There is very little that is sacred in the world of Law & Order. No organisation is above performing criminal acts when the devil drives, be they a religious group, a government organisation or even the NYPD themselves, and their accompanying partners in the criminal justice system. It's been a while since the Blue Wall has hampered investigations by any particular detective partnership, be they Green & Lupo, Stabler & Benson, Gorren & Eames or Logan & Wheeler, so it was perhaps inevitable that they come under suspicion at some point. This week it was the prison system that came under fire, and the vague suggestion that all female prisons (read that in either context and it applies) are beds of rape and debauchery.
The funny thing is that, if you think about, it doesn't really require too much of a stretch to believe it. These prisons are full of junkies and whores (and, indeed, junkie-whores) who will pretty much do whatever it takes to get by, and given that they are used to a life of lying on their backs and giving it up, why break the habit of a lifetime if it doesn't actually give you any help?
Of course the whole point of the exercise is that the criminal justice system should be held to a higher standard than everyday society, and that's certainly the backbone of Law & Order as a whole. Dick Wolf seems to have always believed that, no matter how human the people involved in the upholding of the law (and they have certainly proved themselves to be very human over the last about-20 years), they still need to be a model for the average, everyday citizen. Nice in theory, shame it doesn't apply in practice.
Of course, in this particular episode, it's not just the prison system that comes under fire. Mariska Hargitay gets to take center stage for the episode as she is the obvious choice to go undercover and, consequently, show a bit of flesh (although this being Law & Order - where strip club strippers never actually get naked) the prisoners appear to shower in their underwear. On the Jump The Shark webpage, SVU frequently is cited as jumping from the moment Mariska was hired, which is just a little harsh. She is no worse an actress than anybody else that appears in the series, and most of the time a whole lot better. This episode gives her the chance to show us some real acting skills as she is almost raped by the rapist and has to deal with the consequence of that. A painful situation for her, and Mariska deserves credit for making it real.
Most of the other cast are sidelined in this episode (surprisingly so is Adam Beach for a change, getting fewer lines this episode than Richard Belzer) but it's been a while since Benson got to be the center of an episode, so I can forgive it. Just this once.
"B+"
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