In the past few years, SVU has positioned itself not as "ripped from the headlines" so much as "cobbled together from some Websites." Case in point: Mea Culpa is less like a story than an idea. What if an uber-sensitive male -- the sort who would pass a quiz in Cosmopolitan about the ideal mate -- suddenly finds himself accused of sexual assault? And what if he is so noble and passionate about his cause, he's not only willing to believe it but practically serve as his own prosecutor, even if there is no physical evidence and by her own admission the victim was passed out when it allegedly occurred? The rest is just filling in the players to make the story creak to life. In this case, there are further disadvantages, the most critical being the bland new ADA played by Philip Winchester. He's supposed to be the son of Ben Stone, the first ADA on the original Law and Order series, and while Michael Moriarty played Stone with Boy Scout seriousness, he was never boring. Winchester approaches the role with a weird mixture of being tedious in his delivery of lines while paradoxically seeming restless in his body language when uncalled for. It's a strange, off-putting performance that never gets better, especially at the writers continue to push his character further and further to the point of absurdity (culminating in his leaving the series because, I guess, he's fallen under Benson's incomparable, Siren-like sway over men). There's not much else to the episode except the sort of lazy twists and turns one expects from daytime TV, including an obvious villain portrayed by some d-bag straight out of central casting. There's also a cheesy soap subplot about the always annoying Rollins, with Carisi serving as yet another version of the Cosmopolitan guy. How sad this show got.
