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Law & Order: Criminal Intent - General Discussion


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The Sundance marathons will now begin at 9:00 a.m. and end at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesdays (as of the 27th) as it will now share Tuesdays with NCIS. I swear that WE and Sundance are basically the same channel (all the same shows!) now.

Not a shock as AMC network owns both, but still.

CI will also air for a few hours on Saturdays from noon until 3:00 p.m., also on Sundance.

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On 7/21/2021 at 7:42 PM, WendyCR72 said:

I'm still wondering where all the money from In The Dark went.

Speaking of In the Dark....maybe I missed something but you mean to tell me the mechanic doing all these murders of these homeless men has never even SEEN this woman's daughter?  What?  Never talked to her and since she was never actually born there are no photos or anything....

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1 hour ago, Dirtybubble said:

Speaking of In the Dark....maybe I missed something but you mean to tell me the mechanic doing all these murders of these homeless men has never even SEEN this woman's daughter?  What?  Never talked to her and since she was never actually born there are no photos or anything....

What did Eames call them? The Killer and Mrs. Magoo?

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I know how we all feel about the various things in "In The Wee Small Hours", which is on WE now, but one part that just occurred to me was how sort of twisted it was for Elise Garrett to push Ethan to tell G/E what happened with regard to Bethany, Ethan, and his pig of a father, all the while knowing SHE was the murderer.

What a mom. Maybe she and her perv hubby did deserve each other.

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2 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

I know how we all feel about the various things in "In The Wee Small Hours", which is on WE now, but one part that just occurred to me was how sort of twisted it was for Elise Garrett to push Ethan to tell G/E what happened with regard to Bethany, Ethan, and his pig of a father, all the while knowing SHE was the murderer.

What a mom. Maybe she and her perv hubby did deserve each other.

Yeah the Garrett’s were just rotten human trash all around. I’m not sure who was the most unsympathetic of the bunch. Still probably my favorite CI episode, I would’ve watched it had I known it was on today, just really great all around plot and I loved seeing the 2 pairs of detectives work together and seeing the crossover appearance from Arthur Branch - it always makes me laugh when Arthur tears up the original warrant and instead gets one with his name on it, saying it’s worth 2 points on Election Day, and Carver’s perplexed and then amused response. 

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16 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Yeah the Garrett’s were just rotten human trash all around. I’m not sure who was the most unsympathetic of the bunch. Still probably my favorite CI episode, I would’ve watched it had I known it was on today, just really great all around plot and I loved seeing the 2 pairs of detectives work together and seeing the crossover appearance from Arthur Branch - it always makes me laugh when Arthur tears up the original warrant and instead gets one with his name on it, saying it’s worth 2 points on Election Day, and Carver’s perplexed and then amused response. 

I can't hate the son as much as I hate the parents. Who knows how he would have turned out without growing up in a such filthy, pest hole of a household.

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1 hour ago, peacheslatour said:

I can't hate the son as much as I hate the parents. Who knows how he would have turned out without growing up in a such filthy, pest hole of a household.

Agreed - while Ethan was an entitled prick, both of his parents were worthless scum so who knows how he would’ve turned out if he had had decent parents, I agree that the parents were worse.

Like I say, I think this episode is CI at its best, loved everything about it, it was really great to see Goren/Eames working with Logan/Barek, plus heavy roles for Deakins and Carver, a lot of stuff to love about this episode.

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1 hour ago, WendyCR72 said:

I can't feel sorry for Ethan. Lots of people have bad parents but don't kill girls and joke about their heads bouncing like a beach ball. All three were heinous. Ethan was only contrite when he got caught.

Before that, he was an arrogant punk.

I didn’t feel sorry for Ethan, but I hated the parents more, given who the parents were, it’s not surprising Ethan turned out like he did. The Garrets have to be one of the most dysfunctional families on CI and we saw plenty of dysfunctional families.

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2 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I didn’t feel sorry for Ethan, but I hated the parents more, given who the parents were, it’s not surprising Ethan turned out like he did. The Garrets have to be one of the most dysfunctional families on CI and we saw plenty of dysfunctional families.

I go back and forth at which family was more repulsive and screwed up: The Garretts from "In The Wee Small Hours" or The Reeds in "On Fire". Both were awful.

On another topic, the MyNetwork 2021-2022 schedule is out and they have finally dropped CI. Instead, it is basically SVU, Dateline, and the Chicago franchise will all 3 of those shows taking the slots. I guess it was bound to happen. CI has been cycled through plenty, but I just cannot get into the Chicago franchise as a whole. Bleah. Good for their fans, syndication-wise, though.

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On 7/30/2021 at 11:49 PM, Xeliou66 said:

The Garrets have to be one of the most dysfunctional families on CI and we saw plenty of dysfunctional families.

I think Maureen & Trevor from The Good Child were fairly repulsive, what with trying to have their daughter murdered for money. I can still hear Trevor screaming "egg cup!".

 

On 7/31/2021 at 1:30 AM, WendyCR72 said:

On another topic, the MyNetwork 2021-2022 schedule is out and they have finally dropped CI.

For those of you losing CI reruns, I recently cut the cable and am now watching CI on the free version of Peacock Network. I love being able to choose the episode instead of having to take whatever happens to be airing.

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1 hour ago, Broderbits said:

I think Maureen & Trevor from The Good Child were fairly repulsive, what with trying to have their daughter murdered for money. I can still hear Trevor screaming "egg cup!".

 

For those of you losing CI reruns, I recently cut the cable and am now watching CI on the free version of Peacock Network. I love being able to choose the episode instead of having to take whatever happens to be airing.

Oh yes they were awful, and “EGGCUP” is one of my favorite CI endings, that was hilarious. CI had plenty of dysfunctional families, it would take some time to think of all of them, the whole L&O franchise has had plenty of dysfunctional families, but on CI we got to see more of their dynamics because of the focus on the criminals.

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2 hours ago, Broderbits said:

For those of you losing CI reruns, I recently cut the cable and am now watching CI on the free version of Peacock Network

Oh, I have it, but it's nice just to see it on TV. (Weird, I know.) But I do watch on Peacock if nothing else is on! In terms of syndication, it's still on WE, Sundance, and Oxygen for now...

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3 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Oh yes they were awful, and “EGGCUP” is one of my favorite CI endings, that was hilarious. CI had plenty of dysfunctional families, it would take some time to think of all of them, the whole L&O franchise has had plenty of dysfunctional families, but on CI we got to see more of their dynamics because of the focus on the criminals.

My favorite was from Wrongful Life "Stones around my neck! Stones around my neck!"

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3 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

My favorite was from Wrongful Life "Stones around my neck! Stones around my neck!"

I liked Eames' little snide quip about Victoria Carson dumping Lisa at some cut-rate group home before going to the local wine bar. Talia Balsam played a viper kind of "mother" quite well.

So many odious families, so little time to list them all!

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As always, Oxygen continues to be weird where CI seasons are concerned. The last two episodes of S10 will be shown in late night/early morning tomorrow (Tuesday), and the third and last episode will be the second episode of Season 5, a.k.a. "Diamond Dogs", with pre-SVU actor Peter Scanavino on the other side of the law. 😛

As I have said before, always weird to see early/late Goren and Eames back to back, and how much the characters evolved over time.

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58 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Speaking of horrible families, how about Spencer's nightmarish sisters in Posthumous Collection? 
"He was a boy, he could take it." *shudder*

Yes they came to mind as a horribly dysfunctional family as well. Also what about the family from Shrink Wrapped, they immediately come to mind, those parents were 2 complete fruitcakes who completely ignored their daughter. 

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5 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Yes they came to mind as a horribly dysfunctional family as well. Also what about the family from Shrink Wrapped, they immediately come to mind, those parents were 2 complete fruitcakes who completely ignored their daughter. 

And scarier, those two were therapists! I'd be better off asking a Magic 8 Ball for guidance. And the fact that the hubby literally pissed on his wife's desk was just...eeeeewwww!!!

(Was shocked to discover the actor playing the hubby, Brent Spiner, played Data on one of the Star Trek offshoots. Did not recognize him sans makeup!)

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8 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

(Was shocked to discover the actor playing the hubby, Brent Spiner, played Data on one of the Star Trek offshoots. Did not recognize him sans makeup!)

I was just about to mention that.  As a long time Star Trek fan it took me awhile to not see Data but his character on TNG was such an innocent and Brent Spiner was sooo deplorable--well it just goes to show what a good actor he is.  And Margaret Colin I remember from Independence Day....

 

 

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2 hours ago, Dirtybubble said:

I was just about to mention that.  As a long time Star Trek fan it took me awhile to not see Data but his character on TNG was such an innocent and Brent Spiner was sooo deplorable--well it just goes to show what a good actor he is.  And Margaret Colin I remember from Independence Day....

 

 

Brent Spiner was in that too.

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1 hour ago, peacheslatour said:

Brent Spiner was in that too.

Oooh YEAH I had forgotten about that!  Well there ya go; they had plenty to talk about on set =D 

I didn't recognize the young lady that played their daughter. 

I felt sorry for her even though *spoiler alert* she was the murder.  This format where we don't actually see the trial like in the original L.O. makes wonder if she got a lesser sentence because of her circumstances.

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1 hour ago, Dirtybubble said:

Oooh YEAH I had forgotten about that!  Well there ya go; they had plenty to talk about on set =D 

I didn't recognize the young lady that played their daughter. 

I felt sorry for her even though *spoiler alert* she was the murder.  This format where we don't actually see the trial like in the original L.O. makes wonder if she got a lesser sentence because of her circumstances.

I wonder if the daughter went with a psych defense because of how screwed up she was due to her nutbag parents. I do think Carver might’ve accepted a manslaughter plea due to the circumstances surrounding the case. 

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3 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I wonder if the daughter went with a psych defense because of how screwed up she was due to her nutbag parents. I do think Carver might’ve accepted a manslaughter plea due to the circumstances surrounding the case. 

She would have had to have brought the acid with her, so it was premeditated. Maybe second degree instead of first? No idea about that. Maybe she hadn’t meant to kill him, but she was prepared with the weapon.

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16 hours ago, Dirtybubble said:

And Margaret Colin I remember from Independence Day....

And I know her from soaps. She was on As The World Turns, where her character actually was paired with the actor that became her real-life husband. They've been married since the early '80s. Kind of cool.

I guess not every hookup off screen goes bad.

As for Camilla, maybe her attorney would go for a diminished capacity defense, especially since her mother flaunted her affair with the victim and her parents' toxic games, etc.

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I really do wish we had seen some of the sentencing for the worst on this show:

Camilla from "Shrink Wrapped", as above.

The Reeds from "On Fire".

Creepy Spencer (also already mentioned!) from "The Posthumous Collection".

And so on. Although - unlike Goren, who had a brief yucky period in S4 of sympathizing with monsters - I was very happy to know John Tagman got what he deserved while in prison. (The fact that Tagman was based on Dahmer probably made that resolution no accident, as Dahmer suffered the same fate!)

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1 hour ago, WendyCR72 said:

I really do wish we had seen some of the sentencing for the worst on this show:

Camilla from "Shrink Wrapped", as above.

The Reeds from "On Fire".

Creepy Spencer (also already mentioned!) from "The Posthumous Collection".

And so on. Although - unlike Goren, who had a brief yucky period in S4 of sympathizing with monsters - I was very happy to know John Tagman got what he deserved while in prison. (The fact that Tagman was based on Dahmer probably made that resolution no accident, as Dahmer suffered the same fate!)

 I would love to know what sentences a lot of these offenders got - as I said above I would like to know what sentences the Garretts from In The Wee Small Hours got.

And yeah I felt nothing for Tagman, I don’t know what was with Goren at the start of season 4 but Tagman didn’t deserve any sympathy, he was one of the shows sickest perps.

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WE is showing "Siren Call" right now. And one thing that I never understood was why Wasneski's/Wasniewski's/whatever's wife wasn't a wee bit curious as to why G/E have shown up at the end, and why she doesn't keep knocking or calling for Ray or whatever as the standoff happened.

I get she was ill, possibly terminal, so she had a lot on her own mind, but she did lose her eldest child (even as, we have discussed, she seemed to write Ashley off!) and you'd think she would have tried to diffuse things for their daughter's sake.

As it stood at the end, Emily was essentially going to end up an orphan, and that saddened me more than Ray selfishly killing himself like a coward, where his kid would be sure to see his corpse, as she did.

And I know Emily was young, just 13, but I'm sort of shocked she felt so deeply for her sister as it was clear that Ashley resented her/treated her horribly.

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On another note, the franchise loved acting families. Not only did CI use at least two Carradines [Robert Carradine in "Gone"; Robert Carradine's niece, Martha Plimpton, in "Blind Spot], but in "Maltese Cross", - airing now on WE - the widow that Logan/Wheeler interviews, the one who blasts them for trying to "shatter" things for her and her son, who never knew his dad, but talks to them to help Claudia Duffy, was played by actress Kaitlyn Hopkins.

Franchise-wise, Hopkins' real-life mother, the late actress Shirley Knight, was best known as Melanie Cullen ("We were married for 25 yeaaaaaaarrrrs!"), the franchise's take on Betty Broderick in the Mothership episode, "The Wages of Love" from S2, and the episode we see Jerry Orbach not as cop Lennie Briscoe, but as attorney Frank Lehrman.

And how ironic that Geoffrey Nauffts played Knight's son, Jamie, in "The Wages of Love" and played the perp that killed both Claudia Duffy's and Mrs. Hoffman's (Hopkins' character) husbands in "Maltese Cross".

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"The Mobster Will See You Now" from S9 is on MyNetwork. (While it is a bummer the cycle is in S9, after a day and part of the evening with no power, I'll watch ANYTHING! And with heat and no AC or fans? So much fun!) And it occurred to me just how separate S9 was from the rest of the series.

On the Mothership, CI, and SVU, the mob family mentioned, about 99% of the time, was the Masucci crime family.

Yet, in this S9 episode, they even get a new family, the DiPiano family. It really seemed liked S9 was an island unto itself as far as the rest of Criminal Intent was concerned.

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11 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

"The Mobster Will See You Now" from S9 is on MyNetwork. (While it is a bummer the cycle is in S9, after a day and part of the evening with no power, I'll watch ANYTHING! And with heat and no AC or fans? So much fun!) And it occurred to me just how separate S9 was from the rest of the series.

On the Mothership, CI, and SVU, the mob family mentioned, about 99% of the time, was the Masucci crime family.

Yet, in this S9 episode, they even get a new family, the DiPiano family. It really seemed liked S9 was an island unto itself as far as the rest of Criminal Intent was concerned.

The Mobster Will See You Now is a really weird episode, had a lot of players in it and it was hard to tell who was responsible for what. And good point about how the whole franchise used the Masucci crime family, but CI didn’t in season 9. It certainly was off on its own in the later years.

Season 9 was just rather strange, most of the episodes were weird in some way, the most notable being the god awful Palimpsest. I liked a few episodes in season 9, but it was a strange season and the cast was way too low key. I still have the controversial opinion that season 9 was better than season 6 - I don’t like a lot of season 6 episodes and I hate how the show became a soap opera that year after having very little soap in the first 5 years. Season 6 was a drastic departure from seasons 1-5 and not in a good way, it’s definitely my least favorite season. 

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5 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Aww, I liked Palimpsest, if only for the "detective gathers all the suspects together at the end" trope. Oh and the house, I loved the house.

Yes I remember you saying you liked Palimpsest - I found it cheesy and ridiculous - it was so unlike any other L&O episode, it felt like some old detective movie, not L&O, I just couldn’t get past how unrealistic and ridiculous it felt - with the murder seeming to take place in an isolated mansion but was supposedly in NYC, the random scenes of Nichols in  London, the cheesiness of the whole plot, I just found it ridiculous and wondered what the writers were smoking when they came up with that.

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1 minute ago, Xeliou66 said:

Yes I remember you saying you liked Palimpsest - I found it cheesy and ridiculous - it was so unlike any other L&O episode, it felt like some old detective movie, not L&O, I just couldn’t get past how unrealistic and ridiculous it felt - with the murder seeming to take place in an isolated mansion but was supposedly in NYC, the random scenes of Nichols in  London, the cheesiness of the whole plot, I just found it ridiculous and wondered what the writers were smoking when they came up with that.

You're right, it didn't feel like a typical CI episode but to me, none of the Nichols episodes did. YMMV

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3 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Yes I remember you saying you liked Palimpsest - I found it cheesy and ridiculous - it was so unlike any other L&O episode, it felt like some old detective movie, not L&O, I just couldn’t get past how unrealistic and ridiculous it felt - with the murder seeming to take place in an isolated mansion but was supposedly in NYC, the random scenes of Nichols in  London, the cheesiness of the whole plot, I just found it ridiculous and wondered what the writers were smoking when they came up with that.

And, as I said, I HATED the Harlequinesque dialogue. It sounded like Victorian England and not 21st century NYC.

Ironically, that episode is on now on MyNetwork, and it still mystifies me as to why Nichols goes all the way to England and is talking to some strange woman about the case.

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2 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:

And, as I said, I HATED the Harlequinesque dialogue. It sounded like Victorian England and not 21st century NYC.

Ironically, that episode is on now on MyNetwork, and it still mystifies me as to why Nichols goes all the way to England and is talking to some strange woman about the case.

The whole thing was just really weird, it felt like it was from a prior era and a different place, and it came off as ridiculous and cheesy.

On 8/13/2021 at 8:54 PM, Xeliou66 said:

The whole thing was just really weird, it felt like it was from a prior era and a different place, and it came off as ridiculous and cheesy.

Maybe if the case itself was interesting, it could have offset the weirdness, but it wasn't, so the whole episode was a drain. And we never heard about Zack's "great love" before or since.

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Season 7 was on today and I’ll say again how I like Falacci a lot and I really wish she had stuck around instead of the dull as dirt Wheeler. Falacci had a spark and I liked the dynamic she brought, and as Logan himself commented on, it was interesting seeing Logan be the more “diplomatic” one. I watched Courtship today, good episode, I like all 5 of the Logan/Falacci episodes actually. Ross was an ass as usual when he was irritated with Falacci for throwing the judge out of the crime scene, I really can’t stand him but I liked the rest of the episode, interesting case and suspects.

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8 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Season 7 was on today and I’ll say again how I like Falacci a lot and I really wish she had stuck around instead of the dull as dirt Wheeler. Falacci had a spark and I liked the dynamic she brought, and as Logan himself commented on, it was interesting seeing Logan be the more “diplomatic” one. I watched Courtship today, good episode, I like all 5 of the Logan/Falacci episodes actually. Ross was an ass as usual when he was irritated with Falacci for throwing the judge out of the crime scene, I really can’t stand him but I liked the rest of the episode, interesting case and suspects.

I can't believe said judge got to take early retirement and wasn't charged with a crime! He was throwing cases, for God's sake. And his wife ended up dead because of it.

Arnie (Bruce MacVittie's prior CI character in "Semi-Professional" in S1!) may have been a flunkie and murderer, but at least he had real care for his wife. Can't say the same for the judge. (Although the shorter hair looked better on MacVittie in "Courtship", IMO! He had the shorter hair in the HLOTS episode, "The Subway", with VDO, too.)

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7 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

I can't believe said judge got to take early retirement and wasn't charged with a crime! He was throwing cases, for God's sake. And his wife ended up dead because of it.

Arnie (Bruce MacVittie's prior CI character in "Semi-Professional" in S1!) may have been a flunkie and murderer, but at least he had real care for his wife. Can't say the same for the judge. (Although the shorter hair looked better on MacVittie in "Courtship", IMO! He had the shorter hair in the HLOTS episode, "The Subway", with VDO, too.)

Yeah I agree it was weird that the judge wasn’t charged and only had to step down. That episode was another one where having a DA involved would’ve added a lot to the show, the show lost a lot when Carver left and they basically dropped any legal stuff. 

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15 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Yeah I agree it was weird that the judge wasn’t charged and only had to step down. That episode was another one where having a DA involved would’ve added a lot to the show, the show lost a lot when Carver left and they basically dropped any legal stuff. 

It seems like Warren Leight did not even try with all the day-player ADAs the show had. As I said before, the one in "Identity Crisis" (on a VERY surface level!) sort of resembled Carver even if he sounded nothing like him. The rest just seemed vacuous or corrupt [albeit that was the Queens (?) DA]. The vacuous ones made me wonder how they even passed law school/the Bar.

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On 8/18/2021 at 2:35 AM, WendyCR72 said:

It seems like Warren Leight did not even try with all the day-player ADAs the show had. As I said before, the one in "Identity Crisis" (on a VERY surface level!) sort of resembled Carver even if he sounded nothing like him. The rest just seemed vacuous or corrupt [albeit that was the Queens (?) DA]. The vacuous ones made me wonder how they even passed law school/the Bar.

Yes I really think the show lost a lot without Carver - he was a great character and he was terribly underused and it’s a travesty how they wrote him off without an explanation. I always enjoyed the legal side of the show and I think the show was missing a lot without it.

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9 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Yes I really think the show lost a lot without Carver - he was a great character and he was terribly underused and it’s a travesty how they wrote him off without an explanation. I always enjoyed the legal side of the show and I think the show was missing a lot without it.

Seems Leight has a hit-and-miss history with the legal side on SVU, too. In any case, I would have liked to see McCoy make an appearance. The mention in S8 was welcome, and having Branch make a cameo in S5 was also good, but I would have liked to see how McCoy and/or Cutter would have interacted with Goren/Eames and/or Logan/Wheeler, and/or Nichols/Wheeler.

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