S25.E11: Prima Nocta

[txhorns79]

Airing May 2, 2024

Quote

A runaway bride calls the SVU for help on the day of her wedding. Rollins pitches in on her day off.

 

[wknt3]

How much you want to bet the perp is another powerful rich old white man?

 

[Chalby]

I keep getting notifications for this forum although I've never joined it can anybody tell me why?

[MerBearHou]

On 5/1/2024 at 7:30 PM, wknt3 said:

How much you want to bet the perp is another powerful rich old white man?

 

Good guess, but nope.

Edited May 3 by MerBearHou

[EtheltoTillie]

Seriously creepy case. Oof.

This week Olivia didn’t say the magic words “It’s not your fault.” 
But she uttered another bromide:  something to the effect of you’re not damaged you survived. 

[Xeliou66]

This was a gigantic improvement over the last 2 episodes, and actually had a very interesting case SVU case with the involvement of more than just St Olivia.
It was weird how Rollins was investigating from the start despite not officially being a detective, that seemed very weird to have her taking statements at the hospital. It was more believable that she would participate in the sting, given that the perp would recognize Bruno or Curry but had never seen Rollins. I’m thinking they’re setting up Rollins to return to SVU next season, it’s looking like Sykes may exit next week based on the promos and that will open the door for Rollins to have a spot.  
Fin and Bruno were awesome as usual, and the squad dynamics were good again, even if it was weird how Velasco and Sykes were MIA with no explanation. Benson didn’t bother me as much as normal, so after 2 episodes of nothing but St O worship this episode gave me hope that the show can still produce good cases when they want to - this had a strong investigation and a good case. I do wish they would give Carisi more to do, but he was good in what he had. I liked the scene of Bruno, Fin, Curry and Carisi waiting in the van when Rollins was in the room.   
Nice to know Fin and Phoebe are still together.

Overall a good case that flowed well and good squad dynamics once I could get past some of the Rollins stuff. It is nice that SVU has a full squad again. If SVU delivers more cases like this I’ll keep watching. 

[wknt3]

The Good:
Fin and Bruno. I wish they were the leads from the jump, but their scenes were the best part of this episode.

Carisi. He had some good bits, and was well written, especially for a Rollisi episode, and a "Carisi goes in the field" episode. They even actually had Carisi saying he couldn't prosecute the case because he was involved in the investigation!

They remembered how to write Benson as the lead without making her Batman solving crime almost by herself with just a few sidekicks.

Rollins. They actually wrote her fairly well and she managed to avoid the usual psychodrama pitfalls as an investigator. Still don't buy her as a profiler, but they managed to make her believable as an investigator.

The COTW. Interesting motivation and MO. Nice flow and squad dynamics too.

The Bad:
It was cheesy 80's cop show ridiculous that Rollins could just work a case because she didn't have anything better to do.

Did the history department at Fordham force Rollins out because she was tarnishing their image by presenting "Braveheart" as factual? It's kind of a minor thing really, but this show used to be pretty good about research - even if the story was monkey in a basketball OTT ridiculous the factoids and references were usually accurate.

They couldn't go a whole episode without at least some of "Benson the all knowing guru" bit. I mean they couldn't at least go with the theme of the episode and have her telling the victim the perp would never take her freedom?

Overall this was a solid episode. It could have gone off the rails easily, but they actually took a flawed premise and executed it well instead of botching a solid concept like most of the season so far. And I liked that the ending seemed to be seriously backing off the Rollins return tease. I mean even if KG took a significant paycut and went part-time it would still mean going backwards plus losing some of the more interesting new characters and having enough bodies for the weeks when co-leads are off to save money. Maybe this "new thing" will be some sort of role that gives her a reason to guest star without us needing to forget everything we know about her to believe she has the job?

[Ohiopirate02]

I was taken aback a little bit when both of Rollins's daughters called Carisi Dad.  I would have thought that Jessie's dad would want to have a relationship with her in between all of his undercover police work.  Did the writers forget that Rollins's Baby Daddy #1 was actually a good guy.  I totally buy Rollins's Baby Daddy #2 skipping out on their daughter, but not Declan.  I get the writers wanting to write the Rollins-Carisi household as the perfect blended family, but perfect blended family does not mean the fathers of both girls need to disappear for Carisi in 2024.  1964 maybe, but not now.

Edited May 3 by Ohiopirate02

[Wizardpatch]

The perp was hilariously rapey at the flower warehouse/store. I was waiting for him to lick his lips and thrust his pelvis at Rollins as they finalized the delivery time.  Talk about not being subtle!

[Sake614]

19 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I’m thinking they’re setting up Rollins to return to SVU next season

Mariska said in the Variety article that she was going to do everything she could to bring Kelly back full time next year. She thinks the two of them are a power couple of sorts. 🙄

[Zaffy]

That was an ok episode (or a good one if you compare it to the ones before it).
Every episode without "M" (I won't type her name, she might appear like Beetlejuice!) is at least a mediocre one.
The case was interesting and I liked the teamwork needed to solve it.
I have accepted that the L&O franchise is not remotely realistic anymore, so I won't bother with how they included Rollins in the investigation (because she was bored), without compromising the case, especially at the beginning. I mean is it enough to be an ex-member of a police department ? 
I really enjoy Rollisi. But I do not think I enjoy Rollins. 
The scene where she is trying to seduce the rapist was ridiculous. The whole Rollins character and writing is over the top. "Stabler" level of over the top.

[GiandujaPie]

This was a pretty good episode with an interesting case. Not sure why they got rid of Rollins to begin with. I wouldn't mind if they brought her back. Although during her "undercover" with the perp, I kept thinking she was getting dangerously close to entrapment, or at least giving the perp an excuse that she was flirting with him and so it would have been consensual. However, it was a good way to get his DNA. 

I bet there would be more cases out there that were never reported because the brides would be too traumatized and embarrassed to report it. 

[gesundheit]

Did they seriously say that Fordham offered Amanda tenure??? I am deceased. This woman with zero minutes of graduate school and one year of teaching experience in higher ed and zero publishing to her name was offered TENURE. Just... offered. Unbelievable. Also hilarious to be working the case out of boredom -- oh and it's easy, because the NYPD forgot to file her paperwork or something? So she's magically still official? A thing they didn't know when she first tagged along. Imagine being a rape victim and a detective just brings a friend along to talk to you about your rape kit while you're sitting there in the hospital. 

 

It also cracked me up that Amanda felt so connected to the case because she "knows what it's like to be in love." Oh! Well, that does make her unique. Married? She's the only woman on the NYPD who's ever been a bride, she has very special insight!

 

I wish they'd have an episode next season where that guy's lawyer gets his conviction overturned due to a not-cop working the case, but of course there was a plea.

 

We get one non-Benson-centered episode, but it has to be Rollins-centered. Not an improvement from where I sit! Anyone else but those two! I'd very much like to be spared Amanda's identity crisis moving forward.

On 5/7/2024 at 1:09 PM, Zaffy said:

The scene where she is trying to seduce the rapist was ridiculous. The whole Rollins character and writing is over the top. "Stabler" level of over the top.

Seriously -- they were even saying the guy was probably on alert because he knew they were onto him! And all of a sudden some middle-aged bride is coming onto him? Please. 

 

What was the point of his being hard of hearing? I felt like I missed a step in there because it never came up again. Or were we meant to just think that was an excuse for not answering when his boss first called out to him to come talk to the cops?

[tennisgurl]

I swear, Rollins must have blackmail on somebody somewhere, there is no other way she gets away with all this stuff. She not only gets a random professorship despite her utter lack of qualifications, they even offered her tenure! Tenure! I know professors who have been in their fields for decades and they would kill for tenure, but Rollins gets it in less than a year? And she turns it down? And then can just be a cop again because she's bored? I know that the show loves Rollins only slightly less than they love Olivia, but come on. I guess because we didn't get a whole lot of Olivia worship, we had to bring Rollins back to worship her. 

I half expect us to see an episode later where the whole case gets thrown out because the rapist's DNA was got through an undercover operation with the DA and his non cop wife, but of course that will never happen. I also was reminded that the show always wants to tell us how "sexy" Rollins is by giving her all of these undercover seduction jobs, which are always cringe. 

Other than anything with Rollins, this was actually a pretty good episode. The case of the week was interesting and creepy, it had a solid guest cast, we got some decent detective work which just about the whole squad got to participate in, not a whole lot of big stupid speeches or whispering from Olivia, and it kept me guessing. I wish we had gotten some closure at the end with the victims, especially the first bride, like we her husband reassuring her that he loves her and them re-doing their wedding, but its hard to give victims closure when we spend so much time talking about how awesome Rollins apparently is. 

Nice to know that Finn and Phoebe are still going strong! At this point, I'm just happy to have any episode with no mention of Maddie or Maddie related bracelets. 

[OLDNEWFAN]

Totally agree with "tennisgurl" about the cringe undercover "seduction" by Rollins of the rapist! So ridiculous - although the case overall was interesting. 3 good victims (agree with assessment of solid guest cast) and it WOULD be great to have closure with the victims, see them secure with their husbands, etc.

The "nurse" victim, the only one with a usable rape kit, should be brought back as a nurse who has taken it upon herself to kill rapists brought into the ER by police(she has access to meds!). I read an obituary about split personalities and high functioning individuals in jobs...maybe she doesn't even know she is doing it.

[Lukeysboat]

Maybe I missed an explanation, but if Amanda was so bored why didn’t she spend some time with her kids? At least the baby if the girls are in school. 
 

I didn’t hate this episode but the tenure thing was ridiculous.