My comments:
I’m not sure where to start on this one. This half of the crossover with SVU moved very quickly and a lot happened, but some of this episode annoyed me greatly. Despite my numerous annoyances, I think they actually put a cohesive crossover story together where most everyone was used at some point in both episodes.
Annoyance #1: The Feds, SVU, and OC all were focused on catching the Shadowerk perp, which they’ve traced back to Dublin, Ohio. Why did they need to send Benson, Stabler, and so many people from their respective teams (Rollins too) to Ohio to chase this perp down? If the Feds were involved, couldn’t the Feds get their own team of locals to do the legwork? I mean, we DO have Federal agents and police in Ohio. I wonder how much that would cost to bring all those detectives from New York to Ohio? I’d be interested to hear what the standard procedure would be for either the Feds or the New York City police department on working a case where the perp is out of state. It felt unrealistic they would transport so many people from New York City to Ohio.
Annoyance #2 Stereotypical perp: Kyle turned out to be the stereotypical mid-twenties guy living in Ohio in his mom’s attic (not the basement this time). His mom was clueless that her own son had invaded her workplace’s network to run part of his hit list website. Of course his mother, when confronted with the truth about him, still defended and protected him. This was all too cookie-cutter for me. Oh, I forgot, he tried to kill himself but lucky for him he got a nibble on his website, and he managed to save his own life just in the nick of time!
Annoyance #3: Benson and Stabler, on the hit list, decide to throw caution to the wind and go out in public for some food. *Amazingly* someone easily finds them and disables the Feds in their car and the whole restaurant with an irritating spray EXCEPT BENSON who equally *amazingly* sees the blinding mist coming at them and protects herself. But she gets shot in the left hip with shotgun pellets and falls to the ground along with Stabler. He can’t see but she can and she *amazingly* uses the gun, while a blind Stabler holds it, to shoot the attacker in the head. Now how exactly did Benson get hit in the left hip with pellets and no one else – including Stabler who was right next to her – got hit with any pellets? I thought they had a spray pattern and at that distance I can’t believe they would have only hit Benson. Any experts out there who can provide some technical insight would be appreciated.
Annoyance # 4: Horrible preparation for the takedown. Kyle’s mom eventually gives him up and they trace him to a cabin they have in the woods. They all charge in, apparently without any prior surveillance of the house or area to see if he’s even IN the house. They also don’t realize the area is covered with trail cameras, which they may have noticed had they done advance scouting. As they have no idea where he is at, they are sitting ducks and he shoots, and Whelan is hit in the neck. They also have this huge team of agents on site but only one medic, and as Whelan lies bleeding and incapacitated, he urges them to go to assist Kyle - who stabbed himself with a sword (!) – as they need him alive. With the number of agents they had on site, they should have had a waiting ambulance with more than one medic. If they would have prepped better, they could have nabbed Kyle without any loss of life.
Annoyance #5 – Predictable: Whelan asks Reyes to help him to die as he doesn’t want to live paralyzed. Later, Whelan dies, and Reyes seems devastated but Whelan’s dad, who also arrived at the hospital, seemed stoic. Yes, someone turned off the machine (probably his dad?) but it doesn’t matter who, we knew it was going to happen once Whelan begged for it.
Annoyance #6 – Kyle caves in to Carisi – as long as they leave his mother alone. That’s because men that age living in their mom’s attic always put mom first.
Annoyance #6: Corny: The red box with the “Live, Love, Laugh” thing that Stabler removes the “e” so it says “Liv, Love, Laugh”. I also suppose we will see a lot of Benson’s compass necklace from Stabler next season so it can “lead [her] to happiness”. Note: Stabler says he will be on a new case and will be “gone for a while”; this is so we all understand why he won’t likely be visible at SVU or OC until the mid-season shows start.
Annoyance # 7 – with a question: Were Whelan and Kyle in hospitals in Ohio or New York? I can’t imagine they would transport them to New York in the shape they were in, but then suddenly Kyle is in the SVU precinct to shut down the web sites. Which brings me to the annoyance – why did he have to come to New York and to SVU to shut down the web sites? If they were in such a hurry to get them taken down, I suspect he could have taken them down ANYWHERE. Come to think of it, with all the computer experts out there, couldn’t someone have figured out how to block the sites? If Jet could add a virus to them to slow them down, why couldn’t she just find a way to SHUT them down?
My wish for next season is they go back to the multi-story arcs. The show works better for me when the investigation covers more than one or two episodes.
6 comments:
Compared to last week's episode, "Shadowerk," I was hoping for a better ending to the crossover. However, considering many episodes earlier this season, it was a step up. This case, the case of Eamon Murphy, and the season premiere has been the best this season. I miss the 8-episode arcs, though. Hopefully season four only focuses on one case throughout all of its 13 episodes.
I thought they needed to show more of Rollins. Speaking of her replacement, if it is true, I am glad that Muncy is leaving the show.
It was upsetting that Jamie Whelan had to die. I did not really care of the character, but the death was still upsetting.
And adding on from what I wrote before, I wish Rollins comes back as a main character again for Season 25 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Originally, her character was just okay, but following the mess of Muncy, I miss her!
And adding on to my previous two comments, if Rollins does not come back, I hope Bruno and Cherfilus become main characters. I prefer them much more than Muncy.
I loved the episode, I was surprised how she put the water in her eyes and the gas didn't affect her so much. and Eliot helping Liv to take her to the hospital and as she carried her I fell in love with her! and the gift they gave each other was magical.
They made so many mistakes with this case. The poor way they went after Kyle at the cabin caused Whelan's death. What were they thinking? All they had to do was watch the place for a few hours from a distance to see if there was any movement. If he saw them on cameras then at least if he tried to leave the house they would have seen him.
The big mystery is why they couldn't bring the websites down. If Jet found one of them and could add the virus to slow it down would think she could do it for more than one of them. If they knew there were others isn't there a way to trace them? I don't fully understand how that stuff works but I have to think that they have computer experts to help. I agree I don't think they needed him to bring him to SVU to bring the sites down but they wanted the big dramatic effect (eyeroll).
Benson and Stabler - they still are a great team together.
Oh yes the shooting. I thought that would have shot pellets in a wider pattern too, not just on Benson's hip. I would think there would be a few stray pellets!
Just compared to what I've seen w this show in the past the storytelling in this ep was good. The flashback to 6mths earlier felt much more mature compared to opening sequences for SVU, for example, that can be cartoonish in how they're setting up the info they want us to hv. The actor was convincing as troubled and not to overuse this word but didn't give cartoonish, "can't buy into it" vibes.
The setup of having Bensler out at a diner while they're on a hit list of grave concern to multiple agencies was absurd to say the least. And I was holding on w all my might to not go into hate-watching at that point. There was enough good storytelling to let that go along w the banter abt the mac and cheese lol. I could even let slide that moment in the diner where OC did like the Fast and Furious franchise and said, "please don't think about the reality of any of this. It is for entertainment purposes only." Lol I mean the gun wasn't even in her hand when she shot. She shot it still in Elliot's hand, with less than a second to take aim and still managed an accurate shot! Yeah that goes into the realm of cars parachuting on to a road or cars launching into space lol. Also, E's vision is blinded by the gas but he can immediately get to his feet pick up Liv without a stumble and then exit w minor directions.
Btw, is it a running gag or just coincidence that Elliott keeps getting blinded? Lol. There was that ep in the Neal Baer era where he awoke in hospital and couldn't see. Early in OC he ends up being temporarily blinded. And here it is he is momentarily blinded again. I hope he is getting regular eye tests and CT scans given all the eye injuries over the years.
If I can add to your list of annoyances- there seemed to be ONE medic to cover all these ppl! Given the vast number of officers involved in this operation there should hv been multiple medics as well. Now they hv to decide who to save and could hv easily lost both patients. I was expecting at least 2 medics to run up to Mike. Turns out there's one person covering the whole field.
Overall, tho I thought it was a good story that even helped me tolerate the corny bits that I usually cannot stand. I'm open to watching the first few eps of the next season and see where it goes from there.
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