S24.E06: Controlled Burn

[WendyCR72]

Airing November 3, 2022:

Quote

Rollins investigates an assault by a masked man at an underground party. Benson uncovers a suspect who may be valuable as a witness.

[dttruman]

Is it me or is this starting out like and episode of Law  & Order Criminal Intent?

[Iguessnot]

Another good episode although things got weird at the end. True, men are a bunch of hellions, but saying all men (except Noah) are pure evil and all women are saints is bogus. It's like they let Mariska write the ending to compensate for her change in persona for the last few episodes.

Old girl went AWOL and Benson told Fin it was a wrong number. Um, I think we have a problem here.

I didn't like how they had the guy saying the woman was chased by a crow. He was lucid. Seeing a guy with a mask on does not equate to reporting that a crow was chasing the woman. That was a cheap shot.

[EtheltoTillie]

What was going on in the beginning scene?  Rollins was giving a lecture for an audience of one, Carisi.  Then they got all hot and bothered. Was that supposed to be a fetish, which was the theme of the lecture and of the episode?  Still wondering how they are going to write her off. 
I liked the episode overall, but the ending was preposterous. What was Olivia up to?  

Edited November 4, 2022 by EtheltoTillie

[Xeliou66]

This was probably the best episode of the season, minus a few flaws. It was a good investigation into the case, with actual suspense for once about who the perp was and what was going on. Fin got a great role, it was nice to see him get a heavy workload and not just be window dressing, Rollins wasn’t irritating, Carisi was in charge of the legal side and did a good job, and there was no shitting on the DA’s office. This was a different type of case, we’ve seen cases involving trendy parties and rich douches before, but this was a new spin on it that kept me interested. The perp was a sicko.

The bad part was Benson - she really does hate most men, that’s been evident for a while but it’s especially true now, and what was with her seemingly feeling sorry for Lena? Oh yeah, all women are victims in St Olivia’s world, even the ones who break the law, and all men are evil scum. Benson is just so damn hard to tolerate now, and what was with her at the end lying to Fin about speaking with Lena? Does she really want Lena to get away? I wouldn’t put it past St Olivia. I just really cannot stomach her, and her rant about how all men (except wonder-brat Noah of course) are evil was a classic example of why I loathe Benson.

Aside from Benson though, the episode was good, I did miss Velasco, but Fin, Rollins and Muncy did good investigative work and Carisi did good on the legal side, and the case was pretty well done, it wasn’t tired or stale. 

[Diana Berry]

Good episode and Liv’s hair looks fabulous this season.

[wknt3]

The Good:
Fin. Once again he was actually there. I would have liked to have seen more snark about the rich pervs, but he was present and engaged throughout.
Carisi. Some solid legal and personal material. Plus he was really rocking that 3 piece suit in the conference room.
Rollins? If we had gotten more episodes of her written like this I might be sad instead of relieved to see her go. It was so refreshing I won't even complain that the portrayal isn't necessarily consistent. After all she's been so all over the map that you can't really say anything is OOC. Even calm competence.
The COTW. It was interesting and different and while the ending wasn't as clever as it thought it was it didn't stray too far into OTT WTF territory. And it was great to see a victim tell Benson she was going to handle things her own way while being presented sympathetically. Plus the rich supervillain was actually a woman! And they actually came out and said girl power is not a trump card that excuses any behavior???!!!

The Bad:
The CI/CSI style opener. It was competently edited and sound mixed, but the time spent showing Professor Rollins and setting up the perp and the red herring suspect and depicting the crimme would have been better spent fleshing out the interesting ideas and getting into the investigation. It would have been far more intriguing if we opened on the homeless guy finding her and pulling the thong out of her throat and jumping straight to the hospital.
Benson. While she wasn't saving the world single handedly and they did actually call out some of her BS (Benson Stuff) she was still annoying and Mariska doesn't seem how to remember to play anything but a cardboard saint.
Once again they seem to be lacking polish and finish. This was a soiid idea and competently executed with strong performances, but it just felt like they could have used another polish on the script and the ending kind of trailed off. Some of that could be because they were kind of going against the grain of the last decade and pointing out how things can go too far, but some of it felt like once again they lacked the budget or drive to handle the little details to go from pretty good to truly excellent.

Overall this was pretty good. A solid story with some interesting twists and as mentioned saying something that was actually refreshing. It was actually creepy without going campy or overly icky and kept the whole ensemble and guest cast involved. After a string of meh episodes this was a nice change of pace. But it still had enough flaws to keep it from greatness. At least it left me with some hope that the show can be good again!

Edited November 4, 2022 by wknt3
mutter ducking autocorrect

[dttruman]

7 hours ago, Diana Berry said:

Good episode and Liv’s hair looks fabulous this season.

I like your comment only because it was a good episode.

I wonder if we will see Lena in a future episode, like the 2nd half of the season. I wonder why the judge didn't order Lena to surrender her pass port?

[dttruman]

5 hours ago, wknt3 said:

The COTW. It was interesting and different and while the ending wasn't as clever as it thought it was it didn't stray too far into OTT WTF territory. And it was great to see a victim tell Benson she was going to handle things her own way while being presented sympathetically. Plus the rich supervillain was actually a woman! And they actually came out and said girl power is not a trump card that excuses any behavior???!!!

I thought Maggie was going to conveniently shoot Lena on the steps of the courhouse to get her revenge, like it's happened a few time before.

[slowpoked]

I think it was a good episode too. For two episodes now Liv has actually played a captain, and let her sergeants and detectives do the leg work. This way, they all get good screen time. SVU is better when Saint Liv doesn't hog all the camera. 

I wonder if they will revisit this "goods" that they have now on the powerful men of NYC. I am quite curious. I know they did a similar episode before using the escort service where Liv's ex was undercover, and so was Rollins' ex (Declan). 

Wasn't the actress who played Maggie a favorite retread of SVU?! I swear I've seen her in probably 5 SVU episodes now, all playing different characters.

[illdoc]

42 minutes ago, slowpoked said:

Wasn't the actress who played Maggie a favorite retread of SVU?! I swear I've seen her in probably 5 SVU episodes now, all playing different characters

She's only credited in two (including this one). She was, however, in 16 CSI: Miami's, so maybe you recognize her from that?

[wknt3]

8 hours ago, dttruman said:

I wonder if we will see Lena in a future episode, like the 2nd half of the season.

Please no. This series does not have a good record with multi-episode villains. Although I can totally see Julie Martin off pitching a big sweeps SVU/OC crossover where Richard Wheatley returns and teams up with Elena to try to take down Benson and Stabler...

[dttruman]

2 hours ago, slowpoked said:

I wonder if they will revisit this "goods" that they have now on the powerful men of NYC. I am quite curious. I know they did a similar episode before using the escort service where Liv's ex was undercover, and so was Rollins' ex (Declan). 

How many times have they cleaned house over the last few years? There was that Epstein episode (something "Accountable"), this episode, the one where girls get rent free apartments for sleeping with high-up officials. Anyone that can name other episodes, feel free to contribute.

[howiveaddict]

11 hours ago, dttruman said:

I wonder if we will see Lena in a future episode, like the 2nd half of the season. I wonder why the judge didn't order Lena to surrender her pass port?

She gave the judge a knowing look. I bet she has something on him too, and that is why he made it easier for her to get away.

[slowpoked]

On 11/4/2022 at 4:44 PM, illdoc said:

She's only credited in two (including this one). She was, however, in 16 CSI: Miami's, so maybe you recognize her from that?

I thought she was the mother in the home invasion case in which Liv also got held hostage, and the mom whose kid was “kidnapped” but was really set up by her ex-husband (who owns a restaurant) in order to teach the boy a lesson.

[Zaffy]

The most interesting episode of the season so far.
Benson is quite tolerable in this season, dunno, she certainly does not annoys me at all.
Maybe I got old 😜

Edited November 8, 2022 by Zaffy

[Aileen]

On 11/4/2022 at 10:51 AM, dttruman said:

I like your comment only because it was a good episode.

I wonder if we will see Lena in a future episode, like the 2nd half of the season. I wonder why the judge didn't order Lena to surrender her pass port?

She had a video of him. They nodded at each other after he gave his decision.

[tennisgurl]

I'm disappointed, that was a pretty solid episode with an actually interesting twist on the typical "sexual abuse of the rich and famous" episodes, a good guest cast, and with the regular cast being used well, but then they went and fumbled at the last minute with that stupid ending. What the hell was all that "men are evil am I right?" ending that came out of nowhere? The message here seems to be more about the privilege of rich people and how they can get away with anything, not anything about the male gender in particular, why was that the take away? Did the show forget that at the very start of the episode, a man was the one who helped the victim? Or in the last episode where the bad guy abused both men and woman? Did Olivia and Rollins forget about the many female criminals they've arrested over the years? Why did Olivia lie to Fin about Lena calling her like the supervillain that she is? Did she want her to get away? 

Its too bad the ending was so weird, the rest of the episode was pretty good, but its hard to enjoy it when the ending gets so mangled. 

[jabRI]

I feel like I was watching a different episode, based on the comments.  I felt like there was very little resolution, and Lena setting up all these men just to blackmail them seems bizarre.  To me it felt like a throw away episode, but that must just be me.