Law and Order: SVU Reviews U

 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 watching the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)

(I’m temporarily skipping the publication of 4 reviews from Seasons 4 and 6 that I’ll come back to in about a week)

“Raw” Season 7. Wikipedia summary is: “A six-year-old boy who was adopted by parents (Myk Watford and Marin Hinkle) of a different race is killed in a school shooting. When detectives trace the rifle used back to a gun shop, Munch and Tutuola face hatred from a neo-Nazi group using the shop as its headquarters. The group consists of a white supremacist (J.C. MacKenzie), his son (Cody Kasch) and a woman (Marcia Gay Harden) who is not what she appears to be. When detectives arrest the shooter (Joel Marsh Garland) and put him on the witness stand, the group retaliates by starting a shootout in the courtroom that claims the life of a judge (John Rubinstein).”

In this episode the bad guys are neo-Nazis.

“Name” Season 7. Wikipedia summary is: “After the bones of a boy who disappeared in 1978 are found at a playground, Stabler, still visibly recovering from a recent gunshot wound, teams up with a CSU technician (Paula Garcés) who is taking the case personally. When a woman (Lisa Emery) comes forward, claiming that the boy was her brother, they reopen a cold case involving three murdered Puerto Rican boys in which the prime suspect (Richard Bright) worked with an accomplice (Ruben Santiago-Hudson).”

A crime scene tech believes that the disappearance of 4 Puerto Rican boys in 1978 wasn’t thoroughly investigated because they were Puerto Rican. It’s also stated that a lot of undocumented immigrants don’t report crime because they’re afraid of being deported. That’s one more reason to reform immigration policy in this country and until that happens it’s another reason for local governments to instruct local law enforcement to ignore the immigration status of people they interact with.

“Rockabye” Season 7. Wikipedia summary is: “A sixteen-year-old (Keri Lynn Pratt) loses her unborn child due to a severe abdominal beating. Her father (Skipp Sudduth) insists that she must have been raped and this leads detectives to the baby's father (John Patrick Amedori). The squad later learns that the girl was an active party in her own beating and that the teens found it necessary to do this after an abortion clinic deliberately stalled for time.”

This episode is about something I have never heard of before but which might exist- fake abortion providers. Clinics that stall for time with patients until the fetus is so old that an abortion is illegal. When two teens (boyfriend and girlfriend) get that treatment they decide to try to abort the fetus by hitting (with fists and a lamp) the girl’s belly. I think the point is that those who deny women an abortion force a lot of such women into doing something that must be even more difficult than having an abortion.

A few other notes:
1. The teens travel to NY from VA because in VA minors have to get parental approval to have an abortion, something I oppose.
2. The girl says that she was suicidal. In Ireland in recent decades if two psychiatrists agree that the female is suicidal, she is allowed to get an abortion. It’d be nice if something like that were done here if (or when) access to abortion is restricted.
3. One of the detectives implies that an OH high school that saw a lot of teenage pregnancies taught abstinence-only sex ed, which doesn’t include encouraging teens to practice safe sex.

“Alien” Season 7. Wikipedia summary is: “A school boy (Daniel Manche) becomes paralyzed after being stabbed in the back and detectives learn that the alleged perpetrator (Sasha Neulinger) was trying to protect his half-sister (Raquel Castro). While attending a Catholic school, the girl had been tormented continuously for having two mothers. One of her guardians (Amy Pietz) who never legally adopted her, is accused of sexual molestation by the girl's biological grandparents (Edmund Genest and Mary Beth Peil). While trying to decide if the claims are real or frivolous, Novak begins to suspect that their lawyer (Stephen Bogardus) is committing perjury.”

This is largely about homophobia and sort of about the Catholic Church. The detective Stabler says that being a Catholic means agreeing with the homophobia of the Church. First of all, the priest in this episode seems anti-homophobic. But more generally, the Church hasn’t in recent decades gone after anti-homophobic or LGB Catholics. It’s even more tolerant of such Catholics than it is of pro-choice Catholics, and as far as I can tell, the Church rarely THREATENS to go after pro-choice Catholics, and even then it’s just aimed at those who are elected politicians (and they don’t go through with the threats to ex-communicate).  

“Manipulated” Season 7. Wikipedia summary is: “The body of a young woman is found and when Benson and Stabler delve into her private life, they learn that in addition to being a respected lawyer, she was also a stripper. Her co-worker at the club (Faina Vitebsky) is later found murdered as well. Surveillance footage and DNA evidence implicate the lawyer's boss (Chris Potter) who appears to live with a disabled wife (Rebecca De Mornay). Further investigation reveals that the wife is living a lie and that she exacts revenge on her husband by hiring a hitman (Holt McCallany) to kill his sexual partners.”

Two notes.
1) There’s a fairly positive reference to efforts to unionize the dancers at strip clubs. That’s been tried in real life in at least one case- there’s a documentary about it called “Live, Nude Women Unite.”
2) There’s a less-than flattering reference to private military contractors (mercenaries of the sort used by the US government).