S20.E24: End Game

[Gigi43]

I will forgive this all if next season Jack McCoy takes down Liv for ruining ADAs.

I mean if this wouldn't make his head explode.

[dttruman]

2 minutes ago, Gigi43 said:

I will forgive this all of 

???

[MrsRafaelBarba]

Total Character Obliteration! 

I umm, Damn! 

[Gigi43]

nothing to see here. Glitch. 

Edited May 17, 2019 by Gigi43

[mtlchick]

6 minutes ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

Am I the only one, who thought Peter was going to say I love you?

Yikes!

When he took her by the shoulders, I thought he was going to kiss her. And I would have thrown things if he did. 

[MrsRafaelBarba]

Oh yes Phillip, you were INDEED Betrayed.

[SuzieQ]

1 minute ago, mtlchick said:

When he took her by the shoulders, I thought he was going to kiss her. And I would have thrown things if he did. 

That would have been a projectile vomit situation here!

Edited May 17, 2019 by SuzieQ

[WendyCR72]

12 minutes ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

Am I the only one, who thought Peter was going to say I love you?

Yikes!

Stop! I just ate!

[Xeliou66]

Mother of god, I’m so fucking angry right now!!!! They completely RUINED Stone thanks to that worthless bitch St Benson. I want to vomit. 

Every one of my predictions about this shitfest came true, Stone ruined his character and his integrity because of St Olivia, who’s now ruined yet another ADA, everything this bitch touches turns to shit. I lost all respect for Stone. 

Not to mention, Miller’s conviction will be overturned on appeal at the least, the jury convicted on emotion not on facts, and I was shocked the judge didn’t set aside the verdict right then, she should have. In fact I can’t believe the judge didn’t call them into chambers and dismiss the case as soon as Nikki said she tried to frame Miller, that would warrant an investigation. Not only did Stone’s character get ruined, the whole plot was stupid and made no sense. 

There is one good thing about this: that Ben Stone is dead and isn’t around to see what his son did. He would be absolutely sickened, and I’m so glad he didn’t live to see this. Where the fuck was McCoy? I really wish he had been on the episode to curse Peter out for his actions, and Peter is probably resigning so Jack won’t fire him, which McCoy absolutely should do, Stone’s actions tarnished the integrity of his office. 

Of course Fin and Carisi were window dressing. 

I’ve lost all respect for Peter, who was a great character up until now. He should lose his license and maybe be arrested for his actions, Nikki should as well. And St Olivia taking the moral high ground, give me a fucking break, she’s broken the rules so many times when it suits her, what a hypocrite. 

I thought Stone was about to say he loved Benson as well and kiss her, at least that didn’t happen. 

Stone’s exit was worse than Barba’s, Barba lost his career because he did a humane thing, Stone lost his career along with his integrity and morals all because of the spell of St Olivia.

I’m sick right now. It’s an absolute travesty that this show will break the record and not the Mothership. Please cancel this crap after season 21 before it can destroy the legacy of the L&O franchise anymore than it already has. I’m off to watch the Mothership to wash the bad taste of this godawful episode out of my mouth. 

Edited May 17, 2019 by Xeliou66

[MrsRafaelBarba]

One of the worst cases of Character Assassination I've seen in a long time.

PW did not deserve that, at all. 

Edited May 17, 2019 by MrsRafaelBarba

[WendyCR72]

I know the show was not to everyone's taste and I respect that, but at least the "other" successful spinoff, L&O: CI, knew when the hell to end and with a shred of dignity. I shudder to think how bad Goren and/or Eames would have become under these writers.

[tennisgurl]

Olivia looks at cases with "an open heart"? Since freaking when!?! God what a clusterfuck that was. I dont even like Stone all that much usually, but he does NOT deserve to be sacrificed on the altar of St. Olivia. That was just embarrassing.

Edited May 17, 2019 by tennisgurl

[dttruman]

On 5/16/2019 at 11:14 PM, Xeliou66 said:

Stone’s exit was worse than Barba’s, Barba lost his career because he did a humane thing, Stone lost his career along with his integrity and morals all because of the spell of St Olivia.

On 5/16/2019 at 11:20 PM, tennisgurl said:

Olivia looks at cases with "an open heart"? Since freaking when!?! God what a clusterfuck that was. I dont even like Stone all that much usually, but he does NOT deserve to be sacrificed on the altar of St. Olivia. That was just embarrassing.

Why do these ADAs sacrifice themselves for Benson? There is no logically or even a common sense reason for it. These writers (and producers) expect everybody to buy w/o question everything they throw out there.

By the way Xeliou66, you nailed  it!!

Edited May 18, 2019 by dttruman

[balmz]

meh on this, i was half excepting with rob interrupting court and the judge warning him and he confronting olivia and fin being there, that something would happen like he goes off the deep end and a court officer or fin is forced to kill him, (extra points if fin kills him typical fin style) then peter felt burnt out or got a different offer and decided to leave the job as a result

[HollyG]

Terrible. Just terrible. I was shouting for Benson & Fin to just shoot the guy. That would have been more plausible. Never expected to see Stone fall on his sword. 

This was just bad TV.

Edited May 17, 2019 by HollyG

[shapeshifter]

30 minutes ago, Gigglepuff said:

31 minutes ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

Am I the only one, who thought Peter was going to say I love you?

Yikes!

I thought they were going to get together for a moment there. 

25 minutes ago, mtlchick said:

When he took her by the shoulders, I thought he was going . . .

Whew! Dodged that bullet!

At least we still have common sensical Fin.

[Xeliou66]

5 minutes ago, dttruman said:

Why do these ADA's sacrifice themselves for Benson? There is no logically or even a common sense reason for it. These writers (and producers) expect everybody to buy w/o question everything they throw out there.

Exactly, everyone worships Benson without any reason, it’s like she has a magical spell on people, and it’s disgusting. They totally assassinated Stone’s character all for St Olivia, this was 100 times worse than Barba’s exit, it least Barba did what he did not because Benson pressured him to and it least Barba didn’t ruin his integrity, Peter completely ruined his integrity and tarnished the Manhattan DA’s office, Jack would have a coronary when he found out. This episode made me sick.

[Zoe]

... that's it?

[Damaris56]

I won't even go into how awful this episode was.  Others have said it all, but I will say this:  This is the second ADA in a year and a half that was forced to resign after doing things that would have gotten anyone else jailed.  Working with Olivia causes you to lose all judgement and crediability as a lawyer and you end up having to resign.  That's all I got out of this.  I will no longer be watching.  It's time to end this mess and not torture us for another season.  I would, however, be up for a spinoff with Fin (but that will never happen).

[LotusFlower]

Maybe the worst episode of every Law & Order franchise EVER.

[WendyCR72]

10 minutes ago, LotusFlower said:

Maybe the worst episode of every Law & Order franchise EVER.

I don't know. CI had Season 9's "Palimpsest", which was WTF AND God awful. But this is in the Top 3, no doubt.

[Grace284]

Does Chernuchin have A Big Book Of Scenes with just the one farewell scene in it and just changes the names when it comes time to use it? You’d think he’d have written something that was actually in character for Stone seeing as he’s his guy.

[preeya]

BARF!

[Carboncat]

I haven't commented on this forum before, but....I'm speechless...

I've watched all the L & O shows starting from the original, Season 1, and they are still my default watch almost every day (they are on day and night on various channels here).

I second all the above comments.  It's beyond bad... OMG.....

[wknt3]

The Good:
The squad minus Benson. I wish we had seen more of them especially Fin, but what we got of them working the case was pretty good. Even Rollins was tolerable.
We got scenes with CSU and an ME!
It's all over for a few months.

The Bad:
All the rest. I'm not going to list it all as I have to leave for work in an hour and half or so. I'm going to just agree with everyone else for the most part and hit a few low points and things that haven't been covered yet.
WTF was up with the sunglasses? Did Mariska have more work done? When they were on the scene at the beginning she was really going full Caruso. I was just waiting for the YEEEEAAAHHH...
Noah in jeopardy yet again. At least they avoided a hostage situation unless you count us, the audience. Perhaps the most annoying part, because I wasn't expecting it was that when she thought Noah had been kidnapped she called Rollins first. Not Fin or Carisi or Dodds or dispatch, all of which would be better choices to remain calm and coordinate the response. Of course you would think she would just fire up her Find My Noah app on her phone and see he was at the station...
For someone that is supposed to be a badass strong conifdent woman and a CO of an elite unit, Benson sure does freak out a lot in public. Every time she starts threatening perps like this I miss Anita Van Buren a little more.
Mariska seemed to be bringing down everyone else to her level. Even usually good actors were totally OTT with their performances.
Poor Stone. Not only is his departure all about Benson not about him, which is to be expected since it's been SOP since season 14 or so with characters who we had far more invested in, but the poor guy gets it from both ends. "You should be arresting this guy because we know he's guilty and do whatever it takes to stop him! Who cares about rules?" "What have you done?! This is totally against the rules! I didn't want this!"

Overall this was terrible. I think calling it the worst episode ever or one of the bottom 3 is overstating things a bit, unless you want to argue that some of the episodes of lower quality (a number in Season 18 for example) are better because they are forgettable. What a lousy finale for Stone, Chernuchin, and the season.

[dttruman]

6 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Not to mention, Miller’s conviction will be overturned on appeal at the least, the jury convicted on emotion not on facts, and I was shocked the judge didn’t set aside the verdict right then, she should have. In fact I can’t believe the judge didn’t call them into chambers and dismiss the case as soon as Nikki said she tried to frame Miller, that would warrant an investigation. Not only did Stone’s character get ruined, the whole plot was stupid and made no sense. 

This whole court scene made no sense at all. The writers decide to throw out federal charges, but then Stone is allowed to use the audio recording between Dodds and Miller? Common sense would tell you the judge would disallow it. What you mentioned about the framing and then the judge conveniently not calling a mistrial is like the courtroom scene of "Zero Tolerance". It's like they made it up as they went along. I think even the "Benson Fan Club" will question this episode.

[dttruman]

6 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

The Good:
The squad minus Benson. I wish we had seen more of them especially Fin, but what we got of them working the case was pretty good. Even Rollins was tolerable.
We got scenes with CSU and an ME!
It's all over for a few months.

The Bad:
All the rest. I'm not going to list it all as I have to leave for work in an hour and half or so. I'm going to just agree with everyone else for the most part and hit a few low points and things that haven't been covered yet.
WTF was up with the sunglasses? Did Mariska have more work done? When they were on the scene at the beginning she was really going full Caruso. I was just waiting for the YEEEEAAAHHH...
Noah in jeopardy yet again. At least they avoided a hostage situation unless you count us, the audience. Perhaps the most annoying part, because I wasn't expecting it was that when she thought Noah had been kidnapped she called Rollins first. Not Fin or Carisi or Dodds or dispatch, all of which would be better choices to remain calm and coordinate the response. Of course you would think she would just fire up her Find My Noah app on her phone and see he was at the station...
For someone that is supposed to be a badass strong conifdent woman and a CO of an elite unit, Benson sure does freak out a lot in public. Every time she starts threatening perps like this I miss Anita Van Buren a little more.
Mariska seemed to be bringing down everyone else to her level. Even usually good actors were totally OTT with their performances.
Poor Stone. Not only is his departure all about Benson not about him, which is to be expected since it's been SOP since season 14 or so with characters who we had far more invested in, but the poor guy gets it from both ends. "You should be arresting this guy because we know he's guilty and do whatever it takes to stop him! Who cares about rules?" "What have you done?! This is totally against the rules! I didn't want this!"

Overall this was terrible. I think calling it the worst episode ever or one of the bottom 3 is overstating things a bit, unless you want to argue that some of the episodes of lower quality (a number in Season 18 for example) are better because they are forgettable. What a lousy finale for Stone, Chernuchin, and the season.

You and a couple others do a "Good" and "Bad" sort of format for each episode. You usually mention 4-5 legitimate things that have merit, but this time it's at a bare minimum. I submit, that because of this, this episode has to be the worst one of the season and probably of the last few seasons.

[TV Diva Queen]

I probably should have done my homework about Miller. I don’t remember his story at all. That goes to show that I’ve relegated this show to background noise, and I didn’t even realize it. 

[walnutqueen]

Well, that was ... nauseating.

All fail in service of Saint Olivia.  Blech.

[illdoc]

14 hours ago, Xeliou66 said:

Miller’s conviction will be overturned on appeal at the least, the jury convicted on emotion not on facts, and I was shocked the judge didn’t set aside the verdict right then, she should have. In fact I can’t believe the judge didn’t call them into chambers and dismiss the case as soon as Nikki said she tried to frame Miller, that would warrant an investigation. Not only did Stone’s character get ruined, the whole plot was stupid and made no sense. 

Miller should definitely fire his lawyer!! No "We move to set aside the verdict not withstanding the judgment (or however it is properly phased)". No "The defense moves for a mistrial". No "Objection (re: the tape). No foundation, prior bad acts, etc." At least Miller will have several grounds to appeal.

[observer]

Thoughts on the season finale:

1. Liv's face, blown up to fill my tv screen?  I find it very dissolute lately, something about mouth/jaw area.  And the puffy eyes.

2. Liv's overbearing bullying and constant bad humor when dealing with her staff.  Because she is so very important.

3. Liv's inability to say a victim is dead, instead using both the tools in her toolbox, Hoarse Whisper and Blank Stare Mouth Agape, as she forces the victims family into painfully coming to their own conclusion.

4. I'm overweight myself.  Trust me, Liv, the constant coat wearing doesn't fool anyone.

5. I think I spotted another tool in the acting box!  Heavy Breathing to portray extreme emotion.

6.  At what point does the Lieutenant have an obligation to recuse herself from an investigation that she is personally involved in?

7. "A bunch of arrows on a cork board signifying nothing."  I bet you thought that was quite literary, but oh Liv, such a sullying misuse of Shakespeare.

8. Hahaha at Stone's horror at the manipulations of Rob Miller's lawyer.  Pot, meet kettle.

9. Liv to Fin as Rob Miller is at her car window, "Get this piece of dirt away from me."  Farming stuff out now, Liv?  There was a time when you would have thrown him up against that fence yourself.

10. Oh boy, more of the new Heavy Breathing acting technique when she discovers Stone has tampered with the witness.

11. Love how judgmental Liv can be about the tampering mother who is afraid for her son.   Because of course Liv has two policemen responsible for her son's safety.

Don't know if I can do Season 21. 

Edited May 17, 2019 by observer

[dttruman]

1 hour ago, illdoc said:

Miller should definitely fire his lawyer!

I believe he will have him killed along with his immediate family, in fact probably the whole family tree.

[Lebanna]

They ruined Barba by making him Benson’s bitch and now they’ve done the same to Barba’s replacement. And everyone was so excited when he first appeared with all that L&O history behind him.

Ben’s son ruined by Benson. Thanks so much, show.

[wknt3]

12 hours ago, dttruman said:

You and a couple others do a "Good" and "Bad" sort of format for each episode. You usually mention 4-5 legitimate things that have merit, but this time it's at a bare minimum. I submit, that because of this, this episode has to be the worst one of the season and probably of the last few seasons.

I'm pretty sure that there were a few episodes that only had a few items in the positive column including the "it wasn't a two-parter" snark. I don't really care to go back to those posts and relive the shitshow of Season 18. I'm not saying this wasn't bad, even bottom 10 bad, but I would argue that say "Imposter" was objectively (at least as far as that term can apply here) worse and I remember that a lot of those episodes in the second half of Season 18 were even worse with the Benson worship and felt like they were shot from the first draft of the script lacking even internal cohesion as far as getting from one plot point to another. I suppose it's mostly a matter of the importance you place on different types of badness, but I don't want us to forget how bad the metastatic cancer of a couple years ago was  just because the current Ebola outbreak is front and center...

[Vicky8675309]

I was so busy hating this episode that I forgot to think about who actually killed the girl. Did we find out? 

[dttruman]

5 minutes ago, Vicky8675309 said:

I was so busy hating this episode that I forgot to think about who actually killed the girl. Did we find out? 

I think Rollins was telling Benson that she was shot up with a lot of opioids, fentanyl and a few others.

[wanderingstar]

Woof! This episode was ridiculous, but Nikki saying "Christ, Liv; it was his idea" made me laugh.

It's all so absurd. When did Stone start having feelings for Liv? Oh yeah, everyone eventually has to slobber over her. She is such a ridiculous character, it's beyond laughable now.

Not enough Carisi, but a decent amount of Fin, so there's that.

[dttruman]

9 hours ago, wknt3 said:

but I would argue that say "Imposter" was objectively (at least as far as that term can apply here) worse and I remember that a lot of those episodes in the second half of Season 18 were even worse with the Benson worship

"Imposter" and "Zero Tolerance" are at the top of my list. Both of these pushed some social and political agendas. "Zero Tolerance" was a legitimate issue at the time, but they told it in such an absurd way, by making Benson look so heroic and sympathetic it a was laughable thing

They did the same here, by presenting it in such an absurd way that sensibility and authenticity can not be used to describe this episode.

Edited May 18, 2019 by dttruman

[Xeliou66]

As far as terrible episodes go, I’m not sure if this was the worst of the season, Dearly Beloved was beyond horrid and managed to be boring, predictable, infuriating and stupid all at the same time, and featured St Olivia at her worst with no Fin or Stone. This episode probably made me the angriest of any SVU episode ever because of how they ruined Stone by having him destroy his integrity because of Benson, it was such an awful exit. 

I agree with those who mentioned Imposter and Zero Tolerance, Imposter would definitely be in my 5 worst episodes ever as it was all St Olivia pushing a ridiculous agenda and the storyline was epically stupid, and Zero Tolerance was pure political propaganda.

There were also some awful episodes in seasons 10-12, Zebras and Swing immediately come to mind. Also Vanity’s Bonfire from season 14 where Benson and Amaro let the murderer off, that was outlandishly OOC even for Benson, that would be in the 5 worst episodes ever as well. 

I’m not sure if this one would make my bottom 5, but it did make the angriest and I really liked Stone and his hardass, by the book nature and seeing him ruin his career and integrity for Benson made me want to vomit. 

[MrsRafaelBarba]

1 hour ago, dttruman said:

I think Rollins was telling Benson that she was shot up with a lot of opioids, fentanyl and a few others.

Supervillian Miller gave her a hot shot.

[Vicky8675309]

5 hours ago, dttruman said:

I think Rollins was telling Benson that she was shot up with a lot of opioids, fentanyl and a few others.

who shot her up with the hotshot and dumped her out of the helicopter/plane?

I don't think they proved it----what evidence? Did he have access to a helicopter, etc....they never gave any evidence IIRC. Also if he did it then he must have needed help so who were the accessories (someone had to fly the helicopter while someone else had to dump the body out of the helicopter. So many details left unexplained imo.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Vicky8675309

[Vicky8675309]

3 hours ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

Supervillian Miller gave her a hot shot.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Vicky8675309
added to above comment

[zillabreeze]

So I guess you'd call this a "cross bitch". I watched the unfortunately canceled "We The People".  A thoughtful court show with good cases and normal people, not even allowed to find it's footing...

But here's two decades of St.Olivia and the convoluted bullshit that just won't go the hell away....hopefully taking that little weird kid with her.

I don't know who Mariska is blowing, but jeez, it must be epic to tank a whole franchise...

Edited May 18, 2019 by zillabreeze

[Fellaway]

In the immortal words of Olivia Benson, "I don't even know what to say."  Because that?  Was bad.  Lazy, repetitive, unethical from start to finish, no basis in legal reality, no basis in characterization bad.

So everyone was complicit in this little frame-up, except the sainted Olivia, and they all did it (except Staines) because they just love her that much.  And Stone regrets it not a bit because he thinks she's just that special and more important than the law.  When did that happen?

I would've bought it more if he'd done it for Noah, y'know, maybe he formed a bond with the kid whilst playing baseball.  That I'd buy before this.

Did anyone spare a thought for the ramifications that might come down on Brooke's head for "committing" perjury and bribery?  Did anyone consider what a great case Miller has for appeal now?

And Olivia is just hunky-dory with all this, when she found out, because, I guess, she thinks she's that special.  Oy vey.

This ep should be shown to Leight as a case study in everything that's gone wrong with this show the last three seasons.  I am completely prepared to pretend these last three seasons never happened.  I just hope, for 21, that they allow Leight to run the show and not MH or whomever thinks the deification of Olivia Benson is the right way to go.

[dttruman]

3 hours ago, zillabreeze said:

But here's two decades of St.Olivia and the convoluted bullshit that just won't go the hell away....hopefully taking that little weird kid with her. 

Since it will all be in syndication sooner or later, people who are not members of the Benson Fan Club (BFC) and who are objective, will take notice of the deficiencies and express themselves.

Edited May 18, 2019 by dttruman

[dttruman]

4 minutes ago, Fellaway said:

In the immortal words of Olivia Benson, "I don't even know what to say."  Because that?  Was bad.  Lazy, repetitive, unethical from start to finish, no basis in legal reality, no basis in characterization bad.

4 minutes ago, Fellaway said:

Did anyone spare a thought for the ramifications that might come down on Brooke's head for "committing" perjury and bribery?  Did anyone consider what a great case Miller has for appeal now?

I think we are all in disbelief, not totally because of it being unethical or unrealistic, but IMO how obviously it was so unethical and unrealistic.

[Fellaway]

Not to mention, we're supposed to believe this Miller guy is crazy powerful and hooked up with the crime world, so why are we supposed to believe prison will stop him?  Can't have it both ways, Show!  And.  And!  We're supposed to believe Benson is the bestest, most perspicacious detective to ever detect, but she had no idea the frame-up was afoot.  I say again, you can't have it both ways, Show.

Of course, if Olivia had been in the courtroom, like she is for every other case, maybe she would've smelled a rat.  So I guess she's just absolved of everything.  RME.

24 minutes ago, dttruman said:

I think we are all in disbelief, not totally because of it being unethical or unrealistic, but IMO how obviously it was so unethical and unrealistic.

It definitely wasn't a brain trust that wrote this ep.  And they got paid to do it!

[dttruman]

5 minutes ago, Fellaway said:

It definitely wasn't a brain trust that wrote this ep.  And they got paid to do it!

I got some bad news for you, the first team of Michael Chernuchin and Julie Martin wrote this script. I am starting to wonder if all they did was just sign off on the script and some underling wrote it overnight

[wknt3]

9 minutes ago, dttruman said:

I got some bad news for you, the first team of Michael Chernuchin and Julie Martin wrote this script. I am starting to wonder if all they did was just sign off on the script and some underling wrote it overnight

Julie Martin is first team mostly because she has been willing to push the agenda TPTB wants to pursue and to put Mariska's "vision" into script form. I always groan when I see her writing credit because I know it's going to be a Livfest. This is totally par for the course for her. As for Chernuchin he seemed to have given up the last few episodes and this was basically a loyalty test with a gun to his head - kill his beloved who has become an inconvenience and he can stay a part of the gang or else Dick Wolf will have somebody else do it and whack him too. 

[Fellaway]

36 minutes ago, dttruman said:

I got some bad news for you, the first team of Michael Chernuchin and Julie Martin wrote this script. I am starting to wonder if all they did was just sign off on the script and some underling wrote it overnight

Yeah, I've learned not to expect much when I see their names in the credits.  I don't know, these last few eps have sucked.  Maybe Chernuchin didn't feel like putting in the effort since he's out the door anyway.  All I have to say to him is good riddance, and good luck, fans of FBI.