SVU’s ”Inconceivable” is Conceivably the Best So Far

“Inconceivable” had the feeling of previous season’s SVU episodes, with good use of Munch and Fin, little use of Lake, realistic dialog with Benson and Stabler, and a decent story.

If you can look past all the editorial commentary, the case itself had very believable twists and turns. Even though it was obvious that somebody from the Value Defense League was going to get killed somewhere along the line, it was still an interesting twist that it was not the obvious unhappy woman who had cancer whose embryos were destroyed. But, one point of concern: the New York Court House steps must be the deadliest place in New York City. How many people in the Law & Order universe have been shot on those steps? I recall even Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) having a close call a few years back. Maybe they need to put metal detectors out on the street, or more police. Remind me to wear a bulletproof vest if I even visit there.

What I enjoyed most about this episode was the dry, dark humor of John Munch (Richard Belzer). Absolutely hysterical was his artist rendering of the victims – the embryos. And finally we get some reference to why we are seeing less Munch and more Lake (Adam Beach):

Fin (Ice-T): “Since when did you become super tech?”
Munch: “Since you dumped me for Lake. Bessie (?) here is the only one who will have me as a partner.”
Fin: “I think you like her better.”

Still not an explanation, but at least acknowledges that the fans deserved some reference to the change.

Stabler’s (Chris Meloni) opening up the discussion with Olivia about having kids was only a plot device to being out Benson’s (Mariska Hargitay) "big secret" touted in the preview the week before. So the big secret is she tried to adopt and was turned down? How anticlimactic. I expected something, well, bigger, and a little shocking. This secret was neither.

The editorial commentary was pretty heavy handed here. Are frozen embryos people? Should you stunt the growth of a disabled child to make them easier to handle? Should a mother gestate an embryo for her child? Is it right to screen embryos for good or bad traits and destroy the ones that are bad? As in the case of the dwarf (played by Meredith Eaton), who gets to decide what is a bad trait? Should women over 40 have babies? Are deaths of military in Iraq ignored by the press? Etc. There may have been a little too much thrown into the mix here, but I suspect considering the topic of the story, it was probably hard to avoid.

I didn’t catch a preview of next week’s episode, so I suspect this may be the last new one we’ll see in a while. If this is the case, at least they left us with a good one.

By the way, happy 44th birthday to Mariska Hargitay!


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