S26.E03: Divide and Conquer

[dttruman]

A couple's dinner party ends with a violent home invasion and assault by masked men; Rollins suspects the crime is linked to her Intelligence investigation of an international gang of thieves.

[dttruman]

According to the preview Giddish is appearing and it looks like she is coming back as not just a consultant, but as some kind of fully uniformed SWAT person.

 

[wknt3]

The Good:
Finally a good dose of Flin. Especially welcome as he was filling his much needed function of being a caring professional without coming off as an obsessed monomaniac.

The other detective from Intelligence. If the new female detective goes the same way every other younger woman they brought in has maybe he can be brought on?

A solid COTW with an investigation that flowed competently from A to B without any glaring plot holes or unbelievable twists.

The Bad:
The return of the overbearing heavy handed sound mix and musical cues in the opening along with the same lack of subtlety in the editing. We get it, these are especially heinous offenses.

So after successfully fobbing off Rollins to Fordham NYPD not only brings her back but makes her a Sgt. in an elite unit? I guess she really is a true acolyte of St. Benson. Not to mention that putting Rollins in INTELLIGENCE seems like the set up for a joke instead of a believable plot. I mean have her come back to something she actually knows - doesn't Vice have an opening?

They wasted another opportunity to make a retread of a retread interesting by using their new character and developing her. They seem to believe we want them to keep "playing the hits" and are not interested in any sort of new angles. And yes this is pretty much "comfort food" TV at this point, but competent writers know you need to mix in a little something new - even Blue Bloods and NCIS have tried to use new characters to put a little bit of a new spin on the same old stories.

We are back to Benson as a superhero with a couple sidekicks. I am hoping that this is because of the KG guest spot and that this is the aberration instead of the more team oriented episodes being the result of Mariska needing time to film her guest spot on the mothership and this being the model we follow the rest of the season.

Speaking of Benson's selfishness - a joint investigation doesn't mean that you allow other units to help you investigate your case. And show - you really shouldn't be asking us to root for the protagonist pulling rank on her great friend and protegee to do so.

In an episode full of returning bad habits we have the ending where Victim Whisperer Olivia Benson solving everything with her Unique Wisdom and Empathy and then locking up the bad guys.

Overall this was another mostly competent meh episode even if it was a tick down from the past couple weeks due to all of the bad habits resurfacing. A C- instead of a C+/B-, but not a train wreck by any means.

Edited October 18 by wknt3
fix typos and reconsidered grading

[Xeliou66]

This wasn’t as good as the first 2 episodes, it wasn’t horrible but I just wasn’t that interested in it. Way too much Benson and Rollins and not enough of anyone else, Fin got a solid role which was nice but Bruno, Velasco and the new detective got the week off. The Benson worship seemed to return this week with the scenes of St O counseling victims and making it all better. And I just don’t buy Rollins as a sergeant - after all of the crap she’s pulled I have a hard time believing she would get promoted. The case wasn’t that interesting and felt very routine. But mainly it just felt like the Benson and Rollins hour and that just doesn’t interest me given I’m not a fan of either. Carisi was solid with what he had but it wasn’t much. Just kind of a bland episode. 

[preeya]

"

Quote

 

Wednesday at 06:25 AM

A couple's dinner party ends with a violent home invasion and assault by masked men; Rollins suspects the crime is linked to her Intelligence investigation of an international gang of thieves.

 

This case should have been investigated by the FBI.

 

Edited October 18 by preeya

[preeya]

2 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

The Benson worship seemed to return this week with the scenes of St O counseling victims and making it all better. And I just don’t buy Rollins as a sergeant - after all of the crap she’s pulled I have a hard time believing she would get promoted. The case wasn’t that interesting and felt very routine. But mainly it just felt like the Benson and Rollins hour and that just doesn’t interest me given I’m not a fan of either

It's probably because Stabler is on the sidelines for a while. They need St.Olivia to be front and center with whoever is available who is not a regular on the show.  Next, we'll see Hank Voight shipping in from Chicago.

[wknt3]

6 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

And I just don’t buy Rollins as a sergeant - after all of the crap she’s pulled I have a hard time believing she would get promoted.

To be fair it is about 1000X more believable that Rollins gets brought back with a promotion than her landing a full time faculty position at Fordham...

[illdoc]

4 hours ago, preeya said:

This case should have been investigated by the FBI.

And it kind of was---FBI International just did a "foreigners fly to America, commit crimes, then fly back home" storyline. In that case

Spoiler

an FBI agent was shot & eventually died.

instead of someone being raped. I believe that gang was based in Hungary instead of Albania.

[preeya]

1 hour ago, illdoc said:

And it kind of was---FBI International just did a "foreigners fly to America, commit crimes, then fly back home" storyline. In that case

  Reveal spoiler

an FBI agent was shot & eventually died.

instead of someone being raped. I believe that gang was based in Hungary instead of Albania.

Yes, I watched it. So now instead of "ripped from the headlines" we have "ripped from another Dick Wolf franchise.

[Raja]

On 10/18/2024 at 11:34 AM, preeya said:

"

This case should have been investigated by the FBI.

 

The biggest sin on TV cop shows, turning a case over to the FBI when FBI is not in the title of the show.

But then again the reason behind NYPD, as opposed to Chicago's Intelligence unit with Detectives Stabler and Lupo from the mothership show serving overseas, is that New York doesn't trust the federal cops and AUSA's o do the right thing

[Feline Goddess]

Why does Carisi keep referring to his wife as Rollins? I get that she apparently didn't take his last name, but why doesn't he call her Amanda?

So the lesson from this episode, if you mastermind a crime, just cut a deal and turn on your associates - and it's a get-out-of-jail-free card. Of course the business manager lost his other clients, but that doesn't seem like much of punishment compared to prison time. He'll just move somewhere else, change his name and fleece new clients. 

 

 

 

[dttruman]

35 minutes ago, Feline Goddess said:

Why does Carisi keep referring to his wife as Rollins? I get that she apparently didn't take his last name, but why doesn't he call her Amanda?

Very good point! I wonder if someone is going to be permanently erased from the show?

[Xeliou66]

It makes me laugh how Carisi and Rollins still call each other by their last names although they’re married - it’s pretty funny to me. Occasionally they use each other’s first names, but usually they’re still “Carisi” and “Rollins” - I noticed how he called her “Rollins” instead of “Amanda” as well. Maybe they don’t want to make a big deal of their relationship at work, but it is funny.

[tennisgurl]

I'm not at all surprised by Rollins showing up here as an expert in international criminals with the FBI, right in between her becoming a tenured professor and a nationally recognized expert on all crime, its like she only left the show so that they could bump her cred up. As per usual, the show has no idea how agencies working together actually works, everyone is suddenly under the supervision of St. Olivia no matter who is the actual expert. I did think it was pretty funny watching Rollins having to deal with Olivia's self important "I'm here to put her rapist away!" lectures from the other side. 

The actual case of the week was alright, I think we could have done a bit more digging into the dynamics of the marriage between the man obsessed with strength and protecting his woman and the woman who was more worried about her husbands ego being cruised than her being raped, I think there was a lot to dive into there that we only skimmed so that we could get more Olivia speeches where she is the only person in the world who can get victims to open up. The husband becoming so obsessed with preparing for a crisis by buying gold and a big fancy gun without telling his wife anything about it that it ended up making his family a target is an interesting thing to dig into, but I think they could have done a lot more with that dynamic. 

I always laugh at those " I never thought anyone would get hurt!" guys. Sure, I hired some known international criminals and murderers to violently attack my friend at his home, but I never imagined that going wrong!

[Zaffy]

So the guy had 10mil of gold in his basement... worries about the end of USA/World, but opens the door without even checking (or having) a camera who knocks. I don't even own a safe, or anything in gold, but when someone knocks on my front door I always check first before I open. And I am not paranoid for the end of the world.
Apart from that it was an almost decent episode.

At this point, the whole "holly Benson will consult all victims out there" doesn't annoy me as much as it used to be. Because it is a popular show, there is a lot of violence and rape victims out there and even if one gets help or thinks of getting help thanks to Benson's whispering, that would be enough of a reason to tolerate Saint Olivia.

Edited October 24 by Zaffy