Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV Series) Bad Blood (2000) User Reviews

Dysfunctional murder

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 20 September 2019]

Despite only being Season 1, which usually for most shows tends to be "finding its feet"/"taking time to settle" period, 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' has fared very well up to this point of it. Of the previous episodes, "Wanderlust" and "Stocks and Bondage" disappointed, the only episodes to do so while still not bad, but on the other side of the opinion scale "Payback", "Uncivilised", "Stalked" and "Closure" were outstanding. All the other episodes were very good.

Apart from one aspect, Season 1's and 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit's' eleventh episode "Bad Blood" is a great episode and among the season's better and more interesting at this still early point of it. It has a very interesting case and Olivia's subplot is quite powerful stuff, both equally strong rather than being a case of one being better done than the other and they don't feel unbalanced either rather than one being favoured and the other neglected.

"Bad Blood" looks suitably slick and doesn't look too drab, suiting the gritty tone more than convincingly. The taut and intelligent dialogue is allowed to do all the talking and is not drowned out by constant and over-obvious music, which is used sparingly and generally low-key apart from in major revelations. The main theme is not hard to forget. The dialogue has momentum and provokes thought (the genetics discussion is a great scene), approaching a difficult subject with tact, with some nice dry humour from Munch. Really enjoy the team interaction, the sympathetic one between Elliot and Olivia being beautifully handled and a reminder of how and why they work so well together.

The case is gripping with enough twists and turns to satisfy, nothing is obvious really here. Just as good is Olivia's subplot, really felt for Olivia here and found the subplot harrowing and poignantly done. The chemistry between her and Elliot and Mariska Hargitay's haunted performance help a lot. The acting is very good, Hargitay, Christopher Meloni and Richard Belzer being spot on and Jerry Lanning playing a nasty piece of work to suitably repellent effect.

My only complaint with "Bad Blood" is when all is revealed, which for my tastes came over as a bit convoluted and difficult to get the head round.

Overall though, a great episode. 9/10

genetic erratum

[estrognboy · 8/10 · 23 January 2007]

In this episode (# 1.11), entitled "Bad Blood", the medical examiner's report makes a reference to mitochondrial DNA, denoted as mtDNA, (extranuclear DNA which is transmitted ONLY from a mother to her child). Detective Stabler MISTAKENLY reasons that this DNA might also match that of the (male) suspect's father or son, while Detective Benson correctly suggests that it could belong to that of his brother.

One small caveat to Detective Stabler's otherwise incorrect statement: if the person in question was a female, the mtDNA could indeed belong to her son (or daughter), as well as her siblings, her mother, her maternal aunts, uncles and grandmother, as well as any of her own daughter's descendants, and so on (both up and down the generational ladder). For a man, the match could exist only in the upwards direction of the generational ladder (siblings, mother, grandmother, and maternal aunts & uncles), as well as his sister's descendants, but NOT in his own descendants and NOT in his father.

Although a mitochondrial DNA analysis might show a match, it is inconclusive evidence because, as explained above, it does not single out one person, but does narrow the search down to a particular familial lineage. Further analysis of genomic (nuclear) DNA must be done to more accurately identify a potential match.

Other possible forensic DNA matches which might confuse the uninformed include sex-chromosome matches; i.e., the X and Y chromosomes. A brief genetics lesson: women have two X chromosomes, while men have one X and one Y chromosome.

The simpler of the two potential mix-up cases, the Y chromosome is passed from father to son, which establishes a very straightforward paternal lineage of man after man. So a man could be wrongly identified while the real culprit could be his father, brother, son, etc. It should be noted, however, that family lineages can be expansive, and fourth cousins could just as easily share the same Y chromosome markers. The simplicity is in the fact that the Y chromosome is exclusive to men.

Conversely, X chromosome transmission is similar to the pattern that mtDNA follows, in that a mother passes an X chromosome to each of her children, although there is variability in which of her two X chromosome gets transmitted to which child, a phenomenon which is well documented as "X-linked traits," whose distinctive patterns differ from traditional Mendelian patterns of autosomal (non-sex chromosomes -- basically, all the rest of the chromosomes) inheritance. Another twist, which both complicates and simplifies matters, is that a father passes his ONLY X chromosome to all of his daughters.

My educated guess is that paternity tests are conducted using markers on the X and Y chromosomes, depending on the gender of the child in question. A boy would require a Y chromosome match with his alleged father, while a girl would need a match on one of her X chromosomes to identify her father. Maternity tests, on the other hand, are as simple as mtDNA matches. Leaving aside the rare possibility of mutations (which further complicate matters), it is important to remember that these parental identification tests are not 100% conclusive, as one's relatives could just as easily provide matches. In other words, one might be found to be the father of a child when in fact it was his brother, etc.