I had a mixed reaction to this episode. It was certainly different from the norm, being done in a “day-in-the-life” style. With the exceptions of the flashback, the SVU handled 3 cases on February 24 and February 25. I wonder had they taken more time on these cases if the end results would have been less painful for all (the exception being Fin’s case as a hearing was imminent). Maybe it’s my short attention span these days, but I found jumping back and forth from victim(s) to victim to victim very distracting and it made the episode a bit hard to follow. It also made it impossible for me to connect with any of the victims. Each one of these cases could have been a compelling episode on their own. Instead, we got a bit of mental whiplash with every scene change. Rather than summarize the episode as it was told, I’ve broken the down by victim(s) in a attempt to set in my own mind what happened to each one.
Benson is quickly out of handling the cases in person. Noah has a fever and someone in his pod tested positive for COVID so she goes home to care for him. This leaves the rest of the SVU to handle three separate issues on their own, consulting Benson by phone as necessary.
The first case involves two sisters, Aneeka and Amani Coleman, who, as children, experienced a horrific assault at the hands of Darryl Clark. It was an old case Benson handled many years ago. As Benson left the office to care for Noah, she turns the case over to Rollins. Benson and Rollins discuss using restorative justice as the sisters want to confront Darryl. Benson can’t imagine Darryl would even agree to it as he’s not up for parole. But Rollins still wants to reach out. Later, Rollins meets with Aneeka and Amani and explains how this would work. Darryl agreed to the meet as he’s being transferred to a federal prison and is probably hoping it would delay the transfer. Normally the session take a year to arrange. Clearly the sisters aren’t on the same page relative to who was the victim in the assault – Aneeka seems to think she was the only victim. She wants the meet to happen NOW. It does happen very quickly, and things don’t go very well. Complicating matters during the meet, the prison goes on lockdown, leaving Rollins, Aneeka, and Amani stuck in the prison interview room. This gives the sisters time to fully discuss how this affected them BOTH, giving Aneeka a different view on how this has affected her younger sister all these years. When the lockdown is done and Darryl is ready to come back into the room, they decide they are done with him. This is one of those times that shows there is a need for counseling in some of these cases, at least to bring out what the victim’s (or in this case, victims’) expectations are for closure. It would have likely saved them the pain of having to confront their attacker face-to-face.
Kat’s first cousin Lily claims she was assaulted by Xavier Garcia, a tech entrepreneur. Benson thinks he is a smart guy with an army of lawyers, and they don’t have enough to arrest him. Kat gives some sass back to Benson, thinking because he is rich she has to back off. Benson explains no; she wants Kat’s cousin to text Xavier and see if he will meet her for coffee – Kat understands this would be a controlled meet and will get him on the record about the assault. When Kat mentions to get Carisi involved, Benson smartly decides SHE will call Carisi. It’s unclear to me why they jumped to a controlled meet rather than actually doing an investigation or at least get another person who is not related to the victim to question her. If it is that quick and easy to get someone to admit to an assault by a controlled meet, why don’t they do this right away and more often and forget investigating all together (rhetorical question).
Later, at SVU, Kat really nit picks Carisi, keying in on his “he said – she said” phrase for starters. Carisi later complains to Fin that he must “baby sit” Kat for the controlled meet. He asks Fin if he has any tips on how to deal with her because everything he does makes her angry. Fin wisely tells him, “Then don’t do anything.” I found Kat’s manner with Carisi to be extremely annoying, for starters. Why the massive chip on her shoulder? Things get worse when Kat completely blows the controlled meet by ignoring Carisi’s instructions that it is going in the wrong direction and they need to regroup. Instead she goes in full throttle, apparently thinking she knows better and can make an arrest. Later, at the courthouse, Lily approaches Carisi and Kat and says she changed her mind, she doesn’t want to do it. Kat thinks she can salvage things but Carisi tells her it is over – they have an uncooperative witness. But Kat still wants to try. She chases down Lily and Lily thinks now she and Xavier have a real chance. I suspect Liliy is in for a rude awakening. I also suspect Kat will not learn her lesson and she’ll continue to be her usual impulsive and immature self.
Fin, meanwhile, helps Nora navigate a hearing to decide if her rapist, Jimmy, can be released from prison. Letters that he’d been sending to her were being held back by the prison as she never requested to see them. Nora makes note that she can’t ask to see letters if she never knows they exist. When she meets with Jimmy, with Fin and a chaplain present, she tells him she was never able to trust her instincts and he took away her road map. Nora seems to be willing to forgive, that is until Jimmy uses some of Nora’s own words about what he did to her to his own advantage. Wisely, she realizes he’s been using her. She bravely makes a statement about what he did to her and how he’d just used her.
Benson gets back to work and explains to Fin and Rollins that Noah is negative for COVID. She hears Jimmy was denied parole because Nora stood up for herself. Rollins explains the lockdown gave the sisters a chance to work things out after all those years. (We DON’T see Benson confront Kat on her screw-up.) Fin also congratulates Benson on her “NYPD Woman in Law Enforcement” award. She doesn’t understand why they want to honor her now with the Javon Brown lawsuit hanging over her head and does not think this is the time to do a victory lap. But Fin tells her she needs to be there because she deserves it and she should own it. He also closes by saying “And you never know who might show up.” Benson ponders that statement as the episode closes.
8 comments:
I enjoyed the episode. And I really appreciate your continued commentary Chris. This website is awesome and your amazing. 😎🙂😁
The topic has been updated with a brief recap and review!
This episode didn't work for me either. They crammed too much into one episode. It felt like they had some episodes already half written and decided they couldn't make a whole episode out of the stories so they threw them together. The two sisters deserved a whole episode alone. That story could have been explored in depth.
Kat is acting like a child. Carisi isn't perfect but what the heck did he do to her that she keeps showing him such disrespect? Fin is right, he basically told Carisi to stay away from Kat. I hope that Benson addresses her behavior and quick.
I'm not clear on exactly what that award for Benson means.
One thing I'm happy about is they have given some great scenes to Fin/Ice-T this season. He has been neglected for so long and he has such great experience. That's a win in my opinion.
The episode was a dog though, no offense to dogs.
That's fair and understandable, I can see your point. I honestly enjoyed it and especially enjoyed the performances from Crystal Lucas Perry and Sydney Elise Johnson who played Aneeka and Imani. I also enjoyed Amanda's interaction with them. Now while Kat didn't listen, I'm tired of those who try to shame her for similar things they'd give Olivia and Elliot a pass for. And speaking of them, I think most of us have the same reaction, we lost it after seeing the promo especially after Fin says "you never know who may show up" and can hardly wait for "Return Of The Prodigal Son" and "What Happens In Puglia" (OC premiere). 9.5/10 from me
I really enjoyed this episode. It kind of reminds me of those old school Law and Order episodes like "Couples" in season 14 and "Mayhem" in season 4 -- where the detectives catch a bunch of unrelated cases all at once and have to juggle them all. They shouldn't do this often but it can be a nice change of pace if it is done infrequently.
I hope that Kat's weird issues with Tamin are part of a character arc for them rather than something that is going to be a permanent thing. The other detectives often disagree with the prosecutors on individual cases but there's never this permanent and undisguised loathing. If they are building up to some character development for Tamin and Carisi I'd really enjoy it though as a payoff for the tension over the past episodes. They don't have to end up as BFFs but Tamin should at least respect that Carisi is sincere just as she is instead of treating him like he is some kind of misogynistic troll. They're both really engaging characters to watch though so I can't complain that they were featured together even while beefing.
Linda Fairstein, prosecutor in the then "Central Park 5" case once wrote that she was the inspiration behind Wolf creating Law & Order SVU. Perhaps this was the reason, even if a subconscious one, why Black people were always represented as aggressors and as perpetrators. Even as victims they were at the same time perpetrators, either in prison or out on parole. They were aggressive and verbally abusive and drove home to viewers that Black people were always too prickly to be held, to be supported.
It is so refreshing to have experienced this episode where we finally got to experience the humanity of Black people. That is the word that kept coming to me as I watched this episode and as I pondered it these last few days- "humanity". And because they were finally human we could also experience their vulnerability. Not just angry caricatures who just raged and raged without merit. There are things I would criticize about Chicago PD too but one thing about their Black xters- I've always been able to still see their dignity. On SVU Black people have just been BLACK, in all-caps, bold print and a whole bunch of exclamation marks and it flooded their humanity; people capable of experiencing a range of emotion, not just anger, and that when anger appeared it was rooted in legitimate pain or fear and not anger for the purpose of being abusive and figuratively raping someone else of their own humanity like the 5 were accused of doing literally.
I'm glad that they did not lead with the women being angry since viewers are well primed to associate Black and angry. We got to first see them feel a range of emotion and to really see their pain. I'm glad that time was given to explain the context so when it showed the anger was valid and it deserved space to be expressed. I'm glad that the women did not lose their darn minds over the fact that Rollins was White therefore sparing these characters from being both victim and predator and allowing their humanity and vulnerability to show instead.
It was really like a dagger to the chest when I read that SVU felt they had done everything to be fair in their portrayal of Black people. Not only was that incredibly far from the truth but it also suggested there was no room for growth since everything possible had already been done. I am super pleased and grateful for what seems like a sincere effort to tell broader stories than the singular one they were telling. (1/2)
I think the recognition that Amani had still been sexually abused in that situation, still had trauma was an important point to make and it makes me think about a couple of things re Liv 1) The same way it was unfair for Aneeka and others to feel like Amani didn't understand the terror her sister felt because the details were different, it was unfair for Liv to assert that Amanda had no idea what pure and utter terror was because she had not been abducted by Lewis 2) After "Part 33" there was an ongoing discussion- was Liv raped or not. First of all, I find it cringey to tease that point like you would tease whether or not Rollins and Amaro slept together. It starts to feel like rape as entertainment. But I honestly think it should remain that she was not raped. Lewis was an extreme predator, what he put Liv thru was extreme and, unintentionally, I think the msg could be sent that it's not harrowing enough, not enough to make her a 'legit' survivor unless she was by definition raped too. She was sexually assaulted, both kidnappings. There were things we saw on-screen and things that were implied like her having to use the bathroom in front of him. Her trauma is warranted if there wasn't a rape and it can be warranted without discounting Rollins' own experiences. Rape victims have enough difficulty coming forward, even more so for people who were sexually assaulted without being raped. I think to bring that into Liv's story now could give the impression that certain details need to be present in order for that trauma to matter.
The seemingly separate stories of Lily and Nora end up being a showing of the same issue but at 2 different stages. The issue being "do I hold him accountable?" Lily is at the early stage where she's thinking it's too soon to judge. Nora is at a later stage where she's thinking perhaps he's been judged long enough. All 3 cases have a common theme connecting them: validity of experience. Nora and Lily both go back on forth on how much importance to place on what happened to them and by extension how much blame to put on the rapist? Is it too early or too late to make what happened 'a big deal'. With the sisters "validity of experience" is in both were sexually assaulted- one with no physical contact and one who was raped. Whose experience is a big deal and whose isn't and also, for Amani, is it time yet for my stuff to matter or is it less valid than Anika's experience? To me they all came together in the end. But even if they were completely separate stories I wouldn't mind. Some cases are going to need the whole team, others- multiple teams from other units and some will need just one or 2 people working it and I think it's fine to see all these iterations of working cases.
It was nice to see the focus be on the rest of the team. There will be many Liv-centric episodes in the near future I'm sure so nice to see the other team members be front and center in this episode. It kept the hour interesting. All in all a good episode, a redeeming one at that. (2/2)
I just watched the episode and although I thought the scenes with the two sisters and with Nora confronting her accuser were excellent, I had to fast-forward during the restaurant scene with Kat's cousin. The whole thing was too obnoxious and sounded like the cousin was a stalker who made the accusation up so she could keep having contact with the guy. There's just no way the Police would have allowed a set-up like that in real life without verifying the cousin's story better beforehand. Really disappointed and hope the next episodes improve.
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