Law & Order (TV Series) Cruel and Unusual (1995) User Reviews

This is a Sad One

[Better_TV · 8/10 · 6 June 2018]

This one is depressing. Steve Burns of "Blue's Clues" fame plays the victim here, an autistic child who was bruised, beaten and shocked by experimental therapies at a clinic for disabled youth run by Lawrence Pressman, playing Dr. Alan Colter. The case leads to a debate over the efficacy of the treatments - including a terrifying white noise helmet called a "buzz box" - and another, even more fascinating debate over something called "facilitated communication."

Pressman is solid as yet another rich, holier-than-thou professional whose desire for success leaves injuries and bodies in his wake (this show really hates doctors, doesn't it?), and Sheila Tousey is fantastic as the mother of the victim's mute roommate (played quite convincingly by the non-mute-in-real-life Edoardo Ballerini); she has a different view of the clinic, one that complicates things for the prosecutors, and she also delivers the last, powerful line of the episode.

Even still, there's a bit of goofiness where it is clear that Kevin, the victim, has some kind of disability and isn't just a "wacko" off his face on drugs as Briscoe, Logan and the movie theater owner where Kevin was last seen separately reiterate for the first 5-6 minutes of the episode. While silly, I guess it sorta kinda makes sense given the blunt, hard-nosed personalities of both detectives.

This one's got that classic L&O scaremongering thing going on with regards to its creepy portrayal of a clinic for persons with disabilities, but it's also well-written and has a devastating ending. Worth your time!

Liberal use of electroshock

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 6 February 2016]

The death of autistic young Steve Burns in custody at the police station while Chris Noth is trying to restrain him from beating his head against the stone wall is how this story gets started. Once Mike Logan is cleared of any culpability he and Lennie Briscoe get assigned the case. Which is clearly wrong because anyone else from that precinct, But Briscoe and Logan would have caught that one.

The blame such as it is is assigned to Lawrence Pressman a doctor who runs a live-in clinic for these kids and makes liberal use of electroshock techniques that mainstream psychology has abandoned.

This episode will raise more questions than it answers. This episode is highlighted by the performances of Edoardo Ballerini as another autistic kid and his mother Sheila Tousey. There plight will elicit tears from you unless you are made of stone.

Unusual but also touching

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 24 December 2020]

Even from reading the plot synopsis, the story for "Cruel and Unusual" resonated with me as a person with autism myself. It sounded quite bizarre, with the whole experimental therapies thing, but it also sounded beautiful. Part of me knew on my first watch when getting into the show over a decade ago, that it would connect with me emotionally and that was proven luckily to be very much correct when watching an episode that came over on first watch as unusual but very moving.

A few rewatches afterwards, "Cruel and Unusual" still comes over that way. It is easily one of the best episodes of Season 5, along with "White Rabbit" and "Rage", the best 'Law and Order' episode since "Rage" and is possibly Season 5 at its most touching. "Cruel and Unusual" doesn't go overboard on the strangeness and really connected with me emotionally, in a way that made it very easy to relate to what was going on and the characters.

"Cruel and Unusual" is successful in all areas. The production values as ever have slickness and grit, with an intimacy without being claustrophobic. The music has presence when it's used but does so without being intrusive, some of it is quite haunting too. The direction is also understated but the tension never slips.

The script is another truly fine one, with "Cruel and Unusual" being one of the season's best written episodes. It is very intelligently crafted and has intensity and edge while handling the topic sensitively too, really admired it too for seeing the subject from all angles and sides which is not easy to do, complete with one of the most tear inducing final lines of the whole show in my view (something that should hit home and hard for parents).

Furthermore, the story doesn't go too heavy on the experimental therapies angle while keeping it very intriguing and creepy, enough to make one think twice about putting themselves through it, and has a very strong emotional core. The ending is heart-wrenching and the moral dilemmas/ethics of the case are intriguing and well argued.

Have no issues with the performances, all the leads are on fine form particularly Sam Waterston. It is another example of an episode where the supporting cast are even better. Lawrence Pressman does give one the creeps and Edoardo Ballerini is touching as a character that hit home with me, but the biggest impression comes from Sheila Tousey as the character whose point of view is the most understandable and felt.

Overall, wonderful and one of the season's best. 10/10

Treating the lowest of mine.

[rmax304823 · 30 October 2011]

It's an unusually important episode, though it throws in some twists near the end that cause the story to lose its focus on a social problem.

The social problem is autism. Nobody knows what it is. The condition begins at birth and stays that way. The child grows up and seems to be so self absorbed that no one else is admitted to his mind. There's a lot of other stuff, but they're often mute and score low on IQ tests. (And why not? They don't care about doing well on your damned test.) In this case an adolescent autistic boy drops dead because of the application of severe shocks and a sensory-deprivation device that a clinic has illegally applied as part of an aversion therapy program. When the kid behaves well, he's rewarded. When he has a fit, he's shocked or kept in a sensory-deprivation helmet.

A few parents have objected and sued the doctor in charge, but most parents, if they see any improvement at all, are happy with the results, so it's hard for McCoy and Kinkaid to get witnesses. Moreover, the sensory-deprivation device, a red helmet that caused the original death, is missing. And Defense Councel, Jeffrey DeMunn, has come up with a witness who will testify that the red helmet was never used at the clinic. The witness is a mute adolescent boy whose mother will stabilize his hand as he types out responses on a computer.

The first question raised has to do with the use of aversion therapy in behavior modification. Elizabeth Olivet, the police shrink, testifies that the results are temporary, that patients adapt to the shocks, and the voltage must be raised. Then, during the trial, another problem is addressed. Is the autistic witness's mother merely stabilizing her son's hand or is she guiding it? I have a degree in clinical psychology but the therapy I did was family counseling, while I also did considerable research with psychotics and children in special ed classes. I never dealt directly with autistic children and never used behavior modification, though I've seen it used. It works, for certain circumscribed conditions, like a propensity for violence and rape. (I won't describe the technique.) Booster shots are sometimes necessary but not at increased voltage. Dr. Olivet is wrong, unless the literature has changed since I retired.

The second problem, brought up in the trial, is more subtle but equally important. The mother of the autistic witness, a fine performance by Sheila Tousey, genuinely believes that her son is capable of thinking and responding appropriately, although his IQ has tested at around 30, so he's profoundly retarded. In court, McCoy demonstrates that it's not the child who is typing but the mother. The mother is deprived now of her child's love, of which she now realizes he is incapable, and, with the clinic closed, she must take her retarded and loveless son home and care for him herself. "What am I going to do with him?," she asks McCoy. "Do YOU want him? Do YOU want to take him home with you?" It's a poignant moment and McCoy has no answer, and neither does anyone else.

Harrowing episode.

[wkozak221 · 10/10 · 27 February 2021]

I have a huge problem with this episode. It disturbs me. I was in Psychology for 20 years. I never heard of this type of therapy for autistic people. I remember using a helmet to prevent head injury when they banged their head. However we used behavior modification to shape and change their behavior including head banging. Harrowing episode.

Kids

[safenoe · 6/10 · 5 February 2024]

In the same year that Larry Clarke's controversial movie Kids was released, so was this Law and Order episode, Cruel and Unusual. This episode was directed by Matthew Penn. He actually looks like Sean Penn, but I don't think there's any family ties.

Anyway, in Cruel and Unusual, Edoardo Ballerini plays David Vilardi, and the episode ended rather sadly and left Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) lost for words because what was the point of achieving victory but causing grief to a mother who has no institution to look after her son David, played by Edoardo Ballerini.

Anyway, this episode was kind of by the numbers.