Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV Series) Betrayal's Climax (2014) User Reviews

Princess and the Pauper

[Dorjee_Wang · 8/10 · 31 October 2016]

This was an interesting episode. A rich upper west side girl is in a relationship with a poor boy, who is in a gang. And his gangmates gang rape her while forcing him to watch the assault. The episode touches topics like orgasm during rape, and the naivety of young people in love, it's almost whimsical.

Avery Capshaw (played by Fiona Robert) is ganged raped in front of her boyfriend and experiences multiple orgasms during the period. She feels guilty about the orgasms as she never experienced it with her boyfriend. The boyfriend, Manny Montero (played by Juan Castano) is angry at her for climaxing during the brutal act and refuses to testify against the rapists even though they held a gun to his head and forced him to watch the act. The whole episode is a back and forth of trying to get both the witnesses to testify against the perps, who are too smug for their own good. The final swing which fortified the case gave me great satisfaction.

While the case itself is interesting, the Detectives' personal lives are untouched here except for implicit overtones in Rollins' interactions with the victim. Olivia got some news about Amaro in the last episode near the end and the news is lost in script here with no mention of it. Benson takes her Sergeant plea at the start of the episode, which is a nice touch. Sadly, this season the main cast is down to only 5 characters, although that could be a positive thing as well since a smaller cast means a greater scope of development for each of them.

Anyway, interesting case, nice nuance in character interactions, it's an entertaining episode. Is it "wow"? No, yet it's still good enough. 8/10

Handles a very touchy subject very well

[duanculo · 10/10 · 8 March 2016]

The episode highlights young romance and naivety on both the parts of Manny, who essentially allowed his girlfriend to be assaulted and Avery, who swears Manny was not involved in what transpired. Things are further complicated due to the fact that Avery had multiple orgasms during the assault, something she had never had with Manny who was forced to watch, and the three gang members accused of the act use this as their defense that Avery had 'wanted it' because she was 'coming like a freight train' and that Manny was the one who invited them over. I thought the episode did well in exploring a very touchy subject (female orgasms during a violent assault) without being too graphic or focusing too much on the gory details. There is a lot of misunderstanding about orgasms during rape but what people need to understand and what the show tries to highlight is, rape is rape, an unwanted sexual act, and that does not change even if the victim orgasms during the assault. Well done SVU.

Romeo and Juliet in Svu, Jack and Rose: Loyalty(Avery and Manny) and Blind Loyalty (Gang brotherhood)

[yazguloner · 10/10 · 5 August 2021]

There is a very sweet couple in this story. They are very pure and very friendly.

However, their love is injured by the attacks of the gangs. Manny is a poor teenager living in a poor neighborhood. And poor neighborhoods have left their distrust of laws and uniforms to the gangs. Manny lost his brother in the gang war. His grandmother was attacked. Instead of going to the law enforcement for protection, he tries to protect himself and his family by being a member of a gang. (Unfortunately, there are some valid reasons.) This vicious circle causes vulnerable people to suffer many crimes such as violence, drugs, abuse and rape.

Avery is from a wealthy family, well brought up and making artistic pictures. She and Manny are bound by a pure love for each other. But misfortunes do not leave them.

Their love for each other is so strong that they still protect each other, even if they hurt each other. They even risk death for each other.

Rose's suicide scene in Titanic is not on the ship this time, but on the roof.

The scenes with Amaro and grandmother Rosa Montero (Teresa Yenque) are nice. Rosa Montero is so natural, so sweet... Respectufully...

The consequences of betrayal

[TheLittleSongbird · 6/10 · 3 August 2022]

"Betrayal's Climax" was another one of the uneven episodes of Season 15 on first watch. Liked the first half and some individual components but the second half had too much of a tried too hard feel. The concept is another one of the familiar but also interesting ones that could go either way in execution, just to say that revisiting familiar territory doesn't automatically mean something is bad but it is dependent on whether the execution does anything new or special with it.

The good news is that there are far more over-familiar and derivative episodes of 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' than "Betrayal's Climax" and there are a lot of things done well. Did think that the episode started off well. Just like what was felt on first viewing, the second half isn't as strong. To me, one cannot accuse the writers of not trying with "Betrayal's Climax", if anything with the second half the episode was more of a try too harder than a non-trier.

Am going to begin with the good. Cannot fault the acting, especially Mariska Hargitay, like in her reaction to being threatened, and poignant Fiona Robert. Really rooted for Avery, Manny and their chemistry, the shocking turn of events concerning one of them is truly saddening and one of those wish it had never happened events.

Production values are still fully professional, the slickness and subtly gritty style still remaining. The music is sparingly used and is haunting and thankfully non-overwrought. The direction shows some nice tension in the middle act. There is genuine ension due to the responsible being legitimately menacing, with a touchy subject done more tactfully than expected. Olivias promotion was heart warming and after initially worrying about it being too much too soon this convinced me she was the right person for the job.

On the other hand, "Betrayal's Climax" tries to pack in too many elements in the story and only succeeds properly in the central relationship, everything else is not delved into enough for my liking. Also did find it over-stretched later and felt that the dialogue could have been tauter.

Furthermore, Barba (who on the whole was one of the best things about the latter seasons and one of the main reasons as to why the show was still stuck with) infuriated me here just as much as he did in "Psycho/Therapist" and makes stupid decisions for reasons that are vague, especially with the tape. The moment he dismissed it, this was enough to throw the case out with too little to go on and where the episode could easily have stopped. Rather than filling out the second half in a bloated way, which did make the story momentum suffer.

In summary, slightly above average but uneven. 6/10.

Tough dual existence

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 16 May 2015]

The SVU squad catches a case involving the rape of Fiona Robert who is a well to do girl going to a very posh prep school. Suspected in the rape is another student Juan Castano a kid from the barrio in on a scholarship.

There was a rape involved, but it wasn't Castano. He and Robert are an item. Some gangbangers from his neighborhood are the guilty parties. But Castano who maintains a really tough dual existence as a gang member and a scholarship won't rat out his mates. His brother was a gang member and he was killed and he feels loyalty to them.

For a bright kid on a scholarship Castano is really stupid if he can't figure out what's wrong in the scenario. It's the main weakness of this story.

Olivia Benson is a newly minted sergeant and taking command over at SVU. This was one tough case to break in with.