Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV Series) Fault (2006) User Reviews

Weakness

[yazguloner · 10/10 · 17 May 2021]

A story as powerful as 911. Olivia and Elliot performances are very good. Olivia's throat injury, child loss, Olivia and elliot's quarrels, calculations in hostage etc many weaknesses.

They were good performances cragen, warner, huang and special guest stars...

Faultless

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 20 May 2021]

"Fault" made a major impression on me on first watch, in a way surpassed only as far as Season 7 episodes go by "911" and "Raw". It came over as a truly powerful episode, in a way that was both intense and moving and the perpetrator burned in the memory for a long time afterwards. As did the whole dynamic between Stabler and Olivia and the terminal scene. While 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' had many amazing episodes it did have lows too and it was around this point where the show wasn't as consistent as before.

There are 'Special Victims Unit' episodes that get better and better with each watch. "Fault" for me is one of those episodes. Like "Venom", except even more so and a lot of other episodes, everything that was so good on first watch is still so good and there was even more to appreciate and love. Season 7 was very hit and miss and easily the worst of the seven seasons up to this point (a disappointment after such a good Season 6), the best hits were amazing but the worst misses were really not good at all. "Fault" is one of the best hits and definitely a top 5 of the season.

Production values are slick and professional, not ever resorting to cheap or untested gimmicks or anything. The music is haunting in the right places and isn't constant or too loud, and the direction gives the drama urgency and breathing space.

In my view, the writing was very taut and its pull no punches quality was very powerful at its best. The dialogue in the scenes with Gitano and the exchanges between Stabler and Olivia absolutely blisters, dripping with intensity. The story was attention grabbing from the very start and grew in tension and a real care for the hunt for the perpetrator and his victims to be successful. The highlight being the terrifyingly nail-biting scene at the terminal, where Stabler's and Olivia's conflicted feelings are relatable and not unrealistic at all. In a situation like this, it is difficult to choose between saving a long term partner and apprehending the perpetrator when any situation involving a child is very personal.

Absolutely loved how Stabler and Olivia were written and their chemistry. Both are conflicted characters with moral dilemmas in "Fault", which was especially apparent in the terminal scene, and it is very clear (it has always been clear, but this up to this point is the clearest it ever was) that they care for each other so much. As one can tell in lines of dialogue that sound so simple but delivered with a lot of meaning. Seeing them together in the aftermath was tense and heart-breaking, where both sides can be seen.

Both Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay are incredible here in performances worthy of Emmy contention (Hargitay though did win for her even better work in "911"). As is a bone-chilling Lou Diamond Phillips as one of the most amoral characters not just on 'Special Victims Unit' but also of the whole franchise.

Summing up, absolutely brilliant. This is what 'Special Victims Unit' is all about. 10/10.

Outstanding episode

[7thheavenfan-1 · 10/10 · 10 April 2007]

Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni did a remarkable job. This episode was my favorite episode of the season. I was impressed how Benson and Stabler carried the hostage situation. Though I was a bit upset on how Dick Wolf ended the episode with Olivia asking Cragen for a new partner. I understand that Olivia and Elliot need a brake from each other..they have been partners since the show began seven seasons ago. Elliot and Olivia both are putting each other ahead of the job.to some extend that is a good thing, but at this point they are putting the other too much ahead of the job, and that is when judgments are going to be question.

One of the best of the series

[fabiogaucho · 10/10 · 2 February 2011]

The trivia section says the end of the episode was written in order to accommodate the main actress's need for a leave. The writers decide to do it by putting the detectives an some extreme situation that would make her ask to be reassigned.

That kind of arrangement can lead to some stupid writing - just remember the ludicrous House episode where they had to get rid of Kutner because the actor was no longer available. This time, however, it led to one of the best SVU episodes ever. The usual vitriol about race/class/gender privilege is absent. The story focuses on a very cruel and very cunning bad guy who puts the two lead characters to extreme decisions with which they may not be able to live. Both the hunt and the drama become far more compelling than the usual.

I wish SVU (and the other spin-offs) had more episodes like this and less "social issues" gibberish.

Total sociopath

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 9 June 2019]

Lou Diamond Phillips makes a guest star appearance in this SVU story and it's the tale of a total sociopath who slaughtered 3 family members and kidnapped two young children for an evening's fun at sadism before killing them. That's his disturbing pattern and the squad is in a race against time.

In the history of the show Phillips might well be the most evil perpetrator the squad ever came up against. Totally amoral he fits at least the concept I have that there are folks in this world who are pure evil. The last half of the show is the squad on the hunt and then it's just Lou and Christopher Meloni.

One not to miss.

Blithering incompetence

[wdstarr-1 · 3/10 · 18 December 2020]

This episode had a lot to recommend it, but it's destroyed by the absurd failure-by-incompetence of the squad's attempt to take down a vicious bad guy in a crowded bus terminal by assigning a grand total of three, count 'em, three, police officers -- Benson, Stabler, and Tutuola -- to the exercise. This was unforgivably bad writing, and made all the suspense and angst of the rest of the episode -- none of which would have happened if they'd only had a sane number of cops there to do the job -- feel pointless.

Appalling

[susan111_az · 17 July 2011]

Trumped-up, self-indulgent melodrama worthy of the worst fanfiction: Stabler, distracted over his then-impending divorce, is consumed with guilt over making a mistake. Culminates with his unsuccessful attempt, in full MY ANGST IS PASTEDE ON YEY mode, to commit suicide-by-partner. His Catholic cowardice is quite astonishing: if Benson is responsible for his death, that exonerates him of the mortal sin of suicide, and how it will affect *her* -- that she'll have to carry the responsibility for his death the rest of her life -- apparently does not disturb him in the slightest. I have to some degree despised the character of Elliot Stabler ever since this episode.

Can't stand this show

[gs20 · 1/10 · 30 June 2015]

If this episode doesn't demonstrate the flaws in these characters as written or the author's nonsensical representation of real police officers, I really don't know what else could. I was actually so nonplussed by this episode that I've decided to stop watching this tripe altogether. Just for instance, after the criminal cuts the throat of a child on a train platform and after countless murders and tortures, Olivia still doesn't shoot him even though he is holding Elliot as a hostage, even when there is clearly two and a half feet of his body above Elliot for a clear shot. As well, Elliot, a former marine, makes no attempt to spin on the gun, incredibly poorly handled by the criminal, even though it is dancing around on his shoulder. Another reviewer already mentioned the incredible melodrama that wracks this show and I have to agree. It is a cartoon of the manner and procedures implemented by real police and I can only wonder at the laughter that this nonsense provokes whenever real cops watch this stuff. It is as if they think we'll go for any kind of Hollywood soap opera as long as in the last few minutes the characters are all saved by the nameless sharpshooter at the end. What bushwah.