Law & Order SVU “King Of The Moon” Discussion Topic, Review

Here is the discussion topic for Law & Order SVU “King Of The Moon” which aired on Thursday, February 23, 2023. Please feel free to add any feedback you have about this episode in the comments!

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.