Our “feature” last night was the two-part opening episode of the 20th season of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (if the show stays on through the current season it will tie the record for longest run of a scripted TV show, set by the Western Gunsmoke and tied by the original Law and Order), “Man Up” and “Man Down,” which starts with a hunting trip in upstate New York in which 15-year-old Sam Conway (Bryce Romero in a chilling and riveting performance that should mark him for a major career as he grows up) has an attack of conscience and refuses to shoot a jackrabbit. His brother Brian (Richard Meehan) and their father (oddly unidentified on imdb.com even though he becomes the principal focus of the second episode) chew him out for being a wuss. Then the scene cuts to a hospital in which SVU detectives are talking about calling Child Protective Services because Sam has been found with anal bleeding and tearing indicating that he has been raped — and his mom Molly reports that she caught her husband raping their son as part of a twisted desire to “make a man of him.” Assistant district attorney Peter Stone, Jr. (Philip Winchester, who in the final courtroom sequence seems to be having a staring contest with the actor playing Conway père to see which one can out-macho the other — he’s one of the most repulsive screen presences Dick Wolf and his operation have ever come up with and Raúl Esparza’s departure in favor of this guy is one of his most bone-headed casting decisions ever) takes the case to trial and wins approval from the court for Molly to testify against her husband despite the usual spousal privilege — only he loses the case when Sam himself refuses to identify his dad as an assailant. The Conways seem to be one big happy family again, only Sam is nursing a grievance that ends up with him bringing dad’s hunting rifle to school and shooting people (“I didn’t see that coming,” Charles said), killing two fellow students and wounding six. The first part of the show was called “Man Up,” after what Sam’s dad wanted him to do, and the second is called “Man Down” as Stone negotiates a guilty plea for Sam but then decides to prosecute his dad for criminally negligent homicide on the ground that his treatment of his son drove him to commit the school shooting. Stone’s cross-examination of Sam reveals the following:
Peter Stone: What happened
after you couldn’t shoot the rabbit?
Sam Conway: My dad yelled
at me. He called me names.
Peter Stone: What did he
call you?
Sam Conway: He called me a
fag and a pussy. Said until further notice I wasn’t his son, I was a girl. He
called me Samantha, threw one of Mom’s dresses at me, told me to wear it.
Peter Stone: Did he hit
you?
Sam Conway: No. He said he
should’ve, but he’d never hit a girl.
Stone isn’t allowed to bring up Conway’s rape of his son in
court because Conway has already been acquitted of it (thanks to Sam lying and
covering up for him), but he nonetheless goads Sam into losing it on the stand:
Peter Stone: The moment
before you shot your classmates, what was going through your head? Can you
speak up, Sam?
Sam Conway: Be a man! This
voice in my head kept saying, “Be a man, be a man!”
[jumps up from the stand,
screaming at his father]
Sam Conway: BE A MAN! I
DIDN’T FLINCH, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?
While there was no way they could have planned this, it was
amazing and fascinating that this Law and Order: Special Victims Unit program aired on the same day as the hearing at
which Christine Blasey Ford told her tale of sexual abuse at the hands of
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — a man who judging from his own
presentation as well as her account came in with a sense of entitlement, as if
his status as a prep-school boy and future member of the 1 percent entitled him to get drunk at parties and force himself on
women — though the show didn’t directly comment on the Trump administration or
its policies, it was in some ways an exposé of the whole sick cult of machismo and the idea that males show they are “real men” by
killing and ruthlessly purging themselves of any level of compassion or empathy.
(As I’ve noted before, Donald Trump not only has no empathy, he thinks that’s a
good thing: Trump clearly regards
empathy and compassion as qualities of the “weak,” and he’s very much in love
with the cult of killing — as witness his public praise for Vladimir Putin, Kim
Jong Un and the Chinese leaders who ordered the Tienanmen Square massacre in
1989, even though Trump failed the ultimate macho test by ducking out of the Viet Nam-era draft and
thereby not going to war himself.) There are a few direct political comments in this show,
including Detective Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) asking Lieutenant Olivia
Benson (Mariska Hargitay), “Okay, just explain why Roe v. Wade
is sacrosanct and the 2nd Amendment can be thrown out.” “Because one kills,”
Benson replies, to which Rollins says, “In Georgia, they both do. What would be worse? To have your child killed
or have your child be the one who kills?” (Clarence Darrow made a similar point
in his defense of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold in 1924 for the thrill-killing
of their classmate Bobby Franks, acknowledging the loss Franks’ parents would
feel but saying the grief of Loeb’s and Leopold’s parents would be even worse.)
Even the soap-opera complications Michael Chernuchin, the current SVU show runner, inserted into this script — Rollins is
pregnant with her second child (by a boyfriend who in an early scene was
pleading with her to return to him, following which she sees him in a bar with
another woman) and she’s wondering whether she should have an abortion, and at
the end Benson’s adoptive child Noah (Ryan Buggle, which sounds like the name
of a Harry Potter character)
openly defies her and hits her — for once reinforced the show’s theme of
parental responsibility and just what do you do when your child defies
expectations instead of just sitting there as tear-jerkers. This SVU was one of their best programs and quite defied the
usual expectations of a show opener — there’s very little action (the school
shooting itself isn’t shown, though the cops are seen surrounding the school and Sam is taken down by
one of the SVU detectives on screen) and the overall mood from director Alex
Chapple (a long-time Law and Order
hand) is slow and somber, not thrilling and exciting. While I’m surprised the
show has survived this long without Christopher Meloni (his overall charisma
and the byplay between him and Hargitay were a large part of the appeal during
his 12 seasons as a cast member), it’s nice to see this show in good shape and
still reflecting the national debate over how we treat sex crimes as well as
issues of sexual roles and living up to societal and parental expectations.
