Critic’s Ranking: 4.8 / 5.0
4.8
I can’t consider something extra tragic than the case on Legislation & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14.
The sufferer was fulfilling her dream of visiting New York Metropolis, just for somebody to show it right into a nightmare, after which the protection legal professional continued tormenting her.
This emotional episode lastly gave us every little thing that Legislation & Order: SVU was purported to be, providing a virtually flawless story from starting to finish.
Legislation & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14 Did Its Chilly Open The Proper Means
In case you’ve been following my opinions some time, you know the way a lot I hate the brand new model of chilly opens.
Most episodes of Legislation & Order: SVU insist on appearing like mini-pilots for brand spanking new reveals starring the week’s sufferer, full with their life story and an in depth crime.
Fortunately, we had been spared that overly stretched out opening sequence this time.
Legislation & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14 as an alternative supplied simply sufficient info to make it clear who the sufferer was and arrange the case.
That is the best way to do it. We didn’t want a play-by-play of Megan’s complete trip.
We solely wanted the three scenes we acquired: Megan coping with a creepy couple in Instances Sq., a fast snapshot of how a lot she was having fun with herself previous to the assault, and the cops arriving on the scene.
It was a aid to have a correct chilly open, for as soon as.
This one didn’t give away your complete story.
We didn’t know for certain what occurred to Megan till she started having flashbacks whereas being accosted by the protection legal professional on the witness stand, and that was the way it needs to be.
Hopefully, we received’t be again to those tremendous lengthy and annoying chilly opens on March 13, when SVU returns.
For now, although, this one was a job nicely carried out.
All The Protection Had On Legislation & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14 Was Character Assaults
When a rape case goes to trial, protection attorneys are sometimes relentless of their makes an attempt to discredit the sufferer by making it seem she wished intercourse with their shopper (or that she introduced the rape on herself.)
This specific protection legal professional was vile.
She repeated long-debunked tropes about how Megan having had a few drinks meant that she wished to have intercourse with a stranger.
What yr is that this? In 2025 we must always not solely know {that a} lady being drunk doesn’t make a rape her fault, however that if she is drunk and her assailant is sober, it doesn’t matter whether or not she consented within the second.
If she was so drunk that she supposedly misplaced her inhibitions and got here onto her rapist, then she was so drunk she was incapable of giving consent. That’s nonetheless rape — why did nobody deliver it up?
Megan Was Telling The Reality, However Her Habits Didn’t Assist Her Case One Bit
One space the place Legislation & Order: SVU typically excels is in displaying how trauma can nearly value survivors their instances.
Many survivors are unreliable witnesses as a result of their trauma makes it exhausting for them to recollect precisely what occurred or share it in a coherent, linear style.
Some survivors change their tales a number of instances whereas others may be ambivalent about reporting.
Sadly, the court docket system doesn’t perceive trauma very nicely, and seemingly weird or inconsistent habits can come throughout as mendacity or instability.
Megan discovered that the exhausting method throughout her case.
She didn’t suppose the cops would actually catch the person who raped her and mounted a parallel investigation, getting of their method and herself into bother.
Punching her rapist made her look unstable and Benson refusing to arrest her made it seem like she acquired particular remedy.
The protection may have made much more out of Megan’s habits than it did.
What it did do was unhealthy sufficient with out suggesting that Megan had severe psychological well being points that precluded her being taken significantly.
The Protection Technique Can’t Be Authorized… Can It?
It was gross that the protection latched onto Megan’s prognosis and the truth that she hadn’t advised her husband as proof that she was mendacity about her rape.
However how on earth did that legal professional get her arms on that info?
Well being info is meant to be non-public. Accessing somebody’s well being data with out their permission is a severe violation of the regulation
But the one sanction that lawyer confronted for mentioning data she had no proper to entry was Carisi’s objection and the decide’s warning to the protection legal professional to not go too far with this.
I’d have appreciated some extra fallout from the protection legal professional’s choice to illegally entry well being data on Legislation & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14, however there was solely a lot time within the hour.
It Was Onerous To Be Sympathetic To Megan’s Husband
Megan’s husband was terrified when he discovered what occurred to his spouse, and shortly after he came upon that she didn’t inform him she had MS.
His world was turned the wrong way up as a lot as hers was, so his habits ought to have been comprehensible. Nonetheless, it was troublesome to seek out him in any respect sympathetic.
His spouse had been via a horrible ordeal, however he was petty sufficient to complain about not realizing the actual cause she insisted on coming to New York proper now.
Look, I’ve little doubt he was shocked and scared, however he wasn’t the sufferer right here.
His spouse was, and she or he wanted his assist and understanding, not his anger.
Carisi wasn’t a lot better.
I do know he has a job to do, however he was so cynical and uncertain at first of this case that I felt just like the writers forgot he was once a SVU detective.
Your Flip – What Did You Assume?
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Legislation & Order: SVU airs on NBC on Thursdays at 9/8c and streams on Peacock on Fridays.
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