S26.E04 Constricted

[Xeliou66]

Episode description -

A romantic date ends with a teenager fighting for her life in the hospital; Carisi can’t help bringing the case home with him as he envisions the dangers ahead for his growing daughters. 

[dttruman]

Is SVU advocating or almost insisting on parents to letting their kids have sex? I still don't know what I think of this episode yet. Is Carisi going to be a standard fixture now? He usually just makes token appearances that only involve what charges are brought against the perp (or perps)

[Laurie4H]

Inviting your 16 year old daughter to have sex in your house is just not something I can condone.

So the father showed a video to his son (or was it just telling him about choking porn). His son shows it to his cousin and his cousin tries it on a girl who gets scared and runs in to traffic.  While the father seemed like an asshole, I don’t think he should be held responsible for the girl being hit by a car? 

Is Benson obsessed with someone being raped.  Like she can’t ever accept anything other than rape.

Edited October 25 by Laurie4H

[wknt3]

The Good:
Lots of Carisi and some good material that draws on both his established characterization and his history as a cop.

Good acting from the guest cast, which is common for the series even in it's current diminished state, but hasn't been as evident this season.

Velasco finally got an actual featured moment and made good use of it. The scene by the vending machine was probably the best acting and the best police work of the episode.

The Bad:
While there was a fair amount of good Carisi material there was also too much of him acting as an investigator and not a prosecutor and no more than a fleeting nod to it maybe not being the best idea for him.

No Bruno. And minimal Fin, with nothing that actually played to either the actor's or character's strengths.

They still are pretty much wasting Silva. Why bring in somebody new if we aren't going to actually do anything with her? She went from being a spectator to being a warm body whose lines could have been delivered by almost any other character.

Mariska seemed to be doing her best to make sure she get in all of Benson's most annoying tropes this week. The close up when she talked about getting justice actually crossed over the line into self-parody.

Overall this was a dud. A slog as they trudged through a story they have done so many times before without any effort to shake things up at all. This episode is what you get when you ask AI to create the prototypical later season SVU episode and don't shell out to upgrade from the free version...

Edited October 25 by wknt3

[Xeliou66]

SVU finally had a clunker tonight after 3 decent episodes to start the season. This was just an uninteresting slog from start to finish, felt like the episode took forever. Benson had her usual annoying playing the hero moments, and while normally I would like more Carisi, tonight they had him acting as more cop than investigator and had him way too hotheaded - an ADA needs to be less emotional. I like that they’ve given Carisi a big role this season but he was too emotionally involved and acting too much like St Olivia tonight. 

Velasco finally got something and Fin was solid as usual, Silva was just kind of there. No Bruno for the second week in a row sucked, he adds a real spark to the show that’s missing when he’s absent. 

Overall the case was just dull and boring and it was very predictable the dad would be the bad guy and his wife turned on him very quickly I thought. Not as bad as several of the episodes last season but boring to the max. 

[dttruman]

15 hours ago, wknt3 said:

Overall this was a dud. A slog as they trudged through a story they have done so many times before without any effort to shake things up at all. This episode is what you get when you ask AI to create the prototypical later season SVU episode and don't shell out to upgrade from the free version...

Would you say they started off with a bad premise, where it seemed like the parents were OK with the kids (both under 18) and having sex? It seemed like to me, the writers were promoting the fact that it's permissible to have underage sex, but you should show more safety concerns when having underage sex. When some one gets hurt, Benson comes out of the woodwork and plays her "Justice for the Victim card" and goes with her usual rant. I thought it was sloppy because they thought to focus on the unsafe choking aspect instead of the parents trying to teach their children about having underage sex and the less than joyous consequences. Wisdom is accrued thru time not at the moment.

Edited October 25 by dttruman

[dttruman]

4 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Velasco finally got something and Fin was solid as usual, Silva was just kind of there. No Bruno for the second week in a row sucked, he adds a real spark to the show that’s missing when he’s absent.

Not sure about Bruno, but next week Velasco goes undercover when they investigate a "sextortion" plot. So we will see plenty of him next week

[Ohiopirate02]

2 hours ago, dttruman said:

Would you say they started off with a bad premise, where it seemed like the parents were OK with the kids (both under 18) and having sex? It seemed like to me, the writers were promoting the fact that it's permissible to have underage sex, but you should show more safety concerns when having underage sex. When some one gets hurt, Benson comes out of the woodwork and plays her "Justice for the Victim card" and goes her usual rant. I thought it was sloppy because they thought to focus on the unsafe choking aspect instead of the parents trying to teach their children about having underage sex and less than joyous consequences. Wisdom is accrued thru time not at the moment.

The premise of this episode was bad but not because both parents were OK with their teenagers having sex. I thought it bad that the show had the dad give his son some pretty advanced porn as advice plus alcohol. It strained credibility that the dad would give his son porn featuring sex acts that he would not perform on his wife when there's a plethora of porn widely available that is much more vanilla. Then the son immediately thinks "girls like this" from watching it to the point that he runs to tell his 13 year old cousin, and then the cousin interprets that to mean he can walk up to a girl and just start assaulting her. 

[The Wild Sow]

Quote

Is SVU advocating or almost insisting on parents to letting their kids have sex?

Yeah, really  - let 'em go out in the woods like we did! 

Quote

SVU finally had a clunker tonight after 3 decent episodes to start the season. This was just an uninteresting slog from start to finish, felt like the episode took forever.

Yes - that was a TEDIOUS. Way to make "sexually based offenses especially boring."

We've had "choking" before, both "auto-" (Ridicule, Season 3) and "non-consensual" (Twenty-Five Acts, Season 14), "teenage mixed signals" (A Misunderstand, (Season 17), among others, and "little boys watching porn & acting it out" (Unorthodox, Season 9), among others. Plus "dad gives son VERY bad advice" (too many to count!)  They just threw 'em all together and ended up with a dumb mash-up that satisfies no one (except, I guess, Saint Benson.)

 

Yawnnnnnn!  I'm just ticked off that Stabler is just gonna be on Peacock (which I don't want to pay for.)

 

[cfinboston]

DAE think this was shown out of sequence with last week? They're talking about Rollins being a Sergeant in the Intelligence Division and referring to it as a new job. Last week they were working together.

Also, doesn't the dad at some point say the kid goes to public school, suggesting that's where he's see porn? But he's later shown in a Catholic school.

They missed an opportunity to remember that Carisi has a son. He could have reflected on how important it is to raise men to be responsible and respectful.

I somewhat laughed when Ryan took out the airplane bottle of rum from dad's "private stash".

Dad absolutely fucked up, but it seems like a massive reach to believe he'll be held civilly responsible for the girl getting hit by a car. I can see maybe if she dies from being choked.

Lastly, no damn WAY are kids that comfortable talking about sexual activities around their parents.

 

 

[preeya]

21 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

SVU finally had a clunker tonight after 3 decent episodes to start the season. This was just an uninteresting slog from start to finish, felt like the episode took forever. Benson had her usual annoying playing the hero moments, and while normally I would like more Carisi, tonight they had him acting as more cop than investigator and had him way too hotheaded - an ADA needs to be less emotional. I like that they’ve given Carisi a big role this season but he was too emotionally involved and acting too much like St Olivia tonight. 

Clunker is too lenient, this was a total abomination.  Since when does an ADA (Carisi) become a tag along to a police investigation and participate in a dumpster dive to find evidence.  

[Wizardpatch]

It's always funny watching how fast the wives turn on their husbands on this show, but it was extra unrealistic here. This woman gives evidence implicating her husband to the cops because he watches too much porn. Nothing about him having actual affairs. This might destroy his net worth and what he can provide to your son, but you are just so mad because of the porn and you blame him for your stupid nephew trying to assault a random girl.

Edited October 26 by Wizardpatch

[Wizardpatch]

17 hours ago, cfinboston said:

 

Also, doesn't the dad at some point say the kid goes to public school, suggesting that's where he's see porn? But he's later shown in a Catholic school.

Porndad's kid is the one who goes to a private school. His wife's sister's son is the street assaulter who goes to public school.

[KittyKat425]

So knowing that New York does not have a Romeo and Juliet with the age of consent 17 would this not mean both parents broke the law paving the road to having their first sexual encounter. I understand the father's culpability sharing porn content with him but the mother provided the space and privacy. I wish if they were going to quote a law they would follow through better.

[Zaffy]

I find the premise believable. 14y olds can "copy" things they see in the net by themselves without thinking the consequences, imagine if your own dad actually shows you this stuff and encourages you. Still, the episode wasn't as good.

[Andyourlittledog2]

Didn't Benson have quite an alcohol problem years ago?  Now she drinks, no problem?  I skipped out on about twelve to fifteen seasons there in the middle so I missed a lot.

[Xeliou66]

19 minutes ago, Andyourlittledog2 said:

Didn't Benson have quite an alcohol problem years ago?  Now she drinks, no problem?  I skipped out on about twelve to fifteen seasons there in the middle so I missed a lot.

No Benson never had an alcohol problem, we’ve seen her drink over the years but she was never an alcoholic - her mother was an alcoholic though. 

[dttruman]

8 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

9 hours ago, Andyourlittledog2 said:

Didn't Benson have quite an alcohol problem years ago?  Now she drinks, no problem?  I skipped out on about twelve to fifteen seasons there in the middle so I missed a lot.

No Benson never had an alcohol problem, we’ve seen her drink over the years but she was never an alcoholic - her mother was an alcoholic though. 

I do seem to remember Benson drinking, but not a lot. It was not so pronounced or noticeable, because I don't think the producers wanted the viewers to think that it might impair Benson's judgement concerning her job.

And I can understand "Andyourlittledog2" reasons for skipping out for a long time.

[wknt3]

On 10/25/2024 at 6:29 AM, dttruman said:

Would you say they started off with a bad premise, where it seemed like the parents were OK with the kids (both under 18) and having sex? It seemed like to me, the writers were promoting the fact that it's permissible to have underage sex, but you should show more safety concerns when having underage sex. When some one gets hurt, Benson comes out of the woodwork and plays her "Justice for the Victim card" and goes with her usual rant. I thought it was sloppy because they thought to focus on the unsafe choking aspect instead of the parents trying to teach their children about having underage sex and the less than joyous consequences. Wisdom is accrued thru time not at the moment.

 

On 10/25/2024 at 8:38 AM, Ohiopirate02 said:

The premise of this episode was bad but not because both parents were OK with their teenagers having sex. I thought it bad that the show had the dad give his son some pretty advanced porn as advice plus alcohol. It strained credibility that the dad would give his son porn featuring sex acts that he would not perform on his wife when there's a plethora of porn widely available that is much more vanilla. Then the son immediately thinks "girls like this" from watching it to the point that he runs to tell his 13 year old cousin, and then the cousin interprets that to mean he can walk up to a girl and just start assaulting her. 

 

On 10/25/2024 at 2:50 PM, The Wild Sow said:

We've had "choking" before, both "auto-" (Ridicule, Season 3) and "non-consensual" (Twenty-Five Acts, Season 14), "teenage mixed signals" (A Misunderstand, (Season 17), among others, and "little boys watching porn & acting it out" (Unorthodox, Season 9), among others. Plus "dad gives son VERY bad advice" (too many to count!)  They just threw 'em all together and ended up with a dumb mash-up that satisfies no one (except, I guess, Saint Benson.)

 

On 10/26/2024 at 7:22 PM, Zaffy said:

I find the premise believable. 14y olds can "copy" things they see in the net by themselves without thinking the consequences, imagine if your own dad actually shows you this stuff and encourages you. Still, the episode wasn't as good.

 

I'm with @The Wild Sow and @Zaffy here. The problem is not the premise - they have done these stories before and it's not like this is something that is not happening any more IRL. And as far as it not being believable that anyone would do it - well let's just say that I know a lot of teachers and a lot of social service providers and what we saw is not even on the thin part of the the bell curve as far as parental behavior is concerned. And it's not like nobody on the squad questioned their actions. The problem is the execution - it was clumsily executed from beginning to end and they were more interested in showing Carisi being righteously indignant then in taking any time to give us a bit of nuance or depth. The plot elements could have made for a decent story and as pointed out above have been done better multiple times before. I feel like with another draft or two, or even simply a better edit this would have been passable. There are very few episodes where the central problem is the premise. For every Imposter there are 20 episodes like this one where it's all about execution.

[tennisgurl]

Its good to know that an NYPD captain and several detectives have enough time and resources to spend on a possible sexual assault that may or may not have happened. Like I do in so many of these episodes, I cant stop thinking about the dozens of cases that are gathering dust somewhere while the whole of SVU chasses down whatever case gives the captain or one of the main characters the most feels and dedicating their entire being to that one case.

The case itself started off alright, kids trying to imitate porn without understanding the context because they think its how your "supposed" to have sex is a decent idea that the show has tackled before, but this was all over the place. The dad was obviously a creep but that couple who lost their daughter are going to have a hard time holding him responsible for her death because he showed his son porn and that led, eventually, to his nephew trying to assault a random girl on the street. After three episodes that were kind of dull but competent, we sadly have an episode that's kind of dull but incompetent. 

I like seeing more Carisi, but unfortunately he was stuck doing the "taking it personally" bit with a big side of "as a father of daughters..."alpha dad stuff. Its also weird that he never mentioned the fact that he has a son, you would think now would be a time when he would talking about raising his son right, but it never even came up. 

I have to admit, I laughed when the new cop knocked on the door when Olivia was giving her sage parenting advice to Carisi and announced that a sexual assault might have happened to a sixteen year old girl and he practically jumped out the door. Thank god she didn't tell them that it was a middle aged woman or teenage boy who was possibly assaulted, they would have given just gone back to their conversation and whatever case that was would have never been solved. What a convenient coincidence that their latest case ties so well into when Carisi was just talking about!

[Sake614]

Re Benson and alcohol, there was at least one season, maybe two, where she was drinking ALL the time. Every day, every night. Alone with a bottle or two of wine that were finished by the end of the evening, at a bar with a glass or two of wine. They never went down that rabbit hole but it was clear something was happening. I really wanted them to explore it, even briefly enough for her to realize it was becoming a problem, but they didn’t.