S26.E14 The Grid Plan

[Xeliou66]

Episode description 

A Midwestern tourist is viciously attacked in Times Square; as the squad scours the area for clues, the victim takes the investigation into her own hands; a secret motive threatens to derail Carisi’s case 

[MediaZone4K]

This was a really great episode, I really admired the victim's strength. People react to trauma differently, in most episodes the victim is ashamed, but this woman was yelling out "he did this to me" even passing out flyers in Times Square! So satisfying when she punched the guy!

Again, we didn't see the attack this week, but I don't think I've really seen the technique of flashbacks of an unrevealed attack during the trial. That was a decent touch.

There was definitely Benson worship in this episode, I know that won't play well here.

Next week looks like an Intesting case.

Edited Saturday at 05:04 AM by MediaZone4K

[wknt3]

The Good:
It's nice seeing a victim who actually looks like a normal person and not an ideal version of affluent urban women 18-35 who the execs are trying to target.

The squad. Besides playing active roles in the investigation they were stil written distinctly and in character and not just delivering the lines needed to advance the plot as interchangeable parts.

Carisi. It is always nice to see him acting like a prosecutor and serving as the voice of reality instead of a moral crusader. The actual courtroom scenes were pretty well done.

The Bad:
Benson in the opening. Not only are we backsliding into Benson worship, but it's clumsy and heavy handed and would be even if we had somebody else delivering the academic lecture. Isn't show, don't tell Screenwriting 101?

Benson in the middle. This is Olivia at her worst, therapist and advocate instead of cop. Because she feels the victims' pain. But not he husband's - she feels free to dismiss him and order him around. Plus sighing and rolling her eyes at Carisi like a spoiled teenager when he had the gall to act like part of the legal system and not the victim's best friend. At least she let her elite squad do the actual field work?

Benson at the end. Her magic victim whispering makes everything all better and converts another nonbeliever to the Church of Liv.

They spent so much time on Benson and the victim that they never bothered to properly flesh out the perp.  It would have been interested in seeing how he got from the earlier victim to today - might have also filled in the plot hole of why he was cold calling tourist traps in Times Square on a weekend pitching premium wine? It seems like it wouldn't be hard to show that it was part of him coming undone, but that would require caring about something other than making sure we have heard the Word of God(dess).

Overall this was a standard issue SVU story, mostly competently executed and dragged down by needing to make up for last week by making sure we know Benson is still the center of the universe. It's especially disappointing because they just showed us they can do better. And how much better would Benson have looked if they dialed it back to 11 and spent some of that time telling a better story with her front and center? Hopefully this is just giving Mariska a "showcase" so they can do a few more better episodes before they have to go all in on massaging her ego again.

[EtheltoTillie]

Yeah Benson the psychiatrist?  Displacement?  Come on. 
I like the actress playing the victim. She was the friend on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 

[Xeliou66]

Pretty good episode, would’ve been very good had they dialed back the St O worship, but still solid and better than most modern SVU episodes, this season has impressed me by bouncing back after an awful season 25 and we’ve had a decent amount of good episodes this season. 
Carisi was really the highlight of the show, I’m really liking getting more courtroom scenes with him this season and he’s shining in them, it’s nice that SVU has gotten back in court more this season and that it’s usually well written without vilifying the DAs office for not blindly doing St O’s bidding. Nice to see solid court scenes.  
I liked Bruno and Silva doing the bar canvas, and Fin and Velasco got good stuff as well. 
I also liked the victim and thought they did a good job of a more realistic and ordinary victim instead of a pretty young rich white girl that we’ve seen way too much of. I do wish the rapist’s motivations and psyche had been fleshed out more other than just knowing about the one past assault.

What dragged down the episode some was Benson and the usual saintly portrayal of her - she has to been the all knowing victim whisperer who takes it personally and can feel their pain. It gets old seeing her portrayed as a perfect beacon of wisdom and it drags down the show.

But overall this was a pretty good episode that had a nice flow to it and used each character well, it’s just too bad Mariska has to go over the top each week and drag things down.

[preeya]

         Olivia when the verdict goes her way.

Boy do I hate her.

Edited Friday at 11:21 PM by preeya

[pezgirl7]

Not fleshing out the motives of the perp made me really question the victim. It wasn’t until the flashbacks during the trial that I totally believed her. Plus I thought she was acting really strangely. But maybe I just think that because she was so different than most of the other victims portrayed on this show. Overall, another good episode. 

[MediaZone4K]

I know it's L&O so the legal process is rushed, but the victim said she could finally go home after a bad trip to New York when the trial was over.

Are we to believe that a woman was raped, her rapist apprehended, and the case was brought to trial with a verdict in just a few days?

Edited 4 hours ago by MediaZone4K

[preeya]

10 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

Are we to believe that a woman was raped, her rapist apprehended, and the case was brought to trial with a verdict in just a few days?

In the world of Dick Wolf & Olivia, anything is possible, although not necessarily realistic.

Edited Saturday at 03:48 PM by preeya

[MediaZone4K]

33 minutes ago, preeya said:

In the world of Dick Wolf & Olivia, anything is possible, although not necessarily realistic.

Yup!!!

Forgive this Sidebar, with Law & Order Organized Crime off there was nothing to watch after SVU....So glad I discovered 9-1-1 is Thursdays at 10 on ABC. A good primetime teifecta.

Now back on topic.

Edited Saturday at 04:21 PM by MediaZone4K

[marny]

13 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

I know it's L&O so the legal process is rised, but the victim said she could finally go home after a bad trip to New York when the trial was over.

Are we to believe that a woman was raped, her rapist apprehended, and the case was brought to trial with a verdict in just a few days?

Right? When she and her husband mentioned going back to Iowa after the arraignment, Olivia is like “but we need you at the trial!”  Girl, that trial would be 2 years from now in the real world! Let this woman go live her life. But in L&O world, you have 1 day after arraignment to prepare a case for trial. 
 

I’ve been watching old episodes and I really miss when Olivia was an actual  cop and not some font of wisdom victim whisperer. Cragen was chief for years and he was never the victim’s bff during the cases. Maybe do your actual job, Olivia, and let the Victim Witness Coordinator that every prosecutor’s office employs handle the victims. It’s so tiresome and repetitive. 

[txhorns79]

On 2/28/2025 at 6:11 PM, pezgirl7 said:

Not fleshing out the motives of the perp made me really question the victim. It wasn’t until the flashbacks during the trial that I totally believed her. Plus I thought she was acting really strangely. But maybe I just think that because she was so different than most of the other victims portrayed on this show. Overall, another good episode. 

I have leftover love for Donna Lynne Champlin after Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but I am with you.  I thought we were going to find out she had a diagnosis of Early Onset Alzheimer's, instead of MS, given how weirdly she was acting at times.  I also appreciated how that wine bottle was thrown up in the air and landed on a hard surface, all without breaking.   

As a side note, I have family that is from Council Bluffs (for those that don't know, it's just across the bridge from Omaha), so I appreciated the shout out.          

[FozzyBear]

If I can ignore the Olivia BS and the absurdity of the legal case, I really liked this episode. I thought it was a nice example of the problems faced by an imperfect victim. She wasn’t very attractive so she had to deal with the “why would he need to rape her?” gross bullshit. She was aggressive and kind of a pain in the ass instead of a tearful victim. She was acting strange because of other things going on in her life. All of this is normal but could and has been used against assault victims before. It showed how women still face scrutiny for doing normal things like going to a play without their husbands.

However as much as I liked the victims story, the Olivia stuff was out of control and the legal stuff was just bad. How did the defense know about her medical issues? Who was the couple in the beginning? Were they involved or was it just to show us she went to an absurd number of shows? And I know this has been mentioned but did this all happen in a weekend?!?!? 

[tennisgurl]

I just have to ask, is there really not a counselor or victims advocate or social worker or anyone who can help victims and families without being involved in the investigation and legal stuff? Isn't that what people do in the real world? I know that this is just how procedurals work, the main characters do every single job in any investigation, but this is so egregious. Olivia is an actual police captain but she has this much time to hand hold this one victim when she should presumably be working on other cases or working on the nitty gritty aspects of the case? I know that this is the Olivia show and its nothing new, but this one seemed to hit me even more, literally half the episode was made up of Olivia speeches. 

All that being said, I did really like this episode. It was great to see Donna Lynne Champlin from Crazy Ex Girlfriend getting such a meaty role that she did a great job with, and I like that we had a victim who isn't a sexy young woman or a child,  a victim who wants to take charge of her own case. She was more angry than wilting and wasn't so willing to do as the cops say, which I think is as natural a reaction to being assaulted as anything else. 

The flashback during the trial was interesting, I don't think we have seen that before. The courtroom stuff was pretty good, although I'm not sure how the rapists lawyer found out about the victims MS diagnosis. Did she overhear her talking to Olivia? Did she tell the rapist while she pretended to flirt with him? How did she find this confidential information so quickly? 

I wish we had gotten a bit more of the rapists pathology, even Carisi noticed that it felt weird that he went from date rape to grabbing a random woman in a busy area to rape, I would have been interested in knowing more about what his deal was. Not that I want that sleaze to have more of a part in the story than the victim, but it felt like a part of the story we missed in favor of a few more smug Olivia speeches. 

[txhorns79]

38 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Did she overhear her talking to Olivia? Did she tell the rapist while she pretended to flirt with him? How did she find this confidential information so quickly?

It's possible that when it was found out, it was included in the police notes about the case.  That is how the defense attorney would have known about it. 

Quote

I wish we had gotten a bit more of the rapists pathology, even Carisi noticed that it felt weird that he went from date rape to grabbing a random woman in a busy area to rape, I would have been interested in knowing more about what his deal was.

I agree.  I thought it was weird he went from the college era complaint to what, a decade or more later, grabbing random women off the street?  That seems like a huge escalation, and there was no suggestion of anything at all in between. 

[MediaZone4K]

3 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I just have to ask, is there really not a counselor or victims advocate or social worker or anyone who can help victims and families without being involved in the investigation and legal stuff? Isn't that what people do in the real world? I know that this is just how procedurals work, the main characters do every single job in any investigation, but this is so egregious. Olivia is an actual police captain but she has this much time to hand hold this one victim when she should presumably be working on other cases or working on the nitty gritty aspects of the case? I know that this is the Olivia show and its nothing new, but this one seemed to hit me even more, literally half the episode was made up of Olivia speeches. 

All that being said, I did really like this episode. It was great to see Donna Lynne Champlin from Crazy Ex Girlfriend getting such a meaty role that she did a great job with, and I like that we had a victim who isn't a sexy young woman or a child,  a victim who wants to take charge of her own case. She was more angry than wilting and wasn't so willing to do as the cops say, which I think is as natural a reaction to being assaulted as anything else. 

The flashback during the trial was interesting, I don't think we have seen that before. The courtroom stuff was pretty good, although I'm not sure how the rapists lawyer found out about the victims MS diagnosis. Did she overhear her talking to Olivia? Did she tell the rapist while she pretended to flirt with him? How did she find this confidential information so quickly? 

I wish we had gotten a bit more of the rapists pathology, even Carisi noticed that it felt weird that he went from date rape to grabbing a random woman in a busy area to rape, I would have been interested in knowing more about what his deal was. Not that I want that sleaze to have more of a part in the story than the victim, but it felt like a part of the story we missed in favor of a few more smug Olivia speeches. 

I also miss the extra roles we had on the show. They never replaced BD Wong for a full-time psychiatrist, they never replaced Warner for a full-time ME. 

[txhorns79]

23 minutes ago, MediaZone4K said:

They never replaced BD Wong for a full-time psychiatrist, they never replaced Warner for a full-time ME. 

My guess with Warner and Wong was that when cost cutting needed to be done, but roles were superfluous, as neither is really needed in every episode.  It's like on the mothership when Olivet was brought on full time so the cast would have a regular female character.  Once they solved that issue a season later it became obvious that she wasn't needed as a regular.