Law and Order: Special Victims Unit: "Debatable" (Dick Wolf Entertainment, Universal Television, NBC-TV, aired May 4, 2023)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2023 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

After that came a Law and Order: Special Victims Unit episode that was one of the better ones I’ve seen in a while: “Debatable,” in which a star high-school debate team member named Naomi Hayes (Olivia Daponde) is first seen in the middle of a debate, scoring an impressive win in a argument over whether “hacktivism” (using computer-hacking skills to unearth and publish derogatory information about authority figures) is or isn’t a good thing. (She argues that it is.) Then we see her and the other members of her debate team – all male – gathering together for a party after the debate in which the boys on the team all gang up on her and put pressure on her to drink alcohol – which she does from the obligatory red plastic Dixie cups from which, at least according to Hollywood, all underage drinking is done. Four of the guys appear to be ganging up on her and, once they’ve got her to start drinking, they do the “One of us! One of us!” chant from the 1932 film Freaks. It looks like she’s about to be gang-raped by them when the door to the room discreetly closes, courtesy of director Jean de Segonzac (an old Law and Order hand) and writers Brianna Yellen (also an old Law and Order hand) and Kelly Minster. When next we see Naomi she’s got a knife (I’m not sure whether it was a switchblade or not, but it was obviously the sort of knife that’s used as a weapon) and she’s slashing the seats of the bus on which the debate team arrived in New York for the competition. Then she sets fire to the bus, and the local uniformed cops arrest her for arson.

But the Special Victims Unit detectives see her affect and conclude she was the victim of sexual assault by somebody, and they immediately suspect the guys on the debate team – only both they and their parents are indignant that they’re being considered rape suspects, and they’re right. Then a video gets released online showing Naomi being sexually attacked not by her fellow students, but by the faculty advisers and coaches of the debate team, Parker and Helene Young (Dan Bittner and Erin Neufer). Apparently they’d been after her for some time doing the conventional “grooming” strategy, first befriending her (her mom Amber, played by Virginia Newcombe, is a borderline basket case who’s been raising Naomi as a single parent and is way out of her league in raising a gifted child), then allowing her to kiss and neck with Helene, and on the night of her big debate triumph they decided she was “ready” for the full treatment. Parker raped her while Helene held her down so she couldn’t resist him. The case goes to trial with Parker and Helene being represented by the same attorney – the judge actually warns them they should have separate counsels but the Youngs insist they both want the same lawyer – and their defense is that the relationship between them and Naomi was totally consensual and that Naomi is “a bit of a masochist” – something we’re already aware of because we’ve seen telltale scars on her forearms, indicating that she cuts herself. Their attorney brings in a surprise witness, Colin Sharpe (Josh Caras), who testifies that before Naomi joined the debate team he was the Youngs’ partner in their three-ways and it was all totally consensual.

Only SVU Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T) approaches Colin in the courthouse restroom and Colin, at first thinking Fin is coming on to him, recoils in horror. Fin deduces that Colin is intensely homophobic, and under cross-examination the truth comes out: Colin had a crush on Helene Young and willingly had sex with her while Parker watched, but the night Parker actually fucked him he was disgusted and felt attacked. Though Colin had been accepted at Harvard University following his graduation, he nose-dived into skipping classes and using alcohol and drugs. The university put him on “academic probation” and he ended up doing menial jobs to survive. The jury finds the Youngs guilty and Fin encourages Colin to do whatever he needs to do to return to Harvard and make it work for him big-time. Among other things, this show illustrated (at least to me) just what “grooming” is all about and how absurd the line from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his supporters is that their “Don’t Say Gay” law is an “anti-grooming” bill. Just allowing students to learn in school that homosexuality exists is not “grooming” in any way, shape or form! “Grooming” is a long-term process of social control would-be abusers put their victims through before they make their sick moves, and as this story illustrates it’s just as despicable whether it’s done to a woman or a man. And though it’s not how Yellen and Minster framed this story, it’s easy enough to imagine that Naomi was really a Lesbian and what attracted her to the Youngs was the prospect of being “brought out” by an older, more experienced woman in a context where she wouldn’t be suspected because Helene’s husband was also involved, and the true violation was being forced into sex with a man just as it was for hetero Colin being fucked by another man.