This is more like this. Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 2 revolves around a fascinating story involving an incest case from 20 years ago.
The victim grew up to be an alcoholic and she doesn’t fully remember what happened to her. The defendant is a powerful and respected judge and his family is on his side.
This is pretty close to a classic SVU episode, although it misses some beats that could have made it stronger.
Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 2 features a compelling cold case
Cold cases often make for great stories on SVU, although they also tend to rely on tired TV tropes, such as a lack of hard evidence and fighting the courts over whether a case can go to trial at such a late date.
This one is solid and checks all the boxes for an SVU cold box.
In Carisi’s eyes, Maggie was an unreliable witness because she was an alcoholic, had many problems, and didn’t fully remember the abuse, which made Carisi reluctant to prosecute.
Amazingly, more than two decades later, police obtained forensic evidence that was enough to arrest her stepfather, a powerful judge who planned to fight the charges and his entire family supported him, blaming Maggie Make up stories.
For a while, it seemed unlikely that Carisi would win the case, and Maggie’s mental health worsened the more she worried she would lose.
These elements are strong and engaging, making the story feel more like an episode from the early days of SVU, albeit with a larger courtroom portion than the investigative portion.
SVU does a great job showing how childhood abuse affects its victims
It is even weaker when the decision to report is made years after the fact
Maggie is a complex character who has many problems due to the trauma she suffered.
Her bedwetting as a child, her difficulties with relationships and alcoholism as an adult, and her inability to fully remember what happened to her are perfect descriptions of how this type of trauma can occur.
I am surprised and disappointed that, all these years later, SVU has not more fully explored the difficulties associated with reporting.
This type of police procedural often takes stories from the headlines and uses them to advocate for survivors. Unless I blinked and missed it, there was no discussion of New York law allowing Maggie to file criminal charges instead of having to rely on a civil lawsuit.
This doesn’t affect the story much, but it would be a good public service announcement to include so that real-life survivors know they have options, at least in New York, if they were unable to report childhood abuse until long before adulthood .
I also wanted to know more about how the decision to report impacted survivors’ stories years later.
Maggie: Where’s the diary?
Benson: They would portray it as a work of fiction.
Maggie: I’m starting to think my whole childhood was.
We got a little bit of that. Maggie paces around Benson’s office, worried that she’s failing and feeling like her whole life has been a lie.
Yet there was little doubt in Maggie’s mind that she wanted to report the crime and hope justice would be served.
Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 2 didn’t delve deeply into the pain of reliving trauma and the satisfaction of delivering justice.
Reporting is not the right choice for every survivor. For some, dealing with the court system can be more painful than giving up on the idea of justice.
I wish SVU had made this clearer than it did, though there wasn’t much room to do so since it had to go through trial and the judge’s wife was a horrible person in her own right and the plot twists accidentally became his downfall.
Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 2 Judge Andrews barks but doesn’t bite
I expect a judge accused of a crime to cause more trouble than we do.
From the promo and description of the premise, he seems more like Bryan Cranston’s character in “Your Honor,” abusing his power to keep his son’s crimes hidden behind the scenes.
While Maggie is hospitalized, Judge Andrews forbids any questioning and hires a lawyer, but the only thing he does to save himself is to name Nicholas Baxter.
After that didn’t work, he sabotaged his lawyer’s request for lower bail by asking in advance to be treated like any defendant, absurdly claiming he was writing a novel about the rape of his eight-year-old daughter, and using his wife to support him Ridiculous story.
Judge Andrews: If you have any further questions, you can call my attorney.
Fin: lawyers, plural.
Bruno: This guy is a former judge; he won’t give up without a fight.
It’s all disgusting, but none of it fits Bruno and Fin’s belief that judges will do whatever it takes to get themselves out of trouble.
I much prefer a story about a judge abusing his power, while Benson and her team spend the first half of the episode fighting to get the case to court no matter what.
In fact, the police part was so inconspicuous that I could barely remember what happened during it, and what impressed me most was the resolution of the case.
There are several episodes of “SVU” that involve Benson fighting powerful people to make sure survivors’ voices are heard. It will never go out of style as it is part of SVU’s social justice advocacy.
This one has a perfect setup but misses the mark. The judge simply did not fully abuse his power and instead presented a ridiculous defense that the jury should have seen through even without solid evidence.
Random Thoughts on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 2
- I think the judge claimed to confide in his wife because he knew he couldn’t force a spouse to testify against him, so would anything Benson made Lillian admit to be admissible in court?
- While it’s a bit of a stereotype that Charles breaks down at the last minute and admits that he knew something was wrong when his father entered Maggie’s room at night, it fits with what I know about incest cases, so it works.
- This would have been the perfect time to bring in a police department psychiatrist to evaluate Maggie and provide expert testimony on whether her behavior was consistent with being an abuse victim.
- I’m not sure which parent is worse, the judge or his wife, who seems to have such an obsessive love story with him that she’s willing to sacrifice her daughter’s safety.
Over to you, SVU fanatics!
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“Law & Order: SVU” airs Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC and Fridays on Peacock.
