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Law and Order: SVU

 This is for (only) SVU fans -- and, that said, can we talk about how great the script was last week?


A young woman, Ashley, meets her birth mother, Michelle. This should be a nice night, and Michelle is lovely, but Michelle also seems to drink heavily, and her comments occasionally have a harsh, self-critical undertone. Finally, Ashley asks: "Who was my dad?" And a story of rape pops out.

The bulk of the ensuing hour concerns Ashley's efforts to identify the rapist. How do you do this, when the victim would rather stay silent, and when fifteen or sixteen years have passed since the rape? (Benson says, "Michelle wasn't the only victim; Ashley was also a victim." And Carisi coldly says, "That's semantics.")

No one is really listening, and no two people are on the same page. Ashley wrestles with her birth parents ("You're not actually worried about your clothing right now...." "That's not helpful, Mom....") and the birth parents wrestle with each other. Michelle snaps at Benson; Michelle's own mother seems to insinuate that a blame-the-victim philosophy might be appropriate here. Finally, Benson has little patience when an underling asks, "If Michelle's mother was going to shut down, why did she bother to visit SVU?" Benson rolls her eyes and says, "She visited so, later, she can claim she was trying to support her daughter."

On top of all this, there is a wonderful Rollins subplot. Just as Michelle is anxious about confronting the truth, Rollins wants to dodge various charged workplace conversations about her romantic life. Tension between Rollins and Carisi grows. "Can we talk?" says Rollins. "I know I was insensitive," Carisi says quickly, "when I met with Benson...." Rollins, tough as nails: "THAT TOO. But I wanted to say, my shrink feels my kids are just testing boundaries, and we don't need to disclose anything about our affair just yet...."

Carisi, with one of my favorite lines: "Is that what the shrink said, or is it the thing you *wanted* to hear?"

To add another layer, the Carisi/Rollins fight is observed, secretly, by Benson, who is walking down the hall.

No one is alone. Life gets very complicated, very fast.

In a TV landscape with bloated hours, self-indulgent subplots....SVU remains tight as a drum. I'm in awe.
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