S18.E15: Know It All

[WendyCR72]

Well, let's try this one again, shall we?

Quote

A man under investigation for rape and murder threatens to expose the secrets of those working the case.

[CleoCaesar]

Oh look, the perp was a rich, famous white male. That's so fresh and groundbreaking of you, SVU. Your originality truly knows no bounds.

[angel1008]

So, THIS was the "Barba centric" episode that we were waiting for?  And it turned into the Benson hour, yet again.  He had maybe 15 minutes TOTAL screen time, and it was supposed to be that "even Benson could not help him".  Of course, to quote Mighty Mouse: "here she comes to save the dayyyy!!!!"

[RafaelBarbas]

This was, in my opinion, the best Barba episode to date. It had everything I'd been wanting to see from Barba from the start- some angst but some growth as well. It was superb. I think Rick is really breathing new life into the show. Warren would never have done this.

[angel1008]

Raul was fantastic, and it did show a new side to him.  But it was still more Benson centered than anything.

[QueenMab]

WTF? You guys are telling us nothing. What happened? Is Barba a crud or good guy? And what the hell was his big secret? C'mon!

[RafaelBarbas]

4 minutes ago, QueenMab said:

WTF? You guys are telling us nothing. What happened? Is Barba a crud or good guy? And what the hell was his big secret? C'mon!

Spoiler

Basically, years ago a witness demanded money to testify. Barba wanted to put the guy away so he did it, even though he knew the money would go right to drugs. She bought them and then OD'd, leaving behind a young daughter. He has been giving the girl and her grandma money ever since.

[QueenMab]

Thank you! Is the kid his? Is he still giving them money? WTH would Benson do even if she knew? So what. Didn't know Barba had that kind of money on his salary what with the suits and all. Did they say where he worked before Brooklyn? Gonna watch Barba any way, not spoiling it.

[RafaelBarbas]

Just now, QueenMab said:

Thank you! Is the kid his? Is he still giving them money? WTH would Benson do even if she knew? So what. Didn't know Barba had that kind of money on his salary what with the suits and all. Did they say where he worked before Brooklyn? Gonna watch Barba any way, not spoiling it.

Spoiler

No, as far as we know she's not his. It came out because Barba was being blackmailed over it, forcing him to recuse himself. Olivia tried to figure out why and that's what led her to that. Barba finally revealed it to her when she demanded answers. At the end he is seen having a meeting with the DA and he told Olivia it might be their last case together, though of course we know he'll be in subsequent episodes.

[sockii]

I honestly was so enraged to find out Fin's promotion to sergeant was dropped as a deleted scene from last week's episode that I couldn't bring myself to watch tonight. I'm still too angry. Maybe tomorrow...if I bother at all.

[dttruman]

Why do they keep cutting out forensics? Tonight was a milestone for them because they had a forensics expert for once. I think that was only because he was part of the plot and even that was very brief. They use to give the forensics nominal time to set up the plot, but now it is almost nonexistent. At the end they conveniently search the victims apt and found the evidence. Don't they usually search the victims apt anyway and since they had an idea of who the perp was earlier, I think this episode would have been over in a 1/2 hour.

[sockii]

deleting repeat comment, sorry

Edited April 6, 2017 by sockii

[QueenMab]

Oh God dammit! Barba just can't stop spilling his guts to Benson can he? Might be last case together? Oh boo hoo. Thought he had career ambitions. He will only move up in his career if Benson can go with him? I am so sick of these two velcro'd together for eternity. Its long since become kinda sick ass. And how do we know he will be in more episodes? They should just righteously F*#K right on camera already. Just admit there is no other woman for him except that big old ugly cow and finish the bitchification of Barba. He's cute but they've made him beyond pathetic, he can't piss now without her. WTF are they going for with these two? Yeesh!

[wknt3]

The Good:
Loved the opener. The whole squad working together! On a good old fashioned serial rapist/murderer! Another character working with them! Benson supervising! For a while there it really felt like old school SVU.
Lots of Fin. Actual material too. Including a nice nod to continuity with Fin's rope guy! When they write for him like the scene on the bench Ice-T can still deliver.
Actaully the acting from all the main cast except Mariska was really strong this week. Especially Kelli Giddish. It was nice to see some subtlety and that our heroes can Take!It!Personally! without beating us over the head with it.
Even though we didn't get as much Barba as we might have wanted Raul did a great job and they did a pretty good job of coming up with something serious, but not automatically career ending.
The actress playing the sister. She did a nice job even when the writing wasn't quite there.

The Bad:
The writing of the perp and his mad hacker skillz was atrocious. Like bad CSI bad. It wouldn't have been hard at all to have him working with law enforcement on a personal info search at the same time he was making millions on targeted advertising. It would have added some actual moral complexity and not have him hacking in to all these systems on his own if he was already working with NYPD.
I know Benson acts like a detective, but she is supposed to be a Lt. and I can't imagine that a detective from another unit wouldn't treat her with a modicum of respect. There are ways to write that scene that would be more realistic and compelling - I mean they must have old mothership scripts around to copy from right?
All the usual problems with Benson being there all the time doing everything. It actually made sense to have her there at the crime scene and once they realized what was going on, but it would have been addition by subtraction to cut her from a couple scenes. I mean how awesome would it have been to have Fin bring up the rope guy. Has he been in an episode with Carisi? How cool would it have been for Carisi or the homicide detective to ask him about having a rope guy and Fin reply that he's been doing this too long?
During the scene at the end with the sister thanking Benson for believing her while she gazes at her beatifically I actually muttered FFS out loud at my TV. The end with Benson and Barba outside the courthouse was almost as bad, but at least I just thought it to myself.
The promo for next week. Another powerful rich guy using his position to get away with serial sexual assault until St. Benson brings him down? I'm on your side show and I know that it's very common IRL, but we desperately need some variety. A child molester, a gay basher, anything else. Please.

Overall this was a decent premise brought down by inconsistent writing (there was the computer stuff and the stretches of clunky dialogue that have been all too common in the latter half of this season, but also some excellent character moments and plenty of solid scenes) and the usual glorification of St. Benson rather it serves the needs of the show or not. And of course NBC's scheduling and the fact that they've done basically this same perp what seems like 20 times this season.
Another frustrating week where you can see a good epsiode trapped within in the mediocre one that made it to air.

[wknt3]

40 minutes ago, sockii said:

I honestly was so enraged to find out Fin's promotion to sergeant was dropped as a deleted scene from last week's episode that I couldn't bring myself to watch tonight. I'm still too angry. Maybe tomorrow...if I bother at all.

Really??!! You've got to be kidding me. It's not like there wasn't stuff they could cut and it would have made the fans happy. I mean it's not like he had tons of screen time or the case was so compelling and complex it needed every minute of time it could get.

[MrsRafaelBarba]

Just once, I wanted Barba to tell Buffy Summers (oops I mean Benson) to STFU.

 

It's not all about YOU Olivia!

[Snookums]

Well, I liked this one.

The tech stuff wasn't as clunky as this show  can make it  ("Turn on the sun," anybody?) and instead of the perp being this polymath genius whom you would think would go  the "stealing the half and quarter cents" thing from Superman III/Office Space" route, he was just this guy with one skill that he ran rampant with and finally got himself tripped up on his own ego. Also liked that it was an accidental death and being the kind of person he was, he immediately tried to set up an elaborate coverup, and then had to cover that up, and then again and again.  He's a control freak who keeps making the classic mistake of thinking that nothing unpredictable, like the actual rapist being caught that night, will ever happen. And then it does happen and he panics and reaches for his one trick again. 

(Although...he would have had to have hacked NYPD way before the crime--which resulted from a bad impulse and not some kind of plan--to get those details. He didn't do it from her apartment. So, why did he do that hacking in the first place? Why would he be looking for those specific details? For fun?)

[Xeliou66]

This episode was pretty good overall, not great but much better than the last couple of episodes. 

I liked that we didn't know who the perp was from the start, although I wish the first scene with Willard wasn't included, because that gave the episode too much of a CI like feel of knowing who the perp was going to be, ot would've been better had we been introduced to him after his girlfriend's body was found, but overall I liked not knowing who the perp was, I liked the case not being a he said/she said rape and involving murder.

I liked the twist that Willard wasn't actually the killer of the first 3 girls and that he was a copycat. I thought that the serial killer was the creepiest, most memorable villain SVU had had in a while, I found myself wishing the case had been more about him, he seemed like a classic creepy killer that SVU hasn't had as many of recently, but instead it was about Willard who was a pure cartoon villain and very poorly acted. 

I liked that we had the whole team working together on a case and had detectives from other squads involved, it's something we hadn't seen in a while.

I loved that Fin got a lot to do this episode, Carisi as well. They both got a lot to do which was nice and got to be key participants in the investigation. 

Of coruse, like I predicted, the episode was going to be more Benson centric than Barba centric and Barba's personal stuff was going to be turned around into how Benson would react to it. Barba's secret wasn't that dark or surprising, and while it was nice to get some scenes with Barba and finding out more about him, it was certainly not a Barba centric episode and the detectives all got more scenes than Barba.

The St Olivia worship that the show piles on is by far the worst part about it, Olivia is treated like some kind of goddess descended from above to save all women, and I'm sick of it. I think it's pretty clear MH is stroking her ego with a lot of these scenes and the writers are just under her thumb. And of course Barba's story is more about St Olivia than Barba, and I hated how Benson was so holier than thou with Barba and I wanted Barba to tell Benson that his life was none of her goddamn business and to back off. I, like most others, hate how they've made Barba into Benson's lapdog in so many episodes, I love Barba but it's like he can't do anything now without Olivia approving it. And while it was nice to have the show end with something different than Benson bullying someone into doing what she wants to make her case and then looking on proudly from the courtroom, the final scene of Benson saying "we got him" with a typical overdramatic Mariska expression was hilarious it was so overly dramatic.

The one thing that really stood out for me while watching this episode was how much I miss the recurring characters. The case involved dead people and we heard a lot about the ME's report, but we didn't see Dr Warner or any other ME. Why couldn't she appear and tell them about the autopsy results? It would've been a perfect opportunity to have her appear. I also wished TARU expert Morales had been on since the case involved computers and technology, but instead we never saw any computer expert. At least a couple of CSU techs did get lines which is more than we usually get. Barba mentioned having a meeting with the DA which made me really miss having the DA as a recurring character. Adam Schiff, Nora Lewin, Arthur Branch and Jack McCoy all appeared on SVU and I wish that they had kept Jack McCoy on as a recurring character after the mothership ended, I would've loved a scene with McCoy and Barba together. Also we didn't see who the ADA was that took the case over from Barba or even who the ADA was at the arraignment, that would've been a good opportunity to bring back another ADA.

This episode was good but it would've been more enjoyable had we seen some recurring characters and had the St Olivia crap toned down. Also Willard was a terribly acted cartoon villain and I think had the actual serial killer been the main villain then the episode would've been better, it could've been like some of SVU's best old episodes when the detectives raced against the clock to find a creepy serial killer. But overall this was better than a lot of the episodes we've gotten this season.

[EtheltoTillie]

What was the rope guy's blackmailable offense?  I don't think they ever said. 

[Everleigh]

Why didn't blackmail guy try to blackmail any of the SVU detectives? Collectively, they're the most blackmail-able people alive. 

I liked the episode. It was interesting enough and the personal drama wasn't too overwrought. 

[JyDanzig]

59 minutes ago, GussieK said:

What was the rope guy's blackmailable offense?  I don't think they ever said. 

 

6 hours ago, wknt3 said:

Another frustrating week where you can see a good episode trapped within in the mediocre one that made it to air.

This.  So much this.  Hardly one scene goes by that isn't marred by some distracting flaw in the execution.  Usually with an obvious fix available.

Skipping over the rope guy's blackmailable offense is such a perfect example of this.  Writing 101 people: the specific is more compelling than the general!  Not providing us the actual details of what brought this man to fraud & suicide is just hackwork.  Why bother writing something that justifies the plot twist?  Just leave it vague and let the actor do all the work of actually selling it.

Edited April 6, 2017 by JyDanzig

[Xeliou66]

1 hour ago, GussieK said:

What was the rope guy's blackmailable offense?  I don't think they ever said. 

I know, that was a plot hole. I wish they had said it what it was, he just said it was something embarrassing and shameful, so I guess some kind of sexual fetish that he didn't want to get out. 

As far as blackmailing the SVU team goes, yeah Benson and Rollins have lots of juicy stuff, Rollins and her numerous affairs with co workers, gambling addiction and worthless family, and Benson with her brother and repeatedly bending or breaking laws. Fin and Carisi on the other hand don't have any shady secrets, they are very by the book detectives.

[Everleigh]

I don't think not naming the rope guy's offense was a plot hole but rather a deliberate writing choice to leave it unanswered. It didn't really matter what he did, just that he had compromised himself. 

[angel1008]

8 hours ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

Just once, I wanted Barba to tell Buffy Summers (oops I mean Benson) to STFU.

 

It's not all about YOU Olivia!

Well, to be fair, Buffy was fairly young, and she really DID have to save the world.  Olivia only THINKS she does!

But, Barba spilling to her like that?  They kept the rope guy's horrible offense under wraps, why not Barba's?  I think the episode title "Know It All" was REALLY about Olivia.  She has to know all and be all.  And her scenes when she is one on one with Barba make me cringe.  There is nothing possible romantic there, but I have a feeling the show is going in that direction. ~shudder~

2 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I know, that was a plot hole. I wish they had said it what it was, he just said it was something embarrassing and shameful, so I guess some kind of sexual fetish that he didn't want to get out. 

As far as blackmailing the SVU team goes, yeah Benson and Rollins have lots of juicy stuff, Rollins and her numerous affairs with co workers, gambling addiction and worthless family, and Benson with her brother and repeatedly bending or breaking laws. Fin and Carisi on the other hand don't have any shady secrets, they are very by the book detectives.

I think there is a LOT more about Benson that could be dug up.  And Benson herself had affairs with co-workers:  Brian, ADA Haden and Tucker.  And Fin is an open book, but now that we know Carisi has a 34B girlfriend, the hacker could have found out dirt on her.  But, since it had nothing to do with Olivia, and Barba's secret didn't either to be honest, they would not bring it up.

[StaceyNotStacie]

This was better than other episodes. The hacking plot was interesting, but I thought it would have been worse than it appeared. The boyfriend was a piece of work and I'm glad that it was a hidden camera that got him since he was busy hacking and recording others. 

I am a bit disappointed that we didn't find out more about Carisi's female friend. 

[gesundheit]

Who the hell actually says "brassieres?" Is "bras" too racy for 9pm? I liked that they were trying to do something a little different with this episode with the blackmail, but the execution was shoddy. (Although the actor who played the rope guy was terrific -- that scene in the snow was really good. Imagine! A good scene can happen without Hargitay!) Olivia's dialogue in the investigation scenes is always so ridiculous. Someone says they've bagged evidence. "Good! Send that to the lab! We need that tested!" Yeah, thank god the LT's here, otherwise we wouldn't have thought of it! "Have your rope guy test it. What we need to do is test it against the rope that the serial killer used to see if it's the same one or not!" Whew! The detectives must be grateful someone with such educated suggestions is on site to tell them why they might have a rope guy test some rope!

[Racj82]

13 hours ago, QueenMab said:

Oh God dammit! Barba just can't stop spilling his guts to Benson can he? Might be last case together? Oh boo hoo. Thought he had career ambitions. He will only move up in his career if Benson can go with him? I am so sick of these two velcro'd together for eternity. Its long since become kinda sick ass. And how do we know he will be in more episodes? They should just righteously F*#K right on camera already. Just admit there is no other woman for him except that big old ugly cow and finish the bitchification of Barba. He's cute but they've made him beyond pathetic, he can't piss now without her. WTF are they going for with these two? Yeesh!

What?

[Gigi43]

11 hours ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

Just once, I wanted Barba to tell Buffy Summers (oops I mean Benson) to STFU.

 

It's not all about YOU Olivia!

 

I doubt we'll ever get the moment of self awareness "last week I gave an inspirational speech to the telephone repairmam!" Line out of Liv though. 

 

On the  spectrum  of screw ups/secrets other characters have made on this show Barba's secret barely rates. It was nice  to find out more about his up and coming days. I will  say at least  we didn't  get Liv clutching her metaphoric pearls over it. He screwed up in the process  of wanting to put a bad  person in jail. I think I saw Barba at his desk in the preview. Really  doesn't  matter  we already saw him back at work in the swapped episode. 

 

It wasn't a bad episode but maybe because I've seen every  Person of Interest (and Leverage) that this hacker seemed so unimpressive. 

[JyDanzig]

1 hour ago, Stacey1014 said:

I am a bit disappointed that we didn't find out more about Carisi's female friend. 

You may wish they kept putting it off when we get to the inevitable reveal that the girlfriend is Kim Rollins!

[Xeliou66]

7 hours ago, Everleigh said:

I don't think not naming the rope guy's offense was a plot hole but rather a deliberate writing choice to leave it unanswered. It didn't really matter what he did, just that he had compromised himself. 

Yeah it does matter what he did. What would drive a man to ruin his career by falsifying evidence and almost commit suicide because he was so ashamed? It had to be something pretty dark and it was very unnatural to not reveal it after he ruined their evidence and almost killed himself over it. 

[Monkeybball]

I liked the episode because it felt like old school SVU for the first half.  Although immediately upon the realization that Jennifer MIGHT have been killed by someone other than the serial, I knew exactly how it was gonna be i.e. boyfriend hacked NYPD computers, saw the pattern, recreated it, he actually did it.  Shouldn't be THAT obvious.  But it was cool to see the Barba reveal.  Although I don't believe what he did is big enough to warrant any sort of suspension or firing, all that he could feasibly get in trouble for is paying money to a witness.  And in that instance it may be dicey even.  Anyone else wanna know what the rope guy was hiding?! UGH!  Let's speculate!

I kinda wish the episode was longer cause I would have liked to see his defense, but oh well.

ETA: Not to be super morbid, but I also think it was really anticlimactic how he ended up killing her.  It really was an accident the way they showed it.  That kinda softens the blow (no pun intended) of him killing her, where I think this would have been a good opportunity to show how obsession and stalking is not too far from eventual elevated behaviors.   

54 minutes ago, JyDanzig said:

You may wish they kept putting it off when we get to the inevitable reveal that the girlfriend is Kim Rollins!

When they said 34 B I immediately thought: "Hey, that's Rollins' bra size!"

Edited April 6, 2017 by Monkeybball

[Primetimer]

The team's efforts to take down a rape and murder suspect are complicated by his determination to take them down first.

View the full article

[marceline]

I kind of laughed at the scene with the rope guy in the park during what seemed like a blizzard. They really couldn't have found an indoor location instead of making everyone stand in the park?

[NWoww99]

was it coincidence that the two sisters had the same story as the Rollins sisters or was that scene supposed to mean his research on Rollins and Carisi went beyond where they were from and which school they attended. Change AA for GA and it was Rollins life.

Oh and also put me down for bored with St. Olivia.

[Xeliou66]

I thought it was anticlimactic as well that the murder was just a crime of passion in an argument, disappointing ending. Like I say, Willard was a disappointing villain, the serial killer at the start was much better and chilling.

I would love to know what rope guy's secret was as well, I have a feeling it was some sexual preference that he didn't want getting out, maybe he used prostitutes or was into BDSM or something. I would've loved to have known since he almost killed himself over it, it was very poor writing to not reveal it. 

[JyDanzig]

2 hours ago, marceline said:

I kind of laughed at the scene with the rope guy in the park during what seemed like a blizzard. They really couldn't have found an indoor location instead of making everyone stand in the park?

It's funny, that was literally my favorite thing about the episode.  Also, they were right on the water (I think that was the park on Chelsea Piers), presumably making it even more hellish to shoot.  But the visuals were incredible... it was worth it.

That's probably the only thing I'll remember about this show down the line.  The one with a scene on the piers during a blizzard.  If there's not going to be anything interesting or worthwhile in the scripts anymore, the locations and the weather will have to pick up the slack...

Edited April 6, 2017 by JyDanzig

[marceline]

30 minutes ago, JyDanzig said:

It's funny, that was literally my favorite thing about the episode.  Also, they were right on the water (I think that was the park on Chelsea Piers), presumably making it even more hellish to shoot.  But the visuals were incredible... it was worth it.

That's probably the only thing I'll remember about this show down the line.  The one with a scene on the piers during a blizzard.  If there's not going to be anything interesting or worthwhile in the scripts anymore, the locations and the weather will have to pick up the slack...

True. I love NYC and visit regularly. I love seeing spots I recognize. The previous spot had a scene at Bryant Park and I kept thinking how they were right next to a bocce ball court I love to go to just to watch the old guys play.

[Xeliou66]

I liked the blizzard scene, it was very cool looking cause we don't see it often. Very good scene for Fin as well, I like that he got to talk someone down instead of St Olivia for once. I just wish we knew what the secret was that drove the rope guy to nearly kill himself.

[JyDanzig]

54 minutes ago, marceline said:

True. I love NYC and visit regularly. I love seeing spots I recognize. The previous spot had a scene at Bryant Park and I kept thinking how they were right next to a bocce ball court I love to go to just to watch the old guys play.

Heh, we are definitely responding to similar things, that was exactly the scene I was praising in my comment in the thread for last week's episode.  Though I was pulling the buildings from the deeper background...

Quote

It did look gorgeous: so well directed, and what fabulous locations!  Hell, there was that one scene on the street that managed to get the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, AND Times Square in the background of the various angles -- that's an impressive amount of production value for one street walk-and-talk.

It's all up to you, locations department.  You're the ones saving the show this season!

[wknt3]

12 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Very good scene for Fin as well, I like that he got to talk someone down instead of St Olivia for once.

It's really striking this season that Ice-T is acting to the level of the script. While he seemed to be on autopilot sometimes the past couple of years, although reliable deliciously fun snarky autopilot, this year it seems like night and day the difference between scenes like this one or his talking to Carisi outside the interrogation room after he talks about being bullied and where he is just there to be a familiar face for viewers while Benson does almost everything and Carisi handles the action scenes.

[debraran]

On 4/6/2017 at 7:05 PM, Xeliou66 said:

I liked the blizzard scene, it was very cool looking cause we don't see it often. Very good scene for Fin as well, I like that he got to talk someone down instead of St Olivia for once. I just wish we knew what the secret was that drove the rope guy to nearly kill himself.

And how did perp know if no one else did. If it was that far back, it wouldn't be online and I doubt the guy emailed about it. ? A background check would have been done at police dept.

On 4/6/2017 at 1:36 PM, Monkeybball said:

 

I kinda wish the episode was longer cause I would have liked to see his defense, but oh well.

ETA: Not to be super morbid, but I also think it was really anticlimactic how he ended up killing her.  It really was an accident the way they showed it.  That kinda softens the blow (no pun intended) of him killing her, where I think this would have been a good opportunity to show how obsession and stalking is not too far from eventual elevated behaviors.   

 

My husband is a police officer/detective and he said manslaughter isn't a walk in the park, but not cold blooded murder. The unintended part was a let down, but he did try to hide it and did stalk, etc. Those things might be plea bargained in a real case, but any jail time would hurt someone like him.

Edited April 9, 2017 by debraran

[skittl3862]

Not a fan of this episode. The entire premise of the investigation didn't make sense to me, so the deeper it got, the more ridiculous it seemed.

Why did Benson even question whether the Strangler was lying about Jennifer? There was not enough evidence for them to question the killer's confession in the first place, and Benson's "It was like he saw her picture for the first time!" comment didn't match the guy's reaction at all. In her first scene with Barba she calls Willard "Her controlling, emotionally abusive boyfriend", despite no evidence beyond her sister's hearsay. The cops have no evidence he was controlling or emotionally abusive. The sister and Willard both admit they didn't like each other, so she's hardly an unbiased source. And when the rope expert calls them in to say "Oh, sorry, I got it wrong, the ropes were mixed up", she immediately assumes an elaborte conspiracy. Why immediately leap to that conclusion? Of course, she's right on all counts, but why? There was no in-universe evidence to get her to that point. It's just really lazy writing to make her out to be some genius who- all of a sudden, 18 years in- can make these inexplicable leaps of logic like she's Sherlock Holmes.

Why was Carisi's "friend" bra shopping on his NYPD laptop? I'm pretty sure NYPD has pretty strict rules about letting anyone else have access to your department computer. Also- since when did pop-up ads remember your bra size? And who still gets pop-up ads in 2017? Get an ad-blocker, Carisi.

The whole "revelation" about Barba was so lame. After the build-up, I thought it would be way bigger than "I gave a junkie money and she used to for heroin." I thought the girl would be his secret daughter or something.

After all the conspiracy and espionage, it turns out the death was just an accident? So lame. He could have called 911, told them she hit him (true), then tripped and fell on the coffee table. It would have been ruled an accident and saved him a lot of effort.

[Xeliou66]

I called the shot about Barba's secret being nothing and the episode being more Benson centric than Barba centric. It has been proven over and over that NBC and the promos will lie and deceive viewers, and it's a good bet that every episode will have more Benson than any other character, Mariska is the head honcho and the writers have to please the Queen Bee, it is very clear her huge ego has taken over and has really hurt SVU by making Benson into a saintly all knowing savior of women and decreasing other characters screen time.

[CelticBlackCat]

8 hours ago, skittl3862 said:

Not a fan of this episode. The entire premise of the investigation didn't make sense to me, so the deeper it got, the more ridiculous it seemed.

Why did Benson even question whether the Strangler was lying about Jennifer? There was not enough evidence for them to question the killer's confession in the first place, and Benson's "It was like he saw her picture for the first time!" comment didn't match the guy's reaction at all. In her first scene with Barba she calls Willard "Her controlling, emotionally abusive boyfriend", despite no evidence beyond her sister's hearsay. The cops have no evidence he was controlling or emotionally abusive. The sister and Willard both admit they didn't like each other, so she's hardly an unbiased source. And when the rope expert calls them in to say "Oh, sorry, I got it wrong, the ropes were mixed up", she immediately assumes an elaborte conspiracy. Why immediately leap to that conclusion? Of course, she's right on all counts, but why? There was no in-universe evidence to get her to that point. It's just really lazy writing to make her out to be some genius who- all of a sudden, 18 years in- can make these inexplicable leaps of logic like she's Sherlock Holmes.

Why was Carisi's "friend" bra shopping on his NYPD laptop? I'm pretty sure NYPD has pretty strict rules about letting anyone else have access to your department computer. Also- since when did pop-up ads remember your bra size? And who still gets pop-up ads in 2017? Get an ad-blocker, Carisi.

The whole "revelation" about Barba was so lame. After the build-up, I thought it would be way bigger than "I gave a junkie money and she used to for heroin." I thought the girl would be his secret daughter or something.

After all the conspiracy and espionage, it turns out the death was just an accident? So lame. He could have called 911, told them she hit him (true), then tripped and fell on the coffee table. It would have been ruled an accident and saved him a lot of effort.

2nd paragraph:  Good points!

3rd paragraph:  LOL (and LOL at Sherlock Holmes in 2nd).

4th paragraph:  Agree.  Also, how is he responsible for her taking too much or buying too pure or tainted h?  Junkies gonna shoot up.

5th paragraph:  He could have gotten an involuntary manslaughter or they could have ruled it an accident, but running and hiding always makes one look guilty.

[RafaelBarbas]

3 hours ago, CelticBlackCat said:

Also, how is he responsible for her taking too much or buying too pure or tainted h?  Junkies gonna shoot up.

For the ethical side of things, the heroin is the big issue- helping an addict get their fix. But from the legal perspective, giving money to her at all was a big no-no. As a prosecutor he gave money to a witness, a drug-addicted witness, which could easily be construed as bribery. Ergo all his cases become subject to scrutiny.

[debraran]

2 hours ago, RafaelBarbas said:

For the ethical side of things, the heroin is the big issue- helping an addict get their fix. But from the legal perspective, giving money to her at all was a big no-no. As a prosecutor he gave money to a witness, a drug-addicted witness, which could easily be construed as bribery. Ergo all his cases become subject to scrutiny.

That is true, I asked people in my family after watching it, it wasn't like an informant and they were like, "No" a paid informant is known and that's why their cover has to be kept well. What he did, and I felt for him, was give his only witness a "fix" so she could testify and not be strung out, whether her next fix would have made her die, he felt guilty. I said to a lawyer in family, But she would have overdosed no matter what,and  he was like, You're missing the point, a prosecutor can't give money to buy heroin to a witness, just to have her testify.  Illegal and immoral on different grounds, but I felt for him.

I remember a case on SVU when they got in trouble with Dr Huang setting up a schizophrenic who didn't want to be on meds.  Stabler deliberately pushes him to the point of a psychotic break in the interrogation room, thus forcing Huang to medicate him, which puts Stabler's credibility at risk—since, from this point on, any defense attorney for anyone arrested by Stabler can charge that he once coerced a mentally ill man to make a confession, implying that he might coerce a false confession from anyone he arrests.    Not the same thing,but I felt sorry for both of them in that one also.

Edited April 10, 2017 by debraran

[skittl3862]

20 hours ago, CelticBlackCat said:

5th paragraph:  He could have gotten an involuntary manslaughter or they could have ruled it an accident, but running and hiding always makes one look guilty.

True, they could have tried to charge Willard, but it would have been much easier to plead out the lesser charge (or hell, blackmail yourself out of a lesser charge) than this elaborate conspiracy of hacking into the NYPD database to frame a serial murderer, hope he cops to the charges (and totally by chance the Strangler went with his plan), blackmail the rope expert, blackmail the ADA, hack into more NYPD computers and phones to track their investigation- all to cover up involuntary manslaughter, which has an average sentence of 12 months.

Benson and the sister spent the entire episode bad-mouthing this guy whose girlfriend hit her head on the coffee table and died. Without the cover-up, there was no real crime. The death was an accident. After seeing the big reveal of how Jennifer died, his response seemed disproportionate, and Benson and the sister just comes across as crazy and vindictive for assuming the absolute worst of him (murder) from the start.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 4/9/2017 at 3:25 PM, skittl3862 said:

Why was Carisi's "friend" bra shopping on his NYPD laptop? I'm pretty sure NYPD has pretty strict rules about letting anyone else have access to your department computer. Also- since when did pop-up ads remember your bra size? And who still gets pop-up ads in 2017? Get an ad-blocker, Carisi.

Doesn't have to be him searching on his NYPD laptop. If his computer is logged into into google (through gmail for example) his searches are tracked, so specific searches on his phone would lead to targeted ads on his work computer.

I felt bad for Barba, since yea giving an addict money so that they could get high and you could have a presentable witness is pretty messed up, especially by his standards. Especially since I imagine that the opposing lawyer probably had no idea that this star witness was high.

[katisha]

Even though this episode was nothing like it promised to be in terms of Barba, as others have mentioned, it still resembled the SVU of bygone days far more than most recent episodes do, and that's a good thing.  At least we got to see forensics discussed, the rope guy involved, etc.  And, yes, it reminded me also of how much the show was enhanced not only by having more than just three detectives plus St Olivia, but also Dr Huang and Melinda Warner.  They need to give Barba and Fin more to do, but of course they won't given who the producer of the show is these days. 

[ForeverAlone]

I agree that this episode had more of an old school feel to it, and that is a good thing. The show used to do a lot more sexual homicide and serial criminals, but the theme of this season seems to be rich prick he said/she said cases, and that can get repetitive after a while. And I am also in agreement that I miss the larger SVU family of medical examiners, TARU and all the others that investigate cases. It is really odd at times to compare the earlier episodes and how much more focused they were on the actual law enforcement procedures, rather than now with the insular depiction of just the detectives. 

As a huge Barba fan, I wish he had more centric stories overall, but there really wasn't a possibility of that this episode, considering his role was more tangential to the case. But I am relieved that the show didn't destroy his character or anything in spilling his secret. Considering we know that Barba's job is not at risk over this, I wonder what was the point of all that hand wringing about his future. Yeah okay, it's entirely possible Raul may leave the show after this season (assuming it is renewed, and you would think NBC would renew it), but we know he doesn't get fired, and if there was any fall out from this episode, it's been cut from the two episodes that were filmed immediately afterward. It will be interesting to see if something additional was added to the episodes that now air after this one, but I am not holding my breath.