S26.E02 Excavation

[Xeliou66]

Here is the episode description 

Devastating repressed memories come back to a woman when she finds an old notebook in her family home; bringing charges in a decades-old crime proves even more difficult for Carisi when a powerful judge stalls the case. 

[dttruman]

I was afraid of another episode like this may happen and I wonder if we are going to get another bogus crime based on incoherent memories,  Benson pushing for an investigation so that the victim has some kind of justice, and a courtroom drama where all the evidence is mostly hear say.

[wknt3]

The Good:
Another Carisi heavy episode. One really nice thing about moving him to ADA has been that they cannot fall back on the series trope that needing to prove a case means the prosecutors don't care about victims.

They are keeping Benson front and center without having her do everything herself which is a good sign that they might have finally learned their lesson. Or maybe Mariska simply can no longer keep up with the physical demands of shooting schedules to be in every scene. Either way it is a nice to see an actual squad again even if they didn't use the rest of the team well (more on that below).

They actually managed to pull off the story with some degree of realism. There was additional concern about getting things right and access due to connections balanced out by also not wanting to show favoritism.

The Bad:
You have a new detective. Why not have her taking the lead on this one? If you are going to retread old ground (and this point just about everything has been covered multiple times) why not freshen things up by giving us a new POV and take the opportunity to develop a new character? Or give us a new angle with her family connections putting the brass on the squad's side against the powerful perp with connections?

Bruno and Fin were underused. It seems a shame to use your best actors and not actually write anything for them. Especially as again you have some characters who haven't been through this a hundred times before and could do something other than wary resignation and moving the plot from point A to point B. It's not like you are even giving them a full week off for budget reasons.

Actually everyone other than Benson and Carisi was underused. Nobody got anything meaty in their little bit of screen time and you could have swapped lines without anybody noticing which is probably the biggest sin in screenwriting.

Overall this was another dully competent episode. Nothing too egregious, but nothing that rose above the level of "not bad" and lots of potential to tell an actually good story wasted. Oh well  judging by the previews maybe next week is the week we will get something interesting - even if it is just interestingly bad...

[Xeliou66]

This was actually another decent episode, which I wasn’t expecting. They used Carisi really well again, he’s been the highlight of the season so far, and it’s nice to have back to back episodes with lots of court scenes, and well done court scenes at that. They handled this much more realistically than other similar episodes, I particularly liked how they proceeded against the judge, not showing favoritism but not rushing it either. Nice that they mentioned Nick Baxter twice and had the DA’s office handle it fairly without making snide references to the “8th floor” or crapping on the office like they’ve done in the past. 
There wasn’t much suspense here but some cases are like that. 
Benson wasn’t that annoying for once, she was far more irritating on the Mothership tonight than here, here there was some of the usual whispering and cliches but nothing over the top. 
And once again no personal melodrama!

My only complaint about this one is how everyone besides Benson, Carisi and maybe Curry were underused - this would’ve been a good episode to give 1 or 2 people the week off - Fin and Bruno didn’t have much to do and Velasco and the new detective barely made an appearance.

SVU has been better than I expected the first 2 episodes - the cases have been decent enough, it’s nice to have a full squad, they’ve done the legal stuff well, and there’s been minimal soapy stuff. I’m not overly optimistic but maybe SVU will bounce back some this season after an awful season 25.

[tennisgurl]

This was a pretty solid episode, it was at least better than I thought it would be. These sorts of repressed memory episodes tend to be very hit or miss, and overall I would say this went pretty well, mostly helped by a strong guest cast and avoiding going too crazy on the Olivia speeches and melodrama. Not a lot of twists or turns, with the only real twist being that the mom knew all along and the journal was her idea, and even that I guessed early on. I think there was an episode years ago that was also about a respected judge molesting his step-daughter and the mom blaming the daughter, what a weirdly specific plot to happen twice. At least this daughter didn't end up murdered. 

I was waiting for a twist that the journal was actually about the judge molesting one of his other children and he just used the details from his step-daughter or that it was actually the mother or something, but things played out exactly the way you think it will. The main guest star is exactly the sort of beautiful fragile victim that Olivia loves to fight for and hug so obviously its her that was abused. 

I liked having two court/Carisi heavy episodes in a row, even if they were very Perry Mason style "caught witness in a lie on the stand" sorts of victories. Outside of Olivia and Carisi everyone else was really underused, most hardly had anything to do at all, which is especially weird when you have a new cast member. 

The theme of the season seems to be " mostly competent but boring" so far.

[babyrambo]

I’ve dipped in and out of SVU over the years and forgotten how brutal their descriptions of assaults can be. Halfway through the episode I was hoping the judge would painfully take own life and for the mother to follow suit. He was despicable, but for the mother to cover it up so she wouldn’t be lonely? Extremely grim. But unsurprising in terms of realism. She reminded me of the wives and girlfriends of some of the proven abusers in the Gisele Pelicot rape case in France going on right now, the ones rushing to defend their husbands and boyfriends despite video evidence proving their crimes. The men committed the crime and its not about shifting blame but the continued support is revolting. SVU has been uneven for a while now but sometimes they get it all too right. How bleak. 

Edited October 11 by babyrambo

[faithie]

So if I randomly walk into a big city police station to report a crime, a person with the rank of captain will stop what she's doing and come over to ask if I need help?  Even though there's already an intake officer at the desk?

And this captain will not only give me her business card, but when I call she will personally drop everything to run to my house instead of just sending a couple of patrol cops?

I know that Wolf's objective is to center MH whenever possible, but you can't have it both ways:  if you want to center her, you can't also promote her to a position in which it's highly unlikely she's personally doing all this legwork.

[Zaffy]

2 decent episodes in a row? and without Mad... (won't say her whole name, she might appear like Beetlejuice). Wow SVU, you are spoiling us! And if we get an actual good episode I might not be able to handle!

On 10/19/2024 at 6:52 PM, faithie said:

So if I randomly walk into a big city police station to report a crime, a person with the rank of captain will stop what she's doing and come over to ask if I need help?  Even though there's already an intake officer at the desk?

Isn't that case with all police/crime series? It is always the heroes/stars who are in charge. Makes me smile every time, in any show,  when in all these big police stations dozen of police officers are completely ignored in favor of our "heroes". 

I would watch a spinoff with Bruno and Fin. "Law and Order: the cool guys"?

[Tachi Rocinante]

Not bad.  The judge shouldn't have allowed the wife to testify immediately, but it was a convenient plot device.