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A New Voice

 The best thing I saw this weekend was actually a rewatch -- "911," from "Law and Order: SVU."


This is generally exalted among SVU fans; it's the hour that won Mariska Hargitay her Emmy.


We see Mariska/Olivia in a kind of gown, getting ready for a night out. But SVU receives a call. A distraught Honduran girl says she is a victim of kidnapping. The phone she is on seems to send signals from areas all over New York City, so skeptics begin to believe she is involved in a hoax. But Olivia listens to her gut -- and remains on the line.


Eventually, a tiny detail in a photo sets off fireworks. The little girl said she gets her food from "Felipe's Burgers," which burned down long ago. What if she isn't lying? What if the captor brings her water in an old "Felipe's Burgers" mug -- but the actual burgers arrive from elsewhere? And what if the captor bought the mug from the once-extant Felipe's simply because the captor lived, or lives, nearby?


Fin recalls that the building across from the shell of Felipe's is an IT store --and Fin notes that the captor must be skilled with IT. A third-act chase -- involving mud on sneakers, an intriguing ID card, a secret burial ground -- tests Olivia's strength and ingenuity. And guess who wins? It's Olivia.


The script has "grace notes" I love. The little girl feels anxious about having borrowed her captor's phone: "I didn't steal it!" Olivia and Fin grow dazed as they wade through photos of traumatized children: "What were you planning to see tonight?" "SPAMALOT...." "I hear it's funny....." In my favorite scene, the DA threatens and pressures the Honduran ambassador -- while the ambassador smiles broadly and poses for "Page Six" gala photos.


If the screenwriter -- Patrick Harbinson -- had lived two hundred years ago.....would he have become someone like Charles Dickens?


In any case, I'm grateful for Harbinson's work.

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