(This is an abbreviated recap and review. I’ve peppered my comments within the recap.)
Law & Order SVU “Dare” was one of those episodes that was both enjoyable and irritating. I enjoyed the quick pacing and the interaction between the lead characters, but found the preaching off-putting, some of it coming from Olivia Benson herself. I have very strong opinions about organ donation: I believe that a person – or whoever that person designates as their next of kin – has the right to chose whether or not to donate their organs. Hospitals do not perform transplants out of altruism, they make a lot of money on these procedures but the families of the people who made that hard choice get ZERO. And when it comes to money, most hospitals will do all they can to squeeze every penny out of every patient, either through insurance bills or procedures like transplants. People are not cash machines for hospitals and as far as I am concerned, like the doctor in this episode, their decision making regarding transplantable body parts can be clouded by their desire to make money. A doctor or hospital should not be making that decision, unless the patient left no instructions and/or there is no next of kin.
It’s interesting that Benson, such a champion for rape victims, doesn’t see that stealing someone’s body parts without permission is a physical assault of the most heinous kind. If anything, this episode will give viewers something to talk about.
This episode begins with what first appears to be a kidnapped child. We quickly find that the young girl, Zoe, has not been kidnapped but is the victim of an accident that occurred while she and her friends were playing a game of dares called “Red Parrot.” Benson and the detectives make the assumption, based on what Zoe’s friends have told them, that Zoe has been taken off the school grounds, as a result much time is lost searching for her elsewhere when all this time, Zoe is found (by Benson, of course) laying injured on the floor of the gym by the bleachers. If the detectives would have had officers or school officials check the school buildings and the grounds simultaneous to the detectives’ investigation, maybe there would have been a better chance to save Zoe’s life.
Unfortunately, Zoe dies on the operating table, and operating doctor Lorraine Franchella takes Zoe’s organs to use for transplant, without the parent’s permission. This is only discovered when Zoe’s mother wants to see Zoe’s body and sees a massive scar on her torso (which was not the area of Zoe’s injury) and they find - to the parents’ horror - her organs have been harvested. All the organs are still inside the hospital except the heart, which is in a helicopter on the rooftop ready for takeoff to Buffalo for a transplant. Benson successfully stops the helicopter from leaving, but not without the helicopter pilot’s pleas and Benson’s long pause to think about the life that this heart could be saving.
While I do not fully understand the entire process of harvesting organs, the removal of the organs and sending the heart on its way seemed awfully quick to me. I know that time is crucial with transplants but the process of Zoe's surgery, matching the heart to the proper recipient, and prep work seemed unrealistic.
Benson does have the time to speak with the parents to give them the chance to make a choice. Zoe’s mother is dead set against it.
Benson questions the doctor at SVU, and when Benson reminds her what she did was against the law and it was not for her to decide, the doctor asks Benson if she would bend the law to save a life, adding that Benson doesn’t strike her as an absolutist.
The detectives later find that the doctor has forged signatures for 32 other patients, going counter to the parent’s wishes. Initially, the doctor doesn’t appear to be benefiting financially from these transplants. She is arrested. There seems to be disagreement with Carisi and Rollins regarding the doctor’s actions; Carisi thinks she is a saint, Rollins doesn’t think a hospital bureaucrat should decide. I’m with Rollins on this one.
Peter Stone pursues the multiple forgery case, and this is where the preaching gets thick. Zoe’s mother testifies about what happened, and the defense attorney Nikki Stains trots out the boy who was the heart transplant recipient to tug at the heartstrings. This clearly moves Zoe’s father, who, after the court session, apologizes to the boy and his parents.
Dr. Franchella testifies in her defense, and her words drip with sanctimony. Clearly she thinks that she is in a better position to decide.
In a discussion with Benson at a bar, Benson tells Stone she thinks she made a wrong call on the hospital rooftop with the helicopter. She thinks this was not police business. Stone explains that when he first came to New York, he spent every day with his father at the hospital but was getting coffee when his father died. When Benson said that was hard, Stone counters it would have been harder if the doctor had harvested his organs before he got back to his room. He thinks she did the right thing (by stopping the heart from going to Buffalo). I’m with Stone on this; in effect, the doctor stole Zoe’s organs and Benson’s actions stopped that theft, or at minimum, gave the parents a chance to make a choice.
The detectives then discover that the doctor has been making large donations to the Children’s Heart Procurement Fund and has dedicated those donations in memory of her son, coincidentally named Benjamin (the same as Stone’s father), who died from a congenital heart condition. Stone challenges that the doctor did not try hard enough to save Zoe, and if that was her son on the table, would she have done what she did? Of course, the doctor has no answer to that question.
At closing arguments, Stains argues that the law excuses a criminal act if it based on necessity. This is a legal argument I’ve never heard of before but it is legit but I question if one can use this to commit a crime multiple times. Stains thinks those 32 transplant recipients are the definition of necessity. Stone thinks that each person should make their own choice about their own body. He calls the doctor a zealot, motivated by her own personal tragedy. She broke the law and imposed her own morality. He describes what the doctor did and that she tried to hide it. She is playing god. (I’m with Stone.)
Credit Stone with another win, as the doctor is found guilty of forgery in the second degree on all 32 counts.
Later, Stone visits Benson in her office, he explains the sentencing, saying they need to set an example. Benson thinks the doctor is a progressive minded pediatric surgeon and that Stone is a bully as the doctor will lose her license, which Benson thinks is the worst punishment. In my opinion, Benson is wrong here; the doctor losing her license AND going to jail is the worst, which is what the doctor deserves for blatant theft. Stone does not want to look like a pushover but she thinks he is overcompensating for Stone note being there when his father died. LOW BLOW Olivia. When Rollins enters and tells them that the boy who was to receive the transplant has died, Stone looks at Benson and the episode ends with a look at her heartbroken face.
Cast:
Mariska Hargitay - Lieutenant Olivia Benson
Ice-T - Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola
Kelli Giddish - Detective Amanda Rollins
Peter Scanavino - Detective Dominick “Sonny” Carisi, Jr.
Philip Winchester – ADA Peter Stone
Guest stars:
Janel Moloney - Dr. Lorraine Franchella
Callie Thorne - Nikki Staines
Jenn Gambatese - Meredith Bergkamp
Alfredo Narciso - Dylan Bergkamp
Tom Titone - Judge Joshua Goldfarb
Eloise Lushina - Lily Winterburn
Lillian Ellen Jones - Lisa Dixon
Nicollette Pierini – Zoe
Kittson O'Neill - Vivian Winterburn
James Mount - Neil Dixon
Harriet D. Foy – Gwen Jackson
Stacet Raymond – Coach Clare
Adit Dileep – David Gidumal
Allan Walker – Felix
Fisher Neal – Marc Salazar
Robin S. Walker – Callie Lydell
Vanessa Schanen – Foreperson
Joey Curtis-Green - Harry Lonegan
Matt Golden - Mr. Lonegan
Mary Theresa Archbold – Mrs. Lonegan
Mario Ficarra - Batender
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