S22.E11: Second Chance

[WendyCR72]

Airing January 12, 2023:

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When an ex-con is found beaten to death, Cosgrove and Shaw arrest an unlikely culprit. Maroun must put her personal feelings for the suspect aside and take the lead in court when she and Price can't agree on the best trial strategy.

 

[Xeliou66]

I liked this episode - the investigation part was good as usual and the legal stuff mixed things up a bit which was a nice change of pace. 
I kind of liked how at the end instead of pulling a rabbit out of the hat and finding some motive that would’ve convicted the kid of murder, they couldn’t find it and there might not have been one so they pled him out. It was a nice change of pace, while I thought the kid deserved more than 10 years for the murder, the defense lawyer was good and the kid was solid on the stand and the DA’s were losing the jury so they had to plead him. Sometimes the endings of cases aren’t always satisfying, and I liked how this episode showed that.    
I also liked the change of pace with Maroun being the one who was aggressive while Price wanted a plea deal. I would’ve liked a scene with Jack near the end to see what his thoughts were, Jack seemed to be on Maroun’s side and I wonder what he would’ve thought about a plea after they started losing the jury more and more.   
The investigation was good as usual, the detective work is well done and I like Cosgrove and Shaw a lot, the detective side is really solid right now, I liked their canvassing of witnesses and finding the guy at the marijuana shop which led to them cracking the case. 
I do wonder if they are setting up something with the killer who murdered Maroun’s sister, they gave some backstory on that so I wonder if that will come back in a future episode.       
Overall this was solid. 

[edhopper]

While heavy pot use can lead to psychosis in some people, it is still rare. One time pot use leading to a psychotic break is pure fiction and refer madness junk. Was the kid a heavy pot user?

[dubbel zout]

Why was Maroun so triggered by this particular case? She said the police never caught the guy who killed her sister, so the kid being white and privileged wasn't it. I get her being frustrated in general by the inequities of the legal system, but 'twas ever so. If the trigger was the anniversary of her sister's death, well, Maroun deals with terrible crimes every day. 

8 hours ago, edhopper said:

While heavy pot use can lead to psychosis in some people, it is still rare. One time pot use leading to a psychotic break is pure fiction and refer madness junk. Was the kid a heavy pot user?

Seriously. Had the pot been bought on the street and been tampered with, I'd have accepted this a bit more easily. As it was presented, it was close to ludicrous.

[storyskip]

I cannot tell a lie.

The minute she suggested Nolan could have a second career as a psychiatrist, I started looking for Mads.

[stonehaven]

I think for my sanity, I'm gonna skip the Order parts from now on. The Law part is good but the Order part had me yelling at my TV.

If I recall other episodes from Law and Order, when someone suffers a mental break or psychosis, they are portrayed as not recalling anything about the crime. The punk recalled hitting the man, throwing rocks...all of it, yet he still suffered psychosis?

Also, the misogony aimed at Maroun in the second episode. Oh you're being unreasonable against a rich white kid because you're too emotionally distraught over your sister?

Yep, women can't handle their emotions, so they gotta go after the rich white guy who causes their problems on some level. Then, she has to praise her white boss for his genius at understanding her emotions and tell him he was right all along. Grrrrr.....

..and NO plea deal would have been thought of if the perpetrator had been any other race but white and any other class but wealthy.  

Not only that, the racial and class lines should have been explored a bit more. The pizza shop owner could have been called to testify why the victim was at the the shop that night and in the midst of it tried to mention the character of the victim. It seems ridiculous that the defense can blame the victim and everyone else but the state's job is to stand UP for the victim but can't do that in this case? 

Also, they kept mentioning the ring in the videos but never brought it up again...

Sloppy, cliched writing....

[storyskip]

1 hour ago, stonehaven said:

I think for my sanity, I'm gonna skip the Order parts from now on. The Law part is good but the Order part had me yelling at my TV.

If I recall other episodes from Law and Order, when someone suffers a mental break or psychosis, they are portrayed as not recalling anything about the crime. The punk recalled hitting the man, throwing rocks...all of it, yet he still suffered psychosis?

Also, the misogony aimed at Maroun in the second episode. Oh you're being unreasonable against a rich white kid because you're too emotionally distraught over your sister?

Yep, women can't handle their emotions, so they gotta go after the rich white guy who causes their problems on some level. Then, she has to praise her white boss for his genius at understanding her emotions and tell him he was right all along. Grrrrr.....

..and NO plea deal would have been thought of if the perpetrator had been any other race but white and any other class but wealthy.  

Not only that, the racial and class lines should have been explored a bit more. The pizza shop owner could have been called to testify why the victim was at the the shop that night and in the midst of it tried to mention the character of the victim. It seems ridiculous that the defense can blame the victim and everyone else but the state's job is to stand UP for the victim but can't do that in this case? 

Also, they kept mentioning the ring in the videos but never brought it up again...

Sloppy, cliched writing....

Eh, I think there was supposed to be more nuance in it all, but since Odelya can't act her way out of a paper bag it was lost in translation.

[Madding crowd]

I think Price would have liked to charge the kid with murder but he knew it wouldn’t happen because the kid’s parents had the doctor testifying about psychosis and a slew of people testifying for him. Getting 10 years for manslaughter is better than getting set free. And Maroun was thinking about her sister and how her death happened. I don’t buy the “evil pot” story and can’t believe they are still pushing this but I didn’t see misogyny here.

[mommalib]

I guess Mauron forgot all about the promise she made to the victims daughter. So that Black man and his brutal death ended being used as a prop for Maroun to confront her sister issues.

[edhopper]

One more thing. I am not sure, but I believe not guilty based on insanity is decided by the Courts and councils,  not by a jury.

 

[Packerbrewerbadger]

I thought for sure the young man was going to commit suicide.  

[shapeshifter]

8 hours ago, Packerbrewerbadger said:

I thought for sure the young man was going to commit suicide.  

Why?

[Packerbrewerbadger]

3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Why?

Because he felt so guilty from the very beginning and his family was more worried about their status and not his feelings. Plus it’s been done on the show before. 

[CrystalBlue]

Grrr, I don't buy the demon rum made me do it, nor the reefer madness psycho-strain pot excuse.  The last I heard, while it's nice to present a motive, it's not a requirement for a conviction.  The rich white guy gets a break when a black man is brutally murdered.  The black man got locked up for selling weed but it's OK to get so high you turn into a murderer because you smoked it.  Underage on someone else's pot card at that.

The rich white guy will be out in seven.

I liked Mama Maroun.

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, Packerbrewerbadger said:

Because he felt so guilty from the very beginning and his family was more worried about their status and not his feelings. Plus it’s been done on the show before. 

Ah.  
That is a valid interpretation, just not mine.

Due to the parenting he’d received, I assumed the killer teen had not developed even the most rudimentary emotional growth necessary to be able to feel responsible for his actions.

So, I didn’t consider he would be suicidal with with guilt or remorse.  
And they made a point about how he wasn’t even planning to go to college the next year——so no remorse about that either.

So I assumed those were crocodile tears for the jury’s benefit, and that he’d been coached to cry——as he said all his responses had been coached.

Mostly I assumed the director was going for ripped-from-the-headlines crying, with the actor conveying that the character’s crying was more performative than heartfelt.

But that’s probably because I live near where that headline case occurred, and the real life killer crying in court was on the news constantly here. 
 
 
 

 

Something that seemed off to me:   
Maroun was a little too happy at the end. 
Hopefully they’re not going to give her a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

[dubbel zout]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

And they made a point about how he wasn’t even planning to go to college the next year——so no remorse about that either.

He was taking a gap year, something a lot of affluent kids do. I don't see why he should have any remorse about this. If anything, it shows he knows he's not ready for college. It was eye-rolling he was going to help the starving children of Kenya (my paraphrase), but at least it was something constructive.

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

So I assumed those were crocodile tears for the jury’s benefit, and that he’d been coached to cry——as he said all his responses had been coached.

And he cried only after he changed his plea.

I miss the pretrial meetings of when the prosecution offers a plea bargain and the defense scoffs and throws a motion at the ADAs for something they hadn't anticipated.

[Xeliou66]

I’ll add in a couple of other thoughts - I agree that the whole “pot made him kill” defense was weird and it would’ve been a more interesting twist if someone had spiked the drug and it caused a strong reaction. But I think what I liked about this episode was there was no last minute rabbit pulled out of the hat for the DA’s to win which is what I was expecting. And another thing is is I really miss Skoda/Olivet, we really need a new recurring psych expert introduced for these types of cases. I know Price/Maroun talked to a shrink in this one, I would just really like more recurring characters. And I still have a feeling that the guy who killed Maroun’s sister is going to come into the picture at some point, I don’t really want that as it would mean a lot of personal drama but I felt like it was being foreshadowed.

[Joimiaroxeu]

That is indeed ironic, to come out of prison for selling marijuana and end up murdered across the street from a legal weed shop.

Of course the suspected perp started running through a crowded area.

Wait, "cannabis intoxication"? Is that really a thing? I thought one of the selling points of cannabis is that it didn't agitate you, it simply chilled you out. THC turning someone violently psychotic is scary to me. Oy, not even once.

Price just had to be spoiled baby. If the prosecution didn't win the case he'd get to say, "Told ya."

Shouldn't Maroun have recused herself once she realized she had a deeply personal issue clouding her judgment in this particular case?

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The rich white guy will be out in seven.

Yeah, seven months. Clearly he's a living saint and shouldn't be languishing in prison while there's so much good he could be doing out in the world. /s

[CrystalBlue]

ITA WTF Ms. Maroun.  That goofy smile at the end.

ITA a psych expert was not only needed but should have been required.  A jury is not equipped to determine the unknown and unproven effects of every type of cannabis product.  Juries have to be educated about certain things, like blood splatter experts and testimony from experts in a given field.

[mythoughtis]

Having binge watched some  repeat SVU episodes  earlier today, it was refreshing to watch Law and Order and see the Law portion end at the half hour rather than insert themselves into helping try the case.

 

. 

Edited January 15, 2023 by mythoughtis

[Cotypubby]

On 1/14/2023 at 3:31 PM, shapeshifter said:

Due to the parenting he’d received, I assumed the killer teen had not developed even the most rudimentary emotional growth necessary to be able to feel responsible for his actions.

But that wasn’t what we actually saw. Every time the kid was shown on screen or in the background he looked distraught and upset.

I’m glad they didn’t find some 11th hour alternative motive for the killing to make the kid into the evil monster Maroun wanted him to be and realized getting a plea was the right thing to do. I also did not see any misogyny (🙄) here. Maroun was taking the case way too personally from the beginning and once they showed her crying by the flowers it was obvious she was relating this case to her sister instead of actually looking at the evidence.

[Ailianna]

On 1/13/2023 at 4:49 PM, edhopper said:

One more thing. I am not sure, but I believe not guilty based on insanity is decided by the Courts and councils,  not by a jury.

 

Actually, for good or ill, fair or not, juries do decide if a defense of extreme emotional disturbance, not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, et al.

A determination of whether a defendant is currently capable of assisting in his own defense/understanding the charges against him is fine by a judge after evaluation by at least two psych experts. If everyone agrees he is incompetent it's pretty straightforward. If it is contested, there is a hearing and the judge decides.

Two very different procedures.

[blackwing]

Like others, I found the ending unsatisfying.  How does Maroun go from "he killed a man, he should rot for more than 10 years" to smiling and saying she got a good result?  

I also had thought there would be a conviction for Murder 2.  The kid was textbook "spoiled rich white prep school kid whose parents can buy his freedom", and I really thought show was going to get him.  I thought he didn't seem remorseful at all and that his tears and apologies were part of his parents/lawyer's strategy.  If he was so scared that the victim was going to attack him, why didn't he stop after hitting him once?  Why the repeated blows and kicks?

Above all, if he was so remorseful about killing a man, why didn't they call the cops immediately?  If he was so sure that he didn't mean it and he wasn't in his right state of mind, why couldn't he just admit it?  Instead, he apparently didn't even tell his parents, and was hoping no one would find him.

I find it particularly unsatisfying that I don't think justice was served here.  Assuming he pled to Murder 2 for 10 years (we don't even know if it was 10, that's just what Price said, it seems possible that the lawyer would have argued for less), he will probably get out for good behaviour as soon as possible.

Do old cases ever get revisited or mentioned again in the L&O world?  Almost never, right?  I want to hear what the rich family is going to do for the victim's family.  I hope the victim's family sues them in civil court for wrongful death and takes millions from them.

Also, why wasn't the cannabis shop charged with the equivalent of dram shop liability?  The worker there knew the accused, said he had seen him and that the kid wanted to try weed but was underage.   So when the kid came in with his friend who had a card, shouldn't it have been inferred that the kid was going to get some from his friend?  Why isn't the friend being charged with anything?  I would think both the shop owner and the friend could have been charged with accessory to murder.  They provided the weed that caused the supposed psychotic break.

 

On 1/13/2023 at 11:45 AM, stonehaven said:

If I recall other episodes from Law and Order, when someone suffers a mental break or psychosis, they are portrayed as not recalling anything about the crime. The punk recalled hitting the man, throwing rocks...all of it, yet he still suffered psychosis?

That didn't make sense to me either.  Psychosis because of pot?  Even if the pot he ingested was the 80 or 90% THC that was mentioned as being possible, I would have thought it would have just made him more chill and relaxed.  It doesn't seem correct to me that it would have turned him into some kind of raging destructive lunatic.

On 1/14/2023 at 4:14 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

Shouldn't Maroun have recused herself once she realized she had a deeply personal issue clouding her judgment in this particular case?

The show didn't exactly explain what the connection was.  Her sister was killed.  Price suggested that the sister was killed by a young white guy who looked like the accused and that's why she was so hellbent on convicting the accused, and she glared at him.  Was she saying it wasn't a young white guy, or that it wasn't the reason?  If it's just the fact that her sister was murdered, then she shouldn't be trying any murder cases in the future.

[Samsnee]

Something still feels off about this reboot. 
 

First, everything is too shiny and brightly lit. I miss the dark and grainy feel of the original. 
 

And while I’ve warmed to the Law side (even though I miss the Van Buren so much), the Order side needs work. Price and Maroun are no Roache and Rubirosa. Dancy’s accent is horrible. And Halevi just doesn’t seem to have any gravitas. 

[Jaded]

50 minutes ago, Samsnee said:

Something still feels off about this reboot. 
 

First, everything is too shiny and brightly lit. I miss the dark and grainy feel of the original. 
 

And while I’ve warmed to the Law side (even though I miss the Van Buren so much), the Order side needs work. Price and Maroun are no Roache and Rubirosa. Dancy’s accent is horrible. And Halevi just doesn’t seem to have any gravitas. 

I haven't really watched any episodes past the first few from last season because I wasn't feeling the Order side either. The lighting was something I noticed too especially in certain areas of the Order sets.

[KeithJ]

I thought the questioning on the stand could have gone a little different.

When Maroun was questioning the kid she asked what he did and the kid said "I hit him".  She just left it at that and went on to another question.  She should have asked "What did you do after you hit him?".  He'd say something to the effect of "I ran away" but she could have said "no, you hit him again".  She could have repeated the question again and said "you hit him again and again and again and then you kicked him again and again and again."

 

On 1/13/2023 at 6:52 AM, dubbel zout said:

Why was Maroun so triggered by this particular case? She said the police never caught the guy who killed her sister, so the kid being white and privileged wasn't it. I get her being frustrated in general by the inequities of the legal system, but 'twas ever so. If the trigger was the anniversary of her sister's death, well, Maroun deals with terrible crimes every day.

Actually no, she said they never arrested the killer.  I got the impression that everyone knows who the killer is and that there just isn't any evidence proving it.

On 1/17/2023 at 1:38 PM, blackwing said:

Like others, I found the ending unsatisfying.  How does Maroun go from "he killed a man, he should rot for more than 10 years" to smiling and saying she got a good result?

I think the conversation with her mother swayed her.

[ML89]

On 1/14/2023 at 4:51 PM, Xeliou66 said:

And another thing is is I really miss Skoda/Olivet, we really need a new recurring psych expert introduced for these types of cases.

For one thing, Skoda sure as hell wouldn’t have bought that reefer madness nonsense for a New York minute.

What an infuriating ending. I usually can’t stand either one of them but I really wanted Maroun to tell Price off. Yes, it’s nice the guy will still get ten years but the way Price was excusing the whole thing because they couldn’t come up with a motive. Y’know, sometimes people do bad things works and wasn’t it convenient he came up with his insanity defense the second the medical examiner cut the legs out from under their case.