Yeah, I'm gonna spoil the ever loving crap out of this episode, so don't read it if you haven't watched it and intend to.
The episode starts with what I figured was the discovering-the-body scene, but it's actually the witness-the-crime scene. I was delighted to see Hayley McFarland, who I adore, in the scene. Hayley's character and her mom are walking from a store after just having gone dress shopping, and there's some adorably cute mother/daughter gushing, before a masked stranger runs in and snatches Mom's purse. She struggles with him for a moment, before Jenna (Hayley's character) tells the Mom to just let him take it. Sensible. So she does. The masked man responds by pulling out a gun and shooting her point blank in the middle of the forehead.
My jaw just hit the floor when this happened. I'm not sure what I expected of the scene, since purse-snatching isn't the sort of crime that would require Benson and Stabler, but I was definitely sucked in here and man this really worked well. It felt like a giant punch to the gut, and, well, grain of salt since I already said I LOVE her, but I credit Hayley McFarland for that.
So it turns out the Mom was the complainant in an upcoming rape trial, one the SVU cops figured was a slam dunk. They investigate her rapist, which leads them to a homeless man who lives at Sister Peg's shelter. Ah, good ol' Sister Peg. Haven't seen her in four seasons. She's sporting an interesting hairdo for a nun, but it's easily explained by the storyline (the accused rapist is a barber - and yes I am using that term correctly - who provides haircuts and styles for the homeless).
Then the story takes a bizarre turn when the man they connected to the accused rapist turns out to be an informant for the feds. After a botched sting operation (which...what the sh*t?), he's in the wind again. But they track him down and are able to tie him to the murder which started the episode. It even turns out that the federal agent for whom he was working supplied him with the gun he used in the murder (for "protection"). The federal agent, the murderer, and the rapist are all arrested, and justice appears to be served.
And then Jenna shows up in the station house. She talks to Benson for a moment, and Benson reveals the identity of her mom's killer and the federal agent who gave him the gun (which...what the sh*t?). Jenna stares them down and walks away, thanking Benson and saying she's as good as she'll ever be. This seems like a suitable ending buuuutttt...
Right as I'm thinking "well, at least they didn't have her shoot up the place," she totally freaking shoots up the place. This is crap. They've done the whole "vigilante justice" thing several times before. She shoots the rapist and the agent dead. The murderer survives his first shot, and she poises to shoot him again, but Stabler shoots Jenna first. He runs over to her, kicks the gun away, and holds her, but she dies in his arms talking about how easy it was to get the gun. She just bought it on the street (really? I mean, _really?_). Oh, and she kills Sister Peg, too. I can't even remember why she was in the station house. And don't station houses have metal detectors? They do in pretty much every other episode of this series.
I'll say one thing for this episode - it succeeded at what it wasn't actually trying to do, and that's to give Stabler a send off. This WAS his last episode, but only because Christopher Meloni wouldn't sign a new contract. It wasn't really planned ahead of time, and this episode likely would have been written just as it was even if it weren't his last. But....shooting a kid to death in your own station house. That's gotta suck.
This episode was hyped as Stabler's last, and for featuring a fatality. But where CSU Tech O'Halloran's death in the season 10 finale "Zebras" was a legit shock moment, this barely registered with me. Probably because O'Halloran had been in over 50 episodes and Sister Peg hadn't been seen in four years. Also because what was she even doing there? I'm sure there was a reason, but I should be able to remember it not 24 hours after watching the episode.
And such a cliché ending. I'd say I'm at least happy Hayley got to play a different sort of role than usual for her, but really, it was only the least bit different for the last two minutes of the episode. The rest of it was weepy victim. There was even the uber-cliché "I trusted you and you let me down~!" scene. Poor Hayley. She's now 20 but totally still looks 15. I hope she doesn't mind playing high school kids for at least another five years. If she ever gets a role any more interesting than that, I'll be all over it.
So see ya, Stabler. Wish you could have had a better episode see you off.
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