NBC
Can we take a minute to talk about the newest episode of Law & Order: SVU? It was completely insane. The Law & Order franchise has been on the air since the first Bush was president and shows no signs of slowing down. A big reason behind its success is the formulaic nature of it. A crime is committed, the detectives look for the bad guys, the DA’s office gets involved, and generally the bad guy goes to jail. This basic formula is seen in all of the Law & Orders, but each one puts their own twist on it. In SVU‘s case, the detectives deal with sex crimes — except for last night’s episode, titled “Swing,” in which they totally flipped the script.
I’ve watched a lot of SVU, and this is the first episode that hasn’t dealt with a major crime. In “Swing,” larceny was the biggest crime committed. The twist? It was committed by by Elliot’s daughter, Kathleen, who is totally crazy pants!
Okay, so “crazy pants” probably isn’t the best way to describe it. According to the doctor, she has Bipolar Disorder. Because of this, Elliot’s sweet little daughter, who, in a recent episode, stole his credit card and went on a shopping spree with her boyfriend, is getting into a little more trouble than even he realized.
The episode opens with her breaking into somebody’s house to take a shower (and, uh, steal an expensive diamond pendant). The owner wakes up and, in perhaps the funniest scene in SVU‘s history, immediately starts clubbing her with a baseball bat.
As Elliot goes around trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with his daughter, he finds out that, like Marcia Brady, she’s a giant coke whore. In fact, she OD’s and he finds her like that with some dude passed out on top of her. It’s pretty awkward watching him throw his nearly naked daughter over his shoulder and carry her out of an abandoned dry cleaners.
Also awkward? Ellen Burstyn’s guest appearance as his mother. Apparently, she’s Bipolar as well, and Elliot asks her to help Kathleen out by establishing a family history of mental illness for the court. She’s completely manic when he visits and we find out some interesting stories from Elliot’s childhood, like the time his mother went nuts and shot at him and his father.
Everything works out in the end, when Elliot’s mother convinces Kathleen to get help. She checks herself into an in-patient facility and all the charges are dropped.
I really enjoyed this episode, despite the fact that it veered from the standard SVU formula. It was a little weird that Fin only had one line and Munch didn’t even make an appearance, but that’s been known to happen before. I found the scenes with both Elliot’s mother and Kathleen to be very uncomfortable, but I can’t figure out if that was because of the subject matter or their acting choices. They both seemed pretty over-the-top to me and I couldn’t really tell if they were accurately portraying Bipolar disorder, or just chewing scenery.
Regardless, I enjoy it when procedurals switch things up, so I applaud what the writers did here. What do you guys think? Was this episode a welcome change, or should SVU stick to the formula?
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Oct 15, 2008 @ 18:31 EST5EDT
Hooray for the LBI shoutout! But there’s no boardwalk, and I’m pretty sure there’s no Hal’s Crab Shack either.
I haven’t watched this episode yet, but I have to say: 1. kudos to cliqueclack for reviewing SVU; and 2. the storyline seems reminiscent of what Vic Mackey is going through with his daughter on The Shield.
It is reminiscent of that, although Mackey’s daughter is just rebelling, instead of acting out due to a mental illness. On the other hand, she’s 14, whereas Stabler’s daughter is 19, so that makes it a bit scarier.
To answer your question, it’s great when procedural shows break out of their formula from time to time. Like this week’s SVU it usually tends to be among the better episodes.
However if they make it a habit though with pretensions of being a “real” drama, they usually fail.