My review:
I haven’t had much time to comment on many of the Law & Order brand episodes but I’m making the time for this one.
Clearly Mariska has improved her directing skills. And I have no issues with Bradley Whitford’s performance, or the writing and pacing of the telling of both Pence’s and Velasco’s stories.
I’ve reached a point in my life where I need more to a fictional story to move me emotionally. I also am less tolerant of what I think are missteps of some of the characters. Here are my issues, and I know that I may be in the minority on my criticisms of this episode:
Carisi came to Benson about the case against Pence as he felt something “smells off”. If something doesn’t seem right with the case, why not go back to the original investigating detectives? Is he not confident enough to challenge other people if he doesn’t think his case is strong enough? If Carisi is prosecuting cases that are outside of the prevue of Special Victims, then he needs to learn to play nice with other precincts. He shouldn’t always rely on Benson to be his “other set of eyes”. I also question why he is even moving forward on the case if Pence has dementia. It seems to me the defense could easily prove Pence’s illness. If he had a problem with Pence’s confession he should have addressed it with his superiors or the detectives who worked the case, not run to Benson.
Benson finally brings Fin into her confidence about the (illegal) recording that Churlish made where Velasco talks about a double murder. When Fin tells Benson to ask Muncy because she and Velasco “are tight”, Benson explains she already had Muncy listen to the recording and now is keeping her away from it for that exact reason. If Muncy is too close to Velasco that Benson can’t trust her, why did she even ask Muncy to check it, especially asking her to do this BEFORE she told Fin? Benson says she doesn’t want secrets in her squad, but it seems to me that she kept this secret from Fin and she should have told her second in command before she told anyone else. (Speaking of Muncy – where has she been the last two episodes?) Fin then goes on to say the greatest gift he can give her as her Number Two is plausible deniability with McGrath, suggesting he and Churlish take the lead to untangle the mess and if McGrath asks, they never talked about it. How can she possibly have plausible deniability if McGrath finds out about the recoding? Benson can’t deny that she never heard it, or never asked Muncy to check it out. She can’t lie about it. And why would hiding that she assigned this to Fin to check this out hurt her? Churlish likely won’t tell anyone about the tape but if Benson can’t trust Muncy, who knows who Muncy told or will tell in the future? If Benson doesn’t want secrets in her squad as she said, it seems that she has no problem keeping secrets from her boss, which could come back to bite her.
When the intent is to tell a story that tears at the heartstrings, I feel they should avoid anything that pulls the viewer out of that mood. The end of the episode where Benson reads to Pence his “King of The Moon” story was a little too saccharine for my tastes. Her reading the story wasn’t as much of the issue as the cartoon-like depiction of the story, which completely pulled me out of the mood. I understand that in Pence’s mind he was still a child, but it would have worked better for me if, as Benson read the story, we saw him with his wife when they were children, recounting those times. Likewise, Pence’s comment about “an ass like the devil and a face like Jayne Mansfield” also pulled me out of the mood; it’s akin to breaking the fourth wall to me. Yes, we all know Jayne Mansfield is Mariska's mother; why put this line in there except for the old "wink wink I see what you did there" for the fans. It felt...cheap, considering the tone of the episode.
There was the brief “In Memory of Richard Belzer” at the end; I would have loved to see a photo of his smiling face with it. Richard - and John Munch - will be missed.
11 comments:
It was refreshing to see Bradley Whitford play a character that is not a P.O.S. for once. The always great Nancy Travis, however, was criminally underutilized in this ep IMHO.
I didn't care for this episode. I didn't like the long open. If they would have concentrated only on the Pence story I could see it but not with having a second story about Velasco running in the same episode. These two stories could have used one episode for each story. The ending with the King Of The Moon fantasy scenes I could do without too. It was silly and as you said Chris, it turned what was supposed to be a touching scene into a comical one. I asked myself "what the F is this?" when I watched it. I liked the suggestion of showing scenes of Pence and his wife as children, having happy times.
I have no clue why Benson told Muncie about Velasco if she didn't trust her. Then Benson comments about secrets but she's keeping the secret from her boss too and she kept it from Fin. Sometimes I think she is a terrible manager of people. If that recording was illegal she should have never accepted it, period. That would have forced Churlish to act on her own and then Benson would have had plausible deniability. Or Benson should have taken the recording and turned Churlish in.
Carisi should have taken his concerns about Pence through proper channels too. If he felt like something was off with the case, the first person he should talk to is the person over the precinct who took the confession, or Carisi's own boss.
The Jayne Mansfield comment was pandering to Mariska or fans. I rolled my eyes. It didn't belong in this episode or on the series at all.
Bradley Whitford was good and the Velasco story was decent too (but it would have been better as its own episode).
Season 24 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is interesting. So far, Gimme Shelter, The One You Feed, And a Trauma in a Pear Tree, Jumped In, Soldier Up, Blood Out and King of the Moon (this episode) are the best episodes.
My hope before the end of this season is that they return to the Lena Hess story (introduced in Controlled Burn) because I feel like that story could have a continuation.
I do not like the newest two additions to the squad (Velasco and Muncy). I did not care for Tamin either when Velasco replaced her. But for Muncy, I loved Rollins and it was a mistake for the show to lose her. I hope that Kevin Kane (who plays Detective Bruno) joins the main cast of the show to have more interesting main characters.
I also miss the unique episode titles that we had from last season for some reason.
Finally, I don't know if it is just me, or I thought the episodes written by Warren Leight were the greatest (at least for me, since I am a college student who just started watching the show when Law & Order: Organized Crime premiered in 2021).
It was an ok episode but nothing special and yes not an svu case yet again. I'm not liking the vibe from velasco i'm blaming the writers the same way they sank Kat they are doing to him. Lord do not bring in that other female detective she has no ones back.I would have liked more of a compilation of munch as a send of i'm hoping for better down the rd.
What I noticed this season is that the episode titles are sometimes spoken during the episode
That's an interesting observation. It's definitely the case in "Intersection", "Dutch Tears" and "King Of The Moon".
Mariska is a good director, she always has good ideas. Regarding the guest actor, it was unnecessary to make a joke in bad taste to Mariska's mother. That comment was not important and Velasco's part was like a filler because as they say he had to have his own episode and nowadays the episodes of law and order svu is not only about violations, it covers in general, and about Richard Benzler I also would have liked to put a picture of him.
Apparently the Jayne Mansfield crack was Mariska's idea
Nice review. Decent episode. RIP Richard Belzer.
My partner and I loved the ending. He wept buckets!
I don’t get why they bothered questioning Velasco, Benson is such a hypocrite - I’m sure Stabler lied to suspects all the time, when he wasn’t beating him up… I’d have given Velasco the benefit of the doubt.
I loved the comment about "a face like Jayne Mansfield". Regardless if it was a wink to fans or not it was a way to honor her mother! I lost my father when I was seven and I can certainly understand the mention of a parent who was gone too soon. Mariska is a beautiful, amazing, talented human being. I have watched her show since the beginning and at 62 my life has changed a lot. However, this show remains a constant and because of Mariska it has always been a great show.
Post a Comment