Law & Order: SVU is back, and it jumped right into an intense case that Carisi had trouble prosecuting because of his recent hostage experience.
But did Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 9 rush too quickly to the other side of his struggles?
Our TV Fanatics Jasmine Blu, Laura Nowak, and Jack Ori discuss this, as well as whether Rollins was used appropriately, whether this week’s perp needed more of a motive for his disgusting behavior, and more.
Rate how Carisi’s PTSD was depicted from 1 (that was terrible, unrealistic, and offensive) to 10 (the best depiction of PTSD ever)
Jasmine: I would give it a six, maybe? I thought, for the most part, it was decent, and I’ve been intrigued by this aspect of the storyline since the bodega situation. I really felt for Carisi.
Laura: I was going to give it a 7. I thought it was well done. I appreciated how realistic it was, especially how he walked out of the same bodega and didn’t even want to work at first.
I hope this isn’t the end of this since both Liv and Amanda have seen therapists before.
Jack: I thought it was well done as well, though I agree with Laura that Carisi needs therapy rather than just evaporating. I’ll give it an 8.5.
Carisi seemed to take Benson’s advice to heart and get back to being an aggressive prosecutor. How long do you think this will last?
Jasmine: I think if they want to be realistic about this, it won’t last for long.
I would expect (and hope) for him to go on a journey of having good and bad moments, struggling at times like he did here. He has a lot he has to work out, and one pep talk from Olivia isn’t enough.
Laura: As Jasmine commented, one pep talk should not be enough. I hope this story continues as mentioned above via counseling, etc.
Jack: Agreed with the above. I was concerned about how quickly he seemed to be able to put it aside.
Olivia’s pep talks are a big part of the show, but it would be unrealistic for that to be the end of it. At the very least, Carisi should still struggle in private, even if he is able to push it aside to do his job.
SVU is usually realistic in how it depicts mental health issues, especially trauma-related ones, so I would be surprised if they dropped the ball completely here.
Rollins played a very small part on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 9. Was it worth it?
Jasmine: No? Like, I know how popular Rollisi is and get the excitement over showcasing them and all of that.
But I don’t think they’ve done the best or most consistent job with how they use Rollins when she’s on. The moment with Carisi and the whole family was cute, though.
Laura: I’m torn. I’m a massive Rollisi fan and one of those fans Jack mentioned in his review who felt let down. It was absolutely important that Amanda be shown while Carisi was healing, and he wanted her there during the case.
I wish they would’ve shown her doing more. That pizza parlor scene with the entire Rollisi family was precious, though.
Jack: I was annoyed that they hyped this episode as a Rollisi episode, and then Rollins was barely in it.
This is the same thing they did on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8. In both cases, Rollins got cameo appearances just to say they included her when she could have been doing so much more.
Even though it still would have only been a cameo, I almost wish that they had only included Rollins in the pizza scene, which I also thought was adorable.
If they had done that, I would have felt, okay, she’s only there to support him in this one family scene, cool.
But having her come to the squad room to help investigate and then do all her investigation off-screen was ridiculous.
SVU didn’t offer any motive for Harris’ decision to catfish men into raping his wife. Did he need one beyond being a sleazy and gross guy?
Jasmine: Did he need one? Not exactly. Unfortunately, depravity knows no bounds. But would I have still liked something more concrete to flesh out this storyline? Yeah.
I feel like it was a question looming over the case that never got answered, and even if I were his wife, I’d want something.
Laura: Like Jasmine, I wish we’d gotten one for him being a complete jerk and acting like he could control her. That bothered me to the extreme.
Jack: This annoyed me too. Obviously, predators are gonna be predators, so in that sense, he doesn’t need a motive other than he felt like having that power over his wife.
Additionally, in the real-life case this was based on, Gisèle Pelicot is on record saying that she can only guess why her husband did this to her, so perhaps SVU was trying to be true to the source material by keeping the motive a mystery.
Still, I wanted to know why this guy would do this.
Maybe I’m overcomplicating it by not thinking his belief his wife’s body was his to do with as he wished isn’t enough of an explanation, but I felt like I was missing something.
Were the men who raped Katharine equally culpable even though they had been tricked into believing she wanted it?
Jasmine: Yes. And the reason I say this is because none of these men actually interacted with her directly to get some clarity, talk about boundaries, or anything.
Essentially, they arranged all of this with Harris, but at no point at all thought they should speak directly with the woman they intended to have sex with, and that was ten kinds of stupid and didn’t sit right with my spirit.
At some point, how do you get tricked into that when you didn’t do your diligence, either?
Laura: Again, this was tricky. Were they sleazeballs? Absolutely, though I felt some for Derek, I think his name was.
He was the only one who showed any empathy towards Katharine, and SVU and Law & Order often make deals to go after the bigger fish.
Jack: I think Jasmine has a really good point here. If you’re going to do something where the other person is incapacitated in any way, you need their buy-in, know the boundaries, safe words, and all that.
Even if the men thought that Katharine had consented, the fact that they didn’t care enough to make sure they didn’t accidentally violate her boundaries in the scenario she supposedly wanted speaks volumes.
They didn’t respect her agency or right to say no, so even if they didn’t think they were raping her, they had the mindset that her wants didn’t matter.
Anything else not covered above?
Jasmine: I have such a love (oh yeah, she’s still there) relationship with the new girl. She had some solid moments but I swear she’s generally so underused that I forget that she’s there.
Laura: On that note, why did they hire so many new people if they’re not going to use them?
Jack: This annoys me too, Laura.
Supposedly parting ways with Kelli Giddish and hiring new actors instead is a cost-saving measure, but considering how little they use the newcomers (especially the latest one), it seems like that’s a waste of money that could be used toward more screen time for Rollins.
Also, when Carisi mentioned Baxter had called him about his screw-up in court, I had trouble imagining it. I could have believed the DA was passionate and upset if McCoy were still in that position, but Baxter is just too soft-spoken.
We needed that scene on-screen to make it believable.
What was your favorite scene, quote, or storyline on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8?
Jasmine: I thought the defense attorney handing Carisi his behind in this case was interesting. He really struggled, but sometimes, I like the realism of seeing a challenge and going back and forth.
Laura: Mine should be no surprise. The Rollisi pizza parlor scene. We need more family scenes to balance the seriousness of the show, and we need Kelli back full-time.
Jack: I loved the family scene too. I really hope we get more scenes like that!
Over to you, Law & Order: SVU fanatics.
Hit the comments with your answers to these questions and your thoughts about Law & Order: SVU Season 26, Episode 9.
Law & Order: SVU airs on NBC on Thursdays at 9/8c and on Peacock on Fridays.
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