S19.E08: Intent - Law & Order: SVU

There were some things I liked and some things I didn't. 

The best part was that there was great use of Barba. We finally got to see him in the courtroom doing what he does best, there has not been nearly enough Barba or courtroom scenes this season, so we finally got to see that. 

The case kept my interest enough, I couldn't figure out what exactly was going on at the start and it turned out decent enough, I liked that we had a woman perp instead of the typical white male, that was a nice twist, I thought we were once again going to see a misogynistic geek white guy computer whiz as the perp. 

I agree that the plot wasn't very original, we have already seeing the catfishing thing done before. And the victim was just like almost every other victim the show has : young, white, attractive and rich. Not the first time the victim's been a social media star either, we've all ready had one this season in the episode that ended with St Olivia ending bullying and changing the lives of hundreds of teenagers with one sermon. It's gotten ridiculous, it seems like the writers are trying to attract the hipster trendy crowd and ignore everyone else. 

All of the characters had good material, Fin had some funny lines. But what was up with Carisi apparently being jealous of Rollins? That was weird and very soapy. I liked seeing Carisi and Rollins in WV and I liked seeing them talk at the bar and the fight scene was funny, after all we never get any focus on anyone except for Benson so some of Rollins and Carisi was a welcome change, but I could've done without Carisi being jealous of Rollins' having a one night stand, that was just pure soapy. Don't ruin Carisi with him behaving like a jealous teenager and don't let Rollins' hook up with another colleague, she seems to have really cleaned up her act and become a strong detective, don't get rid of all that and hook her up with another colleague. 

Benson was as irritating as ever, and I'm so tired of Benson/Granny and Noah. Most tiresome and pointless shitty storyline SVU has ever done, even Stabler's goddamn kids didn't take up this much screen time. And seriously, Benson hasn't told Noah anything about his bio mom? So does Noah not know he's adopted or what? Totally absurd, Noah can talk and communicate now, surely Benson would've mentioned his bio mom at some point. And we all knew Noah was getting kidnapped at the end, though I thought Granny would just take the kid and run. Now we don't know who's responsible, but I still think Granny may be the mastermind, she may have set the whole thing up with an accomplice. That's the way I'm hoping it turns out actually because I'm sick of Granny and would love nothing more than to see her dead or thrown in jail. 

Another thing that really bugged me and hurt the episode was that the MMA fighter would never have pled guilty to a crime when he could've gotten off completely. It doesn't matter how much money he has or that he was not going to jail, no one would take a plea and have a criminal record when they could get off scot-free. That was ludicrous and unbelievable, it doesn't matter how much he's upset about what happened, he's not pleading guilty when he could likely walk. That was bullshit, they should've found another way to get more serious charges on the catfisher. 

And I'm going to say again how sick I am of all the victims being young wealthy attractive white women. I miss when we would see a wide variety of cases and victims, now the victims are indistinguishable. I guess they are doing this to attract a particular type of viewer, but I'm sick of it, where are the victims that are poor/middle class or minorities or older people? Anyone can be raped, rape is more about power and control than about sex, and having only one type of victim reinforces that stereotype that rape victims must be attractive, and it also allows the show to depict sexy photos of the victim like they did tonight, which is just exploitative. For Mariska and the show to act like they are shedding light on sexual violence issues and but then turn around and have these cheap exploitative and stereotypical victims is extremely hypocritical.

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