It's kind of a pattern with the show; Richard Belzer was sidelined and had one or two scenes an episode for like seven years before he finally got sick of it and fucked off to go smoke weed and drink wine in France (nice life if you can get it).
Well, turns out I was right about one thing: Spoiler: OC Angela Wheatley - Richard's ex - has been playing Elliot this whole time but did NOT expect this: Spoiler: OC not only was Angela NOT, apparently, acting on Wheatley's orders in so doing, but...turns out Angela herself was the one who gave the order to have Kathy killed Side note (and this is not really a spoiler): That thing with Sgt. Bell's nephew...does that actually have anything to do with the plot in general? The kid gets stomped coming out of a guitar store, but I'm not seeing any connection to anyone or anything else. Unless... Spoiler: OC the cops who did the stomping were not, in fact, cops, but were the same goons who've been carrying out all those hits for Wheatley?
My theory is that Angela wants vengeance against Wheatley because of the loss of her son, so because she's insane--naturally--she made the call to order the hit on Kathy so as to weaponize Stabler and turn him into her tool and / or gun. This was incredibly blatantly suggested by the fact that Wheatley fell right into line behind the supposed SWAT cops who ran into and shot up the office building (or whatever it was, where they were making the fake Purple Magic), and no one said a word. One thing Law & Order has never done particularly well in the, what, 30-plus years of its history, is subtlety. You really cracked the case there, chief.
Well, yeah, it's obvious that the "cops" who took out the rival dealers were on Wheatley's payroll (as you said, he follows them in), I just didn't make the connection until much later that the ones from the guitar store scene could have had anything to do with this - guess they were there to harass Bell's family and get her away from the case.
Something something psychological warfare? I don't know, I'm not expecting much in terms of a real payoff with that. Wheatley's already written as far too much of a superman when it comes to his intelligence and planning; with only three more episodes to go they're going to have to pull a real rabbit out of their asses to get out of the "Wheatley's playing chess while the NYPD is playing checkers" setup they've done.
Yep. But thankfully, she hasn't been nearly as annoying as she's been before. Heck, it was nice to see the return of the 1.0 characterizations. It showed that she was anything but a saint, that she's a flawed human being.
This latest episode of OC was the best thing L&O has done in decades. It definitely beats the hell out of the last 15 years of SVU.
Yea, it was very good. SVU wasn't bad either. But I can see why the ratings aren't as good anymore. Chris coming back helped to move the ratings up. But they can't afford to take it for granted. It has gotten too serious for its own good and St. Olivia hasn't helped things either. That being said, at least she hasn't been nearly as annoying as she used to be.
Ratings just aren't good anywhere on network TV. The only thing this old that still holds it's viewership is NCIS and I think that's only because some TVs are stuck on NCIS. SVU and OC were really high in the 18-49 demo this year.
My wife and I haven't invested in any new shows on network TV in the past couple years because everything we tried and liked was cancelled after one season. It's a dying medium in the age where you can get shot with bigger budgets, better stories & pretty much any genre you could want that is free of restrictions imposed on the network shows. Nothing stays on long enough to get attached to. SVU is in the same situation as Grey's. Mariska is just like Ellen Pompeo. What can she possibly do after SVU that isn't going to be compared to Benson in some way. SVU will be around as long as she wants to do it, no matter how bad the storytelling may get.
Hargitay is in a situation like Pompeo where jobs depend on her. She quits, the show is over. Although they could revive the mothership and just move all their behind-the-scenes employees over there.
Exactly, but do you really feel like you've connected with any of the other characters enough to care (perhaps outside of Ice-T)?
I like Carisi and hope that they use him on For The Defense if SVU ever gets canned. He's gone from the naive Sonny to tough prosecutor Dominic seamlessly.
Some are speculating that Steve Harris's role as Angela's attorney is going to springboard him over to For the Defense. Also, Hargitay's husband plays Trevor Langan, so there's another possibility. I'd like to see them bring back Richard Brooks.
I'm amazed with how SVU handled EO. What we got was a mirror to ep 5 of OC and it was wonderfully done.
So do you think the non-resolution of season 1 means Wheatley will be involved in one of the three cases next season?
OC is a good 8 episode arc but it also has some open threads at the end of the season that will probably carry into next season. I found it fun to watch watch week to week with SVU but it's probably even better binged.