S26.E21 Aperture

[Xeliou66]

Episode Description 

When an assault at gunpoint is witnessed through a neighboring window, the squad scrambles to locate the victim to confirm she’s safe. A threat to extort the victim’s family leads to a shocking suspect. 

[wknt3]

The Good:
The opener. If you are going to show the crime, this was a good way of doing it. We didn't see the whole thing from the beginning so we didn't know more than the squad and it added to the whodunnit aspect instead of hurting it.

The COTW. It was actually well done as far as a twisted and elaborate crime without getting campy or needing the cops to be psychic to solve the case.

Carisi had a lot of good material for an episode with no courtroom scenes.

The guest cast. They had a lot of material that was challenging to do without going OTT or underplaying too much and coming off wooden and they mostly pulled it off.

The Bad:
No Bruno again.

Everyone but Benson, Carisi, and Fin was interchangeable and had no real reason to be there other than to fill space. While it's better than having the captain do all of the fieldwork, it's still lazy writing. And even Fin was underused to some extent - this case cried out for some snark about rich white people and their entitled kids.

 

Overall this was a a pretty good episode. Classic SVU formula done competently without too much OTT Benson worship. The acting and technical aspects were mostly well done. The major flaw that kept this from being a very good to excellent episode was a script that never really rose above adequate - with a little polish to add some dark humor in the right places, and add some nuance and personality to the secondary characters it would have been excellent. Instead it was just pretty good. Hopefully they raise their game a bit for the finale.

[Xeliou66]

This was another good episode, it’s remarkable how much SVU has improved this season, they’ve dialed back the Benson worship to manageable levels mostly and they’ve given us a variety of good cases. This was an interesting and twisted case - I suspected the brother might’ve masterminded the whole thing but it was a good investigation, reminiscent of classic SVU. All of the detectives were good as was Carisi, no Bruno sucked though. Overall this was another strong episode and I hope the season finishes strong next week, this season has been SVU’s best season since season 17 by far. 

[kitkat343]

It would be really hard to pick the dumbest thing Benson has ever done in 26 seasons of SVU, but near the top of the list has to be cheerfully telling the mother of a sexual assault victim to open a video sent from an unknown phone number when the only thing she knew about her child's sexual assault was that it was filmed.  At that moment I thought, "have you not been doing this for 25 years?  That's a mistake that would be surprising from a rookie on their first day of work"  Aside from that particularly idiocy, this was a decent episode.  

Edited May 9 by kitkat343

[Zaffy]

This has been such a decent season, that I have started to worry something bad is gonna happen in the remaining episodes. Like I dunno.. Ma*** appearing or something? brrrrr!
Ok, some cliches are still there and I do not think we will ever escape Olivia's whispering, but this must be their best season in quite a long time. And very balanced, Olivia balanced, using the whole crew balanced, Noah balanced.
The only thing I miss, is more court time with Carissi, but hey, you cannot have it all.
I have to give them credit, after some horrible seasons and being in their 26th one, it is quite hard to still offer decent TV.  Kudos to them!
 

Edited May 9 by Zaffy

[marny]

I figured out that Atlas was in on the rape pretty early on but that may have been because of his terrible haircut. 

[Xeliou66]

41 minutes ago, Zaffy said:

This has been such a decent season, that I have started to worry something bad is gonna happen in the remaining episodes. Like I dunno.. Ma*** appearing or something? brrrrr!
Ok, some cliches are still there and I do not think we will ever escape Olivia's whispering, but this must be their best season in quite a long time. And very balanced, Olivia balanced, using the whole crew balanced, Noah balanced.
The only thing I miss, is more court time with Carissi, but hey, you cannot have it all.
I have to give them credit, after some horrible seasons and being in their 26th one, it is quite hard to still offer decent TV.  Kudos to them!
 

Agreed this season has been SVU’s best since season 17 - only one more episode to go and hopefully they finish strong. It’s had a nice mix of cases overall and a good use of each character, the Benson worship has been dialed back to where it doesn’t overwhelm the show like it did last season and they’ve given other characters good stuff and the show hasn’t been a soap opera, they’ve made the personal stuff manageable as well this year. They’ve used Carisi in court really well in other episodes this season, this is the best the court stuff has been in a long time. I hope SVU stays pretty good next season, but it’s not promising that they are ditching 2 detectives, and the die hard Benson lovers and people who like personal drama have disliked this season, and they are very vocal on social media, one reason why I don’t post about the show on social media, I hope the show doesn’t start pandering to them again.
I’ve been very impressed by this season overall, it’s been SVU’s best and most consistently solid season in years. 

[preeya]

I pegged the stepbrother as soon as the cops talked to the parents, and I couldn't fathom why none of the elite SVUers didn't. Additionally, Olivia knew where the hidden photos were because "she has a 14-year-old son" yet no one suspected the actual perp.

The plot of this episode was good but the delivery sucked.

[Sake614]

1 hour ago, marny said:

I figured out that Atlas was in on the rape pretty early on but that may have been because of his terrible haircut. 

I thought so too at first and then changed my mind. But as the show went on, I was back to thinking he set the whole thing up. I didn’t quite expect that level of obsession though. 

I thought it was odd for Silva to tell Josie she ‘needed’ to file a report when she clearly said she didn’t want to report it. I seem to recall Olivia and the rest of the team being more encouraging/supportive and less pressuring. You can’t force a victim to report a rape.

[pezgirl7]

Since when is the team so gung-ho that they’ll rip apart plumbing when they haven’t even determined if a SA has taken place and don’t even know who the victim is? 

I thought the sister seemed to be taking everything surprisingly well. She seemed more upset that she could hear her dad crying, since he never cries. I know victims behave differently, but I would have just expected her to show more emotion. 

Why was the Bruno actor made a regular if he’s going to be absent from so many episodes? I can only hope he’ll appear more next season with two of the other actors leaving. 

[slowpoked]

I thought this was a good case, although obviously very icky. I knew the brother was hiding something, isn’t telling the whole story, but I didn’t see him being the mastermind. 
 

I also like that there’s a good mix of the detectives working the case. The ladies talked to Josie, while the guys worked Atlas. At least it wasn’t Benson all the time. And even where there was no courtroom scenes, Carisi was instrumental in the BTS, so to speak.

What I didn’t get was why Atlas had to fly in his co-conspirator from TX. You mean to tell me he has no other questionable “friends” nearby?! In freaking NEW YORK?!?!?!

 

16 hours ago, pezgirl7 said:

Why was the Bruno actor made a regular if he’s going to be absent from so many episodes? I can only hope he’ll appear more next season with two of the other actors leaving. 

Oh wow. First reason for this show has always been about the budget. Always. Other reasons I could think of is they want to make the other captain a regular. Or they may be preparing for the comeback of Amanda Rollins.

Speaking of which, sneaky way to get her in the series this season, w/o paying her regular cast salary of course.

[The Wild Sow]

1 minute ago, slowpoked said:

What I didn’t get was why Atlas had to fly in his co-conspirator from TX. You mean to tell me he has no other questionable “friends” nearby?! In freaking NEW YORK?!?!?!

He was sophisticated enough to set up that whole plot, but dumb enough to hide his wank bank pix under his mattress too?!

And ugh, of course they know each other from freakin' Discord.  Two clubs I belong to for my hobbies use that platform, so I do have a Discord account -- but I always feel like I should wash my hands after using it!  Probably because I first heard of it in connection with things like this plot!

I think of it as the "Incels/White Supremacists/School Shooters" network 😆.  My kids and grandkids assure me that it's not all those creepy types; you can just find a group to discuss anything you're interested in....but I still have that mental picture.

[preeya]

17 hours ago, pezgirl7 said:

Why was the Bruno actor made a regular if he’s going to be absent from so many episodes? I can only hope he’ll appear more next season with two of the other actors leaving. 

Who is leaving SVU?

[slowpoked]

39 minutes ago, The Wild Sow said:

I think of it as the "Incels/White Supremacists/School Shooters" network 😆.  My kids and grandkids assure me that it's not all those creepy types; you can just find a group to discuss anything you're interested in....but I still have that mental picture.

But still….no incels in NEW YORK?!?!?!

 

2 minutes ago, preeya said:

Who is leaving SVU?

Detective Velasco and Detective Silva

[tennisgurl]

That was overall a good episode, I started off thinking that the step brother was in on it, then I changed my mind, but I went back to it being hm again as soon as we saw those pictures that his dad found. It was a pretty twisted creepy case with some actual good detective work where nothing felt too contrived. There was also a refreshing like of melodramatics and lectures. My main complaint is that the emotions around it felt a bi muted from the supporting cast, especially from the teenage victim, I know that everyone handles this huge traumatic experiences differently but she seemed pretty chill about everything from the assault to finding out that her beloved step brother arranged for him to rape her and has been obsessed with her since they met as kids. I don't know if it was the acting or a writing choice, but it felt like this sort of intense horrible destruction of a family should have a little more intensity.

I am glad that Carisi got some good material and some fun snark here and there. "Looks like just where I grew up." I was sad that Bruno wasn't around, and I am really to hear we are losing more cast. Having a full squad of likable characters was such a breath of fresh air. 

This has overall been a solid season with episodes ranging from pretty good to great, I hope we can keep this up, although the budget cuts and loss of cast make me nervous.

[Wizardpatch]

As soon as we found out the girl was someone's attractive stepsister, I knew her stepbrother orchestrated it.

Edited Tuesday at 03:33 PM by Wizardpatch