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S17.E08: Melancholy Pursuit

WendyCR72

By WendyCR72
in Law & Order: SVU

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wknt3

wknt3

(edited)

The Good:

No Rollins and barely any mention of her pregnancy.

Minimal Noah despite the preview.

A solid (relatively) straightforward plot, well executed without trying to add too many twists.

Carisi.

The confession scene at the end.

The Bad:

No Barba.

The parents. Not sure if it was the writing or the acting but they just didn't do it for me.

They still haven't figured out Dodds. Part of that is probably just the usual SVU growing pains where nobody outside of the squad is knowledgeable or empathetic and they beat us over the head with one character trait for a season or two until they remember nuance and realism (if Carisi can graduate from grating goofball to awesome there's hope for Dodds) but it's still noticeable and a problem. Maybe just a few small adjustments like going an episode without "my dad says"?

Once again why promote Liv and keep her in the field all the time?

Another solid if unspectacular episode. Let's hope that the promos are just as misleading as last week's since an hour of St. Olivia and the Sledgehammer of Angst really doesn't thrill me. Even if Huang is back.

Edited by wknt3
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Gigi43

Gigi43

Was the killer of related to the girl or not? I'm confused about that with the DNA mention in the beginning but I didn't hear that mentioned with the killer at the end. Admittedly I found myself zoning in and out.

Dodds isn't a rookie. I know SVU is different than other jobs but its getting old him being surprised/struck by a lot of things when he's had to have seen a lot already having been a cop long enough to be a Sarg, no?

Carisi doesn't have to cook for me, we could do it together if I could have him as a real person for myself.

Where's Barba?!

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Snookums

Snookums

At least the Noah part was just the promo monkeys screwing with us.

 

 

I knew they were faking us out! 

 

Man, What'shisname dogged it all over City Island! I was surprised the entire neighborhood wasn't related. Wonder if he died of Acute Jealous Husband. 

 

I did like when Neckbeard finally got caught and was just this sad, pathetic loser who did something terrible without even really meaning to because he honestly thought a fifteen year old was into him. Dodds sitting there trying to make him into a monster, any kind of monster and he was just this blubbering whiner with no more answers then when they began.

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shapeshifter

shapeshifter

Wait a minute, did I zone out, wasn't there semen traces on the body?  How does that jive with killer's admission?

That bugged me enough to replay the confession and what the ME said. The ME line was "...and semen on her thigh." I guess they didn't care if his pants were down when he killed her??

I guess the Red Herring Award For All Time goes to the half brother whose DNA fit the inital profile, who had amnesia about where he was at the time of the murder and a brother who admitted his alibi was fake, and who worked as a roadie so often was able to attract young groupies and had moving blankets and ties in the back of his vehicle identical to the ones in which the body was wrapped.

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Princess Lucky

Princess Lucky

Wait a minute, did I zone out, wasn't there semen traces on the body?  How does that jive with killer's admission?

I was gonna say, the girl was unconscious and bleeding since he hit her right after she said no to "kissing" him. So nothing had happened yet. Where did the semen come from? Did he, like, jerk off on a bleeding, dying girl?

 

Aaaand now I regret this line of thought.

 

Dodds should really stop quoting his dad. And I gotta say, while I like the actor and I don't even mind the character, this entire episode of him Taking!It!Personally! was not my cup of tea. I guess I should be glad we didn't get an over the top reveal about his personal life, but still. That's why I like Carisi. He never takes anything personally. I can't help but compare the drawn-out shot of Dodds when they found the girl, set to tragic music, to that quick close-up of Carisi from that episode with Whoopi Goldberg, when they found that little girl inside a cage. We saw Carisi's reaction for a split second, and that was all we needed to realise his anguish. Anything more than that and it gets too much, if you ask me.

 

This episode was way too twisty. Also, if it was a half-sibling DNA match, and the guy already had a child out of wedlock while he himself was married, and with a freakin' 16-year-old, no less, why did they assume the perp was one of his legitimate sons? He could have 5 other kids no one knew about.

 

Forgettable episode, overall. I'm just keeping the fact Fin texts Amanda pictures of exhumations, and the fact Carisi a) can cook and b) wants to cook for Amanda and the whole squad, because he is the best.

 

But we already knew what.

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Lizzing

Lizzing

 

Forgettable episode, overall. I'm just keeping the fact Fin texts Amanda pictures of exhumations, and the fact Carisi a) can cook and b) wants to cook for Amanda and the whole squad, because he is the best.

Those were my two good takeaways from the episode too. 

 

Though, I did wonder for a while if the run around City Island father was really dead, since every single person who knew them practically spat out "He's been dead for five years!" upon meeting a cop.  I cooked up a "faked death, in witness protection" subplot in my head that went nowhere. LOL!

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runforcover

runforcover

I was gonna say, the girl was unconscious and bleeding since he hit her right after she said no to "kissing" him. So nothing had happened yet. Where did the semen come from? Did he, like, jerk off on a bleeding, dying girl?

 

Right? Like wouldn't this detail tip the profile from clumsy attack-ish to ATTACK?  manslaughter to murder, or whatever.  Can't the SVU script at least remember the current episode?      

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preeya

preeya

Forgettable episode, overall. I'm just keeping the fact Fin texts Amanda pictures of exhumations, and the fact Carisi a) can cook and b) wants to cook for Amanda and the whole squad, because he is the best.

 

 

So they all took off to visit Amanda and Carisi was going to cook for her/them. Where, when and how did they expect this to happen? This whole episode seemed quite convoluted.

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Hero

Hero

(edited)

I can understand why Dodds was so affected by this case. SVU must be a huge change for anyone new. You mostly have these tragic and gruesome cases that involve kids/women. Dodds was probably used to the "regular" homicide cases that follow the same pattern.I don't think anyone working in SVU, no matter how many years, can ever not be affected by what they see and experience everyday.

I think that this case struck him hard because he assumed that the girl ran away, that is what he was taught and what he was used to. Then to find out that the girl was still alive when he said all this, I think it could get to anyone.

SVU was a big change to Carisi also. He was also used to the "regular" homicide case, but he was also affected. The speech that he made the first season he was on really summed it up. He said something along the lines that the women he found murdered were usually killed by their husbands or boyfriends and when he found them, they were posed and they looked as if they expected to one day be gone, so they looked beautiful. But, he said the cases that SVU get, the women and children don't know what's going to happen to them, it comes as a surprise and they are found in ways that aren't humane.

I really hope this makes sense. I am trying to go by memory and I feel like I am rambling.

Edited by Suzy123
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FozzyBear

FozzyBear

The DNA database has the DNA of a subway turn-style jumper but it does not have the DNA of someone arrested for aggravated assault?

Was he convicted or just arrested? I think in most states DNA profiles are supposed to be destroyed if someone isn't convicted.

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Snookums

Snookums

That bugged me enough to replay the confession and what the ME said. The ME line was "...and semen on her thigh." I guess they didn't care if his pants were down when he killed her??

 

 

They totally knew, of course, that this blob of loser had jacked it on a dying, unconscious girl but they wanted him to just confess on his own. They didn't need the confession to convict him--they had more than enough physical evidence--but Dodds had to hear it from the guy, hear why he did it. Olivia knew that if they pushed him on the gross details his lawyer could say they coerced him (as they had damn near done not hours ago with the roadie guy) and mess up closing the case. So they didn't bother saying "what about this and that?" And of course the moron was "embarrassed" about what he did and wouldn't bring up "oh, and I totally got what she owed me while she was lying there knocked out." He didn't think of himself  "that way," as a "bad" person.

 

I guess the Red Herring Award For All Time goes to the half brother whose DNA fit the inital profile, who had amnesia about where he was at the time of the murder and a brother who admitted his alibi was fake, and who worked as a roadie so often was able to attract young groupies and had moving blankets and ties in the back of his vehicle identical to the ones in which the body was wrapped.

 

 

This scene, with Carisi and Dodds working the guy, creeped me out considerably and reminded me of the similar scene at the beginning of the terrific movie The Pledge, where Aaron Eckhardt plays a cop who similarly "romances" a false confession out of a suspect who literally isn't smart enough to help himself. They very nearly got the wrong guy and would have either never found the real killer, or if they had, totally messed up getting him locked up since his lawyer could rightly point out they got a confession out of somebody else. THAT'S why you don't have two newbies together!

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GarnetGirl

GarnetGirl

So was Alexandra Wentworth in this episode (as the mom on the playground) for the SOLE purpose of making us think the Noah thing was going to be meaningful, or is she coming back in later episodes? If the former, wow, impressive levels of misdirection there, SVU team.

I think she's really good friends with Mariska Hargitay. I think it was just for fun.

 

As for the rest of the episode, it was boring. Thank heavens Barba is back next week.

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Lebanna

Lebanna

I'm going to go against the consensus and say that I enjoyed the change of pace in this episode. It was a bit quieter, a lot less lurid than usual, but the story was twisty in a slightly old fashioned way and it gave us some time to meet the newbie.

And I liked how they showed the perpetrator's thought process - he still honestly be believed that he wasn't really a bad guy, while we and the detectives are sitting there knowing that he did something unforgivable when he masturbated on a dead or dying girl - that the murder probably turned him on. That wasn't just a misjudgement. It was evil, and he still can't admit it even to himself. The fact that they never pointed this out explicitly, showed a bit of belief in the audience's ability not to need spoon-feeding.

I liked it.

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Kel Varnsen

Kel Varnsen

(edited)

So I am curious, if a cop needs a warrant to collect someone's DNA and it is not legal to refuse a breathalyzer, then how is collecting DNA of a breathalyzer legal? I was totally waiting for Barba to show up and say the DNA was inadmissible and they needed the confession.

Edited by Kel Varnsen
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junemeatcleaver

junemeatcleaver

 

I did like when Neckbeard finally got caught and was just this sad, pathetic loser who did something terrible without even really meaning to because he honestly thought a fifteen year old was into him.

 

Were we supposed to take his story at face value?  The victim had semen on her leg, something the perp left out during his tale of woe.

 

I liked that it was obvious, imo, that the perp was lying without the SVU team chiming in at the end about the holes in his story. 

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Save Yourself

Save Yourself

Dodds really has to stop quoting his dad, that is weird isn't it? Another poster said they are writing him as a rookie, not an experienced cop and that is spot on, it makes it really hard to take him seriously.

Sick of Liv pushing her way into every case and not giving anybody any agency, it's like she thinks she is the only competent one. She needs to just demote herself back to a detective if she wants to go into the field all the time, there was no point in promoting her.

While on the subject of Liv, over the past few months I watched EVERY single SVU episode right from the beginning! So so many things that I could say about that but the big thing is Liv's character changing so much. It was sometime last season when she started to be a real bitch, having a lot of conflicts with people and being very inflexible. She was never like that before, she was tough but fair, very good team player, quite humble, diplomatic, friendly and a bit damaged. She did always Take.It.Personally but that suited the character. I luuuurved her! And now I can barely stand when she's on the screen. I did love the story arc with her finding Noah and then that judge asking her to foster him since no one else was taking an interest, I bawled my eyes out.

Carisi made this episode bearable for me, please give he and Barba their own show! I don't care what the premise would be as long as they both wear their 3 piece suits. So so happy Barba is back next week.

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CelticBlackCat

CelticBlackCat

(edited)

The fact that the opening scene of Benoah drama was just a teaser made the rest of this episode delightful.  I was half expecting Olivia to be hunting down the kidnapper of little Noah while the rest of the precinct was looking for a "runaway" teen.

 

I like the dysfunctional family stuff, so having Ray Marino be the Lothario of City Island was fun.  Lots of secrets, twists, and the clueless wife/widow.

 

I agree with above posters about how they handled the confession of Neckbeard and didn't ram home the fact that he did a sexual naughty with a dead (or dying) girl, but just let him believe it was just a dalliance gone wrong.  It was better than being all outraged and aggressive toward the perp when they had all the evidence they needed to hand over to Barba.

 

Barba MIA = at least one star taken off the rating, in my book.

 

Carisi of course makes up for it for all the above-stated reasons by previous forumers.

 

I guess the visit to Amanda's place with the whole gang and Chef Carisi would've happened after the tour was over; much like when they all end up in a bar or somewhere wrapping up a case.

 

I must say that Tamara Tunie is always a welcome recurring actress.  I really like her and I think she is getting even more beautiful as time goes on.

Edited by CelticBlackCat
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Bananna

Bananna

This episode for me was "meh", there was nothing wrong with it but I didn't find it that enjoyable either.

 

God, would Dodds, Jr stop saying "My dad says" because I would possibly warm to his character a bit more if he didn't say that every episode.

 

A third episode in a row with no Barba? Boo!

 

The Benoah drama was just a teaser, I was so thankful when it was over after two minutes.

 

And that's all I have to say really, I mean Carisi was great. But just assume I think he was unless I mention otherwise.

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Scott

Scott

I just couldn't get into it.  The 'twist' was interesting, in that they had to go back to the adopted guy's biological father, but then it felt like they just kept adding more random half-brothers until they filled the full hour.  

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ESS

ESS

I'm indifferent to this episode, the only great thing about it was seeing Melinda again! She had finally some great airtime & not just 5 seconds of airtime. Loved Tamara as usual her acting is always amazing no matter what she does. 

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aguabella

aguabella

(edited)

Yes, I had the creepy thoughts about the guy and the girl's dead body until I realized / decided he was probably doing what perps do, i.e. whitewashing the story to minimize his role in her death/murder or manslaughter.  Barba would have sorted it out but perhaps he'd start the plea negotiations by assuming the guy played a larger role in the crime, kidnapping her and attempting the rape but then only partially completing the sex act to minimize the dna.  And/or, she threw him off by losing consciousness, interfering with his planned dna clean-up.  Either one but I'm probably totally off base, lol! 

 

Glad to see a straight SVU plot, even though they took a few twists/turns with various half-siblings used along the way.  Hey, it gave them a chance to utilize the L&O Recurring Guest Star, SAG Union Hall, right?  But, unfortunately, another Barba-less episode.

 

I, too, considered the legality of the search and seizure / dna collection during the fake traffic road-block.  Interesting that Super-Sarg Dodds let the perp walk at that point, even though his truck contained the moving blankets and ties.  Assuming the drivers supposedly, technically, volunteered their DNA.  Needed Barba to supervise, as usual!

 

Yep, sounded like they were going to blow off a little steam at Amanda's place instead of a bar.  Perhaps Fin can stop along the way and photograph a few stiffs in the morgue for Amanda.  Ugh, photos of exhumations ???  Does she miss work that much?  That devoted to her job?  Find a hobby, Amanda!  How about knitting while you're on bedrest?

 

Anyone else wonder if Dodds, Jr would suddenly blurt out something about a few half-siblings, ha ha ha?  Sounds like this Mom No. 1 needed to ride along on the bus, occasionally, to keep Roving-Eye Ray in line!  And, yeah, can the "Daddy Dodds' Pearls of Wisdom routine". 

Edited by aguabella
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wknt3

wknt3

Dodds is a Sargent and they've got him acting like a rookie who just joined the force.

 

 

Dodds really has to stop quoting his dad, that is weird isn't it? Another poster said they are writing him as a rookie, not an experienced cop and that is spot on, it makes it really hard to take him seriously.

 

Unfortunately after the first few seasons they've been unable to tell the difference between showing a good cop adapting to the unique challenges of SVU and a blithering idiot who lacks many of the skills or traits needed to succeed in what's supposed to be an elite unit. They also seem to only define 2 or 3 character traits at most and run them into the ground. Apparently they think that we need to reminded that Sgt.Dodds is Chief Dodds son 3 times an episode or we'll forget.

 

 

Sick of Liv pushing her way into every case and not giving anybody any agency, it's like she thinks she is the only competent one. She needs to jut demote herself back to a detective if she wants to go into the field all the time, there was no point in promoting her.

 

Exactly. If the network execs/producers/Mariska's ego can't handle going the Sam Waterston route and being more involved than previous squad leaders but not in the field or in every scene anymore they should have kept her a Sgt. and brought in a new CO. It's not only unrealistic it's bad from a storytelling POV. You lose opportunities for exposition when the detectives give progress briefings, to shorthand that a case is really important or politically sensitive (when Cragen or Van Buren showed up at a crime scene you knew it was special), for conflict (if Liv is at every interview and crime scene it's not realistic for her to have different ideas for how the case should have been pursued) etc. It's just a bad idea.

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CleoCaesar

CleoCaesar

(edited)

Though, I did wonder for a while if the run around City Island father was really dead, since every single person who knew them practically spat out "He's been dead for five years!" upon meeting a cop.  I cooked up a "faked death, in witness protection" subplot in my head that went nowhere. LOL!

 

HA same here. I just kept thinking, "They all keep repeating 5 years ago - are they all in it together??" Nope, turns out it was just a boring non-twist.

 

Quiet episodes every now and then are OK, but this one was just kind of dull.

Edited by CleoCaesar
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solequeene

solequeene

Like others said, it was a meh episode. The Noah walks away part was unnecessary and could have been cut and no prosecution (that is, no Barba) makes the episode lose points on principle. I don't get why Dodds was so rattled by the case or why Olivia said it was a tough case; it really wasn't. I was left wanting to meet Ray Marino.

 

Re: the semen, I thought the perp lied. The vic's clothes were torn, so he did more than trying to kiss her. Probably masturbated over her or ejaculated accidentally. Anyway, he wasn't telling the whole story.

 

Loved Carisi in uniform and Fin takings pictures of the exhumation for Rollins. That's both sweet and creepy.

 

One question for Americans: what's the deal with Staten Island? There've been a few disparaging mentions to it and Wiki doesn't help at all.

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LibertarianSlut

LibertarianSlut

It's a NYC thing. The other boroughs basically consider it remote, suburban, and crime ridden. Or so I hear.

CleoCaesar, pretty well summed-up, esp if you're not a native New Yorker! I would just tweak the "crime-ridden" thing to the related "mobbed-up." I don't think there's a lot of, say, street crime on Staten Island, especially if you compare it to other parts of NYC, like the Bronx (City Island notwithstanding. City Island is more suburban than most Bronx communities).
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WendyCR72

WendyCR72

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Yeah, I know Mike Logan of the Mothership/CI, would very often put Staten Island down, talking of his "banishment" there. I live in upstate NY, which is a world away from NYC (feels like a different state!), and I never understood the scorn.

 

So thanks for the info!

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fivestone

fivestone

So I am curious, if a cop needs a warrant to collect someone's DNA and it is not legal to refuse a breathalyzer, then how is collecting DNA of a breathalyzer legal? I was totally waiting for Barba to show up and say the DNA was inadmissible and they needed the confession.

 

You can legally refuse a breathalyzer. So they voluntarily gave over their DNA.

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fivestone

fivestone

I did not realize that. Typically in Canada, if you refuse the penalties are the same as if you blew over thr limit.

 

It's similar in a lot of jurisdictions in America. But a lot of people just refuse the breathalyser anyway up front and bank on a lawyer being able to help them out of the mess later on. A DUI is a lot harder to fight if the government has incontrovertible evidence that you were over the limit.

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