Two Ladies & Their TVs

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L&O: SVU - 6.07 "Charisma"

Tonight's episode left me very uneasy and with a huge distaste in my mouth. Perhaps it's the terrible subject matter that elicits a gutteral disgust, but I am not sure I like tonight's episode.

First off, what was with the forced shrink sessions? I'm sure it was horrific walking in on all those children murdered. The job itself is a hard one, and there were definitely cases where people died gruesome deaths. Why the shrink now? It was as if L&O was trying to tackle philosophical discussions about the job, but assumed the audience is too dumb to figure out that a job at the SVU is difficult.

Although the editors tried to be clever and overlapped the detectives' sessions with Huang, their confessions (is there a better term?) seemed forced and almost un-genuine. Tutuwola having to take a break voluntarily - the mere concept of Ice-T having to take a break from his job - made me incredulous more than anything else. Yes, beat me over the head again with how Stabler is getting unstable (heh). Now, I usually like Olivia, but I didn't really buy her breaking down like that. Just to make sure the audience gets how tough the SVU job is, Olivia pulls a Stabler - as much as she can anyway - and yells at Sarah for being responsible for all the deaths. Eh. I could've done without all of those.

Abraham, the David Koresh-type character, was creepy and yucky. He did remind me of Charles Manson, but not so satanic as crazed. Putting on my superficial hat here - he was too unattractive to have any "charisma," IMHO - can't even bear to look at him! The little girl, Melanie, only 12 years old and having already had a baby - that's just wrong. She didn't even look like she hit puberty yet! And the mom, sticking by Abraham until she finally saw her dead husband's wedding ring...ugh. Parents who are unwilling to protect their children should lose their right to be parents. The whole cult thing bothers me too, and my gut reaction is always, "How can people be so stupid? What does it take to wake these people up?" These type of things never fail to make me more angry than intrigued, thus it's possible that my bias prevented me from liking this type of subject matter in a show.

On top of that, I felt things were very predictable. Nothing shocked me, surprised me, or invited me to think harder than usual. The characteristics that are normally SVU seemed to be missing tonight.

Rating: 6 out of 10. Really could've been a lot better.

Posted by: merserene at 21:25 | link | comments (9)
it s all drama

Comments:

#1  16 November 2004 - 21:59

 

Yeah, I gotta agree with your rating there. The ending especially seemed totally unrealistic; almost as if it belonged on another show.

Because of distractions, I missed almost all of the psych. sessions. I saw that Tutuwola had called his son, and that's about it, until Olivia broke down. Now, what was it about Stabler's talk that made Cragen send him home, yet Olivia's breakdown didn't matter? Because she let her emotions out? I may not get to watch my tape soon, so could you recap, please?

They really are beating us over the head about Stabler's instability (let's see how many times we can play on his name). I have another spoiler for you about that, if you wanna hear. Nothing major that's going to ruin one of the shows.

I also agree with you that Abraham (played by Jeff Whatshisname from China Beach) ain't much to look at. However, since I just finished writing about a charismatic preacher who had a squashed Beefsteak tomato of a nose, I can overlook it and infer that Abraham was charismatic in other ways (ugh, the image). Still, awful. Even though all the horrible stuff that happens on SVU happens in real life, when it's subjects like this, it always seems worse.

I think it's more loneliness than stupidity that leads folks to guys like this; low self-esteem... other factors. They feed off people like that. I hated that the women would't give him up, but if brain-washing only takes three days, then it wasn't surprising that they were standing by him.

The little girl who played Melanie was good. I swear, it might've been too long ago, but I thought she was on ST: TNG once. Anyway, I didn't buy that she would listen to Benson more than Abraham, and shoot him so quickly for that one lie that she recognized.

Oh, Benson's interrogation: you were thinking the same thing I was! I didn't think it worked. And that leads to another thought, not about tonight's eppy: Stabler's had some really good interrogations. CM can act in those situations. The one with the guy on Death Row (who smashed Huang's head into the wall), the ep with Chad Lowe, the RDK guy-- those were all really good, tense scenes.

I think SVU, unless they learn to write it better, should stay away from cult leader episodes. They've been overdone elsewhere.

athenawj

#2  16 November 2004 - 22:26

 

If I remember correctly, there wasn't anything outstanding about Stabler's interview v. Benson's. All Stabler did was pull the usual "I'm a tough guy and I'm not letting my emotion out" thing. Basically he didn't pour his heart out to Huang as was expected of him, but seemed like he was trying to hold it in, that apparently led Huang to conclude Stabler would blow any time (just like Kyle McLachlan did).

Yes, please tell me about the spoiler on Stabler.

I agree that loneliness can be one of the reasons for someone to join a cult, but I do think that lack of common sense has a lot to do with it, esp. since they showed the couple who DID leave Abraham because they saw him trying to sexually assault their 4 year old daughter. At some point, for some people, it kicks in that what the cult leader is doing isn't right at all.

Didn't know brainwashing takes only 3 days? I have hope that people can be unwashed, given the (rare) instances where people have thankfully left cults.

The girl who played Melanie - TV Tome doesn't have TNG listed as one of her credits. I thought she was somewhat unconvincing especially due to her abrupt change of mind about Abraham at the end, given only 2 seconds ago she insisted that he was basically irreprehensible for giving her a baby.

Well, Stabler will be back next week, so the "leave" didn't last too long, after all. I like his interrogation scenes too.

merserene

#3  17 November 2004 - 04:44

 

Oh, I agree about the lack of common sense thing; I was just throwing out other reasons. I was remembering some of the tactics a certain 'church' that I used to know certain members of used to deploy, and what kind of people were best for 'recruiting'.

I've read before 'in as little as three days' on brainwashing before-- should have made that clearer.

Thanks for the recap. Same old same old with Stabler. Oh, the spoiler: In February, Stabler 'slides' and becomes more dependent on Benson. I don't like the way that sounds, and what it might mean. For how much I wanted to see Stabler implode/explode, I don't want to see his character go out disastrously. I don't think it would be fair for him to go out tarnished, do you?

That's all speculation, though. Who knows what's actually going to happen later on (the spoiler, though, was from Neal Baer's mouth).

athenawj

#4  17 November 2004 - 08:37

 

That sounds like a good espisode, but I *had* to watch The season premiere of The Amazing Race.

StacyT

#5  17 November 2004 - 09:54

 

How was it, Stacy? I've always meant to watch that show, but it's always on during one of the shows that I can't give up.

athenawj

#6  17 November 2004 - 10:39

 

Okay, I rewatched the part that I'd missed on SVU, and all I can say is: Bullshit.

I saw nothing that seemed like Stabler was more unstable than the others. Sheesh.

athenawj

#7  17 November 2004 - 11:11

 

Agree with you - what is it supposed to mean that Stabler depends on Benson? Don't wanna go there, either. What about his own family? Unless they hold a grudge towards CM, they shouldn't make him go out on a bad note. That's a sad way to leave.

I think it was the fact that Stabler didn't act like anyone else that singled him out. They probably had their eyes on him for a while and this was a good way to give him a message of some sort.

I watched The Amazing Race for 3/4 of one season a couple of seasons ago. The best part for me was to see the sites around the world. For that, I'll just stick to the travel shows on PBS. :)

merserene

#8  17 November 2004 - 21:43

 

Athena, it's a great show. Honest competition that isn't swayed by body type/size, etc, or gender. Well, I say honest, but there are a few teams who employ underhanded methods, of course.

And, the way these couples fight is just entertaining. I think it'd be a lot of fun to do TAR, but I'd have to get into shape for the challenges and probably quit smoking. Eeeek!

StacyT

#9  18 November 2004 - 22:08

 

It looks like fun. I wish it wasn't on during Scrubs, though-- I missed most of it last season and I don't want to this year.

athenawj

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