One of the problems with SVU of late is the tendency for the program to either a) forget what they were supposed to be investigating as they go off on some tangent; or b) the writers are unable to come up with a story that will last the entire episode, and so we get two mini cases in the one episode. Sometimes it works and comes across quite well, but sometimes it is just plain padding and a little painful. In this episode Amanda Green is unable to come up with two good ideas, and so we have no less than three stories in the one episode.
The first story revolves around the murder and rape of a Morman babysitter who was engaged to some chap now in India on a mission, and while he's away she apparently tosses aside her moral beliefs and prostitutes herself on the internet before laughing in the face of some guy who's afraid of growing old. She won't be making that mistake again...
Regardless, the detectives take remarkably short time to discover her internet activities and from there they get three
suspects, two of which it couldn't possibly have been, and number three caves under precisely two minutes of questioning. SVU at its most effective ever.
But this is, of course, merely the pretext to go into a story about a man whose wife cheated on him and produced a child from her boyfriend which her husband has raised for the past five years. With divorce looming, Novak informs us that the poor bastard will have to pay alimony and child support to a child that isn't even his.
Well, that's the message anyway. One of the things that I don't quite get about this world, and SVU seems to swing both ways on this particular point depending on who is writing the episode, is the idea that a person who raised a child all that child's life should NOT be the father if he is not biologically. I don't get that idea. For me, the person who does the raising is the father. If my parents told me tomorrow that I was adopted, my response would be - fair dues. Would I be interested in finding my biological parents? Not a jot. Would I consider my biological parents my real parents? Hell no. It's the poor bastards that had to put up with changing my nappy and my teenage mood swings and cleaning my sheets for...well for whatever accident happened. Once the biological parents give up their kid, they cease to have any claim to be parents, regardless of the reason. Don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking the bio's if they had good reason to do what they did - sometimes there are very good reasons for doing it, and I'm sure that some of them regret what they did, but unfortunately it's one of those things you just can't go back and do again. I wouldn't give up my parents for anything.
So as a result when the father of this kid decides he's not really the father because he isn't the biological father, and is then driven to murder when the bio-father files for custody EVEN THOUGH he knows (because Novak briefly popped up to tell us) that the bio-father has no rights in this situation whatsoever, I find it more than a little difficult to sympathise with the man. Sorry dude...you had no reason to commit murder and you were told that. Try filing for sole custody yourself fool.
Finally the third storyline kicks in quite late in the episode, and predictably you could see Stabler questioning the
paternity of Kathy's child after the case he is currently pursuing, because Stabler of all the detectives seems unable to leave his work at work.
Bizarrely this is actually the most interesting story of the episode and also the most tense as the car crash with Benson trying to save Kathy's life is really quite gripping. However...for some reason Kathy flatlines and then in the next scene she is fine and well, which kind of leaves me wondering what the hell happened? Did we miss something or are we just supposed to accept that in the passing of time they managed to bring her back? It's a bizarre part of the episode that was either poorly written or poorly edited.
Regardless, the episode was sufficiently entertaining and typically SVU sensationalist (not CSI sensationalist, so snaps to SVU for that).
On two other topics, firstly I was surprised to learn that both Diane Neal (ADA Novak) and Adam Beach (Det Lake) are leaving the series at the end of this season. Beach I don't particularly care about, but Neal is quite devastating. Aside from being hot, she's actually really great in the role. She'll be missed.
Secondly we got the third housemate entering the Australian Big Brother house tonight. Chuckbeetles-on-a-stick, this is gonna be one painful season of Big Brother...
"B"
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