Here is the discussion topic for Law & Order “Collateral Damage” which aired on Thursday, April 6, 2023. Please feel free to add any feedback you have about this episode in the comments!
Could Jocelyn's lawyer not have pursued a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect? The prosecution accepted that the women had no free will, no doubt Lodestar had Jocelyn's confession too. I just felt Jocelyn and all the women needed psychiatric support and deprogramming, not prison.
Definitely felt like an old school L&O episode. No bad guys ran. No unnecessary twist. Would have loved to see them actually get the guy responsible for Lodestar instead of just having him killed offscreen. That seemed like a waste. But it also gave us really the first bad guy in the revival that was just a creep looking to take advantage of the helpless. No sympathy for him. Oh and when Cosgrove and Shaw picked him up, Cosgrove’s one liner truly felt like Briscoe. Loved it! My one question: what was up with Sam this week and how she seemed intent on sending this girl to jail? More sister issues maybe?
Cosgrove and Shaw still carry this show more than the legal side. Price on the other hand doesn't seem like he has his act together. I wondered too what was Maroun's hot button with this, or what was driving it. But she was right to want to take that line. I wonder if she would have been better in the job Price has and Price should have been he assistant. She is often more driven to prosecute than Price.
As stated above, Cosgrove & Shaw carry the show. I was relieved to see no chase scene this time. A step forward!
I have no complaints of the investigative side. I even complimented the writers by bringing up Cosgrove's daughter in a relevant manner! Again, progress!
There were a couple of lines that I thought of that could have been used in the investigative side if the show wanted to have one of the characters make a snide comment here and there that were missed opportunities,
However, I feel like there was big missed opportunity: If there was ever a case where Special Victims Unit was needed and necessary, I feel like this was the case. Especially when we got to the real leader. This would have been a much less contrived and more logicsal crossover than the season premiere crossover event. Wouldn't even needed to be an event or anything. Though, really, you could have had this story carryover to SVU.
The legal side...
There were so many weird things here and I just don't get where the writers are going with Price and Maroun.
Maroun came off as very Hang'em High McCoy, like season 5 and 6 Jack who would go after anyone if a law was broken. I'm not even sure he would have considered pleading her out and probably would have demanded further investigation so they could build a case without her. So there's that, but... it seems very contradictory to how she's been presented at times. But who am I to ask for character consistency right now. But Maroun is making a stronger case that she should be EADA over Price.
Price. So, my friend and I made a mistake and did NOT predict the trade-up as we do almost every episode. We are ashamed, obviously. But this trade-up seemed different in that he took the role of the sympathetic lawyer where perhaps justice wasn't about retribution or punishment. Like, this trade-up was definitely to soften the blow to Jocelyn. On one hand, this makes sense given the whole former defense attorney. But this is the same guy who said he was the best among all the prosecutors in the Homicide Bureau.
Also, the way they wrote cult leader's fate? Just... lame.
Going back to the SVU Crossover needed for this episode, can you imagine Carisi in the same room with Price? That'd be so fun to watch.
And, again, we end with a courtroom scene with Price and Maroun in stark contrast on what they believe justice is. I don't believe both return next year. There's just too much conflict between the two lately and of the two, I hope Price is the one that leaves (why the writers are doing this to Hugh Dancy, I don't know).
Not the worst of the season, that was last week. But just standard for how the revival has gone. Cosgrove & Shaw doing good work and Price and Maroun doing whatever it is they're supposed to be doing very badly.
I think each of the three former EADAs would have been far more compelling prosecuting this case. Jack is Jack, got that ex-Catholicism and disdain towards the corruption of institutions. Mike would have been far more creative with the chargers and case. I'm actually most interested in how Ben Stone would have done given he did prosecute a cult leader (maybe Jack did as well I just don't remember) and how that episode ended was just a punch in the gut.
"Could Jocelyn's lawyer not have pursued a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect?" There are several reasons for not going that route. First, it almost never works in the real world. The people who met the requirements are generally pulled from the system as "unfit to stand trial". Second, in New York you have to get the judge's permission before trial starts to use that defense. Third and most important is that brainwashing is not considered a mental disease or defect in a criminal court. It doesn't pass the Frye test because there is no consensus in the psychiatric community about what brainwashing does to a person. Which makes me wonder the writers are allowed to get away without doing the research needed to write for a show about the law.
5 comments:
Could Jocelyn's lawyer not have pursued a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect? The prosecution accepted that the women had no free will, no doubt Lodestar had Jocelyn's confession too. I just felt Jocelyn and all the women needed psychiatric support and deprogramming, not prison.
Definitely felt like an old school L&O episode. No bad guys ran. No unnecessary twist. Would have loved to see them actually get the guy responsible for Lodestar instead of just having him killed offscreen. That seemed like a waste. But it also gave us really the first bad guy in the revival that was just a creep looking to take advantage of the helpless. No sympathy for him. Oh and when Cosgrove and Shaw picked him up, Cosgrove’s one liner truly felt like Briscoe. Loved it! My one question: what was up with Sam this week and how she seemed intent on sending this girl to jail? More sister issues maybe?
Cosgrove and Shaw still carry this show more than the legal side. Price on the other hand doesn't seem like he has his act together. I wondered too what was Maroun's hot button with this, or what was driving it. But she was right to want to take that line. I wonder if she would have been better in the job Price has and Price should have been he assistant. She is often more driven to prosecute than Price.
As stated above, Cosgrove & Shaw carry the show. I was relieved to see no chase scene this time. A step forward!
I have no complaints of the investigative side. I even complimented the writers by bringing up Cosgrove's daughter in a relevant manner! Again, progress!
There were a couple of lines that I thought of that could have been used in the investigative side if the show wanted to have one of the characters make a snide comment here and there that were missed opportunities,
However, I feel like there was big missed opportunity: If there was ever a case where Special Victims Unit was needed and necessary, I feel like this was the case. Especially when we got to the real leader. This would have been a much less contrived and more logicsal crossover than the season premiere crossover event. Wouldn't even needed to be an event or anything. Though, really, you could have had this story carryover to SVU.
The legal side...
There were so many weird things here and I just don't get where the writers are going with Price and Maroun.
Maroun came off as very Hang'em High McCoy, like season 5 and 6 Jack who would go after anyone if a law was broken. I'm not even sure he would have considered pleading her out and probably would have demanded further investigation so they could build a case without her. So there's that, but... it seems very contradictory to how she's been presented at times. But who am I to ask for character consistency right now. But Maroun is making a stronger case that she should be EADA over Price.
Price. So, my friend and I made a mistake and did NOT predict the trade-up as we do almost every episode. We are ashamed, obviously. But this trade-up seemed different in that he took the role of the sympathetic lawyer where perhaps justice wasn't about retribution or punishment. Like, this trade-up was definitely to soften the blow to Jocelyn. On one hand, this makes sense given the whole former defense attorney. But this is the same guy who said he was the best among all the prosecutors in the Homicide Bureau.
Also, the way they wrote cult leader's fate? Just... lame.
Going back to the SVU Crossover needed for this episode, can you imagine Carisi in the same room with Price? That'd be so fun to watch.
And, again, we end with a courtroom scene with Price and Maroun in stark contrast on what they believe justice is. I don't believe both return next year. There's just too much conflict between the two lately and of the two, I hope Price is the one that leaves (why the writers are doing this to Hugh Dancy, I don't know).
Not the worst of the season, that was last week. But just standard for how the revival has gone. Cosgrove & Shaw doing good work and Price and Maroun doing whatever it is they're supposed to be doing very badly.
I think each of the three former EADAs would have been far more compelling prosecuting this case. Jack is Jack, got that ex-Catholicism and disdain towards the corruption of institutions. Mike would have been far more creative with the chargers and case. I'm actually most interested in how Ben Stone would have done given he did prosecute a cult leader (maybe Jack did as well I just don't remember) and how that episode ended was just a punch in the gut.
"Could Jocelyn's lawyer not have pursued a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect?"
There are several reasons for not going that route. First, it almost never works in the real world. The people who met the requirements are generally pulled from the system as "unfit to stand trial". Second, in New York you have to get the judge's permission before trial starts to use that defense. Third and most important is that brainwashing is not considered a mental disease or defect in a criminal court. It doesn't pass the Frye test because there is no consensus in the psychiatric community about what brainwashing does to a person. Which makes me wonder the writers are allowed to get away without doing the research needed to write for a show about the law.
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