This struck me as a mostly fantastic episode on first watch, especially the clever story, the suspense and the acting. Despite being underwhelmed by the ending. While my assessments of a lot of 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' episodes haven't changed on re-watches, there are also a lot of episodes where my opinion changes in both a good and bad way, mostly thankfully good. The premise was very interesting and there are a lot of great Olivia-centric episodes.
Season 11's ninth episode is one of those. My opinion of it is still extremely high and it was fantastic in pretty much every way until a certain point, one of the few highest rated episodes of the season to deserve the positive hype in my view. Season 11 was mostly pretty solid up to this point (despite some underwhelming endings and too much unprofessionalism), but with only two episodes that fit my definition of great. One was this and the other was "Turmoil".
Almost everything is wonderful. It is extremely well acted, especially Mariska Hargitay who always did steel, determination and vulnerability so well and still does (although the show on the whole has not felt the same for a long time). Loved the team interaction, even when things looked bad for Olivia (and a large part of the suspense is that it increasingly looks bad) they were still supportive and clearly care for her. Especially Stabler in one of the few times this season where his loose cannon personality is understandable somewhat.
It is always great to see Munch and he is typically perceptive and dry humoured, loved his grammatical error clip. The script is taut and thought provoking. The story has plenty of clever and unexpected twists and turns, without getting over-stuffed or convoluted, and the suspense factor is some of the season's highest.
Production values are solid and the intimacy of the photography doesn't get static or too filmed play-like. The music when used is not too over-emphatic and has a melancholic edge that is quite haunting. The direction is accomodating yet also alert.
On the other hand, it is not a perfect episode. Its only major fault is the truly implausible big stretch that is the ending, it confused me on first watch and to this day it is hard to swallow because it is so unlikely. It is definitely unexpected, but that is pretty much it when it comes to saying anything good about the ending.
Don't care for Tucker all that much too, he seems too cold somewhat.
Concluding, excellent. 9/10.
Season 11's ninth episode is one of those. My opinion of it is still extremely high and it was fantastic in pretty much every way until a certain point, one of the few highest rated episodes of the season to deserve the positive hype in my view. Season 11 was mostly pretty solid up to this point (despite some underwhelming endings and too much unprofessionalism), but with only two episodes that fit my definition of great. One was this and the other was "Turmoil".
Almost everything is wonderful. It is extremely well acted, especially Mariska Hargitay who always did steel, determination and vulnerability so well and still does (although the show on the whole has not felt the same for a long time). Loved the team interaction, even when things looked bad for Olivia (and a large part of the suspense is that it increasingly looks bad) they were still supportive and clearly care for her. Especially Stabler in one of the few times this season where his loose cannon personality is understandable somewhat.
It is always great to see Munch and he is typically perceptive and dry humoured, loved his grammatical error clip. The script is taut and thought provoking. The story has plenty of clever and unexpected twists and turns, without getting over-stuffed or convoluted, and the suspense factor is some of the season's highest.
Production values are solid and the intimacy of the photography doesn't get static or too filmed play-like. The music when used is not too over-emphatic and has a melancholic edge that is quite haunting. The direction is accomodating yet also alert.
On the other hand, it is not a perfect episode. Its only major fault is the truly implausible big stretch that is the ending, it confused me on first watch and to this day it is hard to swallow because it is so unlikely. It is definitely unexpected, but that is pretty much it when it comes to saying anything good about the ending.
Don't care for Tucker all that much too, he seems too cold somewhat.
Concluding, excellent. 9/10.
