Law and Order: SVU"Closet"
Original Air Date: April 22, 2008
Kara - TwoCents Reviewer
How SVU can follow up last week's episode with this one is beyond me. It's a shame this script couldn't have been a victim of the writers strike. This week, a man is found dead from asphyxiation in his apartment. There are many suspects, including the troubled teen from the homeless shelter for gay runaways, the personal assistant who moved the victim's body to make the scene less embarassing and the victim's boyfriend, who is a professional football player. Oh but don't forget there's the much advertised appearance by Bill Pullman and much ado about the possibility of a gay football player and what that means for his career. If you still remember there's a dead victim, you've already done a better job than the usually focused detectives of the Special Victims Unit.
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Law and Order: SVU
ReplyDelete"Closet"
Original Air Date: April 22, 2008
Kara - TwoCents Reviewer
How SVU can follow up last week's episode with this one is beyond me. It's a shame this script couldn't have been a victim of the writers strike. This week, a man is found dead from asphyxiation in his apartment. There are many suspects, including the troubled teen from the homeless shelter for gay runaways, the personal assistant who moved the victim's body to make the scene less embarassing and the victim's boyfriend, who is a professional football player. Oh but don't forget there's the much advertised appearance by Bill Pullman and much ado about the possibility of a gay football player and what that means for his career. If you still remember there's a dead victim, you've already done a better job than the usually focused detectives of the Special Victims Unit.
Five Signs It's a Bad SVU Episode:
1. The episode feels like its whole purpose is to push a message. There's a whole scene where the detectives debate whether or not football star Lincoln coming out as gay is a big deal. Should he, shouldn't he, how will this effect his career, can he be fired from endorsement deals for being gay? Yeah, okay, you do remember someone died, right? How about we have less harping on the fact that the suspect is gay and how that makes you feel and more focusing on actually
solving the case.
2. There's no motive for the main suspect to have committed the crime. They're sure Lincoln's the guy and I'm like, really? You're sure? Because as far as I could tell, he's guilty of being there and yes, his DNA is there as well. However, they didn't have a fight, in fact, all signs point to them being a happy couple who wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. Usually, they'll throw our way a "oh, the neighbors heard a fight coming from the apartment" or a "I see he had a life insurance policy taken out a few months ago and you're the sole benefactor." Not this time. So as Benson and Stabler continue to try to convince us that Lincoln's the guy, I'm sitting there knowing they're wrong and it feels like wasted time.
3. Bad dialogue, bad characters, bad acting. Casey is griping about Lincoln on the stand and how the jurors view him as sympathetic. Olivia says this line: "Can't blame them. He does look good in a suit." Again, someone's dead and Olivia doesn't go around spouting lines like that, she just doesn't. It felt so out of character. Next, I know Lincoln's girlfriend is supposed to be annoying, bigoted and a total pain but this was excessive. She was the poster girl for ignorance, intolerance and ridiculous offensive terms. I want those three minutes of my life back. She also qualifies for bad acting as she was so over the top, she was completely unbelievable. Then there's the agent, the real murderer, who confesses in record time. I've never seen a faster confession. That encompasses all three elements.
4. Disregarding the previous episode. This is a major problem for me with the series. I understand SVU isn't a show where storylines carry over but in some cases, they should definitely make an exception. I don't know about anyone else but I'm still thinking about what happened to Olivia last week and to completely act like it didn't happen really threw me. Not only is Olivia fine but she's been dating someone. Uh, okay. Sure.
5. Pointless guest star. Again? Why? NBC must provide them with a nice budget to keep having these big name guest stars for no coherent reason. Bill Pullman shows up to be Olivia's boyfriend, to be blamed for leaking Lincoln's sexuality to the press, to ask Olivia why she won't move in with him and to be broken up with, all in the span of five minutes. I can't see the point, other than to completely confuse me and make me angry.
So, what do you guys think? You can leave your TwoCents in the comments. I'm really curious to find out what you all thought about this episode. Let's hope the much hyped episode next week makes up for this. I may be wrong but I don't think Robin Williams would have signed on to do a role on this show unless it was a really intense, interesting character. Anyone else excited for this episode?
We just saw this episode tonight on free-to-air. It was awful. I totally agree. It was obvious the agent did it. The girlfriend was a joke and the whole boyfriend thing was strange and pointless.
ReplyDeleteI don't have high hopes for next week. :(