S24.E04: The Steps We Cannot Take

[WendyCR72]

Airing October 13, 2022:

Quote

A home invasion and kidnapping lead the SVU to a shocking discovery. Muncy tries to fit in with the squad.

[CrystalBlue]

Let's hope Muncy has invested in a blazer, per Benson's "friendly suggestion."

[dttruman]

Did

22 hours ago, CrystalBlue said:

Let's hope Muncy has invested in a blazer, per Benson's "friendly suggestion."

Did anyone else catch it at the beginning when Muncy was looking for a Sport Coat with Velasco? Muncy has trouble distinguishing colors. If she needs help to identify colors, can she actually be a cop? I think it's severity of the color blindness that is the point, but if she needs help, I think that is a Big No No

Edited October 14, 2022 by dttruman

[Ms Blue Jay]

Yeah, how do you identify suspects from reports with colour blindness?

[dttruman]

Oh MY God, too much Benson! Where in the Hell was Carisi.  This was a weird one with a lot of supposition about this case. There were no real explanations for the series of events, and I was confused on a couple of them.  Elias shot the husband and wife and kidnapped the daughter right or is my time line off? As usual where the heck was the shrink or a counselor for these victims. Benson was laying out too much advise and getting too close to the victims. I don't understand why one of the victims couldn't confess to the murder of the Elias's father. Considering all the trauma the victims were put through, Carisi would understand the justification and push for therapy for who did it. But it was Benson who took it upon herself to decide that Bella shooting the father should be covered up. Why should she arbitrarily decide what should be done, doesn't she think the therapy by an actual shrink would help mother and daughter to confront the issues is more healthy then ignoring them?

[WendyCR72]

Just have Benson quit the NYPD and become a full-time victims' rights advocate or something and be done with this show.

I miss when cops were cops (and captains were captains, leading but STAYING OBJECTIVE - oh, hiiii, Liv!)  and let other people do their jobs. But then, the budget is probably at the level of a high-school play now, so not enough money to pay other actors. Sigh.

[Xeliou66]

This was a decent episode, good investigation with a good role for each detective, but Benson pissed me off again at the end. No DA in their right mind would charge any of the victims with shooting the scumbag who enslaved and tortured them, they would just get counseling as it was clearly self defense/justifiable, so why Benson’s need to not tell Maxwell the truth? No one in the DA’s office would have pursued a case against any of the victims of the piece of shit, so no need for a cover up. It was just a plot device to make Benson look more saintly to some people, but all it made me think is Benson is once again not acting as a police officer but as a victim’s advocate. It drives me nuts about her and it’s only gotten way worse as the years have gone on. Up until the end Benson was fine actually, but I guess we can’t go an episode without St Olivia getting on my nerves.

Fin finally got some quality screen time and I liked how he gave advice to Muncy at the end, it was nice having a heavier role for Fin after he got nothing in the first 3 episodes. Velasco was good as well.

I also wondered about Muncy having trouble distinguishing colors, wouldn’t that disqualify her from being a detective? That seemed really weird and then nothing was ever said about it again.

Rollins was fine in this one, and it was nice to see a squad full of detectives for once.

I missed Carisi, but this was a good episode for him to miss since it was much more about the investigation, and Maxwell was good filling in for him, Maxwell isn’t biased towards SVU and is more distant from them and willing to exercise her authority, and that was nice to see. But again, the whole thing was unnecessary because no one would be charged with killing the predator regardless of which one did it, so there was no need for the final conversation between Benson/Maxwell.

Nice to see the ME, Abel Truman, again, he’s a good character.

Overall this was a decent episode, much better than last week, but the ending was flawed due to St Olivia worship.  

[WendyCR72]

5 minutes ago, Xeliou66 said:

I also wondered about Muncy having trouble distinguishing colors, wouldn’t that disqualify her from being a detective? That seemed really weird and then nothing was ever said about it again.

It would. My brother wanted to be a cop at one point but, because of being color blind, was disqualified.

But, as I have often said, this franchise abandoned a semblance of reality ages ago.

[Serena McClain]

Muncy is starting to grow to me. I like her better than Kat. I feel like she is the retool of that character and we should have saw HER instead three seasons ago. Still find it a bummer how they wrote Kat out. Things just got so difficult for her and she just leaves the force, unbelievable. Not with the way they built her. 

I am also sick of this Maxwell woman. I do not get this character and what her position really adds as far as leadership in these legal cases. Why are we not seeing Jack McCoy in these guest roles. One thing I hated about SVU is we always saw these substitute DA office leaders like a bureau chief and now a trial division chief, when we should have been seeing the DA themselves. Still no word on where Vanessa Hadid is who we often saw SVU and Carisi report to recently a few seasons ago. She is just fallen into the same vortex Novak, Cabot (until Season 19), and Cutter all fell into. 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Serena McClain

[Iguessnot]

2 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

Just have Benson quit the NYPD and become a full-time victims' rights advocate or something and be done with this show.

I miss when cops were cops (and captains were captains, leading but STAYING OBJECTIVE - oh, hiiii, Liv!)  and let other people do their jobs. But then, the budget is probably at the level of a high-school play now, so not enough money to pay other actors. Sigh.

It blows my mind that the show has gotten to the point that these so called detectives won't properly interview any woman determined to be a victim. They approach the women like a curious neighbor who worries they might be asking questions that are too sensitive. Maybe I missed it, but with all the talk of bad girl/good girl, did any of the detectives straight out ask the women to provide details of what was required and what were the rewards and punishments?

The writing and direction are poor this season. I feel nothing for the victims and their portrayals are one dimensional. Interesting that they can ignore the father's murder. He was shot with the son's gun, buried in his back yard yet the son will not face those charges. Are they ignoring the infant burial too?

[wknt3]

The Good:
The guest cast. Almost all of them did a really nice job and pulled off some challenging roles that could have easily lapsed into total caricature. And it was nice seeing Betty Buckley and ME Truman.
Fin. At least the Fin at the end. At the beginning there was a little too much of the grumpy old man schtick, but he actually got something to work with in the rest of the episode.
It was nice seeing a good old fashioned psycho pervert case. There was a real classic SVU vibe especially with the debate at the beginning about if was really their case before it turned out to be totally sexually based after all.
It was good to see the whole squad involved and mostly in appropriate roles.
The episode had both Noah and Rollins without making me wish that they were kidnapped by this week's perp so creidt where it is due,

The Bad:
They're still doing the clueless newbie bit??? Who thought this was a good idea? She is an experienced cop and this isn't her fist investigative unit. There is plenty of good material there about the difference between street crimes and special victims without trying to have us believe that any experienced member of the NYPD doesn't know the basics, even if they are under 30.
The wardrobe plot. It's not just the "get off my lawn" aspect. It's talking about how they need to dress professionally dealing with victims while Velasco and Fin spend the whole episode looking like they are going to grab a beer and watch the game. Also we have the forced attempt at UST with her and Velasco and the whole color blindness stupidity. Good thing she didn't need to distinguish between colors in the GANG UNIT.
No Carisi.
Benson as judge, jury, and Governor. She can issue pardons now? I was pretty close to throwing up in my mouth at the end when she was in full Whispering Angel mode delivering inner peace and understanding to the victim and showing us all the path to enlightenment,

Overall this was a resounding meh for me. The COTW was interesting at times, the investigation flowed well enough and everyone was involved, and as mentioned the guest cast did a great job, all of which helped balance out the St. Benson of Manhattan wretchedness and Muncy's wardrobe plot stupidity enough to just clear the bar of actively bad. If they had actually bothered to explore the subtleties of dealing with victims who are also perps and the differences between this squad and your average street cops, and have Benson act like a professional investigator and not an advocate it would have actually been pretty good. But I guess those are the steps they cannot take...

[dttruman]

17 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

Benson as judge, jury, and Governor. She can issue pardons now? I was pretty close to throwing up in my mouth at the end when she was in full Whispering Angel mode delivering inner peace and understanding to the victim and showing us all the path to enlightenment,

How much of a hit would an episode take if Benson wasn't in it and the producers, writers, and director concentrated on having a good plot, with decent character development and dialogue, and decent production?

[MarylandGirl]

1 hour ago, wknt3 said:

The Bad:
They're still doing the clueless newbie bit??? Who thought this was a good idea? She is an experienced cop and this isn't her fist investigative unit. There is plenty of good material there about the difference between street crimes and special victims without trying to have us believe that any experienced member of the NYPD doesn't know the basics, even if they are under 30.
The wardrobe plot. It's not just the "get off my lawn" aspect. It's talking about how they need to dress professionally dealing with victims while Velasco and Fin spend the whole episode looking like they are going to grab a beer and watch the game. Also we have the forced attempt at UST with her and Velasco and the whole color blindness stupidity. Good thing she didn't need to distinguish between colors in the GANG UNIT.

Oh, really good point that she'd need to be able to distinguish colors in the gang unit! The wardrobe thing also seems sexist because, like you said, Velasco and Fin tend to dress casually. And in the earlier years, Benson tended to just wear a nice T-shirt, certainly not a suit jacket. It maybe makes sense for her to do so in her current role, but I don't see it being necessary as a detective. Honestly, if I were a victim of a sex crime, I wouldn't really care what the detectives were wearing as long as they seemed empathetic. Casual dress could make them seem more relatable, especially if talking to teens or kids.

I did generally like the episode as a whole. Had some shocking moments (the other women in the basement, buried) and plot twists (the father actually being dead) like old-school SVU. Also, the victims in the opening crime weren't white!

Edited October 14, 2022 by MarylandGirl

[illdoc]

Was it my imagination or did Benson give the "I'm shocked" face when Bella indicated that she knew where the gun was (meaning that she was the killer)?? We all knew the moment both women confessed that they were covering for the girl! Benson should have had a "just as I thought" face or at least a "now what?" face.

[wknt3]

9 hours ago, illdoc said:

Was it my imagination or did Benson give the "I'm shocked" face when Bella indicated that she knew where the gun was (meaning that she was the killer)?? We all knew the moment both women confessed that they were covering for the girl! Benson should have had a "just as I thought" face or at least a "now what?" face.

Yes it's just your imagination. With Mariska's various cosmetic procedures leaving her unable to move the top half of her face, Benson only has two expressions - smug and constipated.

[MarylandGirl]

10 hours ago, illdoc said:

Was it my imagination or did Benson give the "I'm shocked" face when Bella indicated that she knew where the gun was (meaning that she was the killer)?? We all knew the moment both women confessed that they were covering for the girl! Benson should have had a "just as I thought" face or at least a "now what?" face.

I thought that maybe they figured if they both confessed, then neither of them could go down for it because there would be reasonable doubt. I didn't immediately realize it was the girl. But of course I figured it out once Benson started questioning her. (In my defense, I was watching in the middle of the night due to insomnia, so not thinking as clearly as I normally would have!)

Edited October 14, 2022 by MarylandGirl

[howiveaddict]

Wouldn't the shooting of the perp be under the jurisdiction of the county that Fishkill is in?  That's where the shooting occurred.  Also no DA that wants to be reelected would prosecute that little girl for the man's murder.  Why didn't the girls all run away while the son was away. After all, they were able to bury a body without him knowing.  Lots of plot holes as usual.

[Aileen]

13 hours ago, illdoc said:

Was it my imagination or did Benson give the "I'm shocked" face when Bella indicated that she knew where the gun was (meaning that she was the killer)?? We all knew the moment both women confessed that they were covering for the girl! Benson should have had a "just as I thought" face or at least a "now what?" face.

She also had a shocked look at the paternity reveal which made no sense. Who else could have been the father??

[txhorns79]

2 hours ago, howiveaddict said:

Wouldn't the shooting of the perp be under the jurisdiction of the county that Fishkill is in?  That's where the shooting occurred. 

Yes.  I didn't really understand why the Manhattan DA's office would be handling that, or why SVU would still have that aspect of the case once it was determined the crime in question was unconnected to the home invasion/kidnapping. 

[dttruman]

16 hours ago, howiveaddict said:

Also no DA that wants to be reelected would prosecute that little girl for the man's murder.  Why didn't the girls all run away while the son was away. After all, they were able to bury a body without him knowing.  Lots of plot holes as usual.

Agreed on the DA decision. It was just laid out that way to make Benson look as the epitome of forgiveness. It's funny how she is never portrayed that way when she arrest someone with presumed evidence, badgers DA to prosecute, find out someone else is guilty, yet finds time to give an inspirational speech to the victim, but nothing for the falsely accused.

As for why didn't the girls run away, that confused me too. I was kind of lost when they entered the house. If the women were left out, how did they get back in the room that was locked from the outside with a heavy padlock? Many questions or inconsistencies.

[txhorns79]

1 hour ago, dttruman said:

As for why didn't the girls run away, that confused me too. I was kind of lost when they entered the house. If the women were left out, how did they get back in the room that was locked from the outside with a heavy padlock? Many questions or inconsistencies.

I just figured the place seemed very isolated and the girls were all deeply traumatized by their experience to the point where escaping was not a real option.   

[dttruman]

1 hour ago, txhorns79 said:

I just figured the place seemed very isolated and the girls were all deeply traumatized by their experience to the point where escaping was not a real option.   

That's plausible, but I would have expected more from professional writers of a prime time drama. IMO, I would put it on the same level as a LMN movie.

[Xeliou66]

7 minutes ago, dttruman said:

That's plausible, but I would have expected more from professional writers of a prime time drama. IMO, I would put it on the same level as a LMN movie.

I’ve gotten to the point of never expecting anything good from the SVU writers - they care more about delivering soapy drama and making Benson look saintly than they do about getting details right and writing quality episodes. 

[howiveaddict]

23 minutes ago, dttruman said:

That's plausible, but I would have expected more from professional writers of a prime time drama. IMO, I would put it on the same level as a LMN movie.

Need to ask my hubby then. He watches all those Lifetime murder shows. 🙄

[dttruman]

26 minutes ago, howiveaddict said:

Need to ask my hubby then. He watches all those Lifetime murder shows. 🙄

I had to sit through 5 years of those movies until my girl friend and I had a mutual breakup. I don't know how she found those interesting.

[Pearson80]

4 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I’ve gotten to the point of never expecting anything good from the SVU writers - they care more about delivering soapy drama and making Benson look saintly than they do about getting details right and writing quality episodes. 

Why does Mariska have the writers over a barrel?  Why can't they just write the show as they see fit.  Mariska has power but she is not all powerful given that she could not get the higher ups to not fire a certain actor.. 

[Xeliou66]

11 minutes ago, Pearson80 said:

Why does Mariska have the writers over a barrel?  Why can't they just write the show as they see fit.  Mariska has power but she is not all powerful given that she could not get the higher ups to not fire a certain actor.. 

I think Mariska becoming a producer has a lot to do with it - she has a heavy influence on how the stories are written. I wish the writers would give us a better version of Benson where she isn’t some saintly perfect hero who hogs the screen time in every episode, but I think Mariska is basically the show runner now. I was hoping with a change in show runners we would get a better show, but it hasn’t happened yet. The best thing we’ve gotten was in the crossover premiere when Price and McCoy got pissed at St Olivia and Jack even said something like “what gives her the right to play god?”, and the crossover was written by the Mothership writers, not by the SVU ones. I’m still hopeful that when Rollins exits we will get less soapy stuff and better cases, but I’m not counting on it, and I hope they don’t give Muncy a bunch of baggage or make her the new Rollins - she has some potential but there’s been some flaws with her writing as well. 

[DaynaPhile]

The other incredulous thing about Muncy being colorblind is that usually when a female is colorblind it’s pretty severe because they have to have two genes to be colorblind instead of just one for a guy. Or something like that. It would totally be a Big Deal. But then, Chris Carter made Fox Mulder colorblind and he’s a Special Agent so I guess anything goes. 
 

I honestly liked this episode. Good shocking moments, I felt terrible for those women, shocked when the ME revealed the newborn skeleton, maybe even a wee gasp when both women confessed and I realized right away it was the little girl who shot Soren. 

[CrystalBlue]

Another speech at the end from Benson, with no mention of counseling available, referral or anything.  If any of the SVU episodes needed a shrink, this was it!

Fin finally had a lot to do and say.

Muncy seems to be a flawed character, to say the least.  Bashing the suspect's head in needing eight stitches?  Colorblind?  Is she getting a pass for now because she's a pretty white girl?  Let's hope she's not Amanda Rollins Jr. and we don't get a Muncy/Velasco UST.  Will we call it Munsco?

[dttruman]

9 hours ago, DaynaPhile said:

The other incredulous thing about Muncy being colorblind is that usually when a female is colorblind it’s pretty severe because they have to have two genes to be colorblind instead of just one for a guy. Or something like that. It would totally be a Big Deal. But then, Chris Carter made Fox Mulder colorblind and he’s a Special Agent so I guess anything goes. 

Do you think this colorblind affliction maybe just be a built in excuse to get rid of her if the character doesn't test well with the viewers? If they don't like her, the writers can say Muncy never told anybody and was hiding her colorblindness. They can just say it's against police policy for detectives to have this kind of deficiency, which maybe true.

9 hours ago, DaynaPhile said:

I honestly liked this episode. Good shocking moments, I felt terrible for those women, shocked when the ME revealed the newborn skeleton, maybe even a wee gasp when both women confessed and I realized right away it was the little girl who shot Soren. 

When they found the women and then were going through the ME's report and his overview of the bodies, I was a little lost or confused. When the women realized the little girl killed Soren, they confessed, but I thought she did it because she would be jealous. She wouldn't be the only little girl (or daddy's little girl) anymore when Soren would have gotten the new girl pregnant. I kind of thought they were all brainwashed

[illdoc]

3 hours ago, dttruman said:

She wouldn't be the only little girl (or daddy's little girl) anymore when Soren would have gotten the new girl pregnant.

It wouldn't have been because of the new girl, since she wasn't abducted until a good month after Soren was dead. It would have been because of Nadine's baby (which the girl admitted she knew about). Not that I agree with you. Just setting the record straight.

[dttruman]

36 minutes ago, illdoc said:

It wouldn't have been because of the new girl, since she wasn't abducted until a good month after Soren was dead. It would have been because of Nadine's baby (which the girl admitted she knew about). Not that I agree with you. Just setting the record straight.

I am not claiming I am right at all. In fact it's probably wrong, because I was very confused of the time line, that I never figured out. I just thought it was some reason to explain the chain of events, that I am still not sure about.

[CrystalBlue]

Wouldn't Muncy have been tested by whoever does the police academy screening before she was admitted?  I thought the cadets had to pass a physical, including an eye exam, to be accepted.  Then doesn't the hiring police department conduct their own tests and exams before they hire the rookies?

How the hell did she manage to slip through the cracks, especially in the Gang Unit?

[tennisgurl]

Have I mentioned lately how much I cant stand Olivia's "victim whisper" voice? She's going for comforting, but to me she always comes off as condescending, like she's talking to a five year old, not an adult dealing with trauma. If Olivia wants to be a victim rights advocate or counselor, which is clearly what she really wants to do, she should just do it instead of bothering with being a cop. She cant even stand to ask victims basic questions that could help with the investigation, she treats any victim like they're made a glass which makes the crimes harder to investigate.

Not an awful episode, I'm glad it was something more interesting than another boring he said/she said of the rich and powerful, and the investigation was decent enough. Everyone but Carisi was used well enough (except for Olivia the victim whisperer), the acting from the guest cast was all very good, and the manhunt had some decent tension, but the episode was rather meh for the most part. It felt unfinished, despite how awful what was happening I never really felt the true scope of what these woman had been through, that these women were so scared of their abuser and so traumatized that they wouldn't even leave the house even if he was dead, we never really understood the dynamics between the bad guy and his son, and since the main bad guy was already dead, we have no idea what his deal was. I don't need a whole backstory for this creep, but I think the episode just needed a little something extra to make it memorable. I also thought the ending was weirdly abrupt, I was surprised when the Dick Wolf title came up at the end, I felt like we still had so many unanswered questions and so little closure from the guest characters. 

The legal aspects of the episode were such a hot mess, why was this SVU even running this case way outside of their jurisdiction? Once they found the kidnapped girl, shouldn't they hand it off to whatever cops are in charge there, or at least work with them? But the real "seriously?" for me was the very idea that Olivia might have to manipulate the system to stop the DA's office from prosecuting a woman for shooting the man who kidnapped, tortured, and raped her for a decade, let alone a little girl. Who could possibly want to prosecute this obvious self defense crime? What jury would ever even consider convicting? Obviously the reason for this nonsense is that we have to have a bad guy for Saint Olivia to lecture about victims and how their trauma has to be taken into account and her typical self important speeches because only Olivia can understand and stand up for victims. 

I like the new girl alright, even if this whole "get a better wardrobe" plot is incredibly stupid. Its not even just the "kids these days" stuff, its just weird that this woman who's been a cop for years now would have no clue that sometimes you have to dress nicely for the office. I do like the new detective though, even if she seems like a variation on Kat, just with more focus on her age instead of her politics, although the colorblind thing gave me a big pause. Is she hiding that she's colorblind? Then why would she tell her new co-worker? Because cops cant be colorblind, unless they made an exception for her for some reason. That does give me the hilarious image of her getting gang members mixed up because she cant tell what colors they're wearing, which makes me laugh. I liked her scene with Fin though.

Edited October 17, 2022 by tennisgurl

[gesundheit]

Fin's line about crime going up and the sound of gunshots now being the city's soundscape or whatever it was? Jesus. I know the writers room isn't in NYC, but production is so it seems like they'd know how laughably inaccurate that is! I know the tourism board has probably been pissed at SVU for decades, but wow, talk about jumping on the media propoganda bandwagon and perpetuating nonsense. And what, two episodes after some nice tourists get raped and murdered on the subway?

I agree with everyone who was dumbfounded by the unnecessary "twist" of burying the truth of who shot the guy, a situation that absolutely was an easy case of completely justifiable homicide and would have been critical for that girl's mental health to be clarified so that she could get psych treatment for the trauma.

On 10/15/2022 at 10:23 PM, Pearson80 said:

Why does Mariska have the writers over a barrel?  Why can't they just write the show as they see fit.  Mariska has power but she is not all powerful given that she could not get the higher ups to not fire a certain actor.. 

Ooo, what did I miss, who did she want fired?

ETA: Nevermind on that last question, I didn't see the double negative ("she could not get the higher ups to not fire...," whereas I thought it said she couldn't get the higher ups to fire someone)!

Edited October 23, 2022 by gesundheit
misread the post I was asking about!

[TV Anonymous]

Maybe I am not smart enough for the show. But why did Elias kidnap Priya, specifically? For a groomer of girls, it seems too brazen to violently invade a home and kidnap the girl, instead of kidnapping victims of opportunity.

[Iguessnot]

12 hours ago, TV Anonymous said:

Maybe I am not smart enough for the show. But why did Elias kidnap Priya, specifically? For a groomer of girls, it seems too brazen to violently invade a home and kidnap the girl, instead of kidnapping victims of opportunity.

Yeah, if the girls were for the father, why was the storyline about his obsession with the girl?

I seem to recall the women saying the son was always at the house or something in that vein. But if he's out working construction, how is he always at the house? There was so much focus on quivering lips, that I didn't even get a clear picture of when the father was in the house.

[PrincessPurrsALot]

On 10/13/2022 at 6:21 PM, dttruman said:

Did

Did anyone else catch it at the beginning when Muncy was looking for a Sport Coat with Velasco? Muncy has trouble distinguishing colors. If she needs help to identify colors, can she actually be a cop? I think it's severity of the color blindness that is the point, but if she needs help, I think that is a Big No No

As a colorblind person (or, for language that explains it better, a person who sees colors differently than people typically do), I hate when colorblindness is portrayed as seeing no colors at all.  Monochromacy is incredibly rare.  Colorblindness has multiple forms.  The most common is known as red/green.  People either do not see reds well or do not see greens well with green being the more common anomaly.  There are variations from minor anomalies (e.g., a little weaker in the ability to distinguish certain shades) to completely lacking the ability to perceive those colors so that a wide variety of colors and shades appear similar. The second most common form is colloquially called blue/yellow. It too has similar gradients of vision differences.  Monochromatic in which people see in black and white is rare.  Most rare, as in only a few recorded cases, is seeing differently with each eye.  

Can colorblind people be cops?  For most jurisdictions it depends on the severity of the colorblindness.  If she truly had monochromacy, she likely could not be a cop.  If she had any of the other variants it would depend on the level of difference in her vision. Her vision would have been tested as part of the hiring process. 

I can see her taking someone with her to shop.  I have asked friends to help with matching colors.  I also tend to wear a lot of black and only add one colored item. I have marked the colors on clothing and shoes (think of adult garanimals). However, I absolutely hated her saying she could not tell if the blazer was grey.  If her sight was that impacted, she couldn't be a cop. 

As to the rest of the episode, good story ruined by having the NYPD take the lead in Fishkill, the mother and daughter being sent out without any support, too many close up shocked faces (seriously, who directed this?), and everyone deciding it's a-ok to let the child go without wrapping up the case.  She's young enough and was in such an extreme situation that they could have gotten her help. instead send her off with her extremely messed up mother.  Yep, that's some quality writing. 🙄

[dttruman]

4 minutes ago, PrincessPurrsALot said:

As a colorblind person (or, for language that explains it better, a person who sees colors differently than people typically do), I hate when colorblindness is portrayed as seeing no colors at all.  Monochromacy is incredibly rare.  Colorblindness has multiple forms.  The most common is known as red/green.  People either do not see reds well or do not see greens well with green being the more common anomaly.  There are variations from minor anomalies (e.g., a little weaker in the ability to distinguish certain shades) to completely lacking the ability to perceive those colors so that a wide variety of colors and shades appear similar. The second most common form is colloquially called blue/yellow. It too has similar gradients of vision differences.  Monochromatic in which people see in black and white is rare.  Most rare, as in only a few recorded cases, is seeing differently with each eye.  

Can colorblind people be cops?  For most jurisdictions it depends on the severity of the colorblindness.  If she truly had monochromacy, she likely could not be a cop.  If she had any of the other variants it would depend on the level of difference in her vision. Her vision would have been tested as part of the hiring process. 

I can see her taking someone with her to shop.  I have asked friends to help with matching colors.  I also tend to wear a lot of black and only add one colored item. I have marked the colors on clothing and shoes (think of adult garanimals). However, I absolutely hated her saying she could not tell if the blazer was grey.  If her sight was that impacted, she couldn't be a cop. 

I want to apologize to you and any other person I may have disparage by my comment concerning color blind people. Nor did I mean to belittle any one in the law enforcement profession by imply they can't do their job because of color blindness.

[PrincessPurrsALot]

4 minutes ago, dttruman said:

I want to apologize to you and any other person I may have disparage by my comment concerning color blind people. Nor did I mean to belittle any one in the law enforcement profession by imply they can't do their job because of color blindness.

There was nothing wrong with your comments.  There is a lot of misunderstanding about color vision issues.  These were perpetuated by the show.  Given how common these issues are, the writers likely know someone that could inform them.  In fact, one of them may well have an issue with color vision.  The estimates are 8% (1 in 12) of people with XY chromosomes and 0.5% (1 in 200) of people with XX chromosomes have a color vision anomaly.  Numbers are not exact because most people are not tested.  Also, unless a person's vision issue is extreme, they may not know.  We do not know what other people see so we cannot compare. 

Instead the writers took the easy route of doing zero research and perpetuating a myth.  I don't expect more from them, but I would like it if they tried. It's the lazy writing that I take issue with.