S18.E05: Rape Interrupted

[Monkeybball]

On 11/1/2016 at 4:44 PM, wknt3 said:

That was me. And I don't think it was an inherently gray issue at the core, but a cut and dried black and white one and the gray was added because of the likable guest star and the need to have a big tearful confrontation. My guess is that without Anthony Edwards we don't have the informant, we don't see so much of the perp's family and what we do see is quite different (rich d-bag investment banker blows off his cop father as he's now too good for the outer boroughs is my guess) and Olivia being pissed off and moralizing instead and not acknowledging any nuance or showing any sympathy (with reason for a change!) And that's if they decide to go with the Liv has a connection to the perp's cop father angle at all. My bet is they wouldn't and they would have spent the whole episode making it clear that this is a black and white, right and wrong, cut and dried issue even if the victim is drunk and the perp is smart and attractive.

Interesting. I understand your point, but for me I found his presence to be more of a distraction. Because they kept bringing up what he did for her in the past, which honestly had nothing to do with the crime in this episode (maybe it would have worked better if Olivia was the original witness of Ellis and the girl?) and just kept cropping its evil head up. I found it to be distracting and quite frankly, unnecessary. Having the father be a cop and knowing Liv was one thing, but this whole idea of "I helped you out, now you owe me one" seemed to disjoint the episode. 

I thought it also would've been interesting to see more of the fake witness before they called him on it. If almost wanna see if the jury believed him over the other witness. What story is a jury more inclined to believe? Of course then they'd have to figure out a way to get the confession in.