S18.E08: Chasing Theo

[JyDanzig]

Well, at least we're done with those awkward "everything all right with you and Tucker?" scenes they were randomly shoehorning in all season.  The fact that they concluded they had to break up Benson & Tucker, in such a boring & unimaginative way, is yet another bad sign from the new regime.  We've done 17 seasons and counting of romantic troubles for Benson, it shouldn't take much vision to see that the interesting route to take with this character now is letting her finally be in a committed relationship.

The detail that drove me nuts was all the title cards noting it was all taking place on a SATURDAY.  Benson can't be in a relationship because she would occasionally have to be on the phone with her partner, thus leading to horrors like Noah not injuring himself while his mom is briefly distracted, but it's fine to spend her entire weekend in the office.  OK.  The Taking!It!Personally! Benson should have done this week was to reflect on her relationship with her nanny, not her boyfriend!

EDIT: oh god, is Tucker going to stick around, but become a villain again?  You know, Benson's rejection has sent him back to being a diabolical asshole scheming away at Internal Affairs, that sort of BS.

Edited January 15, 2017 by JyDanzig

[Zoe]

On 1/13/2017 at 7:18 PM, Sake614 said:

And that's  another story that was completely dropped. She was absolutely on the verge of alcoholism last year.  Every time we saw her at home she had an open bottle of wine, or an empty bottle and was starting on her 2nd. Alone. She has a tough job and a stressful one. She wouldn't be the first cop to find solace in a bottle and it could have been interesting to see how she and the squad handled it. Hell Tucker could have helped too. Instead it's like it never happened. 

I don't need to see every aspect of her home life but if the shoe insists on having it be part of the story, at least give MH something to play instead of the stupid drama with her boyfriend du jour.

It wasn't dropped. It was implied that Tucker steered her away from that lifestyle when he saw she wasn't drinking too much. It started in one of their bar scenes where he didn't want her to have another drink.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

Theo Has At Least Two Mommies On Law & Order: SVU

So it's no surprise that when he gets kidnapped, the squad's mommies are Taking! It! Personally! Related: Liv is the worst at boyfriend.

[Diana Berry]

On 1/12/2017 at 11:17 AM, MaryHedwig said:

Liv better have set up a 401K and full benefits for Lucie. Liv is stealing her 20's slacker years.

Did Liv call Lucie "hon" on the phone?

I was thinking that too but Tucker was there when Liv got home so guess he was the "hon"

[hiccup]

I was never interested in and didn't buy the Benson/Tucker relationship, so I'm fine with it being over.  Also, Rollins' hair looked too orange-y.  

That's really all I have to add, as this episode bored me.

[RafaelBarbas]

On 1/14/2017 at 3:47 PM, WineCheeseChocolat said:

I took it as a possible sign that Noah and Tucker never bonded much during the Tuckerson relationship, and maybe Liv was kind of disappointed in that and thought it was better to end things before Noah did become attached. I don't know if Tucker has grown kids or never had kids but plenty of people contemplating retirement are not real enthused about jumping into full-time parenting of a small child and maybe wasn't willing to be a daddy at this point (reasonable) and Benson wasn't ready to date someone who wasn't willing to do that (also reasonable).

That, and one of the writers said the kid who plays Noah was absolutely convinced the guy's name was Tucker and wouldn't listen to anyone who tried to tell him otherwise.

[WineCheeseChocolat]

Quote

That, and one of the writers said the kid who plays Noah was absolutely convinced the guy's name was Tucker and wouldn't listen to anyone who tried to tell him otherwise.

Ok, that explains it. But still, even if Noah liked Tucker, the show never showed the Noah/Tucker relationship. It may have been, because of where Tucker is in life, he wasn't willing to do the in-the-weeds kind of co-parenting Liv wanted him too. Or it's also possible he was willing to, but she refused to give up any control.

I agree Liv continues to be unhealthily obsessed with the job and while I'm no one of the ones that are "GET HER OFF MY SCREEN" I still think it's ridiculous that she's in this leadership role but still out in the field all the time and also in the court EVERY DAMN CASE.

I don't know if others here are old-school enough to have seen S1, but during Bendidy V1, Cassidy says something like "as long as you have this job, any relationship you have will be an affair." Very perceptive (especially for Cassidy).

Quote

   ON 1/13/2017 AT 8:18 PM,  SAKE614 SAID: 

And that's  another story that was completely dropped. She was absolutely on the verge of alcoholism last year.  Every time we saw her at home she had an open bottle of wine, or an empty bottle and was starting on her 2nd. Alone. She has a tough job and a stressful one. She wouldn't be the first cop to find solace in a bottle and it could have been interesting to see how she and the squad handled it. Hell Tucker could have helped too. Instead it's like it never happened. 

I don't need to see every aspect of her home life but if the shoe insists on having it be part of the story, at least give MH something to play instead of the stupid drama with her boyfriend du jour.

It wasn't dropped. It was implied that Tucker steered her away from that lifestyle when he saw she wasn't drinking too much. It started in one of their bar scenes where he didn't want her to have another drink.

Yeah, I think people can fall into unhealthy drinking patterns and pull themselves out of it without it turning into full-blown alcoholism. I'm personally glad they didn't go down that path.

[sockii]

10 hours ago, WineCheeseChocolat said:

Yeah, I think people can fall into unhealthy drinking patterns and pull themselves out of it without it turning into full-blown alcoholism. I'm personally glad they didn't go down that path.

It's possible, but it's also not a simple thing of just having another person take note and tell you to take it easy with the vino. In fact to imply that making that change happened because of Tucker's one-time urging instead of Olivia taking a hard look at her actions, her mother's alcoholism, and the likelihood she could be headed down that same route WAS lazy and unrealistic writing, IMHO. I would have liked to have seen at least some acknowledgement of what was going on, from Olivia herself, before the plotline was completely dropped.

[wknt3]

On 01/17/2017 at 7:05 PM, RafaelBarbas said:

That, and one of the writers said the kid who plays Noah was absolutely convinced the guy's name was Tucker and wouldn't listen to anyone who tried to tell him otherwise.

I love that. I wonder if there have been any other challenges? "The kid says he doesn't understand how he could get involved in another situation like this without being taken away." "The kid says if the climbing is so dangerous to freak out Mariska like that he obviously needs a stunt double" "The kid says there are obvious plot holes and wants a rewrite."

Edited January 22, 2017 by wknt3

[skittl3862]

On 1/21/2017 at 10:35 PM, WineCheeseChocolat said:

Ok, that explains it. But still, even if Noah liked Tucker, the show never showed the Noah/Tucker relationship. It may have been, because of where Tucker is in life, he wasn't willing to do the in-the-weeds kind of co-parenting Liv wanted him too. Or it's also possible he was willing to, but she refused to give up any control.

The show didn't show much of Noah and Tucker, but the Season 17 finale showed him including Noah in his statements in their relationship, and in the season 18 premiere, we find out they brought Noah with them to Paris. Both episodes end with them holding hands. If they wanted to portray Tucker as someone who didn't want a kid in his life, they would have shown him interacting with Noah like they did with Barba- holding the kid at arms-length and complaining about the messy floor.

The idea that Olivia's relationship with Noah was suffering because of Tucker was never actually shown or mentioned until the break-up scene. In fact, her job was the real issue- not more than 10 minutes before "Noah is my priority", Benson was on the phone with Lucy asking her to stay late and said she didn't know what time she'd be home.

It was just really sloppy. Why bother writing about their personal lives at all if they're going to be so half-assed about it?