Law and Order: SVU Reviews F

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

(Now that I’m getting into some of the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)

“Nocturne” Season 1. Wikipedia summary is: “After a pharmacy turns over some disturbing photos of a young boy, Benson and Stabler arrest a piano teacher (Kent Broadhurst) for child molestation. After the boy claims to have seen other pictures of young boys at the teacher's house, the detectives get a warrant and discover a series of videos that document the life of a young boy named Evan (Wilson Jermaine Heredia). Believing he can make or break their case, the team searches for him, only to realize that his testimony may not help at all because Evan is scarred far more deeply than they realized.”

One of the detectives at one point distinguishes between homosexuality and pedophilia. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American College of Pediatricians, which doesn’t make that distinction, is a much smaller group than the American College of Pediatrics, which is anti-homophobic. The former has a membership in the low hundreds and the latter had a membership around 67,000 around 2019.

“Manic” Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “Detectives Benson and Stabler learn that an alleged victim (Rory Culkin) of a school shooting that claimed two lives, was in fact the perpetrator. After learning about the boy's psychiatric problems from his mother (Mare Winningham), the squad realizes that a major pharmaceutical company is also responsible. “

There are a few things about health care insurers and HMOs denying therapy and generally getting in the way of people’s health. This turns into one of the episodes where a business is the bad guy- it’s a drug company that irresponsibly mailed out samples of an anti—depressant without a doctor’s supervision of the patients. It was a pretty messed up marketing scheme and got two kids killed.

“Coerced” Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “A homeless and schizophrenic man (Leland Orser), desperate to see his son (Spencer List), kidnaps a different boy (Dylan Bluestone) from his bed at night. After being attacked by the man, Detective Stabler begins to contemplate the factors that caused him to snap. This investigation exposes further crimes at an adult group home.”

This is slightly about class gaps in the mental health care system, where some of the lowest income patients are treated by institutions that are corrupt and treat them poorly. I’m not sure how common that sort of thing is and it might have more to do with corruption than with class. The mental health center I get my treatment at wouldn’t do anything comparable to what is talked about in this episode and treats low income people and homeless people. But I know that some homeless and low-income mentally ill people can’t get benefits like SSI and SSDI (that are run by Social Security) and some of them probably end up in places like the group home illustrated in the episode.

“Choice” Season 5. Wikipedia summary: “A man (Rick Aiello) is arrested for attacking his pregnant wife (Josie Bissett) in protest of her drinking during pregnancy. Detective Benson finds out that she also overindulged in alcohol while pregnant with an earlier child (Katherine Roberts). The wife is taken to family court by her husband, who accuses her of endangering the fetus by putting it at risk of developing fetal alcohol syndrome.”

There’s some good pro-choice stuff in here. In fact, to a large degree it’s more about abortion than it is about rape.

“Abomination” Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “The homosexual poster-boy of a sexual re-education group is found murdered. After a local fundamentalist is cleared, the detectives turn their attention to the victim's thesis about the failure of sexual re-education groups. An opposing professor (George Segal) is found who has a dysfunctional relationship with his son (Jonathan Tucker).”

This is about homophobia and specifically “conversion therapy,” the idea that gay people can become straight through prayer and therapy. It reminds me of a movie called “Boy Erased” which is a true story about a young man who tries to complete such a program. It’s a fairly brutal program and doesn’t work and at the end of the movie we learn that the head of the program is now married to another man. It’s a great movie and illustrates what’s wrong with conversion therapy and like I said, it’s a true story.