S17.E11: Townhouse Incident

[WendyCR72]

Benson is taken hostage when she tries to stop a home invasion.

[Vicky8675309]

I always seem to be a day ahead of everyone. I guess the episodes are leaked for streaming before they air or are available through the network. Great episode!

[Ms Blue Jay]

They aired it in Canada yesterday.

 

My spoiler will have nothing plot related.

 

I just thought it was pointless.

[Medicine Crow]

They aired it in Canada yesterday.

 

My spoiler will have nothing plot related.

 

I just thought it was pointless.

I totally agree.  The whole scenario seemed far-fetched but the #1 bad guy was really creepy.

Edited January 13, 2016 by Medicine Crow

[MorbidPet]

I just thought it was pointless.

So with you. I got nothing good to say about this episode at all. Might honestly be a series low for me and I'm not sure I can call myself a fan any longer. 

[Tony]

What a shitfest.

 

I always want to skip the episode when I see it's about a hostage storyline. Totally should have passed on this one.

[Lebanna]

This was such a do-over of the horrific Lewis episodes. I hated them and I hated this. It actually upset me and I had to switch it off.

[Princess Lucky]

I only watch this show for Carisi now, so frankly I didn't mind the episode. He had a couple of nice moments. That's good enough for me.

 

/low expectations

/easily pleased

[WendyCR72]

Didn't Leight sign some deal with Sony? Think he did. I think part of the agreement for that was allowing him to remain as EP for this season. Well, let's hope - if this deal is still a thing and NBC renews for a S18 - that there is a new EP coming as he seems to go to the "Olivia Benson Torture Porn Hour" well too often.

[Sarcastica]

They aired it in Canada yesterday.

 

My spoiler will have nothing plot related.

 

I just thought it was pointless.

 

Accurate 

[Spartan Girl]

God that was painful. That guy really did remind me of Lewis, but at least they did what they SHOULD have done with Lewis and blew him away after just one episode.

What IS it with this show and crazy/stupid/evil redheads?

Only Tucker, Carisi, and Barba made this shit tolerable.

[Hero]

Damn, this episode dragged on. How fucking pointless was this episode?

The only highlight was Carisi. And Dodds Jr. has a nice body.

[Primetimer]

Yet another Liv-in-peril episode takes a foxy turn when our heroine gets to choose her own HOT-stage negotiator.

Read the story

[Gigi43]

Jr. Dodds doesn't look bad under his clothes apparently, which was the only plot revelation worth mentioning.

This was such a Lewis rehash Benson knew it early on even.

[wknt3]

The Good:
The part with the squad investigating the rape. A glimmer of humanity from Dodds, good acting by the guest stars, Barba!, everybody working together to solve sex crimes - you know they might want to try a whole episode of that.
"I don't wanna hurt you."
It wasn't a two-parter.

The Bad:
As everyone except Mariska, Warren Leight, and those on NBC's payroll has already pointed this is a plot that has been done too often AND too recently.
We now have proof that Benoah can drag down ANY plot.
The acting from the hostage takers. Not that they had much to work with, but it was neither believably naturalistic or gloriously over the top scenery chewing.
They used one of the limited quota of Barba episodes for him to do not much of anything?
They couldn't do ANYTHING new? If you're going to repeat a plot at least change one or two elements.
The general pointlessness of the whole thing.

You know show you keep talking about doing something new and growth for Benson. And you want to be progressive and advocate for feminism and women's issues. Here's an idea - do the hostage plotline if you must, but change it up. Have Fin be the one taken hostage and let Benson kick ass and save him. Maybe give her a tough command decision to make. You know actual growth and really subverting the damsel in distress trope. Especially since we still have Chekhov's Cupcake out there so we know there's at least one more Liv in danger story coming up. This was just a waste of time for everyone involved.

Edited January 14, 2016 by wknt3

[MrsRafaelBarba]

So yeah, William Lewis had a psycho brotha,from another mother.

So in the SVU universe, Benson goes charging into a possible home invasion.

Without calling for any backup from her squad?

ROTFLMAO!

My heart broke for the daughter, when William Lewis Jr dragged the child away and raped

Her.

Nice body Dodds Jr.

Welcome back Barba!

Am I the only one, that cackled when Benson punched Joe two blocks down?

[WendyCR72]

What IS it with this show and crazy/stupid/evil redheads?

 

Only fair: The CI branch covered the psycho blondes. Only brunettes are unscathed, I guess.

[Blaise]

Oh come on, they are TOTALLY doing it!! That's all I took away from the episode anyway. Liv giving up her gun right away was also terrible cop procedure IMO. Would those idiots really suspect she was a cop as soon as she walked in? She might have had a better chance if she didn't tell the bad guys her entire life story as soon as she was forced inside.

[kalamac]

I don't even watch the show anymore, and I'm hoping that at some point Noah stumbles into an active volcano and never appears again. Gahhhh. I hated all the family drama back when it was Stabler's spawn cluttering up storylines, now Noah's presence annoys me, and all I do is read the recaps.

[junemeatcleaver]

What a dumb episode.

[auchic]

Damn, this episode dragged on. How fucking pointless was this episode?

 

The only way they could justify this episode is if it's used to make Liv take extended leave - because she HAS to have some pretty severe PTSD by now - and there'll be no more of her or Noah for the rest of the season.

 

Wouldn't that be nice...

 

Shallow takeaway #1 - I can't recall Barba introducing himself with his full name like that and rawr...me likee.  We should petition TPTB to use 'Rafael' more - the name AND the character.

 

Shallow takeaway #2 - It was probably the lighting, but Carisi looked all silvery foxy in some scenes. That man is sinfully gorgeous.

[Hero]

The only way they could justify this episode is if it's used to make Liv take extended leave - because she HAS to have some pretty severe PTSD by now - and there'll be no more of her or Noah for the rest of the season.

Wouldn't that be nice...

Shallow takeaway #1 - I can't recall Barba introducing himself with his full name like that and rawr...me likee. We should petition TPTB to use 'Rafael' more - the name AND the character.

Shallow takeaway #2 - It was probably the lighting, but Carisi looked all silvery foxy in some scenes. That man is sinfully gorgeous.

Carisi is gorgeous! I think I have noticed that he has some gray hair, which makes him even sexier.

[bikebrh]

God, this was terrible... it was like I was watching the first reel of one of those crappy Death Wish movies from the 1970's. You know, the part where the tweaking bad guys torture Charles Bronson's wife/daughter/girlfriend/whatever before he spends the rest of the film killing people.

[MorbidPet]

So many plot holes in this episode I don't know where to start. Like what was she doing there in the first place? She went there on a whim and broke all protocol and she's supposed to be the boss with +17 police experience!? She actually made the situation worse and I'm not even sure that 16yo girl would've been raped hadn't Liv showed up cause I mean only with Liv around would a robber turn rapist like that. And for what purpose did they have a 16yo raped in this episode? So that Liv would suffer through listening/seeing another one get raped? The situation was already dire so it was overkill to go through with a rape and, I think, a poor decision by WL & Co to put us through that. Unnecessary and thoughtless as all they focused on was Liv's pain and suffering, that girl was just a prop. 

And the overacting had me laughing at times. It was just so bad. Not even seeing Barba made this episode worth while. Raul came back for that? Sad. I'm happy Kelli wasn't in this episode. 

[candall]

Well, I tend to skip torture stuff, so I didn't watch most of the Lewis arc and maybe that's why I liked this episode more than everyone else.  The strung out, ticking time bomb bad guy did a good job making me extremely tense.  A coked up asshole waving his gun around and screaming about a home safe that doesn't exist seems like a different, more basic scenario than the sadistic mastermind with a vendetta.

 

Maybe it's SOP for a detective stumbling into a situation to immediately identify himself and surrender his gun, but Noah's Mom stretched my patience when she suggested she go get the daughter a . . .drink of water?  Rape guy's not going to give a damn about stuff like that--how many times do you want to be hit in the face with that gun, O?

Edited January 14, 2016 by candall

[Everleigh]

Why does Olivia even leave her house anymore? She has like a 67% chance of being taken hostage whenever she walks out the door now. Actually she has a pretty high chance of being taken hostage when she stays home too. She's been attacked in her own apartment a bunch of times too. 

 

Tucker looked good this episode.  

 

In the press the writers and Mariska were saying this is different than the Lewis saga because Olivia is a mom now and that changes how she responds because she has this child waiting at home for her. But I didn't really see any difference in how she usually handles these situations. She tried talking to them, tried to reason with them, and put herself in danger to protect the family. That's pretty much standard practice for her. She may not have been as quick to fight back or go for the gun when it was dropped, but in the end, she's the one who disarmed the guy in a very dangerous way. 

 

So many plot holes in this episode I don't know where to start. Like what was she doing there in the first place? She went there on a whim and broke all protocol and she's supposed to be the boss with +17 police experience!? She actually made the situation worse and I'm not even sure that 16yo girl would've been raped hadn't Liv showed up cause I mean only with Liv around would a robber turn rapist like that. And for what purpose did they have a 16yo raped in this episode? So that Liv would suffer through listening/seeing another one get raped? The situation was already dire so it was overkill to go through with a rape and, I think, a poor decision by WL & Co to put us through that. 

 

She didn't go on a whim. Her babysitter Lucy asked her to check on the family because when she went to pick up the other kid she cares for, the mother answered the door and seemed to be in distress. She was going to get a feel of the situation before she called it in because she couldn't know whether Lucy was just being paranoid or whatever. 

 

And as much as I hated the rehashing of this particular plot, Olivia is not to blame for the daughter getting raped and implying so only removes responsibility from the guy who actually raped her. And it can't be said for sure that he wouldn't have raped her if Olivia hadn't been there. He was a violent criminal who was hopped up on drugs, nothing really is out of reach for him. And it's not exactly unheard of for a woman to be raped during home invasions.

[MorbidPet]

And as much as I hated the rehashing of this particular plot, Olivia is not to blame for the daughter getting raped and implying so only removes responsibility from the guy who actually raped her. And it can't be said for sure that he wouldn't have raped her if Olivia hadn't been there. He was a violent criminal who was hopped up on drugs, nothing really is out of reach for him. And it's not exactly unheard of for a woman to be raped during home invasions.

Goes without saying the rapist is the perp but to me the writers are the worst perps here. I saw him get triggered by learning Liv was working with rape victims and I feel they didn't have to go there. As I wrote the situation was already gruesome, they didn't have to let the 16yo get raped, especially not as all they focused on was how bad it made Liv feel. I'm tired of Liv and them making it all about her. That kid did not have to be raped in this episode!

[fastiller]

Only Tucker, Carisi, and Barba made this shit tolerable.

Yep.  Barba/Esparza knows how to wear the hell out of a coat.

[Drogo]

Nice body Dodds Jr.

 

Andy Karl played the lead in the short-lived (and underrated) "Rocky" on Broadway and was up for a Tony last year.  He still looks the part. 

 

I like the addition of Dodds Jr. and Carisi to the show, and they're two of the more likeable "new characters" in some time. 

[Princess Lucky]

Shallow takeaway #2 - It was probably the lighting, but Carisi looked all silvery foxy in some scenes. That man is sinfully gorgeous.

Carisi definitely has some grey in his temples even though he has a total babyface and I am here for that. Also, he wears his pants tight and very high. For which I am thankful.

 

Oh come on, they are TOTALLY doing it!! That's all I took away from the episode anyway.

YES.

 

Or, let me be more specific: they may not be doing it currently, but they have done it, more than once, and my interpretation of their dynamic as of last season is that Tucker is super into her. This episode proved that Benson knows that ("who cares if I live or die? My boo Ed!"). And it also proved that Tucker seriously loves her because come on, when that other old cop was all "Tucker you're out", Tucker was, like, in actual pain. Quiet, manly pain. And the way his usually husky voice was even huskier? And then, in the end, when Tucker was like "you saved yourself" and Benson was like "good answer, Ed"? Come on.

 

tl;dr they have done it, they are not doing it currently but they are about to do it again

 

In other news, it's nice that the writers decided to try and make us like Dodds, and him in his undies is a pretty good way of doing that (plus the cute bit with Fin and boxing). Still, if they wanted us to like him, maybe they shouldn't have had him diss the entire precinct only last week (excuse me but I take insults against my boo Carisi very seriously).

 

Some nice Barba moments but why was he even there? Also, he was totally worried about Olivia, but this episode seriously pushed her with Tucker, so I'm feeling like Barba/Benson is dead (which I've been feeling since last season). They didn't even show his reaction when she was rescued.

 

Carisi remains the actual best. Also, he looked cute in that one jacket. I love him.

 

No but seriously, how cute was he when he was all worried about Benson? Yelling "Lieutenant!" and all. Aw. He's my fave by far.

 

No comment on the actual main plot. Pointless.

 

I was more intrigued by the continuation of the rapist case from the Black Lives Matter episode. They still haven't caught the guy, and I doubt it was the guy they busted in this ep, so that will hopefully be revisited again soon. I also liked all the references to that episode, all "at least you didn't shoot him this time" or Fin doubting the witness ID and Carisi going "I know right?"

 

Oh and I appreciate the top picture in the recap. Carisi and Tucker side by side? Yes please. I loved this episode just for giving us that.

[slowpoked]

When the bad guy said give me someone who will be devastated in losing you, I thought they would be bringing in Dodds Sr. Surprised it was Tucker. But I guess I shouldn't be. Haha!

The mother seems to be a an SVU parent regular. I've seen her in a couple of episodes before. The latest one I remember was the Iranian restaurant guy who set up a kidnapping of his own son to teach him stranger danger. She was a bad parent in that episode.

[MrsRafaelBarba]

Goes without saying the rapist is the perp but to me the writers are the worst perps here. I saw him get triggered by learning Liv was working with rape victims and I feel they didn't have to go there. As I wrote the situation was already gruesome, they didn't have to let the 16yo get raped, especially not as all they focused on was how bad it made Liv feel. I'm tired of Liv and them making it all about her. That kid did not have to be raped in this episode!

ITA.

Wished they followed up on how the family was doing after what happened.

Especially the girl.

Also wish they would stop the "Perils of Pauline" mess with Olivia.

[Princess Sparkle]

Carisi definitely has some grey in his temples even though he has a total babyface and I am here for that. Also, he wears his pants tight and very high. For which I am thankful.

 

 

As am I.  Someone in one of the threads last year called him "sex appeal relief" and that is probably the most accurate way to describe him.  

 

And from the recap:

 

Writers, if you want us to care what happens to Liv, please to avoid writing her like a rookie dumbshit.

 

I wish there was an applause emoji I could put in here, because that is the TRUTH.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Princess Sparkle

[Desperately Random]

Why does Olivia even leave her house anymore? She has like a 67% chance of being taken hostage whenever she walks out the door now. Actually she has a pretty high chance of being taken hostage when she stays home too. She's been attacked in her own apartment a bunch of times too. 

 

Seriously. At this point, she should be jumping at every noise she hears and boarding up the doors and windows because she has to realize by now she is a magnet for kidnappers and hostage takers. She must hold the NYPD record for being held hostage and surviving. They should put a plaque up at 1PP.

 

I'm torn. Part of me wants to watch this for Carisi and Barba but after reading about the rest of the episode, I fear my eyes will be rolling so hard that I'll end up with some serious eye strain. Can we please have a moratorium on the "Olivia in danger" episodes from now until whenever the show is canceled. Please. I know this is a fictional show but it's also a  Law & Order and the franchise has always been better than this silliness we've gotten with "the perils of Olivia".

[gus]

Oh and I appreciate the top picture in the recap. Carisi and Tucker side by side? Yes please. I loved this episode just for giving us that.

This.

[jcbrown]

I thought this episode was just sadistic. It punished Liv, an innocent bystander 16 year-old, and the audience. I did not think it was terribly done but by the end I was just angry at the writers and whoever decided to trot out the let's torture Olivia again plotline. Awful.

[Princess Lucky]

Ratings: SVU Ties 14-Month High

 

Benson will never be safe again.

 

Mariska better start preparing herself emotionally for sweeps week.

[beaker73]

You know it's bad when I opted to focus on working rather than watching the episode.  I only perked up when I heard Barba's voice.  

[Ms Blue Jay]

As am I.  Someone in one of the threads last year called him "sex appeal relief" and that is probably the most accurate way to describe him.

 

Haha thanks.  I forget why I said it.  To counter some opinion about him not being good enough comic relief or something, haha.

[RedheadZombie]

I'm really torn on this episode.  I believe that IRL, Olivia would surely have PTSD.  I also think someone with PTSD would have reacted like Olivia did.  But I'm not sure if that was their point.  I really hated how she was sweating and trembling right from the start.  It may be realistic, but I can't see them writing Finn in that way.  And I kind of hate the idea that Olivia now reacts differently because of Noah.  Way to jump back to the 60s, show.  Maybe women, especially mothers, just don't belong in that kind of environment.  We just can't handle it with our delicate sensibilities, and we can't be trusted to act outside of our role of mother.  I guess we'll see this type of behavior from Amanda, too.  I did like that Olivia knew exactly how the police would react, and basically did save herself in the end.  I actually rewound the part where she sucker punched the guy, and left a clear shot for a sniper.

 

Well, I tend to skip torture stuff, so I didn't watch most of the Lewis arc and maybe that's why I liked this episode more than everyone else.  The strung out, ticking time bomb bad guy did a good job making me extremely tense.  A coked up asshole waving his gun around and screaming about a home safe that doesn't exist seems like a different, more basic scenario than the sadistic mastermind with a vendetta.

 

I wondered if this episode was inspired by the events of In Cold Blood.  There's also a group of men in Alabama who killed two families because they were rumored to have a great deal of money hidden in their homes.  It also had a dash of the murders in Connecticut, when they held the family hostage, took the wife to the bank, then set the house on fire.  The younger daughter was raped in that case.

 

Or, let me be more specific: they may not be doing it currently, but they have done it, more than once, and my interpretation of their dynamic as of last season is that Tucker is super into her. This episode proved that Benson knows that ("who cares if I live or die? My boo Ed!"). And it also proved that Tucker seriously loves her because come on, when that other old cop was all "Tucker you're out", Tucker was, like, in actual pain. Quiet, manly pain. And the way his usually husky voice was even huskier? And then, in the end, when Tucker was like "you saved yourself" and Benson was like "good answer, Ed"? Come on.

 

tl;dr they have done it, they are not doing it currently but they are about to do it again

 

So I've been hit or miss with this show the last few years.  I've never seen this Tucker guy before.  He's clearly important to her since the baddie asked her who most cared if she lived or died.  For one second I actually thought - OMG, it might be Elliot!  Then I thought it would be Finn.  Instead it was this guy.  He's certainly mesmerizing, and he really reminds me of Lance Henriksen.  They have tons of chemistry, and yes, they've definitely "done it".  There was no denial when he was referred to as her boyfriend.

[whatsatool]

Only Nancy Drew is good at being a hostage. Couldn't watch. Don't want Olivia to be helpless.

[scrambled eggs]

I really really wish Roxy had been killed. She willingly let a 16-year-old girl be raped. Being allowed to surrender is a far better fate than she deserved. 

[Everleigh]

Ratings: SVU Ties 14-Month High

 

Benson will never be safe again.

 

Mariska better start preparing herself emotionally for sweeps week.

 

Seriously. As long as these episodes keep getting ratings, they're going to keep happening. Eventually the SVU official twitter account is going to run out of hashtags. They're already done #savebenson, #rescuebenson, #wearewithbenson... what's next? #deliverbensonfromrepetitivedistressstorylines 

 

I'm really torn on this episode.  I believe that IRL, Olivia would surely have PTSD.  I also think someone with PTSD would have reacted like Olivia did.  But I'm not sure if that was their point.  I really hated how she was sweating and trembling right from the start.  It may be realistic, but I can't see them writing Finn in that way.  And I kind of hate the idea that Olivia now reacts differently because of Noah.  Way to jump back to the 60s, show.  Maybe women, especially mothers, just don't belong in that kind of environment.  We just can't handle it with our delicate sensibilities, and we can't be trusted to act outside of our role of mother.  I guess we'll see this type of behavior from Amanda, too.  I did like that Olivia knew exactly how the police would react, and basically did save herself in the end.  I actually rewound the part where she sucker punched the guy, and left a clear shot for a sniper.

 

I was fine with Olivia's response because she gets taken hostage every other week so she's probably pretty traumatized by it all.  I agree that they're heavy-handed about the mother stuff though. This was supposedly different because she's a mom now and she couldn't leave her son without his mother, but it's not like she wanted to die any of the other 50 times she was held hostage. Also all the obvious dialogue in past episodes about how women can't work and be mother at the same time despite millions having done it for decades now. Stabler never backed down in a dangerous situation because he had kids, why is it different for Olivia? 

[Snookums]

Andy Karl played the lead in the short-lived (and underrated) "Rocky" on Broadway and was up for a Tony last year.  He still looks the part.

 

 

Ah, that explains the boxing banter with Finn!

 

Ugh--Joe the Greasy Rat Bastard was very well acted in that I would cheerfully have watched him devoured by rabid weasels, but WHHHHHHYYYY (to echo everybody) do we have to do Perils of Olivia every week? At least Noah wasn't there but that's only because I'm pretty sure the kid's real mom wasn't down with people holding guns to his head. 

 

It's not usually the acting I have a problem with on this show--Roxie, her idiot brother, Olivia, the poor child actors--everybody did a good job. It's the situations, especially when they have to focus on Patron Saint Mommy Olivia Benson. I actually like the actual non traumatic interaction with her and the little boy (the fruit flash cards were darling) -- so why can't we have more of that? Olivia actually dealing with the real problems of being a working single mother in a high stress, dangerous job??? Why do the showrunners assume we only care about her when she, and by ripple effect everybody around her, is seconds away from brutality and death?

 

On another note, I totally read that last bit with her and Tucker as "Professional now, hot romancing and taking care of that black eye later." They have  chemistry to spare.

[Zoe]

It also had a dash of the murders in Connecticut, when they held the family hostage, took the wife to the bank, then set the house on fire.  The younger daughter was raped in that case.

I thought of the same one--thankfully they didn't take the same route. That's the one where the police were criticized for taking too long in setting up their perimeter, giving the murderers time to rape and kill the rest of the family.

[Bananna]

This was definitely the worst episode this season. I thought the whole set up was really contrived, and it dragged on for what seemed like an eternity. There were several parts where I thought the episode was going to end, but it kept going and going. The rape of the daughter seemed really unnecessary, like why was it need?

 

The only redeeming parts of the episode were Carisi, Tucker and Barba. Though the crime worse than having no Barba, is having Barba but giving him nothing to do.

[halkatla]

A really great episode, following a lame one.

[GarnetGirl]

I have to agree with everyone on several points:

1. I hate that they had to make Olivia an idiot to set this episode up. All of this could have been avoided if she had just given Dodds or Barba a heads-up that she was stopping at the townhouse before she went to the conference. They do this to Rollins too, when her sister is on. DON'T MAKE WOMEN DUMB TO CREATE DRAMA!!!!

2. I also agree that if you have to do a hostage situation it would have been way more interesting to have one of the male characters taken hostage and Olivia just take control and be awesome.

3. The rape of the 16 year old was gross and unnecessary, but having a little kid listen to it? Unconscionable. And then to toss it to the side to focus on Olivia? Blergh.

4. Barba was criminally underused in this episode. I don't feel like the producers/writers understand how popular he is and/or how to use him effectively because it is NEVER ENOUGH. Give Raul Esparza a show of his own!

5. I guess they are going for Tucker/Benson, which I sort of can see, but I can't imagine why any character on that show would want to have a romantic relationship with Olivia. It does not seem like it would be much fun.

6. If the whole thing to focus on how Olivia is different because she is a mother now, to not have a scene with Noah at the end seems pretty pointless. The pacing of the episode was silly.

7. I HATE that this episode got higher ratings than usual.

[CleoCaesar]

The Olivia Benson Hour of Danger was some seriously boring shit. I fast-forwarded more than I actually watched.

Olivia is not to blame for the daughter getting raped and implying so only removes responsibility from the guy who actually raped her.

No it doesn't. It's possible to think that the rapist is responsible for the rape AND to think that Olivia's presence exacerbated the situation.

Dodds Jr. has a nice body.

That was my main takeaway from this shitfest of an episode.

[Todaysparkles]

This episode disgusted me and I really don't know what is going on with this season or this show.

I grew up in the small town in CT where the home invasion occurred and the similarities were eerie in the episode. Things ended up a lot worse and it shook the town to its core.

This torture and darkness has become so common on the show now, an episode like this doesn't really surprise me. It more or less makes me question why? Wasn't it season 10 there was an episode addressing Olivia's PTSD and that was pre- Lewis.