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SVU at 500

 OK, stop reading here if you aren't an SVU addict.


This week's episode--poetically entitled "Five-Hundredth Episode"--swings for the fences. We don't really *reach* the fences. But let's admire ambition.


Amaro pays a visit to SVU because he has teamed up with a noted true crime writer; these two want to free a high-school student, wrongfully imprisoned. Long ago, the kid went away for having murdered his girlfriend, but it seems another community-member may have been responsible. (This part--particularly the references to podcasting--makes me thing of "Serial," and Adnan Syed. But I'm not saying the SVU writers suggest a belief in Syed's innocence.)


As the predictable investigation chugs along, it's revealed that Olivia Benson slept with True Crime Writer. Olivia was only sixteen! She wanted to get away from her mother, who disapproved of the relationship, among other things.


The Adnan Syed case ends; the Adnan Proxy is freed. True Crime Writer gives interviews, but his new notoriety has an unanticipated cost. A former student comes forward and accuses *True Crime Writer* of sexual assault. And now Olivia, who is smitten, must reassess her understanding of True Crime Writer, and her understanding of her own past.


All this makes me think of predators who try to wash their bloody hands in the water of Occasional Good Deeds. The Sackler Family. ("We enrich the lives of university students!") Andrew Cuomo. ("I helped with marriage equality!") Harvey Weinstein. ("I assisted with Fruitvale Station--which had a serious message!")


Olivia's brief dalliance with True Crime Writer led me to think of the do-gooder Robbie Kaplan, who probably understood that she was being a bit too kind to Andrew Cuomo--even as she worked through her lil "editing" task.


I also pondered words from Dick Wolf; recently, Wolf was asked if Olivia and Elliot would "seal the deal" anytime soon. And Wolf said: "I don't think so. It's tension that viewers like. Suspense. If there is a definitive shift in the relationship, the writers lose steam."


Smart words--and they must have been taped up in the office as the 500th episode was plotted. The Olivia/Writer material had a "cat/mouse" quality I really liked.


Can't wait for next week.

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