S24.E19: Bend The Law

[WendyCR72]

Airing April 27, 2023:

Quote

Carisi must tread carefully when Maxwell’s husband becomes a person of interest in an SVU investigation. Benson sends Velasco to take an old friend into custody.

 

[Xeliou66]

This could be interesting, or it could be awful. I hope they don’t return to the trashing of the DA’s office like they did when Warren was showrunner up until the return of the Mothership, those stories were beyond awful. I hope they don’t throw Lorraine Maxwell under the bus and make her the latest character who’s vilified for not being a Benson bot - while I haven’t liked all of the cases Maxwell has been involved in, I do like the character and how she isn’t intimidated by Benson but isn’t a villain either, so I hope they don’t make her one - we all know this show has a terrible record of shitting on characters for shock value, and characters who don’t bow to Benson’s every wish are rare. Hopefully Maxwell isn’t the latest SVU character thrown under the bus.

I hope this is the end of the Velasco subplot, that was a dumb subplot.

It appears Bruno will be in this episode, I look forward to seeing him again.

[SunnyBeBe]

Oh brother. I think I know what’s going to transpire soon.  And it isn’t good.  Well, maybe not so bad.  …………………….

I knew it!  

Edited April 28, 2023 by SunnyBeBe

[wknt3]

The Good:
They managed to do a halfway decent job of depicting the crime in the opener. Pacing was decent and it lacked most of the usual sound mixing issues or overbearing music cues. It actually left a feeling that there could be something more to it without coming out of left field.
Carisi. It was nice to see him appropriately front and center and not taking orders from Benson.
Bruno. It's nice to see a cop who actually acts like a cop with the personal stories in the background.
Speaking of professionalism it was nice to see them writing Muncy as something other than a clueless newbie who has never watched a decent police procedural much less been a cop.

The Bad:
No Fin. Bruno is a competent professional with an air of slightly bemused detachment, but this case really could have used some of Fin's snark about rich people and the political aspects of the system.
The whole Velasco tracking down his old friend plot. And Benson treating it as something he had to do to prove himself and earn some sort of redemption. There should be a mothership crossover where they teach SVU how to run an effective investigation and SVU shows them how to recognize an actual female cult leader who is not a front for some man behind the curtain. It took time away from what could have actually been a nuanced story focused on the complexities and moral ambiguities.
They did give us the anvil drop musical cues and cheesy editing during the whole Oprah moment between Liv and Maxwell. Given her age and position to suggest she needs Benson to reassure her about her personal choices and how to navigate life as a powerful woman is beyond ridiculous.
The barroom scene. All of the actors did a pretty good job, but you can only polish a turd so much. Even in this dumpster fire of a plot this was a particularly leaden piece of scripting and shot with all the grace and subtlety of an elephant on ice skates.
The ending. What a hypocritical bitch Benson is. And it's not like there was even any sort of self-awareness demonstrated about what Benson demands of others versus how she is perfectly fine letting others get away with murder because of their situation in life. i mean at least Carisi seemed to actually be aware of everything and appropriately upset but knowing he can't say what everyone was thinking out loud.

Overall this was yet another meh episode. Not nearly the trainwreck it could have been, but also yet another waste of a good premise. And ending with Benson as judge, jury, lord and savior. The only glimmer of hope is that it appears they have realized that they need to start building up the new cast members. I mean I'm sorry Mariska doesn't like having younger attractive women she doesn't like around and that they keep jerking them around on the budget, but don't punish the viewers.

[psychfan]

33 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

The ending. What a hypocritical bitch Benson is. And it's not like there was even any sort of self-awareness demonstrated about what Benson demands of others versus how she is perfectly fine letting others get away with murder because of their situation in life. i mean at least Carisi seemed to actually be aware of everything and appropriately upset but knowing he can't say what everyone was thinking out loud.

I was trying to figure out if that was deliberate, because it seemed far too obvious not to be. It seemed impossible that the juxtaposition of sending Velasco on a road trip to bring his friend to justice because she heard this story and suddenly that was the primary responsibility in his life, to not let his friend get away with those long ago murders (which no, didn't start in this episode, but still was a big part of it), and then that ending  - how could that not be deliberate? But a deliberate decision to show her as that raging hypocrite doesn't really seem like this show.

I'm also not sure how much of a murderer Maxwell actually is supposed to be. At first, I was worried for her, because I thought he was trying to kill her by having put poison in the decanter she then had a drink from. After all, if he somehow got out of this he's better off if she's dead. And it even looked, when she stopped as she was walking away, like she'd been poisoned. I expected her to keel over. But then he choked, and I wondered if somehow she had switched their glasses. But then, when she watched him without moving, and then even more with that 911 call, I wondered if somehow she'd actually gotten him to choke somehow, although I can't figure out how that would have happened. It wouldn't have been just poisoning because the autopsy would have shown that. So I have no idea really what to think. Actual murderer? Just let him die but lied about it in such an obvious way? Something else?

[Diana Berry]

14 minutes ago, psychfan said:

I was trying to figure out if that was deliberate, because it seemed far too obvious not to be. It seemed impossible that the juxtaposition of sending Velasco on a road trip to bring his friend to justice because she heard this story and suddenly that was the primary responsibility in his life, to not let his friend get away with those long ago murders (which no, didn't start in this episode, but still was a big part of it), and then that ending  - how could that not be deliberate? But a deliberate decision to show her as that raging hypocrite doesn't really seem like this show.

I'm also not sure how much of a murderer Maxwell actually is supposed to be. At first, I was worried for her, because I thought he was trying to kill her by having put poison in the decanter she then had a drink from. After all, if he somehow got out of this he's better off if she's dead. And it even looked, when she stopped as she was walking away, like she'd been poisoned. I expected her to keel over. But then he choked, and I wondered if somehow she had switched their glasses. But then, when she watched him without moving, and then even more with that 911 call, I wondered if somehow she'd actually gotten him to choke somehow, although I can't figure out how that would have happened. It wouldn't have been just poisoning because the autopsy would have shown that. So I have no idea really what to think. Actual murderer? Just let him die but lied about it in such an obvious way? Something else?

Yea I thought he was poisoning her and somehow the plates were switched.  Then rewound and saw he was choking.  Very weird regardless.

[Xeliou66]

Yeah this episode wasn’t very good - I missed the first 15 minutes or so because of a fucking bad weather alert interrupting the programming, but the whole thing was oddly paced and seemed to have too much crammed into it - I hated the Velasco subplot from the start I’m just glad that it’s apparently over, and the stuff with Maxwell and her husband wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been but this featured Benson at her worst - she’s a sanctimonious, self righteous twat who has no self awareness and condemns others while acting like the arbiter of everything right and wrong. The actors did the best they could with lousy material but this show is running on fumes.

Carisi was good, I wish he had been the one to share more scenes with Maxwell and talk to her at the end instead of St Olivia, Maxwell is his immediate boss and it would’ve been better to see him deal with the situation more, but no St Olivia does it all. And I don’t think one mention was made of Jack McCoy, which was absurd, he would have a very close eye on this case given a high ranking member of his office was involved - this would’ve been a perfect opportunity for him to make a cameo or at least mention that Carisi was reporting directly to him for this case. 

I thought Roger was going to try to poison Lorraine, then I thought he was faking the choking so he could lure her to him and stab her. I would’ve been afraid to approach him if I were Lorraine, given that he was a massive piece of crap who was drunk and threatening her when the choking started. What a piece of crap Roger was. I don’t think it makes Maxwell a murderer not to help him, she had reason to be afraid of him. It would’ve been more interesting though if Roger had faked the choking and tried to stab Lorraine, and Lorraine killed him in self defense. As it was, it was just very weird and out of left field.

I loved seeing Bruno again but he should’ve been used more, but I missed Fin. Muncy wasn’t irritating which was good.

Overall this wasn’t as awful as it could’ve been, but it was still pretty weak and clunky, the Velasco plot was useless crap from the start of it several episodes ago to the finish, and the Maxwell story turned into another St Olivia fest and just played out very oddly, and Carisi and Bruno didn’t get enough to do.

This show hasn’t had really had much good stuff this season and the writers seem to be out of ideas and I’m so sick of St Olivia and her self righteous attitude. 

[weaver]

Waste of good acting talent.   Always like seeing Betty Buckley.   Plots are getting more and more preposterous.  

[illdoc]

The "taped confession"??? Of zero use. As Olivia said, it's illegal to tape it in Maine (2-party consent state, I guess), so it doesn't matter that "He confessed to a murder in California (which I assume is a 1-party consent state, meaning you can tape a conversation without informing the other person)" the tape is illegal (where it was taped) and can't be used anywhere! At best, Velasco can testify "he told me about murdering someone", but the tape cannot be used.

[slowpoked]

So which is it? Did Lorraine do something to cause Roger to choke? Or did he really just accidentally choke on his food, and her "crime" was that she didn't help him and let him die instead?

I also thought Lorraine is going to be the one to die, because it was kind of ominous when Roger said "Let's have one last meal together." But it seems everything is on the up and up. When she refused to eat the food, Lorraine asked for a drink instead. Roger poured her one, from what looks like the same decanter he had his drink from. Lorraine took the glass and took a sip. She just didn't help him immediately when she could have had. 

[pezgirl7]

1 hour ago, slowpoked said:

So which is it? Did Lorraine do something to cause Roger to choke? Or did he really just accidentally choke on his food, and her "crime" was that she didn't help him and let him die instead?

My take was that he accidentally choked, and she didn't help, which I thought made her look really heartless. Her husband might have been a creep and guilty of the crimes he was accused of, but he didn't deserve to die. And then she told Olivia that she still loved him. I didn't really understand the point of her meeting with Olivia. It just made her seem sketchy, even though we know she didn't cause him to choke. Also, if she was trying to seem not guilty, maybe she should have tried to sound a little more frantic on the phone call to 911.

[Andyourlittledog2]

Honestly, considering his immediate threat to her, and considering her age and apparent lack of strength (every move she made was deliberate and careful, as a person of a certain age who isn't as strong and sure of foot would be), I don't think Lorraine had the ability to help him directly anyway. I mean if she was super determined she could have tried, but I don't think she would have been able to have the strength or agility to manage being of much help. I think her guilt lay in not wanting to do it. She saw he would die, and knew he would die, and knew in her heart no matter if she could help or not, she would choose to let it happen. So I don't know legally what they would charge her with under these circumstances. She has pretty good physical reasons for hesitating. Now, she lied about finding him dead and admitted to Benson that she actually saw him choking so that's a problem in the narrative she told, which suggests guilt. But I don't think Benson is doing something wrong to let it go under the circumstances but I also think Benson looks at her much differently now.

It would have been much much better if Carisi had taken that role, but Hargitay would never let anyone else take center.

The Velasco plotline has been an incredibly boring slog. I hope it's over over and not just over for now. I literally could not care less about him.

[tennisgurl]

This episode had good bones, but it was utterly clogged down in St. Olivia worship. I was interested in seeing more of Maxwell and her life, but unfortunately this episode was just a lot of meh. The actors were certainly trying, but the script itself was too boring and half baked for them to really make it work. I guess I should be happy that Maxwell wasn't dragged through the dirt too badly for the crime of not always bowing to St. Olivia, even if we are supposed to think she killed her husband, which seems like a real grey area. His death was so weird, I thought at first that he had poisoned her or that she had poisoned him, but it turned out that he just conveniently chocked on some random chicken or something. What a weird way to end this story. 

Olivia was just filled to the brim with self importance, especially when she was lecturing Velasco on how the only way he can ever move on from his supposedly horrible crimes is by finding someone he hasn't seen in decades while giving endless lectures, not taking into account any extenuating circumstances. Then she was sitting there lecturing Maxwell on how to be a strong woman, which given her age, career, and past, is utterly ridiculous. She even got that horrible "it’s not your fault" voice out, which will never stop sounding condescending. 

I'm so glad that the Velasco's stupid plot is finally over, I truly could not care less. At least Bruno was around being an actually competent adult, and even Muncy was alright, probably because she was hardly around. Carisi also had a good episode, which I am always happy to see, even if we didn't really end up seeing him on his game all that much. 

Did anyone else find it pretty fucked up that Olivia assumed that the guy who got shot with a skeet gun must have done something to deserve it? Sure, we know that he's a sleazball, but Olivia didn't know that. She didn't even know about the underaged girls yet. 

Edited April 29, 2023 by tennisgurl

[Route66]

21 hours ago, illdoc said:

The "taped confession"??? Of zero use. As Olivia said, it's illegal to tape it in Maine (2-party consent state, I guess), so it doesn't matter that "He confessed to a murder in California (which I assume is a 1-party consent state, meaning you can tape a conversation without informing the other person)" the tape is illegal (where it was taped) and can't be used anywhere! At best, Velasco can testify "he told me about murdering someone", but the tape cannot be used.

It's not. Maine is one party consent. It's just unfortunate that SVU writers don't have access to Google where they could check that. 

On 4/28/2023 at 1:35 AM, Xeliou66 said:

I wish he had been the one to share more scenes with Maxwell and talk to her at the end instead of St Olivia, Maxwell is his immediate boss and it would’ve been better to see him deal with the situation more, but no St Olivia does it all. And I don’t think one mention was made of Jack McCoy

Olivia shared that scene with Maxwell because she repeated what Maxwell said to her at the conclusion of "The Steps We Can Not Take". The whole speech about how justice may be blind and how heartless she will be if the conversation comes back to haunt her.

It was Liv's way of saying it's mutually assured destruction if Maxwell rats her out. 

[gesundheit]

All I know is that they referred to Camden, Maine as a "five-hour drive" from Manhattan about 12 times during this episode and I was losing my mind about it. Are they trying to tell us they abuse their cop privilege and go at about 150% of the speed limit the whole way?

19 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Did anyone else find it pretty fucked up that Olivia assumed that the guy who got shot with a skeet gun must have done something to deserve it? Sure, we know that he's a sleazball, but Olivia didn't know that. She didn't even know about the underaged girls yet. 

Extremely fucked up. I really bristled at that. For someone in her position to jump to "deserve" in that scenario? That's "people on Twitter making jokes about a news story where a woman shoots her hubby for cheating with her sister" stuff, not Captain of SVU stuff. She could've just wondered aloud what the husband had done that the shooting was in reaction to, rather than outright endorsing it and shrugging it off. (Although presumably, the writerly thinking was that All-Knowing Olivia could already magically antipate that the guy must've been a pedo -- which deserves an equal amount of bristling.)

[wknt3]

On 4/28/2023 at 6:56 AM, weaver said:

Waste of good acting talent.   Always like seeing Betty Buckley.   Plots are getting more and more preposterous.  

I'm not sure the plots are any more preposterous than they have been for over a decade now. The issue is that they don't have the writing and acting chops to pull it off when they want to try to shake things up with something more out there. And it's probably better than the more realistic acquaintance rape and exploitation of power dynamics by sexual abuser stories that will inevitably result in Benson's whispering healing the victims.
 

On 4/28/2023 at 4:56 PM, tennisgurl said:

Did anyone else find it pretty fucked up that Olivia assumed that the guy who got shot with a skeet gun must have done something to deserve it? Sure, we know that he's a sleazball, but Olivia didn't know that. She didn't even know about the underaged girls yet. 

I pinged on it, but did not mention it because I thought there was a very good chance that they were going for something else and it was just yet another example of Hargitay and the writers not knowing how to do what they used to do so well. There have been many moments throughout the series where the detectives have mused on what someone could have done to motivate a crime - and given the circumstances and relationship it's natural to speculate. If the line had been delivered with less earnestness and they had Bruno push back a bit it could have been a much needed moment of (admitedly very dark) humor. This is something the show used to do so well and that line was one of about 5000 missed opportunities. You could have had Muncy and Benson bonding a bit teasing Bruno about how he was just being overly sensitive as a rich white guy identifying with the victim, or simply had her saying that something must have motivated the wife to do something so drastic and some quip about the life insurance payout being better than the pre-nup or if she was really cruel she would have used a knife. It also helped in the past that the characters engaging in this sort of speculation weren't in the habit of forgiving some perps while relentlessly pursuing others based solely upon gender...

[Xeliou66]

27 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

I'm not sure the plots are any more preposterous than they have been for over a decade now. The issue is that they don't have the writing and acting chops to pull it off when they want to try to shake things up with something more out there. And it's probably better than the more realistic acquaintance rape and exploitation of power dynamics by sexual abuser stories that will inevitably result in Benson's whispering healing the victims.
 

I pinged on it, but did not mention it because I thought there was a very good chance that they were going for something else and it was just yet another example of Hargitay and the writers not knowing how to do what they used to do so well. There have been many moments throughout the series where the detectives have mused on what someone could have done to motivate a crime - and given the circumstances and relationship it's natural to speculate. If the line had been delivered with less earnestness and they had Bruno push back a bit it could have been a much needed moment of (admitedly very dark) humor. This is something the show used to do so well and that line was one of about 5000 missed opportunities. You could have had Muncy and Benson bonding a bit teasing Bruno about how he was just being overly sensitive as a rich white guy identifying with the victim, or simply had her saying that something must have motivated the wife to do something so drastic and some quip about the life insurance payout being better than the pre-nup or if she was really cruel she would have used a knife. It also helped in the past that the characters engaging in this sort of speculation weren't in the habit of forgiving some perps while relentlessly pursuing others based solely upon gender...

The stories seemed more believable and slightly more compelling the last couple of years for the most part I would say, with some exceptions. Warren Leight seemed to be able to do a variety of cases and could pull it off well enough, as much as I disliked certain tendencies of his (his love of soapy melodrama and his trashing of the DA’s office) he did seem able to pull off a variety of stories in a competent manner. This new group of writers just can’t do it it seems - there have only been a few episodes I’ve found interesting this season, and even when they have a new idea this new group of writers just can’t pull it off well. The only positive of this season has been that the squad room is full again with the new detectives coming in, even though the squad dynamics have been shaky and I disliked the whole Bronx storyline but at least it resulted in new detectives. 
The show really could use more humorous moments, but they just can’t do dark humor anymore, only Fin can deliver humor now whereas used to Munch, Stabler and Cragen could deliver some as well. And Benson is more unbearable than ever now, she’s so self righteous and hypocritical and no one is allowed to call her out on any of it. And yes Benson is extremely biased based on gender - she almost always sees women as victims and men as perps and when a man is the victim and a woman is the perp Benson tries to find some reason to justify it. And her biases have only gotten worse with time, it would’ve been a good thing for the show to have her address her bias when she became squad leader and try to be more objective, but she’s only gotten worse instead, and that’s because Mariska’s ego won’t allow anyone to criticize Benson or any flaws of Benson to be portrayed. Her gigantic ego has been the main factor in making this once great show basically a parody of itself now, and I wish we at least had competent writers who could work around her ego and give us compelling stories that flowed smoothly, but this group of writers isn’t capable of that usually it seems.

[CrystalBlue]

On 4/28/2023 at 10:52 AM, illdoc said:

The "taped confession"??? Of zero use. As Olivia said, it's illegal to tape it in Maine (2-party consent state, I guess), so it doesn't matter that "He confessed to a murder in California (which I assume is a 1-party consent state, meaning you can tape a conversation without informing the other person)" the tape is illegal (where it was taped) and can't be used anywhere! At best, Velasco can testify "he told me about murdering someone", but the tape cannot be used.

The tape is useless, but that matters not one whit.  Velasco did St. Olivia's bidding and that is what matters in the whole wide world.

ETA: OK so the tape is not useless and can be used as evidence being taped legally in Maine.  Why the confusion in the show's dialogue?

Hopefully we'll never hear about this subplot again.

Edited May 2, 2023 by CrystalBlue
ETA

[Irate Panda]

My English is not the greatest but was Olivia basically saying she knew something was up with Maxwell’s version but isn’t heartless and wouldn’t be unless of course Maxwell tries and screw St. Olivia but just a couple of weeks ago she told Velasco to go get his raggedy ass friend because even they were children and a cartel was basically forcing them to commit murder it didn’t matter because crimes and stuff.

[CrystalBlue]

Yes, these are my interpretations too.

[webruce]

Yes, Frances Fuller didn't think Grace Muncy was old enough to be a cop, but the 3 "hostesses" were old enough? 

Fin not at work again. Just throw away a line about him catching a cold, in court or something. 

I do think Maxwell letting Roger Briggs choking to death wasn't good. Even with him telling her about how her ex was right. Atleast call 911 a little quicker, even if you physically couldn't help him. He still would be dead, but you can be a little less guilty feeling.  We don't really know how much Roger knew or did, even though we know he was lieing about somethings. I'm not sure he really loved her.