SVU, how you mock all semblance of intelligence

[kellinator]

Thanks to The Shield and then Thief coming on at the same time, and the fact that I really can't wait for The Shield even though I could go ahead and watch SVU at 10 and catch The Shield an hour later, but I just can't wait for that show because it's pure adrenaline-laced crack, and can something be pure if it's also laced with something, but I like the phrase so I'm keeping it, and anyway this is a ridiculous run-on sentence that doesn't make any sense, but the point is I haven't been watching SVU and therefore I haven't been making those ranty posts about it and you haven't missed them. But anyway... here are the text messages scarcrest and I exchanged during the season finale.

kellinator: omg are you watching this shit?!
scarcrest: SVU? Not yet. I'm watching House now; that's up next so I can skip the commercials. It's a Tom Cruise takeoff, right?
kellinator: omg omg omg this shit is unfuckingbelievable.
scarcrest: Good unbelievable or bad unbelievable?
kellinator: omg omg omg my eyeballs are bleeding...
scarcrest: That doesn't sound good. About to watch it now.
kellinator: omg omg omg dick wolf needs to fucking diiiiiie.

From my messages, Jason figured Munch must have been killed off. No, my beloved Munchkin continues to wither on the vine because THEY WON'T WRITE HIM A FUCKING PART.

Personally, I think since SVU is the only current L&O where female characters are front and center, it's the paradoxically the place where we get to see Dick Wolf's sexism front and center. Key examples:

* Olivia's insistence that OMG THE GIRL WAS TRAUMATIZED SHE MUST HAVE BEEN RAPED. The girl was a space cadet whose story didn't hold up and who kept topping herself with stupidity. Olivia, please get over your "we must protect the VICTIMS" fetish. Being a chick does not automatically make you right.

* Casey's apparent infection with whatever Olivia's got, which makes her say stupid things like "she's not a danger to society." HELLO SHE RAN OVER A DOZEN PEOPLE. You LOSE.

(Interrupting myself to wonder -- is this SVU's attempt at questioning the racist pretty-white-girl bias taking over the media, as Without a Trace did a couple of weeks ago? Without a Trace has some things going for it, like subtlety, that Dick Wolf wouldn't know if they bit him on the ass.)

* The complete half-assed treatment of mental illness. I suppose I should give them points for presenting Tom Cruise as stupid as he actually is. Wonder if he'll sue them?

* Casey's usual sucktastic excuse for lawyering.

* The truly moronic final scene, in which (because it always has to somehow remind the characters of something that happened to them, or else it doesn't count) Casey beats herself up for not saving her schizophrenic fiance who refused to take his medication. OMG I'M A WOMAN HOW DARE I NOT DESTROY MYSELF TRYING TO SAVE A MAN. This was so hamhocked I almost threw something at the television. Sometimes, shit happens. Sometimes you CAN'T save someone -- they have to save themselves. How many people out there who have already had their lives turned upside down by a loved one's illness had insult added to injury by this? What alternate universe are these writers living in? We aren't all Saint Olivia, and we shouldn't have to be.

In conclusion, I wanna beat Dick Wolf like a pinata.

Comments

[twisteddaydream.livejournal.com]

~laughs~ Yes!!! That was one of my biggest problems with the whole episode. Seeing her in that role on SVU last night was hard to swallow because she looked like Meg, sounded like Meg, was on Meg's channel, but she sure as hell wasn't Meg. I think it was a bad casting job there because she's not far enough removed from Meg Pryor to convincingly pull off a character like that.

Other problems I had involved it being too... trite. It was too cut and dry an episode for a season finale... although with some of the others shows I watch and some of the finale's they have had, I am still kinda okay with that. But I expect better out of them. I think that they blew the end of this season because they were trying to work around Hargitay's pregnancy. I think that there were episodes in the past month that would have been better done as the season finale. Hell, the episode with Anthony Anderson would have made better sense as the finale than the episode last night.

I think that they made some interesting points in the medication/mental illness/responsibility debate, but they didn't do it well. They could have handled this episode much better. First, they tried to tackle too many issues. You've got kids having sex will-he, nill-he. They have a girl who was on her meds and then off her meds and can't decide what the hell she wants. They have a rock star who wants everyone off meds because he had a bad experience after he tried to off himself... and as Casey ended up pointing out, he could look at *that* from a totally different perspective, too. Oh, and toss in just a bit of parental responsibility, and you get a whole lot of mess and not a lot of resolution for anything.

Second, you've got the fact that they tried to get everyone into the season finale. They would have been better off pulling a CI and making it two episodes which could showcase Liv and Stabler AND Munch and Finn. If you throw in the fact that the characters in the episode couldn't decide what the hell they felt, well... it was kind of stupid. And yes... in this episode even I got annoyed by Liv's attitude, and I am usually with her in most respects.

Third, and finally, the casting was bad all around. As I said earlier, using cute "Meg Pryor" as the vic was a poor mistake. I also think that the guy playing the rock star was... less than convincing in more ways than one. Oh and the parents. Cardboard cutouts who can't decide if they give a shit or not.

Okay, so all in all, I had a lot of issues with this episode and I think it's one of the worst ones of theirs I've seen in a long time.