Law and Order: Special Victims Unit: "Sorry If It Got Weird for You" (Dick Wolf Productions, Universal, NBC-TV, aired March 17, 2022)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2022 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

The Law and Order: Special Victims Unit which followed was, if anything, even better – the SVU writers and show runners have apparently got a second wind (or third, or fourth) because they’re able to breathe life into these old, sorry clichês. I think the fictional SVU and the real #MeToo movement have reinforced each other – the real movement has kept the show on the air and the show has benefited from increased willingness of real-life sexual abuse victims to come forward and demand that their abusers be held accountable. The show opens at the announcement of the upcoming initial public offering (IPO) by a company called Mr. Wright Now after the name of its founder, Jonathan Wright, who announces that in acknowledgment of the women’s rights movement he’s changing the orientation of his Web site from quickie hookups to more long-term relationships. Alas, one of the staff members, Lisa Rose (Christine Spang), knows he’s lying because she’s experienced Jonathan Wright as a sexual predator himself.

She went on the Mr. Wright Now app and it matched her with Jonathan Wright; she was understandably nervous about dating her boss, but he said, “The app doesn’t lie.” He took her to his penthouse, the two polished off two bottles of champagne and apparently some other spirits as well, and then he bent her over his couch and forced himself on her. She recalled later that she had been on the point of telling her friend Charisse, the chief financial officer of the company and also her godmother, but just as she was about to open her mouth to her Jonathan burst into the office waving some champagne and glasses and saying it was time for them to party. Lisa also says that the harder she fought back against him, the more it seemed to turn him on. Then the writers throw us a curveball: no sooner has the stock been offered in the IPO that it tumbles abruptly in share price,and it turns out the reason is that Charisse is making a big public announcement that Jonathan’s app is a danger for its female users because it hooks them up with predatory men. Lisa’s story only came to light in the first place because she went on another computer-arranged date with SVU detective Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano) and she freaked out when he touched her; with his experience dealing with “special victims” he realized she was projecting from a previous sexual assault, but in court Jonathan’s attorney ridicules Velasco’s claim by pointing out he’s been in the Special Victims Unit for only six months.

Later on in the case Charisse tries to testify, and on cross-examination by Jonathan’s lawyer she blurts out that the reason she believed Lisa’s story was “she did it to me, too.” At that the court erupts in frenzy and Jonathan’s attorney immediately moves for a mistrial, which the judge refuses to grant on the ground that she’d already told the jury to disregard Charisse’s statement and that should be enough to ensure a fair trial. Later Jonathan’s attorney puts him on the stand,which proves to be a major mistake because he melts down on the stand under prosecutor Dominick Carisi, Jr. (Peter Scanavino) and unleashes his general anger against women for all to see. The jury returns a guilty verdict and at the same time federal investigators are targeting Charisse for insider trading and other financial crimes relating to her attempt to poach the app (ya remember the app?). It was one of the better SVU’s recently, combining a long-standing trope of theirs – the accused rapist who hates women and blurts it out on the witness stand – with the paraphernalia of today, including the Internet, the smart phones that run on it and the apps that hold it all together and make doing stuff online possible.