Critic’s Ranking: 4.8 / 5.0
4.8
I can’t consider something extra tragic than the case on Regulation & 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 thing that Regulation & Order: SVU was alleged to be, providing a virtually flawless story from starting to finish.
Regulation & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14 Did Its Chilly Open The Proper Approach
If you happen to’ve been following my critiques some time, you understand how a lot I hate the brand new model of chilly opens.
Most episodes of Regulation & Order: SVU insist on appearing like mini-pilots for brand spanking new exhibits starring the week’s sufferer, full with their life story and an in depth crime.
Fortunately, we have been spared that overly stretched-out opening sequence this time.
Regulation & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14 as an alternative provided simply sufficient data 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 total 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 reduction to have a correct chilly open, for as soon as.
This one didn’t give away your entire story.
We didn’t know for positive 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, when SVU returns on March 13, we received’t be again to superlong and annoying chilly opens.
For now, although, this one was a job properly executed.
All The Protection Had On Regulation & 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 needed intercourse with their consumer (or that she introduced the rape on herself.)
This explicit protection legal professional was vile.
She repeated long-debunked tropes about how Megan having had a few drinks meant that she needed to have intercourse with a stranger.
What yr is that this? In 2025, we must always not solely know {that a} girl 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 in the meanwhile.
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 Conduct Didn’t Assist Her Case One Bit
One space the place Regulation & Order: SVU typically excels is exhibiting how trauma can nearly price survivors their circumstances.
Many survivors are unreliable witnesses as a result of their trauma makes it onerous for them to recollect precisely what occurred or share it in a coherent, linear style.
Some survivors change their tales a number of occasions, whereas others could be ambivalent about reporting.
Sadly, the court docket system doesn’t perceive trauma very properly, and seemingly weird or inconsistent conduct can come throughout as mendacity or instability.
Megan realized that the onerous approach throughout her case.
She didn’t assume the cops would actually catch the person who raped her and mounted a parallel investigation, getting of their approach and herself into hassle.
Punching her rapist made her look unstable, and Benson refusing to arrest her made it seem like she acquired particular remedy.
The protection might have made much more out of Megan’s conduct than it did.
What it did do was unhealthy sufficient with out suggesting that Megan had critical psychological well being points that precluded her from 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 informed her husband as proof that she was mendacity about her rape.
However how on earth did that legal professional get her palms on that data?
Well being data is meant to be personal. Accessing somebody’s well being information with out their permission is a critical violation of the legislation.
But the one sanction that the lawyer confronted for mentioning information she had no proper to entry was Carisi’s objection and the choose’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 information on Regulation & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14, however there was solely a lot time within the hour.
It Was Exhausting To Be Sympathetic To Megan’s Husband
Megan’s husband was terrified when he realized what occurred to his spouse, and shortly after, he discovered 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 conduct ought to have been comprehensible. Nonetheless, it was troublesome to search out him in any respect sympathetic.
His spouse had been by means of a horrible ordeal, however he was petty sufficient to complain about not understanding 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 he or she wanted his assist and understanding, not his anger.
Carisi wasn’t significantly better.
I do know he has a job to do, however he was so cynical and uncertain at the start of this case that I felt just like the writers forgot he was once an SVU detective.
Your Flip – What Did You Assume?
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Regulation & Order: SVU airs on NBC on Thursdays at 9/8c and streams on Peacock on Fridays.
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