benson didn't have to testify as a shrink at the trial

[tennisgurl]

What the hell was with that "millennials are all entitled" comment from Olivia? She didn't even say it like she was joking, she said it like it was a cold hard fact, it was so weird and rather insulting to one of the shows key demographics. Fuck you very much show. I like the new girl alright but that might be because everyone is being so needlessly hostile towards her, or maybe its millennial solidarity. We know how to dress for work damn it! Come on, aren't people supposed to be complaining about Gen Z now that millennials are getting older? Aren't they the current "kids these days"? 

The case itself was rather bland, its just another he said/she said of the rich and sexy, nothing all that interesting. Olivia gets to give some speeches to the teary eyed beautiful victim, we get some speeches about how there are no such things as bad victims (as long as they're pretty) and everything else you expect from a standard he said/she said. There were some moments that made it a tiny bit more interesting that I wish they had leaned into more, with both parents being awful and how that affected the couple and how they perceive relationships, but they didn't do much with it besides do a few speeches. The guest cast was fine, they did what they could with the boring script, but the whole case was mostly just same old same old, I didn't really connect with any of the characters involved. I also thought it was unrealistic that the only people protesting would be pro Austin people, in reality there would be people supporting the pop star as well, but I guess they really wanted us to feel extra sorry for her. 

At least Carisi got some nice moments, in court and with the Rollins girls, which were pretty cute. They are setting up Rollins leaving now, and while I am not a huge fan of her, I am glad that at least they aren't tossing her under the bus to get her off the show and they are giving her a long send off. After being a main character for so long, she's earned a decent goodbye. They are actually handling Rollin's dealing with trauma pretty well. 

Edited October 7, 2022 by tennisgurl

[nittany cougar]

4 hours ago, wknt3 said:

The Good:
Carisi. Lots of good legal material and courtroom scenes this week, and he was lovable in the surprisingly tolerable family drama scenes. It was nice to see no crapping over the DAs office and Benson taking his legal advice like they are both professionals.
Benson(!) She was actually acting like a cop and CO throughout most of the episode. It's a nice change of pace.
Rollins(!!!) Now that they are writing her off they are actually writing her decently. And this is actually a halfway decent depiction of trauma.

The Bad:
Fin is wasted yet again in a glorified cameo as cranky old man telling the new girl to get off his lawn. I mean just give him the week off if you don't have anything decent for him.
The new girl. I hope the writers get over the whole schtick about these whiny entitled millennials. You know what they've also called? Your target demo! And it's ridiculous to try to have us believe that she doesn't understand basic professionalism.

Benson was a straight up bitch when she talked to the new girl in the restroom and told her to invest in a new blazer.  The girl is a low on the ladder cop.  Maybe she didn't come from money like Benson.  

[faithie]

Is it true that millennials are a key demographic for any Law & Order show?  Given the literally hundreds of options out there via cable and streaming, I find that very hard to believe but I could be wrong as I don't have any statistics.

[Iguessnot]

9 hours ago, Serena McClain said:

Amanda has been shot for the 15th time and is undergoing some serious mental withdrawal. She is also a mother and comes from a family with a wacky sister and mother that is also coming to mind, certainly with this case and even referenced such to Olivia after they talked to the victim's mother for the first time. The way they are showing this is absolutely reasonable. 

The father being there made sense because it shows why Austin was the way he was and to give him a bit of conflict to uncover his own demons. And the father was there also to give Austin a bit of hope of him being able to change his own life since he was able to do so. As underutilized as he was, him being there made sense and was not confusing. 

Olivia was tame this time around, something you guys should be satisfied for since she is always getting hate for being too righteous and commanding, though she is a captain. The case was also find, it was laid back and simple and the format was a bit different which was a nice touch. 

Those were talking points on the whiteboard and they played them as such. Someone told us how bad the dad was, and son yells he won't be like his dad, but it was hollow. 

Olivia was better but I didn't care about the sloppily done rip from the headlines case so her levelheadedness was not put to good use. 

[WendyCR72]

8 hours ago, dttruman said:

I died laughing when Benson said Rollins was better than 10 detectives or something like that

[wknt3]

6 hours ago, faithie said:

Is it true that millennials are a key demographic for any Law & Order show?  Given the literally hundreds of options out there via cable and streaming, I find that very hard to believe but I could be wrong as I don't have any statistics.

18-49 is the "key demo" for Nielsen ratings for most network television and the series has stayed on the air well past its expiration date based largely on beating the competition amongst female viewers in that age range. Even if that viewership is shrinking for network television across the board. So Millennials are indeed a large part of the viewership the show desperately needs no matter how they watch it.

[Broderbits]

6 hours ago, nittany cougar said:

Maybe she didn't come from money like Benson. 

Wait, what? Benson was raised by a single mom who I believe taught at a university. Hardly rolling in dough.

[dttruman]

4 minutes ago, Broderbits said:

Wait, what? Benson was raised by a single mom who I believe taught at a university. Hardly rolling in dough.

Maybe that person was referring to Benson being (I find this hard to believe) straight laced and by the book cop including professional attire.

[Diana Berry]

I think Benson’s interactions with Rollins have been good.  She does care about her but also had to balance being her boss.  She needs to make sure her coworkers are safe especially if Rollins is still having emotional issues with her injury.

[txhorns79]

13 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

The case itself was rather bland, its just another he said/she said of the rich and sexy, nothing all that interesting.

I felt like the storyline was a retread of an old SVU episode where someone was raped in an influencer house?  I vaguely recall the trial in that episode turning into a circus with the case being litigated via memes and Tik Tok and people showing up at the court to support the rapist.  I will say the scene where the crowd turns on Rollins in the courthouse hallway and she quickly has to get away was legit tense.  I thought Kelli Giddish did a nice job telegraphing Rollins' fear of the situation.   

[nittany cougar]

14 hours ago, dttruman said:

Maybe that person was referring to Benson being (I find this hard to believe) straight laced and by the book cop including professional attire.

I was referring to her mother's background.  Even though she was raised by a single mother, her mother was educated and upper middle class.  They showed them at a fancy restaurant in season one.  Plus, Benson used to wear t-shirts and slacks in her early days. 

[wknt3]

On 10/7/2022 at 12:18 PM, nittany cougar said:

Maybe she didn't come from money like Benson.  

22 hours ago, Broderbits said:

Wait, what? Benson was raised by a single mom who I believe taught at a university. Hardly rolling in dough.

If she's not independently wealthy how does she pay for 60 hours a week of childcare not to mention the rest of her lifestyle living in Manhattan on an NYPD salary?  Plus she single handedly solves crimes with a small band of sidekicks and the reluctant cooperation of the police brass while whispering and wearing a lot of black which as we all know is something only billionaires do...

[CheshireCat]

2 hours ago, wknt3 said:

If she's not independently wealthy how does she pay for 60 hours a week of childcare not to mention the rest of her lifestyle living in Manhattan on an NYPD salary? 

The magic of Hollywood ;-) All TV cops I know have fancy apartments and often clothes, too. (Although, the salary for an NYPD captain doesn't seem too bad. It looks like there's a wide range and cost of living is likely insane in Manhattan, still, if she's at the top end of the range she shouldn't be doing too badly. But that doesn't change the fact that cost of living and a child would be expensive).

[Nessa]

My theory on how Amanda will exit SVU.................with how she has been post shooting, which I thought she would die from had it been later in the series (I think episode 10 is her final), as it's been said it'll be a tragic ending, I think she'll take her own life.

[Xeliou66]

3 hours ago, Nessa said:

My theory on how Amanda will exit SVU.................with how she has been post shooting, which I thought she would die from had it been later in the series (I think episode 10 is her final), as it's been said it'll be a tragic ending, I think she'll take her own life.

They haven’t said her exit will be tragic, in fact they said the opposite, that she’ll get a happy ending. I’m pretty sure she’ll just decide she’s had enough of SVU cases and will get married to Carisi and resign from SVU. Episode 9 is her last one I believe.

[dttruman]

1 hour ago, Xeliou66 said:

4 hours ago, Nessa said:

My theory on how Amanda will exit SVU.................with how she has been post shooting, which I thought she would die from had it been later in the series (I think episode 10 is her final), as it's been said it'll be a tragic ending, I think she'll take her own life.

They haven’t said her exit will be tragic, in fact they said the opposite, that she’ll get a happy ending. I’m pretty sure she’ll just decide she’s had enough of SVU cases and will get married to Carisi and resign from SVU. Episode 9 is her last one I believe.

If she does marry Carisi, and resigns from SVU, will Carisi still be a regular? If so, there seems to be an opportunity here for Rollins to pop in every now and then and possibilities for her to help out on a case or two, if this isn't the last season.

[dttruman]

15 hours ago, CheshireCat said:

17 hours ago, wknt3 said:

If she's not independently wealthy how does she pay for 60 hours a week of childcare not to mention the rest of her lifestyle living in Manhattan on an NYPD salary? 

The magic of Hollywood ;-) All TV cops I know have fancy apartments and often clothes, too. (Although, the salary for an NYPD captain doesn't seem too bad. It looks like there's a wide range and cost of living is likely insane in Manhattan, still, if she's at the top end of the range she shouldn't be doing too badly. But that doesn't change the fact that cost of living and a child would be expensive).

When you have a team of writers working for you, anything is possible. It could be easy as her winning a few hundred thousand in the lottery, but not tell anybody. Or it can be a little complex where grandma (Brook Shields) who is serving a prison term for kidnapping, left her money with Benson so she can take care of Noah

[Xeliou66]

27 minutes ago, dttruman said:

If she does marry Carisi, and resigns from SVU, will Carisi still be a regular? If so, there seems to be an opportunity here for Rollins to pop in every now and then and possibilities for her to help out on a case or two, if this isn't the last season.

Yes Carisi is staying with the show, he isn’t leaving. I’m sure Carisi will reference Rollins from time to time. And if there are no hard feelings between Kelli Giddish and the show runners over her being written out, I could definitely see Rollins appearing in a guest role again in the future, kind of like how Garland guest starred in an episode towards the end of last season after being written out at the start of the season.

[GiandujaPie]

Who was this episode supposed to be based on? I saw one story that said Johnny Depp and Amber Heard but the couple looked more like Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez although they've been over for years. 

[Aileen]

7 hours ago, GiandujaPie said:

Who was this episode supposed to be based on? I saw one story that said Johnny Depp and Amber Heard but the couple looked more like Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez although they've been over for years. 

I thought it was obviously JD/AH. 

[CrystalBlue]

On 10/7/2022 at 4:34 AM, wknt3 said:

The COTW. I was bored and hated the real life case which I am not going to mention by name so the trolls don't find us in the search engines.

This.  And now the cat's out of the bag here.  🤐

[CrystalBlue]

3 minutes ago, CrystalBlue said:

This.  And now the cat's out of the bag here.  🤐

Oh, and I knew it was J D and A H too, especially when the actor was trying to sound like who-know-who on the stand!  😀

[GiandujaPie]

Well, I guess I didn't follow the real life trial that closely since I didn't recognize what was obvious to others.  

[incandescent]

You know what? This episode of SVU was better than the extremely similar plot, Funny Valentine, so good for them.

[The Wild Sow]

This was the rerun last night , and we decided to watch it since we didn’t quite remember watching it the first time. 
And no wonder we didn’t remember it - since it was so damn BORING! 

[Xeliou66]

48 minutes ago, The Wild Sow said:

This was the rerun last night , and we decided to watch it since we didn’t quite remember watching it the first time. 
And no wonder we didn’t remember it - since it was so damn BORING! 

Yeah this episode was dull as dirt - I only watched it once and I just remember disliking everyone and only enjoying Carisi’s scenes.