S20.E15: Brothel

[dttruman]

This is from Googling the title. "Benson and the team investigate the death of a prostitute at a brothel; they wonder if there was foul play or if this could be a case of a junkie who relapsed, turned to tricking, got depressed and committed suicide."

This is episode description is from "All Things Law and Order SVU".

"Fin (Ice T) teams up with an old colleague to track down the proprietor of a pop-up brothel. Also starring Mariska Hargitay, Kelli Giddish and Peter Scanavino. Guest starring Jennifer Esposito (Sgt. Phoebe Baker), Baylen Thomas (Collum O'Connor), Adrian Alvarado (Carlos Ramirez), John Rothman (Judge Kofax) and Jenna Stern (Judge Barth).
 

Edited February 18, 2019 by Drogo
Removed date from title.

[Gigi43]

Oh it's that time of year for the show to act like Fin's gonna have an episode. Cute.

[dttruman]

They are hinting that someone is tipping off the traffickers. Could it be someone from SVU? If it is, I wonder how they plan on justifying it. Will one of their relatives be kidnapped and that person is forced to supply information to the traffickers or could it be Fin's friend from Vice?

Edited February 12, 2019 by dttruman

[MrsRafaelBarba]

Jennifer Esposito Guest Starred in one of my favorite SVU episodes from the Golden Years.

Remorse

Edited February 12, 2019 by MrsRafaelBarba

[CrystalBlue]

Looking forward to seeing Jenna Stern as Judge Barth again!

[dttruman]

7 hours ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

Jennifer Esposito Guest Starred in one of my favorite SVU episodes from the Golden Years.

Remorse

I thought it was a bummer, when she was killed in that episode.

I hope they make good use of her talents. The one plot line I don't want to see is where a member of the squad meets up with a former partner and is dirty and Benson deduces that.  It's been done so many damn times.

Edited February 12, 2019 by dttruman

[WendyCR72]

17 hours ago, CrystalBlue said:

Looking forward to seeing Jenna Stern as Judge Barth again!

I think Jenna Stern has made a career out of starring on the franchise alone. I know - besides playing a judge here - she played an ADA on the Mothership that ended up murdered and also appeared on L&O: CI four times in four different roles.

She has to hold some sort of franchise record.

[MrsRafaelBarba]

15 hours ago, dttruman said:

I thought it was a bummer, when she was killed in that episode.

I hope they make good use of her talents. The one plot line I don't want to see is where a member of the squad meets up with a former partner and is dirty and Benson deduces that.  It's been done so many damn times.

I liked her character with Munch. 

[Fellaway]

3 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

I know - besides playing a judge here - she played an ADA on the Mothership that ended up murdered

Oh, hey, I never made the connection that that was her!  Thanks for the info.  I liked her in that ep and was sorry she was killed off.  It was memorable, though.

[wknt3]

11 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

I think Jenna Stern has made a career out of starring on the franchise alone. I know - besides playing a judge here - she played an ADA on the Mothership that ended up murdered and also appeared on L&O: CI four times in four different roles.

She has to hold some sort of franchise record.

Maybe for the combination of number of characters played and number of episodes appeared in? A quick check of IMDB confirms what I thought - there are actors who played more characters across the franchise (most of them "that guy/gals" such as William Hill,  Nancy Ticotin, and Michael Cullen) and I'm sure that Leslie Hendrix, JK Simmons and some of the arraignment judges have her beat for number of guest star credits across the franchise without ever appearing in the opening credits. It does seem really unusual though - most of the performers the casting people liked that much seemed to get a recurring role before racking up so many characters or were hired on as a regular by the franchise or some other series.

[dttruman]

On 2/13/2019 at 7:23 AM, wknt3 said:

It does seem really unusual though - most of the performers the casting people liked that much seemed to get a recurring role before racking up so many characters or were hired on as a regular

I wonder who is the actor that has portrayed the most different characters on SVU? Maybe I should changed that to all L&O episodes?

Edited February 14, 2019 by dttruman

[illdoc]

3 hours ago, dttruman said:

I wonder who is the actor that has portrayed the most different characters on SVU? Maybe I should changed that to all L&O episodes?

Michael O'Keefe would have to be near the top: 4 times SVU (although it was only 3 different characters), twice Criminal Intent, and once as twins on the mothership.

[Xeliou66]

I hope this episode is actually Fin heavy as advertised, and not another episode where they say it is Fin centric but instead it turns into another St Benson saves the world hour.

[Fellaway]

Well, I see we're off to a rousing start, with Doubting Rollins in attendance.  And the mole has gotta be one of the judges.  No sooner do they get a warrant, both times, then the bad guys are tipped off.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Fellaway

[dttruman]

10 minutes ago, Fellaway said:

Well, I see we're off to a rousing start, with Doubting Rollins in attendance.  And the mole has gotta be one of the judges.  No sooner do they get a warrant, both times, then the bad guys are tipped off.

I am leaning that way too. I first thought it might be the lady having a drink with the judge.

Edited February 15, 2019 by dttruman

[MrsRafaelBarba]

So now Judge Koulfax is suddenly crooked?

Barth was having drinks with him earlier in the episode, oh boy.

Edited February 15, 2019 by MrsRafaelBarba

[MrsRafaelBarba]

Oh good, she wasn't. 

[MrsRafaelBarba]

What. Thee. Fuck?

[dttruman]

This episode wasn't flashing, but held up pretty well with Fin getting some good minutes in, until the last 10 minutes when Benson did her condemnation of the perp and the saintly speech to one of the girls.

The guy who played Judge Colfax, he was in a couple of early episodes, right? Did they decide to go with another throw away character here, like they did with that FBI lady, Lewis?

[MrsRafaelBarba]

16 minutes ago, dttruman said:

This episode wasn't flashing, but held up pretty well with Fin getting some good minutes in, until the last 10 minutes when Benson did her condemnation of the perp and the saintly speech to one of the girls.

The guy who played Judge Colfax, he was in a couple of early episodes, right? Did they decide to go with another throw away character here, like they did with that FBI lady, Lewis?

I hate how they randomly turned Dana Lewis into Stephanie Lazarus. 

[Fellaway]

Yes, Judge Kofax has been in earlier eps.  I checked IMDb.com and he's been in five eps, according to them.  I remember him, but don't really remember what he did in those eps.  I think he was a tad over the top in his interrogation scene, and his reasoning for what he was doing was totally wack.  Also, it seemed unnecessarily obvious from the get that one of the judges was the mole.   They might as well have surrounded them with blinking arrows at the bar, it was so obvious.

I'm glad it wasn't Judge Barth!  

Liv, when performing a photo array with a witness, I don't think you're supposed to point to one photo in particular and say "Are you sure you don't recognize her?"  Even I could get that kind of ID thrown out of court.  And it seemed terribly convenient, and cheesy, that one of the bad cops was nicknamed "Fee" so we could suspect Jennifer Esposito's "Phoebe" was the mole.  Even though we all knew it wasn't her.

Not an outstanding episode, but okay.  Fair amount of screentime for all the squad members.  The only personal drama was Fin's and that was low-key, fitting for him.  And I liked the old-school friendship moment between Carisi and Rollins at the end.  I'm still feeling favorably for the current trend in quality of eps.  

[Xeliou66]

That was the best episode of the season, it’s been a long time since I’ve thought an episode was that good. It really felt like classic SVU, with a lot of good investigation with nice twists without any personal crap. 

It was awesome to see Fin get some focus, the more of Fin the better, him and Carisi were awesome together as always. I couldn’t tell if Phoebe was going to be dirty or not, and so the episode was suspenseful, although I did suspect Kofax’s possible involvement. 

The only bad parts were the absence of Stone, he should’ve been in some scenes, the scene between Benson and the girl at the end, that was just more of St Olivia’s preaching and saving the world, and Benson’s behavior when showing the girl the photo array, after she said she didn’t recognize any of them, Benson had no right to continue to ask about Phoebe, it was highly unprofessional and unethical.

Overall this was a strong episode with a lot of good twists and investigation, and it was solid from start to finish. Best episode of season 20 IMO.

[HunterHunted]

40 minutes ago, Fellaway said:

Yes, Judge Kofax has been in earlier eps.  I checked IMDb.com and he's been in five eps, according to them.  I remember him, but don't really remember what he did in those eps.  I think he was a tad over the top in his interrogation scene, and his reasoning for what he was doing was totally wack.  Also, it seemed unnecessarily obvious from the get that one of the judges was the mole.   They might as well have surrounded them with blinking arrows at the bar, it was so obvious.

I'm glad it wasn't Judge Barth!  

Liv, when performing a photo array with a witness, I don't think you're supposed to point to one photo in particular and say "Are you sure you don't recognize her?"  Even I could get that kind of ID thrown out of court.  And it seemed terribly convenient, and cheesy, that one of the bad cops was nicknamed "Fee" so we could suspect Jennifer Esposito's "Phoebe" was the mole.  Even though we all knew it wasn't her.

Not an outstanding episode, but okay.  Fair amount of screentime for all the squad members.  The only personal drama was Fin's and that was low-key, fitting for him.  And I liked the old-school friendship moment between Carisi and Rollins at the end.  I'm still feeling favorably for the current trend in quality of eps.  

This was a half decent episode. During the interrogation, the judge was spinning out into levels of crazy that it seemed would be very hard to hide on a day to day basis. I would have rather his motivation be more valid, plausible, and unbelievably jaundiced. If he said that the program kicked the girls who were most likely to relapse in part because government funding requires the program to have a certain number of successes, that would have been cynical but made sense. He could have justified the brothel by being the safest version of what these girls were going to end up doing. His actions would still be contemptible, but his cynical view of the world makes you realize why his decisions were rational to him.

Liv's photo array was terrible. You likely learned that the photo array was not ok because of a little show called Law & Order (most likely the mothership). Unfortunately, the Law & Order television program doesn't seem to exist in the SVU universe. And if it does, it's probably late season SVU.

[Fellaway]

40 minutes ago, HunterHunted said:

I would have rather his motivation be more valid, plausible, and unbelievably jaundiced. If he said that the program kicked the girls who were most likely to relapse in part because government funding requires the program to have a certain number of successes, that would have been cynical but made sense. He could have justified the brothel by being the safest version of what these girls were going to end up doing. His actions would still be contemptible, but his cynical view of the world makes you realize why his decisions were rational to him.

That would've been better than what we got, which was all kinds of weird.  So... his daughter died because she got bad drugs, so let's take these other female drug addicts and - Because they're already the dead walking! - make sure they at least get good drugs.  While we make them be sex slaves.  It makes no sense, and, really, Judge?  That is what you would've wanted for your daughter?

43 minutes ago, HunterHunted said:

Liv's photo array was terrible. You likely learned that the photo array was not ok because of a little show called Law & Order (most likely the mothership). Unfortunately, the Law & Order television program doesn't seem to exist in the SVU universe.

Hee!  Viewers can definitely become an armchair detective or lawyer, watching the mothership.  But, also, I was a Criminal Justice major in college. I haven't worked in the field, but I do remember a little something from time to time, and it kills me when they get details like that wrong, especially 20 seasons in.  It's something their legal advisers should be telling them, if they even bother with that anymore.  And if the writers are using those devices to make their jobs easier, they need better writers.

[dttruman]

On 2/14/2019 at 11:34 PM, Fellaway said:

Liv, when performing a photo array with a witness, I don't think you're supposed to point to one photo in particular and say "Are you sure you don't recognize her?"  Even I could get that kind of ID thrown out of court.

On 2/15/2019 at 12:46 AM, Xeliou66 said:

Benson’s behavior when showing the girl the photo array, after she said she didn’t recognize any of them, Benson had no right to continue to ask about Phoebe, it was highly unprofessional and unethical. 

A videotaped interrogation would substantiated that claim, but something tells me they would come up with a weak excuse like there was a bug in the system or not even mention it at all.

On 2/15/2019 at 12:48 AM, HunterHunted said:

His actions would still be contemptible, but his cynical view of the world makes you realize why his decisions were rational to him.

I think his lawyer will probably go with a diminished mental capacity defense here.

I can't help but think they got a little bit inspiration from that one episode where a judge kept handing out heavy sentences to kids, they were sent to a work farm or something , and the judge got a kickback.

Edited February 16, 2019 by dttruman

[The Wild Sow]

6 hours ago, Fellaway said:

Yes, Judge Kofax has been in earlier eps.  I checked IMDb.com and he's been in five eps, according to them.

Well, John Rothman is one of those Hey It's That Guys who's been in multiple roles throughout the L&O franchise.

But I can't see him without thinking of him as Steven Strelzick on the Mothership.  The bookie who justified his crimes, including killing his partner,  because he was sending all his profits to Israel!

[wknt3]

The Good:
Fin! They actually gave us a Fin focused episode. I was pleasantly surprised since I figured after last week it would be all about why Liv is really awesome and totally correct to be all about the victims and just forget about what we said last week. We got the most Fin Snark in quite a bit (loved the bits with the shoe - "cobbler-client confidentiality" and the Cinderella line, and his remark about how he had no trouble believing bored husbands hired prostitutes) AND the most serious moments as well. Plus he actually ran a tactically correct raid, letting the heavily armed ESU team lead the way!
Jennifer Esposito. Really good performance and nice chemistry with Ice-T.
It was nice to see them keep using the whole squad. Even though Fin was front and center, they didn't push Carisi and Rollins totally into the background and forget about them. They even managed a bit of subtlety with Rollins personal reaction to prostitution. I would have preferred a bit more in Giddish's performance, but it was nice that they trusted us to remember and didn't hit us over the head with it. Plus the scene in the squad room at the end was nice.
They tried to acknowledge rules and reality before disregarding them. Although I would have preferred at least some nod to the past when Benson was pushing Fin to contact IAB. It was nice she backed down pretty quickly, given the number of times she has pulled the same sort of thing, but I wish they had made it explicit. At least they didn't ignore the issue completely.
No family drama!

The Bad:
The whole St. Benson ministers to the wronged woman scene at the end was unnecessary and weakened the episode a lot. The time would have been better spent giving some depth to the judge's motivations (either undercutting them by revealing that they had found the money/discovered there was more to the story/talked about how he was going with a psych defense/etc.), giving us some resolution on other plot points, or even just expanding the other scenes at the end.
Mariska's overacting, I know that that's pretty much a given at this point, but it bears repeating, and it's more obvious in weeks like this when there is actual good acting to contrast it with.
Kolfax. Not John Rothman's fault, just poor writing. His scenes with Barth excepted they never seemed to really figure out where they were going in the writing.
The promo for next week has me worried.

Overall this was a solid, if unspectacular episode which attempts to do a classic SVU story, and mostly succeeds. Another B/B+ with major points added for actually giving us a Fin-centric episode and points subtracted for Benson's nonsense and for not figuring out a motivation for the ultimate perp. It still feels like they'e marking time before a final record breaking season, but at least it's watchable and even good at times.

[Gigi43]

Okay, my knee jerk cynical reaction to the description was off. This was a pretty Fin heavy episode. But, hey, I've been hurt before yknow? 

Definitely one of the better eps this season. I called one of the judges being involved.  Loved seeing Fin get stuff to do and wanting to handle things with Phoebe on his own. Given what we know of his family, yeah, that probably was a mess of anew attempted relationship. I like Phoebe. I wonder if they're considering Jennifer Esposito for that Hate Crimes show or if this was a one-off.

If Barth had been shady, or Vincent Curtola's (sp?) Judge character, I'd have a problem but I didn't have an attachment to Kofax so fine.

The worst part of an otherwise good episode,  of course, Livs completely leading photo line up. You can't single anyone out! God all her victim interactions and perp interrogations should have to be taped and on a feed sent right to the DA's office.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Gigi43

[NoReally]

Here's my take on Liv singling out one photo from the array:

The witness had already been through the photos a couple times, and it was obvious she wasn't going to i.d anyone in a way that would be admissible in court. So Liv pointed out their prime suspect just so the SUV detectives would know in their own minds if they were on the right track.

Or maybe I'm making excuses.

[preeya]

55 minutes ago, NoReally said:

So Liv pointed out their prime suspect just so the SUV detectives would know in their own minds if they were on the right track.

SUV detectives:  that's a ChristoFAH Moltisanti faux pas.

[augmentedfourth]

On 2/11/2019 at 10:25 PM, MrsRafaelBarba said:

Jennifer Esposito Guest Starred in one of my favorite SVU episodes from the Golden Years.

Remorse

When Fin was apologizing and they were talking about what happened between them 20 years ago, I was all "20 years ago, you were a reporter who was flirting with Munch before you were murdered!" Ah, those were the good ol' days.

Actually, though, I thought this episode was pretty good. I kind of figured the judge was involved, but I admit I was going back and forth on Jennifer Esposito's character. The police actually did police work, Olivia wasn't in every single scene, and we got some good Fin snark and interaction. Probably the best of the season so far!

[GordonGartrelle]

20 hours ago, illdoc said:

Michael O'Keefe would have to be near the top: 4 times SVU (although it was only 3 different characters), twice Criminal Intent, and once as twins on the mothership.

Don't just think of popular actors.  

I have been watching original airings since the 90's all shows, to include, LA and Trail by Jury.  I live off the reruns.  Some faces, actors stay with you.  I had to google who the guy that played Maggie on Hitch was because I know he had been in a few across the board, turns out his name is Austin Lysy, and he has stared in 4.  2 mothership, 2 SVU.  Who can forget Mike D?

[dttruman]

5 hours ago, GordonGartrelle said:

I have been watching original airings since the 90's all shows, to include, LA and Trail by Jury.  I live off the reruns.  Some faces, actors stay with you.  I had to google who the guy that played Maggie on Hitch was because I know he had been in a few across the board, turns out his name is Austin Lysy, and he has stared in 4.  2 mothership, 2 SVU.  Who can forget Mike D?

Do you think there might be more? They may not be fairly known actors and they had very tiny parts, but they live in NYC.

[dttruman]

8 hours ago, NoReally said:

Here's my take on Liv singling out one photo from the array:

The witness had already been through the photos a couple times, and it was obvious she wasn't going to i.d anyone in a way that would be admissible in court. So Liv pointed out their prime suspect just so the SUV detectives would know in their own minds if they were on the right track.

Or maybe I'm making excuses.

I thought this was an honest assessment. But if Benson would have pressured her a little more and said "are you definitely sure you don't know" this witness might be obliged to acknowledge she saw her. And with Benson hair-trigger accusation mindset, Baker would be arrested immediately.

[preeya]

17 minutes ago, dttruman said:

I thought this was an honest assessment. But if Benson would have pressured her a little more and said "are you definitely sure you don't know" this witness might be obliged to acknowledge she saw her. And with Benson hair-trigger accusation mindset, Baker would be arrested immediately.

 

Yeah, just like the guy with one shoe, who was tied to the bed (likely in a state of undress), and was accused (and convicted) of murdering the girl who was thrown from the roof.

[TimWil]

Fun fact: in the first scene after the opening (Manhattan Treatment Center Court) ADA Alice Shultz was played by Mariska Hargitay’s long-time stand-in Misha Whalen.

[milner]

Wasn’t there some sort of controversy regarding Jennifer Esposito when she left both Blue Bloods and NCIS or  am I thinking of another actress ?

[WendyCR72]

10 minutes ago, milner said:

Wasn’t there some sort of controversy regarding Jennifer Esposito when she left both Blue Bloods and NCIS or  am I thinking of another actress ?

Yeah, it was her. Something to do with her having celiac disease and that TPTB weren't sympathetic to her health issues or something, so she left.

[dttruman]

40 minutes ago, WendyCR72 said:

Yeah, it was her. Something to do with her having celiac disease and that TPTB weren't sympathetic to her health issues or something, so she left. 

I don't know if she made some outrageous demands concerning her situation and they labelled her "difficult"  or if she just became unreliable (and held up production) because of it and they didn't want to deal with it anymore. She is a very talented actor and I hope to see more of her on tv or the big screen.

[Fellaway]

15 hours ago, dttruman said:

A videotaped interrogation would substantiated that claim

Thing is, though, that was an interview with a witness/victim, rather than an interrogation with a suspect, so I don't know that it would be recorded like an interrogation would be.

15 hours ago, dttruman said:

I think his lawyer will probably go with a diminished mental capacity defense here.

They said at the end that he took a deal and would be going away for 25 years, but, I agree.  Based on that wack motivation, his lawyer definitely should've gone for mental disease or defect.

14 hours ago, wknt3 said:

It was nice she backed down pretty quickly, given the number of times she has pulled the same sort of thing,

I think promoting Liv to Lieutenant was a natural progression, both for the character and within the show, but, good glory, every time she calls out one of the detectives on something they did wrong or against procedure, I can't help but think of the many, many, many more times her old partner did the same or worse and she covered for him.  Or she did it herself.  It's... hard to take her judgment of the detectives seriously.  It comes across as hypocrisy.  I'd like it better if she came across as "Listen, I've been there.  Learn from my mistakes." instead of the "You're dumb and I'm smart and I never!" manner that does comes across.  To me, at least.

14 hours ago, wknt3 said:

The whole St. Benson ministers to the wronged woman scene at the end was unnecessary and weakened the episode a lot.

I thought that scene was odd, too.  We hadn't seen that victim since her interview or even talked about her, really, so following up on her seemed out of left field.  Maybe they had time to fill in the ep?  If so, I'd have preferred it be spent in the interrogation room with the judge, making more sense out of that mess in his mind.  Or more scenes with the squad working the case.

12 hours ago, NoReally said:

The witness had already been through the photos a couple times, and it was obvious she wasn't going to i.d anyone in a way that would be admissible in court. So Liv pointed out their prime suspect just so the SUV detectives would know in their own minds if they were on the right track.

It wouldn't fly in court.  Remember the ep that crossed with P.D., when they were looking for Gregory Yates and Nadia?  Carisi and that cop from P.D. showed a photo array to a witness and she identified Yates and another photo as possibles, but they didn't then point to Yates and say "Are you sure it's not him?" Wink wink, nudge nudge.  Police can't influence witnesses or victims in id'ing suspects, full stop, even if just for investigative purposes.  Any defense attorney worth their salt would call anything resulting from it tainted.

On the returning guest stars front, amongst the regulars on all the series, at least, maybe Peter Scanavino holds the record?  He's been on four of the series playing five different characters.  I'm sure he doesn't hold the overall record, though.

Edited February 16, 2019 by Fellaway

[ForeverAlone]

Riddle me this. Dominic KNEW in advance that the gun found near Tori was traced to a dead heroin dealer and that weapon was supposed to be in NYPD's possession. I mean, he just announced that after the bust went bad. But if he knew that beforehand, why the hell didn't he say something BEFORE the bust? I mean, they already knew that a cop must have been involved at that point. So aside from the visuals of a cop bust, what was the point of that? I mean, they could have told the same story about a dirty cop, and it would have been more realistic (if not as "cinematic"). 

It was fun to get some more Fin backstory, though this story is a good example of why IAB needs to be involved in investigations. Of course what were the writers doing destroying a long time recurring character judge? And of course the judge just had to break down and mindlessly confess like some raving lunatic. Come the fuck on! Any judge would have played it much cooler and made the cops work for their investigation. And any defense lawyer would have intervened to shut him down much sooner. But of course the show wanted to go for the more out of control emotion, rather than calculated investigation. I think it would have been more interesting to see the full investigation, because taking down a judge is a big deal. Instead the show had some key moments off screen, and instead we had some time suck diversions that weren't really necessary. Plus of course the obligatory rousing Olivia pep talk that will turn a victim's life around. It must be written into her contract. 

[Fellaway]

3 hours ago, ForeverAlone said:

Riddle me this. Dominic KNEW in advance that the gun found near Tori was traced to a dead heroin dealer and that weapon was supposed to be in NYPD's possession. I mean, he just announced that after the bust went bad. But if he knew that beforehand, why the hell didn't he say something BEFORE the bust?

After the failed raid, when they were all in Benson's office arguing over the possibility of a mole and whose squad he or she might be on, Carisi got a call on his cell.  I think that's when he got the info on the gun.  He gave the information right after he hung up.

[The Wild Sow]

14 hours ago, ForeverAlone said:

Of course what were the writers doing destroying a long time recurring character judge?

Add Judge Kofax to the growing list of recurring/peripheral characters who've had their turn at the dark side!

Hank Abraham with his child porn.

CSU Dale Stuckey in Zebras.

Dr. Carl Rudnick as a serial killer.

And my personal UNfavorite:  the awesome Dana Lewis (Marcia Gay Harden), basically thrown under the bus for a storyline.

Can we think of more?

Edited February 16, 2019 by The Wild Sow

[dttruman]

23 minutes ago, The Wild Sow said:

CSU Dale Stuckey in Zebras. 

I always thought he was a "pain in the ass" jerk, and got what he deserved. It was the killing of his (and I hope I get this right) partner O'Halloran. I thought O'Halloran was a decent character and could have been a good character for supporting the investigations.

[Welcome5431]

The SVU twist was that the trial proceedings happened at the beginning of the episode.

The emphasis on legal departments paid homage to classic L&O. 

[ForeverAlone]

There was that British sounding forensic dude (can't remember his name, but Fin's "rope guy") who tampered with evidence, because he was being blackmailed by that ridiculous hacker killer. 

[MrsRafaelBarba]

1 hour ago, The Wild Sow said:

Add Judge Kofax to the growing list of recurring/peripheral characters who've had their turn at the dark side!

Hank Abraham with his child porn.

CSU Dale Stuckey in Zebras.

Dr. Carl Rudnick as a serial killer.

And my personal UNfavorite:  the awesome Dana Lewis (Marcia Gay Harden), basically thrown under the bus for a storyline.

Can we think of more?

I think the same fate will befall Dodd's Sr

My guess, he'll  either try to  kill or frame Benson for some type corrupt activity.

Remember, he once had an outburst blaming her for Little Dodd's death.

Edited February 16, 2019 by MrsRafaelBarba

[ChristiKRN]

8 minutes ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

I think the same fate will befall Dodd's Sr

My guess, he'll  either try to  kill or frame Benson for some type corrupt activity.

Remember, he once had an outburst blaming her for Little Dodd's death.

Dodds Sr doesn't need to frame Benson; all he needs to do is just keep an ongoing track of her poor judgement and  lack of leadership skills and she will be hanging herself.  

1 hour ago, dttruman said:

I always thought he was a "pain in the ass" jerk, and got what he deserved. It was the killing of his (and I hope I get this right) partner O'Halloran. I thought O'Halloran was a decent character and could have been a good character for supporting the investigations.

I loved O'Halloran.  He's a great example of the sorely missed and needed support that SVU should have.  

I actually loved this episode. It had the flavor of older episodes.  It was nice to see Fin being at the forefront of this episode; he had good chemistry with Jennifer Espisito's character.  Nice to see Fin getting a little focus on his personal life instead of Benson or Rollins and it was integrated into the storyline well.  There were some definite flaws as other posters have mentioned.  There was no need for Benson to track down the girl at a NA meeting to give her a pep talk.  Benson not knowing the basic rules of a photo lineup was ridiculous.  I don't know which writer came up with the asinine rationale for the judge's actions but I can't come up with enough bad adjectives to describe it - asinine is my favorite.  Rollins continues to make me hate her with her lack of empathy towards victims that are prostitutes when she stated that it was a 'waste of time" to pursue the case because of her history.  I was sincerely hoping that it was Rollins who was the leak; I was hoping that she told Dr. Al that he needed to babysit b/c SVU was trying to bust up a pop-up brothel and Dr. Al, with his love of prostitutes,  passed the intel along. 

Is Phoebe, Jennifer Espisito's character, going to be a character in the new Warren Leight /L&O spinoff, Hate Crimes? 

[vast wasteland]

Oh good God, can there never be an ending without Liv doing her breathy imitation of the wise, all knowing life coach? 

[Xeliou66]

While I kind of liked the twist of Kofax being corrupt, I thought the same thing about how many recurring characters have become villains, we’ve had 

Dana Lewis ( I don’t get the love for her and I didn’t mind her becoming a killer, I always found her obnoxious and unlikable)

Rudnick ( who I liked a lot and hated seeing turned into a killer)

Hank Abraham (although he was never supposed to be a “good guy”)

Stuckey (what a terrible character/storyline, I liked O’Halloran and hated that he was killed for no reason and that no one even mentioned it afterwards)

Colin Bennett (the CSU guy who was blackmailed into lying in Know It All, I didn’t like that episode or storyline and we didn’t even see what the deep dark secret Bennett had that led him to comtemplate suicide was)

I’m trying to think if there have been any more, but I’m very worried the same fate will befall Dodds, and I will be royally pissed if that is the case, Dodds is cool and I’ve always enjoyed his appearances, but I think the writers don’t want anyone who is above Benson or who can criticize her and that’s why we haven’t seen or heard about Dodds this season, and it’s why I’m afraid he will be exposed as corrupt.