S20.E19: Dearly Beloved

[dttruman]

Episode description from Googling "SVU  Dearly Beloved"

The SVU investigates a he-said, she-said case when a woman crashes a wedding to accuse her therapist of sexual assault.

This description is from "All Things Law and Order, Dearly Beloved"

The SVU investigates a he-said, she-said case when a woman crashes a wedding to accuse her therapist of sexual assault.. Starring Mariska Hargitay, Kelli Giddish and Peter Scanavino. Guest starring Shiri Appleby (Kitty Bennett), TJ Thyne (Dr. Joshua Hensley), Maureen Sebastian (Lana Stallworth), Poppy Liu (Hannah Berkowitz) and Garrett Turner (Bo Albrecht). Directed by Lucy Liu.

[dttruman]

This should be interesting, when it comes to commenting on the director (Lucy Liu) of this. I had to go back and look at her experience at directing. She has a few episodes of "Elementary" under her belt, so she doesn't lack experience.

It's the story line that has me puzzled. In the preview they showed, it looks like it's a mixture of "Remember Me" and "Mea Culpa".

Edited April 2, 2019 by dttruman

[Xeliou66]

I’ll be honest, I’m not really excited for this one. No Fin and no Stone is ridiculous and it means we will have a heavy dose of the super mommies, and the storyline sounds unoriginal and obvious, we’ve had numerous he said she said cases and the woman is always telling the truth. This episode sounds like dull filler.

[dttruman]

1 hour ago, Xeliou66 said:

I’ll be honest, I’m not really excited for this one. No Fin and no Stone is ridiculous and it means we will have a heavy dose of the super mommies, and the storyline sounds unoriginal and obvious, we’ve had numerous he said she said cases and the woman is always telling the truth. This episode sounds like dull filler.

Maybe it's a throw away episode, where everything is experimental. Is Lucy Liu considered an up and coming director? Since Winchester isn't coming back next season, will they knock him off or will he jump back to Chicago PD?

[illdoc]

1 hour ago, dttruman said:

Maybe it's a throw away episode,

Maybe it's what is replacing the "hate crime" episode? They were supposed to have an episode this season as the "back-door pilot" for the SVU: Hate Crimes spin-off, but since that series is postponed, they wouldn't have that episode this season, so presumably would have to replace the episode in the schedule.

[Xeliou66]

1 hour ago, dttruman said:

Maybe it's a throw away episode, where everything is experimental. Is Lucy Liu considered an up and coming director? Since Winchester isn't coming back next season, will they knock him off or will he jump back to Chicago PD?

Yeah I think this is a filler episode. I’m not sure what will happen to Stone, I don’t see them killing him off since his father and sister died last season, but he won’t be going back to Chicago because Chicago Justice has been canceled and there’s no place for him on those shows.

This episode sounds like pure filler. It could’ve been written to replace the Hate Crimes pilot. 

[MrsRafaelBarba]

9 hours ago, dttruman said:

This should be interesting, when it comes to commenting on the director (Lucy Liu) of this. I had to go back and look at her experience at directing. She has a few episodes of "Elementary" under her belt, so she doesn't lack experience.

It's the story line that has me puzzled. In the preview they showed, it looks like it's a mixture of "Remember Me" and "Mea Culpa".

She also Directed an episode of Luke Cage.

[dttruman]

19 minutes ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

She also Directed an episode of Luke Cage.

More kudos for her. She was familiar with directing episodes of her own series, but she stepped out of her own element to direct an episode of another series.

[dttruman]

Oh my gosh, I can't believe Kitty Bennett said that after she made that timely announcement.

"I was only trying to help"

Edited April 5, 2019 by dttruman

[dttruman]

It is starting to sound like maybe one of his friends was using his name and place, because with Benson, she always has to be right.

Well, that's a swing and a miss on my part.

Edited April 5, 2019 by dttruman

[dttruman]

This was an interesting episode, though I thought it was still a little short on depth. They definitely needed another shrink (Abernathy) to explain it a little better and Fin was missed. It did seem like it was more about how it effected Benson than how it was really bothering the girls. I just wonder if the fiancee was being vindictive concerning the rape charge (but I don't blame her, up to a point). It would have made a good court case for Stone to prosecute. I wonder if the defense could have made a case that she (the fiancee) was just out for revenge and both sexual encounters were consensual.

[MrsRafaelBarba]

That Bones guy looks weird w/o curly hair.

Am I the only one, who  thought the song choice for the opening was odd?

[RedheadZombie]

I'm not crazy about the fact that Liv made it obvious she had an opinion on Kitty having an abortion.  It was none of her fucking business.  Maybe in sixteen years the child will have the honor of hearing its own mother comment on not loving it.  

[MrsRafaelBarba]

12 minutes ago, RedheadZombie said:

I'm not crazy about the fact that Liv made it obvious she had an opinion on Kitty having an abortion.  It was none of her fucking business.  Maybe in sixteen years the child will have the honor of hearing its own mother comment on not loving it.  

For a second, I thought Benson was going to blurt out the Child of Rape reveal.

[Fellaway]

33 minutes ago, RedheadZombie said:

I'm not crazy about the fact that Liv made it obvious she had an opinion on Kitty having an abortion.  It was none of her fucking business.  Maybe in sixteen years the child will have the honor of hearing its own mother comment on not loving it.  

Yeah, I really found that unprofessional, at best, and unethical, at worst.  She really should've backed herself out of that conversation, without any input at all beyond "That's your choice" and, maybe, "Give it some time before you decide."  But, of course, this really wasn't about Kitty, because we need Olivia weeping in the stairwell.  I love how they've retconned Olivia's relationship with her mother, making her increasingly unloved and unwanted by her mother as the seasons go by, so that we can have these moments of weeping, victimized, saintly Olivia.  Wait a minute.  No, I don't.  Oy.

It's a good thing people lie, because if we didn't have Kitty and the doc lying over and over and over again, we wouldn't have had an ep.  I feel there was a germ of an idea here - A psychiatrist abusing his position and the trust his female patients put in him (though I'm sure we've seen that before on SVU). - but the execution here was without insight or sensitivity or impact.  I would not be surprised if this wasn't a last minute replacement ep for the backdoor Hate Crimes pilot, it seemed so insubstantial.

I don't think the current writing has been up to good courtroom scenes, but this might've been a good ep to take to court because I really think the prosecution would've had a hard time convicting in this case, what with all the lying and lack of physical evidence and the consensual sex.  Seeing them go through legal gymnastics to get a conviction could've been the more compelling part of the episode.

Kudos to their making Shiri Appleby look so different from her previous appearance on the show.

Other than that...  ::shrug::  I'm really becoming discontented with the lack of Carisi on this show.  They might as well change the name to Benson and Rollins.  Do better next season, Show, because the Benson and Rollins hour is getting old and tired.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Fellaway

[Xeliou66]

This episode was TRASH!!!! 

Benson is unbearable, she is a loon who shouldn’t be in charge of a port a potty, much less a police squad. She had absolutely NO BUSINESS trying to influence Kitty with what to do with the baby, it was beyond unprofessional, and for someone who is supposedly a “feminist hero”, she’s now acting like an anti choice nut between this episode and trying to manipulate Rollins into keeping her baby in the season premiere. Benson running into the stairway and collapsing in agony was truly hysterical. 

The writing was predictble and stupid. There is no way the doctor would be convicted, hell I don’t even think Stone would take the case to court, one victim was a psycho who lied at every turn and wound up having consensual sex with her rapist and the other victim got engaged to him!! There wasn’t a shred of evidence agaisnt the doctor but the show acted like he was done because Benson said so. Actually, any defense attorney with a quarter of a functioning brain cell would get the doctor off and no prosecutor with a functioning brain cell would prosecute on the evidence they had. That’s why Stone was absent, because he would’ve said that and that would ruin the plot. 

The episode was beyond predictable, it was obvious that the doctor was guilty because they never show false rape allegations anymore and I knew that the fiancé would turn on him. There was no drama whatsoever, and of course the episode ends with a nauseating “victim empowerment” scene.

No Fin and no Stone SUCKED!! And this episode definitely needed a psych expert. 

The only good part of the episode was seeing Fitz, I like having a recurring ME, we’ve had so few recurring characters it’s a pleasure to have one again. More Fitz please!!

This was a terrible episode after several good episodes. The second half of this season has been much stronger than the first half overall and I was hoping we would continue the string of good episodes but that was godawful. Extremely predictable and stupid with Benson at her worst and no Fin and Stone. One of the worst episodes in recent memory.

Rant complete.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Xeliou66

[Iguessnot]

Lousy story and I don't hand wave a mentally unstable lying stalker. Imagine the mind games she would play with that child.

[wknt3]

The Good:

No Noah.
It wasn't a 2-parter.
Carisi was OK I guess?

The Bad:

Yet another he said, she said St. Benson saves the world story. I know this is the most common type of case in real life and I agree with the overall message about believing victims and am familiar with the research that false accusations are much less common than believed, but this plot needs to be used sparingly as it's been done to death. I've talked before about how it's not fair to punish this season for the sins of Season 18, but the fact remains that this story has been done to death and the stench lingers and if you want to do this sort of story you need to have either a really interesting twist or an incredible script, neither of which were to be seen here.
Speaking of Season 18 - the script. It read like they took a leftover script from Season 18 and rewrote it to fix the glaring plotholes and structural problems, gave Carisi Fin's lines and called it a day.
No Fin. This episode badly needed some of his professionalism and cynical skeptical eye.
No Stone. They could have really used someone talking about the difference between illegal and immoral and some back and forth with the squad over what they needed to nail the bastard.
No psych expert. As a few people have already mentioned it was a notable absence.
Way too much Benson Stuff this week. How in the name of all that is good and decent did they think that Liv telling the victim what to do with her pregnancy was remotely acceptable??? How does Mariska think that she is a feminist icon when she's busy pushing Benson not being able to handle this sort of thing after over two decades and breaking down right there? And then they doubled down on it? I guess they had to in order to get in the St. Benson bestows healing and absolution scene. Every moment she was on screen was a reminder of all the show's worst tendencies in the past few years.

Overall this was terrible. So bad that I'm not going to bother with the rest of the problems. In a season that has mostly made progress in continuing to fix what was broken when MC took over this was a huge step backwards and worse one that didn't feel like it was a deliberate choice to give Mariska an episode to "show off" in exchange for allowing the show to be something more like classic SVU the rest of the time. A colossal misfire and hopefully an aberration and not a sign that we are going back in that direction.

Edited April 6, 2019 by wknt3
ducking autocorrect...

[MrsRafaelBarba]

TPTB really think we forgot Olivia and her Mom Serena (Elizabeth Ashley) were shown

having a healthy relationship?

Or

Did we imagine that?

[dttruman]

8 hours ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

That Bones guy looks weird w/o curly hair.

Am I the only one, who  thought the song choice for the opening was odd?

I have to go watch it again (On Demand), I wasn't even paying attention to the music, but I will get back to you on that.

[dttruman]

6 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I was hoping we would continue the string of good episodes but that was godawful. Extremely predictable and stupid with Benson at her worst and no Fin and Stone. One of the worst episodes in recent memory.

57 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

this was terrible. So bad that I'm not going to bother with the rest of the problems. In a season that has mostly made progress in continuing fix what was broken when MC took over this was a huge step backwards and worst one that didn't feel like it was a deliberate choice to give Mariska an episode to "show off" in exchange for allowing the show to be something more like classic SVU the rest of the time. A colossal misfire and hopefully an aberration and not a sign that we are going back in that direction.

I admire both of your restraints

[Fellaway]

2 hours ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

TPTB really think we forgot Olivia and her Mom Serena (Elizabeth Ashley) were shown

having a healthy relationship?

Or

Did we imagine that?

I remember!  But, that didn't back up the Saint Benson storyline, so it had to be retconned.

2 hours ago, dttruman said:

I have to go watch it again (On Demand), I wasn't even paying attention to the music, but I will get back to you on that.

They very effectively used music to back episode openings during the Leight years - Show may have ruined Daydream Believer for me forever. - so, maybe, they were trying to imitate that.  (They seem to be trying to pick and choose things that worked in previous seasons in the back half of this season.  I have a suggestion:  More Carisi.)  I didn't pay much attention to the song in this ep.  I'll have to go back and have a listen.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Fellaway
Never miss an opportunity to stan Carisi.

[lala2]

I just can't with SVU sometimes, and last night was a time when I just had to turn off the show. Once the wife revealed that she had also been raped and manipulated into a marriage w/him, I was just done. I didn't even care anymore. This show really needs to STOP pushing their Benson is always right narrative. It's annoying at this point. 

I'm a woman, and I work w/domestic violence victims. A prosecutor would be hard pressed to find 12 jurors who would believe that both of these women were raped and then immediately manipulated, mind tricked into thinking they weren't and then getting into relationships w/this guy.  No prosecutor would even take this to trial.  Kitty was on video happily opening her door to her rapist  and admitted to engaging in a relationship w/him after her rape.  His fiancee does the same and was set to marry him. There aren't enough experts to make jurors understand the logic/mind set of dating your rapist.  It's too strange.  It's too odd. Prosecutors wouldn't touch these cases w/a 10-foot pole. It's hard enough to get them to prosecute a clear cut case, but the show would have you believe, they would prosecute (and win) this craziness! In real life, survivors don't always get justice. This should have been one of those times. 

I also think this should have been one of those times when we learn the woman had lied! Kitty was unhinged. I literally told my sister, "Oh, the last time Shiri was on here, she was a true victim. I guess tonight she isn't." But if Benson believes her, then you just know, Benson is right. It takes all the suspense out of the show. Benson is never wrong nowadays. Ugh. 

And the worst part was her mini-breakdown over Kitty's comments. What was that?!?! Why would Olivia let Kitty's comments impact her that much? Oh, I know they threw in that crap about overhearing her mother, but she's still traumatized by that? She hasn't worked through that yet?!? That was lame. I felt nothing for her b/c I didn't think Kitty's comments should hurt her. Kitty is allowed to not want to give birth to her rapist's baby. This isn't the first, nor will it be the last time Olivia hears something like that given her line of work. 

Anyway, I hated this episode when it went down the predictable path. Shiri was good, but the concept needed more thought behind it, IMO. 

[gesundheit]

Whew. In solidarity with everyone on this garbage.

They literally had Benson put her hand on the pregnant woman's stomach to pressure her into keeping a rape baby. That's freaking disgusting.

Also, there was no need to drag it out and have the dumb "about to slit his throat" scene for the wife to put two and two together. That should've happened early in the episode and the rest of it should've been (a) trying to find more of his victims to testify and (b) the logistics of putting the case against him together - including more than one rape charge, not just the nutso stalker victim with a bunch of witnesses. You know, both law and order, the stuff we show up for.

I swear every time there's a pregnancy that's a byproduct of rape, Olivia acts like it's the first time. She would've seen scores of them (hundreds or thousands, in fact, in the fictional 4500-reported-rapes-a-year Manhattan they live in). I'm sorry, this is a crap job for her if it's such a trigger.

[wknt3]

10 hours ago, Fellaway said:

They seem to be trying to pick and choose things that worked in previous seasons in the back half of this season. 

I thought they've been trying it pretty much for the past couple of seasons. It seemed like one of the primary goals was to bring back the wider universe as well as the parts of classic SVU that had fallen to the wayside. They do seem to be expanding it a bit since I've noticed a hint of the later Baer years that wasn't there before.

Quote

I have a suggestion:  More Carisi.

Edited April 6, 2019 by wknt3

[Ms Blue Jay]

I liked the episode.

The first half I was like???????? But then I loved when the truth came out.  After that I was majorly interested.  The actor who played Lana was great and the perpetrator was good too.  I'm too overly familiar with Shiri so it was hard for me to judge her performance.  The character was so "Unreal" like.

I thought Mariska was doing a pretty good job but at the end it was really funny when she said "YOU'RE DONE (whatever his name is.)  YA' DONE!"   She did this weird accent on "You're" the second time.  

I was really wondering who was doing the casting because there were so many Asian people in the cast, for once, and there were several interracial relationships, and Bo was black, and so it was very satisfying to read that Lucy Liu was the director.  I bet she helped insist on that.  Because when does SVU actually cast like that?  And casting somebody named Hannah Berkowitz as a gay Asian woman?  Amazing.

I hate Stone anyways.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Ms Blue Jay

[mamadrama]

I would LOVE it if one of these episodes turned out to be the victim just scamming the accused. Every time they do an episode like this, no matter how much evidence they're lacking at the beginning, by the end the accuser turns out to be right. 

WHY was Liv doing grunt work on this case? Her micromanaging is real. 

[dttruman]

20 hours ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

I thought Mariska was doing a pretty good job but at the end it was really funny when she said "YOU'RE DONE (whatever his name is.)  YA' DONE!"   She did this weird accent on "You're" the second time.  

I was really wondering who was doing the casting because there were so many Asian people in the cast, for once, and there were several interracial relationships, and Bo was black, and so it was very satisfying to read that Lucy Liu was the director.  I bet she helped insist on that.  Because when does SVU actually cast like that?  And casting somebody named Hannah Berkowitz as a gay Asian woman?  Amazing.

I thought if they would just take out some of Benson's showboating or tone it down like that moment and be a little more realistic, this episode and a few others could have been decent.

I was wondering if there was some give and take there, between the producers and the director. Liu had to follow the script guidelines provided by a certain executive producer and she was allowed to cast the characters.

Edited April 6, 2019 by dttruman

[dttruman]

8 hours ago, mamadrama said:

WHY was Liv doing grunt work on this case? Her micromanaging is real. 

She is considered the star of the show, so they are allowed to distort police protocols and sacrifice other realisms to make Benson look heroic and sympathetic.

[atlantaloves]

Okay that's it......Benson being pro rape baby, I'm out. That woman was insane and does not need to have ANY CHILD.  Oh, and I am with a lot of you guys and gals, no Carisi, NO SHOW.💋

[Fellaway]

20 hours ago, wknt3 said:

Truer words have never been spoken!

Quote

Oh, and I am with a lot of you guys and gals, no Carisi, NO SHOW.💋

Heed our words, Show.

[Mountainair]

I spent 90% of the episode thinking this was a case of mistaken identity. At the wedding the camera panned around the audience and I swear I saw the groom's twin brother sitting there. I questioned why he wasn't in the wedding party at first but then I realized they must have a rocky relationship especially because he's going around impersonating him. I couldn't figure out why no one was mentioning the twin brother as a possible suspect. 

Anyway, the episode I created in my head was much better than what the show gave me. I think there have been 3 or 4 episodes I've sat through the entirety of this season. I've been catching old episodes on Ion on Saturday and they are from season 14-17 ish which is when I quit watching so most of these are new to me and much better that these new episodes. 

[tennisgurl]

I know this is all very intense (apparently) and everything, but when Kitty showed up at the church to do the super dramatic "does anyone object?" objection, especially when she was all "I just wanted to help! all I could think about was that scene in The Wedding Singer when Adam Sandlers characters fiance leaves him at the altar, and later she gives him this whole thing about why she realized she didnt want to be with him, and he was like "Something could have been brought to me attention yesterday!!!" I was with that random bridesmaid, like just call her if you want to help. Of course later, her inconsistent behavior seemed weirdly consistent. I mean, she didnt think the police would get involved? Was that for real, or what? 

What a stupid fucking episode. Not only was it prime St. Olivia our Patron of Woobiedom, the case was just total nonsense. For one thing, there is no point in doing these he said she said stuff anymore, because the woman is always telling the truth, and the man is not only a rapist, but a master criminal psychopath (you think that there can be adult male victims and female perps? Thats just silly, what is this, season 2?) with scores of other victims as well. Seriously, who is this guy? He didnt seem all that charismatic or smart, but he can manipulate TWO women into sleeping with him, and getting engaged to him, after he raped them? What, is he a freaking supervillain? Does he have mind control powers? I think that they could have maybe made some kind of case about him psychologically overpowering vulnerable women, but it was all so half assed. Based on what we saw about Kitty, she was more likely to be lying to get the guy to leave his wife or pay child support after they had an affair, or something, she really seemed unwell. God that sounds so awful, and I hate to sound like I am victim blaming at all or not believing victims, including ones who have engaged in questionable behavior or had a history of mental issues, but the set of circumstances are so bizarre and melodramatic, and are so clearly designed to have "shocking" twists and to give extra time to St. Olivia that I felt like the characters weren't fully formed enough for me to understand them and why they did what they did, especially when their behavior really needed some more context, and the case just made zero sense.

Can you imagine being a victim of a violent crime, and having this cop, who is supposed to be helping you get justice, giving you super judgy life advice, and clearly projecting their own crap all over you? That guilt trip she sent Kitty to make her have and raise the baby was just super awful. Who is she to project all over this women, and try to make her make choices based on her own personal crap? And yeah, I remember when her and her mom had a complicated but basically loving relationship, but thats all been retconned now I guess to have us feel worse for Olivia. And why does she act like this is her first freaking day here? She never ran into a woman contemplating abortion after a rape before? Does she run into the nearest hallways to cry every single time? Is there a whole line of women who have had babies because of Olivia telling them that they should always have the baby, no matter what, and if you dont, your a bad person? Also, is...adoption just not a thing? Why are the only options abortion or raising the kid yourself? God, that is not your job, Olivia! Thats a big problem with her now, she has lost all objectivity that a police detective needs. Everything is about her and her life and her issues and her presumptions about people. And I am so sick of her "sympathetic" voice she uses on victims. It just sounds fake and condescending. 

On the plus side, the guest actors were all pretty good, and Lucy Liu was a good director, pity they didnt give her a better episode. And I assume that the fact that it was a pretty racially diverse episode was something to do with her as well, even many of the minor witness characters were POC, which is increasingly rare in the weirdly white SVU New York. Of course the main victim is still an attractive white women, because what other victims exist? I mean, Lucy cant fix everything.

Edited April 7, 2019 by tennisgurl

[wknt3]

20 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Can you imagine being a victim of a violent crime, and having this cop, who is supposed to be helping you get justice, giving you super judgy life advice, and clearly projecting their own crap all over you? That guilt trip she sent Kitty to make her have and raise the baby was just super awful. Who is she to project all over this women, and try to make her make choices based on her own personal crap? And yeah, I remember when her and her mom had a complicated but basically loving relationship, but thats all been retconned now I guess to have us feel worse for Olivia. And why does she act like this is her first freaking day here? She never ran into a woman contemplating abortion after a rape before? Does she run into the nearest hallways to cry every single time? Is there a whole line of women who have had babies because of Olivia telling them that they should always have the baby, no matter what, and if you dont, your a bad person? Also, is...adoption just not a thing? Why are the only options abortion or raising the kid yourself? God, that is not your job, Olivia! Thats a big problem with her now, she has lost all objectivity that a police detective needs. Everything is about her and her life and her issues and her presumptions about people. And I am so sick of her "sympathetic" voice she uses on victims. It just sounds fake and condescending.

I thought so too, but obviously we must be wrong. After all Benson is a feminist icon and Mariska is all about supporting victims. So when we see anti-feminist nonsense and pushing a personal agenda on a vulnerable victim rather than offering help we must be misinterpreting. Right?

Quote

On the plus side, the guest actors were all pretty good, and Lucy Liu was a good director, pity they didnt give her a better episode. And I assume that the fact that it was a pretty racially diverse episode was something to do with her as well, even many of the minor witness characters were POC, which is increasingly rare in the weirdly white SVU New York. Of course the main victim is still an attractive white women, because what other victims exist?

Most of the time I'm annoyed by what is obviously some combination of Mariska's self absorption and network mandates ("we need to focus on characters that affluent women 18-49 identify with personally") but other times I'm relieved. I mean can you imagine how much worse it would be if Liv was giving that speech about keeping your baby to a working poor Latina victim?
 

Quote

I mean, Lucy cant fix everything.

Sure she can. I mean she manages to keep Liv's life together and despite suffering so much trauma that he should have the world's worse case of PTSD and behavioral disorders Noah's worst problems seem to be occasional toddler acting out which is obviously all her since she's "babysitting" Noah approximately 72 hours per week. She's a miracle worker! Oh you mean Lucy Liu - good point.

[TV Anonymous]

Wait, Kitty and Benson strolling together happily on the pier? Is she not suppose to be charged with at least trespassing and assault?

[dttruman]

12 hours ago, TV Anonymous said:

Wait, Kitty and Benson strolling together happily on the pier? Is she not suppose to be charged with at least trespassing and assault?

I am sure they probably had Benson and Lourdes Vega (Remember Me & Me Too) strolling down the same pier, but since Lourdes killed someone and going to prison for many years, they probably thought it wasn't it wise to show it.

Edited April 8, 2019 by dttruman

[dttruman]

14 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

What a stupid fucking episode. Not only was it prime St. Olivia our Patron of Woobiedom, the case was just total nonsense. For one thing, there is no point in doing these he said she said stuff anymore, because the woman is always telling the truth, and the man is not only a rapist, but a master criminal psychopath

Another low keyed comment showing great restraint. But I've got to give it to you, it was accurate like the others.

[dttruman]

22 hours ago, wknt3 said:

22 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

God, that is not your job, Olivia! Thats a big problem with her now, she has lost all objectivity that a police detective needs. Everything is about her and her life and her issues and her presumptions about people. And I am so sick of her "sympathetic" voice she uses on victims. It just sounds fake and condescending.

I thought so too, but obviously we must be wrong. After all Benson is a feminist icon and Mariska is all about supporting victims. So when we see anti-feminist nonsense and pushing a personal agenda on a vulnerable victim rather than offering help we must be misinterpreting. Right?

Can't argue with that.

I want to say that she (or they) are almost doing a disservice to the NYPD by appearing  so prematurely bias. I know the show gives the police dept and the city a lot of publicity, but at what cost.

Edited April 8, 2019 by dttruman

[Laurie4H]

I know every episode now is pretty much only about women being victims and men being psychopaths but does anyone give any thought to how weak and somewhat stupid they make women appear in some of this episodes?  Especially this one?   

[dttruman]

5 hours ago, Laurie4H said:

I know every episode now is pretty much only about women being victims and men being psychopaths but does anyone give any thought to how weak and somewhat stupid they make women appear in some of this episodes?  Especially this one?   

I think since Hargitay became an executive producer, IMO she has maneuvered the plots to cater to the people of her victims rights group. I wonder even more if NBC would have cancelled it, had it not been for this so-called record setting 20 and 21st seasons with all it's publicity potential.

[sockii]

SVU becoming pro-life propaganda?
I think I may very well be done with this show after this season (if not after this episode, period) with Winchester leaving and all. I said I'd stick with it as long as Ice-T stayed on the show but I'm not sure I can take it after the trash that was this right here.

[Xeliou66]

1 hour ago, sockii said:

SVU becoming pro-life propaganda?
I think I may very well be done with this show after this season (if not after this episode, period) with Winchester leaving and all. I said I'd stick with it as long as Ice-T stayed on the show but I'm not sure I can take it after the trash that was this right here.

Like I said before, I find it remarkably both hypocritical and ironic that Benson is considered and considers herself some sort of feminist hero when this season she has started acting like an anti choice fanatic. It’s more proof of how Mariska is completely detached from reality, and that Benson is beyond unprofessional and lets her personal feelings get in the way of cases all the time and everyone treats her as some all knowing saint and worships her. It’s unbearable.

This was the worst episode in a long time, it was truly awful in every facet. 

I will stick with SVU until the end because I’m a devout fan of the franchise, and at least they still have Fin and Carisi who are good, and they can still turn out good episodes, in fact the second half of this season has mostly been good episodes with Missing and Brothel being very strong and having the feel of classic SVU, but the St Olivia worship and Benson/Mariska shoving her personal agenda down everyone’s throats makes the show difficult to watch sometimes. And with Stone leaving, I feel like we are losing the one character who will frequently disagree with Benson and will overrule her. In fact I think that’s why Stone is exiting, because Mariska can’t stand having someone get in the way of her agenda pushing.

[sockii]

8 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Like I said before, I find it remarkably both hypocritical and ironic that Benson is considered and considers herself some sort of feminist hero when this season she has started acting like an anti choice fanatic.

It doesn't make sense. And how sad is it that even Stabler was more pro-choice in retrospect than Liv has become? (I was remembering a classic episode last night, where Stabler told one an anti-abortion protestor "When God gives you a uterus, maybe we'll listen to your sermon."

Quote

This was the worst episode in a long time, it was truly awful in every facet. 

It was Season 18 bad, which is a pretty damn bad.

Quote

I will stick with SVU until the end because I’m a devout fan of the franchise, and at least they still have Fin and Carisi who are good, and they can still turn out good episodes, in fact the second half of this season has mostly been good episodes with Missing and Brothel being very strong and having the feel of classic SVU, but the St Olivia worship and Benson/Mariska shoving her personal agenda down everyone’s throats makes the show difficult to watch sometimes. And with Stone leaving, I feel like we are losing the one character who will frequently disagree with Benson and will overrule her. In fact I think that’s why Stone is exiting, because Mariska can’t stand having someone get in the way of her agenda pushing. 

Yeah, it's frustrating and I do agree - there have been some very good episodes in the second half of this season that felt very old school SVU (I also really liked "Part 33"). And the Carisi & Fin partnership has been refreshing. But episodes like this one make it really hard to keep watching with much enthusiasm. It's now several days since I watched it and I still feel actively ANGRY about how it ended.

[wknt3]

12 hours ago, sockii said:

It was Season 18 bad, which is a pretty damn bad.

Harsh, but fair. It would have fit right in, with the possible exception that the script reached a certain level of basic competence as far as the plot mechanics are concerned that those episodes rarely attained and Mariska probably would have gotten another 5-10 minutes of screen time back then.
 

20 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

I will stick with SVU until the end because I’m a devout fan of the franchise, and at least they still have Fin and Carisi who are good, and they can still turn out good episodes, in fact the second half of this season has mostly been good episodes with Missing and Brothel being very strong and having the feel of classic SVU, but the St Olivia worship and Benson/Mariska shoving her personal agenda down everyone’s throats makes the show difficult to watch sometimes. And with Stone leaving, I feel like we are losing the one character who will frequently disagree with Benson and will overrule her. In fact I think that’s why Stone is exiting, because Mariska can’t stand having someone get in the way of her agenda pushing.

12 hours ago, sockii said:

Yeah, it's frustrating and I do agree - there have been some very good episodes in the second half of this season that felt very old school SVU (I also really liked "Part 33"). And the Carisi & Fin partnership has been refreshing. But episodes like this one make it really hard to keep watching with much enthusiasm. It's now several days since I watched it and I still feel actively ANGRY about how it ended.

If this week is an aberration, I will probably stick around until the end even if I zone out some weeks and can't be bothered to care. I mean if it's good enough for Ice-T... If we see more like this and MH prevails over MC I'll drop out again and watch it on and off like I did during the grimdark later Amaro years if they bring back an old favorite or land a big guest star that I really want to see and come back for the finale. My love of what this show used to be and my appreciation of what it can still be only goes so far.
 

Edited April 10, 2019 by wknt3
hit "sunmit" too soon

[sockii]

I was so annoyed by that ending I completely blanked until now on the other things that had me ranting at the tv during this episode, regarding the therapist and his office.

First, the bit about the one patient seeing and commenting on his instagram post. I'm sorry, but have any of these writers actually BEEN to see a therapist? At least mine made it clear early on that "no contact via social media or otherwise outside of the office" was part of our privacy agreement. Like if she even thinks someone is searching for her on Facebook let alone commenting on a public post that she would not respond and then block. So I was side-eyeing that pretty hard.

And also, I work front desk in a medical office. That receptionist should not have even let Rollins & Carisi glimpse over at the appointment book. That's HIPAA violation right there. Heck, we're not even supposed to say a patient's full name out loud where other patients/individuals may here it let alone see a long list of them in a book.  (And I don't even work in a particularly sensitive medical field.) I get it that realism is not this show's strong suit but when the errors hit too close to things like this it makes me lose my ability to suspend disbelief for drama pretty quick.

[Kroliosis]

I can’t wait until Liv adopts Kitty’s baby to give Noah a little sister 😜

[SarahPrtr]

On 4/9/2019 at 2:34 PM, Xeliou66 said:

I will stick with SVU until the end because I’m a devout fan of the franchise, and at least they still have Fin and Carisi who are good, and they can still turn out good episodes

Yeah, same.  But Carisi wasn't even in the second half.  That's 20 minutes of him not being in a single scene.  WTF.  Like you, I'll keep watching till the end, but I stopped watching whole episodes a long time ago.  I just skip around the Benson and Rollins scenes and watch the others.