I started late, but over the years, I have sampled all of the Law & Order flavors, including the ill-conceived Trial by Jury. The only one I still watch is Special Victims Unit. That may end up getting cut from my viewing lists come next season. As much as I have enjoyed the shows, they tend to get a little repetitive. But that is neither here nor there.
This episode features sex, violence, drugs, and rock n' roll. Everything you need for a first rate episode of SVU. We open with a janitor walking in on an impromptu threesome in the men's room of a high school. Two boys flee from the stall leaving behind a young girl, crumpled and crying on the floor. She looks up at the janitor and says she was raped.
Detective Benson is the first on the scene, and is able to get the girl to name her attackers. Stabler picks them up and takes them back to the station for questioning, while Benson talks to the girl. The boys claim that she propositioned them, telling them the time and place, and that is was most definitely not a rape. The girl, on the other hand, says she was forced into the bathroom and held to the floor during the attack. Who's telling the truth?
The boys are about to be arrested when Benson gets Jamie, the young girl, to recant her story. It turns out that she had wanted to date this guy, but he had a rule about not dating virgins, so she sought to, how to say, rectify that situation. So, the boys are freed, as is Jamie. But the relief does not last long as there is a car accident outside, Jamie attempted suicide by running her car off the road, through a group of pedestrians and into a wall. The accident injures six and kills one, leaving Jamie a ranting mess.
The whole situation takes a turn when it is revealed that Jamie is bi-polar, and that she had stopped taking her medication. It is this fact that led to her erratic behavior and false accusations. When questioned about why she stopped, she did it on the advice of her idol, rock star Derek Lord (played by one of the Boondock Saints, Norman Reedus).
Article comments
1 - Bliffle
I only watch the original LO because it preserves the original dichotomy between police and prosecution, mostly.
The basic attraction of cop/doc/lawyer shows is that they get involved in other peoples lives at times of crisis. I think it is spurious to over-involve the principles in the drama. As time goes by, the lives of the principles become dreary and repetitive. They should tell the story of the OTHER people, the ones who have good reason to be in crisis, and little to prepare them for it.
After all these years of episodic TV, still the best dramatic efforts were Dragnet, Fugitive and Route 66, because each episode introduced new characters to interest us. The principles were simply a vehicle upon which to hang a story, peopled by strangers whose story was to be told. That is what fascinated us. Nobody really cared if the Fugitive was caught, what was interesting was the people he met in his journey; and that's why the Harrison Ford movie fell flat: it was all about Dr, Kimball! Joe Fridays terse attitude was the perfect thread to play the story of victims and witnesses and criminals against, in Dragnet. (Incidentally, Jack Webb started that terse style a a police parody on SF radio back around 1950)
The great thing about Fugitive, for example, was that rich reservoir of talented movie character actors that could finally come forward as protagonists on episodic TV, instead of just being the sidekicks and best friends (really, just dramatic furniture) that they played in movies.
I notice that when cop/doc/lawyer TV series start out that they are good when they involve the strangers that come into the orbit of the principles, and that the series deteriorates as it becomes involved with the principles to the exclusion of the real source of drama: outsiders. They just transmute into simple-minded soap opera.
2 - lindsay
i love the show l&o svu. i'v been watch it for two years and my sister watiches it to. i love the charecters, i think that they need more of every one in each episode. i will stop watching the show if they change the charecters. that is why i wont watch the l&o ci. everyone i know agrees with me. i will always be a fan of the sow as long as they have olivia, eliot, munch captin, and fin.
3 - Yahchievia
i really love to see SVU this is my Favorite Show i love you guys
4 - extra_medium
The show isn't too bad, but it's far from the best of the franchise-- especially if you consider the entire series from the beginning. The characters aren't bad but the stories are extremely predictable, often ridiculous and as you mentioned very very repetitive. By the time I see the opening crime sequence, I can guess how it turns out more often than not. The times I can't guess, the ending is so usually contrived it leaves me rolling my eyes. The four main characters do a great job with what they have to work with, but as far as good stories and dialogue go Criminal Intent and the original series are much better written.
5 - REESE
I was wandering what everyone thinks the best SVU's of season 10 are.
~ huge fan