S24.E18: Bubble Wrap

[WendyCR72]

Airing April 6, 2023:

Quote

A construction tycoon interferes with an SVU investigation into her family. Carisi struggles to get an indictment when the complainant backs down.

 

[Iguessnot]

The freaks come out at night.

[Iguessnot]

Also, when Muncy was telling Churlish about her brother's bad choice in women, I foresaw Churlish being his girlfriend. She was tired from a long night. 

I had no clue that was her son. Their whole dynamic with the counselor was freaky and the age difference was obvious. When she went upstairs to christen the apartment with the other dude, I, was surprised she was openly doing that in front of her "husband". I thought his visits with the designer were payback for his wife's indiscretions. When he ran to her crying mommy after the rape, I thought they were still doing some kind of freakish role play. 

Did I miss something in the beginning that clearly stated they were mother and son?

[wknt3]

The Good:
Fin and Carisi are back. Which means the writers are allowed to actually to show us detectives acting like cops instead of teenagers.
Speaking of which it looks like they are finally dropping the Mean Girls plot.
An interesting concept. Nothing new, but it's nice that seem to be striving for a variety of crimes and variations on classic SVU stories this season.
A reluctant victim who wasn't saved or converted by Benson.

The Bad:
The opener. Not only was it melodrama that basically showed us the whole crime there was just too much soapy nonsense and it was poorly paced. It felt about as long as the entire mothership episode before it.
Another episode that felt like the Baer years before it went completely OTT off the rails, but without the budget or comedic talent to pull it off.
I'm not sure if it was the direction or a rare misfire by the casting department, but the acting felt off throughout the episode. Eveyone was chewing scenery and overplaying without any sort of wink to the viewers to let us know it was deliberate.
Speaking of a lack of self awareness, did they really have Benson lecturing someone about narcissism and putting themself first while thinking they were taking care of others?
The cast carousel continues. It's nice that we have more than 3 detectives, but it feels like they are refusing to actually settle on who is main and who is recurring despite the opening credits. They need to either fish or cut bait and decide on a direction. And while I love the idea of bringing back recurring characters, I want something beyond cops. Psych experts, MEs, CSU, other POVs and dynamics would really be breath of fresh air.

Overall this was another dud. A decent idea, but poorly executed. And both the idea and execution where not as good as the last couple episodes. On the bright side they do seem to be dropping the intra-squad drama and moving on. It still feels like they are floundering with no real direction or reason to keep going.

[Kleav]

38 minutes ago, Iguessnot said:

Did I miss something in the beginning that clearly stated they were mother and son?

I think it was intentional misdirection, to make it that much creepier when we realized the truth. Ick. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

The rape at the beginning of the episode was obviously SVU, but murdering the victim - why did this all stay with SVU?  Does that make sense in real life?

The father was so bad too , just leaving his son with the mother like that.  "A dysfunctional mother is better than no mother"?  He wouldn't have had no mother, his nanny would have been his stepmother.  Makes no sense.  How selfish.  The nanny is this wonderful angel who rescues the husband, but NOT the child?  Please!

Like I've been saying for 3-4 weeks this show is going full crazy this season.  I am not exactly complaining but it's very odd.  This episode was just one big showcase for Olivia to judge the mother.  She SHOULD be judged, but it doesn't exactly seem like the right place or person.  Also, the rapist son should be judged too, like Carisi pointed out.  He's 32!

Olivia telling Muncy to put her jacket away also struck me as very weird.

Edited April 7, 2023 by Ms Blue Jay

[Xeliou66]

Pretty boring and mediocre episode - I really dislike openings where we see everything take place and know exactly what happened, and we got just that in this one, with a lot of soapy crap as well.

The whole mother/son plot was just weird, were they having sex or was it just emotional incest? I did like having a female as the big bad villain, which rarely happens now.

The twist of the mom having the victim killed could’ve been pulled off a lot better, but a lot of it just left me scratching my head. So the mom was deliberately poisoning the son? The episode seemed to go in circles without a lot of clarity or resolution for much of the time. 

It was nice to see Carisi back and in charge of the legal side, he was good throughout and is frequently the best part of the show. Nice to see Fin back as well, although he didn’t have enough to do. I missed Bruno, glad he’ll be back in the next episode it appears. Churlish and Muncy were professionals which was good, still not big on either, particularly Muncy, but maybe they’ll be written better going forward. 

It was nice to see an ME again, we don’t have that often in modern day SVU.

Overall this was pretty dull and could’ve been executed a lot better than it was. Not a bad idea for a plot but the execution was lacking. I’m worried that the trashing of the DA’s office will return in the next episode with Maxwell’s husband apparently being a suspect, I really hope they don’t smear the DA’s office or forget who the head DA is.

I wish the show would improve but they are kind of stuck in mediocrity now. They could make it a lot better by not showing us everything up front, thus giving us more detective work, and by fleshing out the plot more. At least there was no intersquad drama in this one. Hopefully Churlish and Muncy become more likable. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

OH yeah the cute line this time was Carisi saying "A real cocaine and Abel story."  And was it Fin who asked if Carisi was "this grumpy as a detective"?  Wasn't Fin there?  Or maybe that's part of the "humour".

Edited April 7, 2023 by Ms Blue Jay

[cuppasun]

Okay, was it just me that thought within the first few minutes of the ep (or, truthfully, a week earlier when the promo aired) "well look, it's SVU's take on Norman Bates and Mother!"?

Or had reinforced that Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore did it so much better, both creepier and with more pathos, on Bates Motel?

And is L&O in an alternate universe where Psycho and its spinoffs (book, movies, tv, etc) never happened? No one makes a Norman/Mother crack?

[Ms Blue Jay]

1 hour ago, cuppasun said:

Or had reinforced that Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore did it so much better, both creepier and with more pathos, on Bates Motel?

Funny you say that because when the episode started, I knew for certain the guest star on this episode was some child actor I was familiar with.  I was frantically googling Jurassic Park, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory etc. but I couldn't come up with it.

IMDB informed me it's Joseph Cross from the movie "Jack Frost".

[tennisgurl]

This is definitely one of the episodes that leaned really hard on the crazy. It reminded me of some of the really twisted ones we used to get, even if it was unfortunately not as good. It felt really off a lot of the times, like a lot of recent episodes its a good idea but the execution as not the best. It was all very Norman Bates and yeah it was all kinds of fucked up but it felt like they had a good idea then ruined it in rewrites. The opening with the mother and son seeming to be in couples therapy was a great fucked up moment, as was them storming into the house only to see the mom in bed with him, even Olivia needed a second after that one. 

Great to have Finn and Carisi back again, they brought in some much needed snark, like Finn saying that assuming someone with an Italian name is involved with the mob isn't offensive because Carisi said it.

It was great to see Michelle Gomez here, she really blames melodrama well, and the actors were certainly going for the creepy dysfunctional vibes, bordering on camp. Olivia was in full lecture mode, and while the mother certainly deserved a LOT of judgement, it got old fast watching Olivia just dripping with her own self importance. She also seemed to lump basically all the blame on the mother, and while the son was certainly abused and messed up because of it, he did still rape someone, and while the dad was right to leave his deranged wife, leaving his son behind was messed up. He knew what his wife was like and how she treated their son, he should have at least tried to get custody. He was clearly not safe with her and if he took him he would have had a dad and a step mom. The whole family is just a hot mess. 

So why exactly was the mom poisoning her son? She wanted him weak and under her control? Kind of a big thing to sweep under the rug by the end. 

Churlish and Muncy were a tiny bit more likable at least.

[lavenderblue]

I feel like the writing this season -- the actual dialogue writing, not just the plotting -- has been incredibly strange, like people are auditioning first drafts of off-Broadway plays with some of these scenes. Everything feels off and just slightly more unnatural than even is the norm for this show. The therapy scene was particularly bad for this, but this kind of overwriting has been an issue with some of the suspect/witness scenes throughout the year.

But the details in this episode were also just weird. The dad left 20 years earlier with the nanny (the son was 12 then and is 32 now), but they have a new baby? It's not impossible, but it was such a strange detail versus them having an older kid that it made me think a lot more than such a throwaway reference should have. Along with, as mentioned by @Ms Blue Jay above, Fin's "Was Carisi this cranky when he was a detective?" It might've been a quip, but a clearer line would've been "I don't remember Carisi being this cranky..." because as it stood, Ice-T genuinely delivered it like he didn't know, which makes no sense, Olivia's reply could've been humorous and equally could've been her providing information, and I had to wonder if the writers somehow forgot that they very obviously worked together. 

Also, I laughed at the dad being like "Oh yeah, I left because she tried to kill me in this explicit way that corroborates your investigation."

Edited April 9, 2023 by lavenderblue

[txhorns79]

20 hours ago, lavenderblue said:

The dad left 20 years earlier with the nanny (the son was 12 then and is 32 now), but they have a new baby? It's not impossible, but it was such a strange detail versus them having an older kid that it made me think a lot more than such a throwaway reference should have.

Not to mention the nanny looked young, like perhaps too young for someone who was supposed to be out of high school 20 years ago.  It's just hard to get past the father thinking it's better to leave his kid with a mom who is straddling the line of incest, than to take him with him when he leaves. 

 

[love2lovebadtv]

On 4/6/2023 at 10:29 PM, Iguessnot said:

Also, when Muncy was telling Churlish about her brother's bad choice in women, I foresaw Churlish being his girlfriend. She was tired from a long night. 

I had no clue that was her son. Their whole dynamic with the counselor was freaky and the age difference was obvious. When she went upstairs to christen the apartment with the other dude, I, was surprised she was openly doing that in front of her "husband". I thought his visits with the designer were payback for his wife's indiscretions. When he ran to her crying mommy after the rape, I thought they were still doing some kind of freakish role play. 

Did I miss something in the beginning that clearly stated they were mother and son?

It wasn't clearly stated, no. It was meant to make you second guess. They seem like a couple - older wife, younger husband, in couples therapy. Then you get the impression that it's a marriage of convenience because the wife (mother) doesn't hide her sexual activities from her husband (son). It's not until after the son rapes Mona that the mother-son relationship is confirmed. 

2 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

Not to mention the nanny looked young, like perhaps too young for someone who was supposed to be out of high school 20 years ago.  It's just hard to get past the father thinking it's better to leave his kid with a mom whose straddling the line of incest, than to take him with him when he leaves. 

 

I was annoyed when the father said he didn't want his son to go into foster care. No one would have put his son in foster care because he cheated. If the mother went to jail for child abuse and incest, he would have custody of his son unless there were other issues. As far as we saw, there weren't any. 

And that nanny looking younger than the child she supposedly looked after had me cracking up!

[853fisher]

I remembered the actor playing the son from "Home" back in season 5.  In that one, his paranoid and overprotective mother convinces him to murder his younger brother who is not toeing the line, to "save him" from this world.  Maybe if he comes back again in another 20 years, they'll give him a functional mom!

Michelle Gomez was another unexpected pleasure, although I thought her American accent went in and out like the tide.  Appreciate pronounced "appree-see-ate" really stood out, but it was far from the only example I could give.  Her performance was definitely a bit over the top but I thought it worked.

Edited April 11, 2023 by 853fisher

[ScorpioSoul]

Anybody else think it was kind of weird the way they just randomly started playing part of "I got you babe". Strange and not very SVU like. I don't think I remember them ever playing a song like that.

[WendyCR72]

15 minutes ago, ScorpioSoul said:

Anybody else think it was kind of weird the way they just randomly started playing part of "I got you babe". Strange and not very SVU like. I don't think I remember them ever playing a song like that.

It is rare for the franchise to use popular music, but I know Criminal Intent did use "Spirit in the Sky" and "Under Pressure" for a couple of episode openings, so it has happened before in the franchise.

[Fellaway]

They memorably used "Daydream Believer" in one of the Yates episodes.

[Hedgehog2022]

Just heard that Kelly Giddesh will be returning to SVU! Thank God! The replacements they have this season are awful...and one of them has been MIA for several episodes. I still don't get why she was fired in the first place...Muncy is so totally wrong for SVU. Remember when Liv told her to purchase a blazer and look more professional? That lasted for two episodes...now she's back to dressing like a high school student with the tank tops and hoodies. 

[Xeliou66]

6 minutes ago, Hedgehog2022 said:

Just heard that Kelly Giddesh will be returning to SVU! Thank God! The replacements they have this season are awful...and one of them has been MIA for several episodes. I still don't get why she was fired in the first place...Muncy is so totally wrong for SVU. Remember when Liv told her to purchase a blazer and look more professional? That lasted for two episodes...now she's back to dressing like a high school student with the tank tops and hoodies. 

Giddish is only returning to SVU in a guest role in the season finale, she isn’t returning full time. I’ve never been a Rollins fan but I would take Rollins over Muncy any day, Muncy has truly been a terrible addition. 

[DaynaPhile]

I thought the actor who played the son was on svu a very long time ago and had killed/raped a girl as a 12 year old or something? Real sociopath kid because at the end he screamed that he liked doing it. 
 

episode was meh. Case was creepy especially as a mom who has raised 4 sons. 😳

 

I don’t mind Muncy. Churlish grates on me though. 

[Hedgehog2022]

6 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Giddish is only returning to SVU in a guest role in the season finale, she isn’t returning full time. I’ve never been a Rollins fan but I would take Rollins over Muncy any day, Muncy has truly been a terrible addition. 

Awww...that sucks. The way the press release went out it made it sound like she is coming back next season.

[wknt3]

18 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Giddish is only returning to SVU in a guest role in the season finale, she isn’t returning full time. I’ve never been a Rollins fan but I would take Rollins over Muncy any day, Muncy has truly been a terrible addition. 

 

12 hours ago, Hedgehog2022 said:

Awww...that sucks. The way the press release went out it made it sound like she is coming back next season.

It's more likely Carisi goes off to join her in academia then she returns. While the numbers are still better than the alternatives the overall viewership is stagnant or slowly declining and they've pretty much maxed out the revenue NBC/Peacock can get from first run. And as long as Dick Wolf insists on not putting any of his money up front and Mariska keeps her share they simply can't keep too many veterans after their initial contracts are up - and given the size of the current cast and Ice T being almost emeritus status they can't even do too much of the "X is in court/on a case out of town" musical chairs thing these days.

Or to paraphrase one of the great American poets - "'Dick Wolf says 'These jobs are going, boys. And they ain't coming back.' To your old show.'"

[SummerDreams]

So the father left 20 years ago with the nanny who is now what? not even 40 years old and they only had a kid together in the last 4-5 years? The nanny should be older. Also, the father never cared to check how his son's life has been the last 20 years and at least warn him that his mother was this evil person back then?

It makes zero sense 😕

[webruce]

I didn't know at first if the couple in therapy was husband and wife, or what. It wasn't then stated, and maybe they wanted you guessing? It seemed like hubby(son), was kinda skitso and wife(mom),more prudish and strait laced. I figured also with her going upstairs in the new apartment building to do the wild thing with Eugene, that Martin was the cuckold hubby who wasn't performing well. Then as stated before he went off with Mona Stewart as pay backs. Then he came home to a house that was wrapped up for the off season it seemed, to Sonny and Cher playing, Connie making dinner in her apron. So that seemed like 1960s, Dad coming home after a hard days work, to dinner ready and wifey maybe not happy, but ready to take care of his needs. I guess she tried to keep some family tradition going. 

Then ofcourse we see them in bed the next day, cuddling. Weirder still. 

Couldn't they look into the financials to see the payoffs of Mona and Stanton Garber? Also interview the Psychologist Esther Pazargoti(IMDB).  If they did have to dig deeper for evidence, they would have to. How did Mona die? I thought with her drinking Champagne, as Muncy and Churlish left, that maybe she comnited suicide? Or was thrown(jumped) off her balcony after the girls gave her the hard truth. After last episodes"lime Chaser" kinda pointed to the rape weapon, I thought maybe someone would be found suffocated in bubble wrap. Or if Martin did it, he took her out with his inhaler. 

Mom was poisoning Martin with his inhaller I guess and the coke mix. To keep Jr. Anemic. 

Dad Peter, kinda told what he did was wrong, but he was scared at the time, and probably after leaving with the Nanny, Bianca, was penniless. So he might have figured he was powerless to help Martin. I didn't really think about how young the Nanny(step-mom) was,  but I did think Martin might flirt like he did at first with Mona.

Yes, both Connie and Martin have to pay for what they did. Henry Caputo also for the coke.  

I did like Carisi's cocaine and able quip. Also the mob question and Finns reply. But I to was confused on Finns question or statement about grumpy Carisi. I to thought, " but you were there!?" 

Edited September 28, 2023 by webruce
Added thought.