Law and Order: Special Victims Unit: "Cornered" (Dick Wolf Entertainment, Universal Television, NBC-TV, aired November 21, 2024)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2024 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Alas, after the excellent “Bad Apple” episode of the flagship Law and Order, the Law and Order: Special Victims Unit episode that followed, “Cornered,” returned to the ordinary in more ways than one. It began rather innocently with assistant district attorney Dominic Carisi, Jr. (Peter Scanavino) on his way to an office party being thrown for his paralegal, Elizabeth Alden (Toni Khalil). Carisi stops in at a bodega run by Ali Imran (Turhan Troy Kaylak) to pick up a cup of coffee. Ali knows exactly just how Carisi likes his coffee – which in itself, according to the conventions of Law and Order scriptology, marks him as not long for this world. Carisi gets his coffee just fine, but he realizes that he didn’t get a card for the bouquet he meant to present to Elizabeth. So he pops into the bodega to get one – just as the place is being robbed by recently released criminals Boyd Lynch (Silas Weir Mitchell), a 50-something hot-headed white guy, and his 20-something Black associate, Deonte Mosley (Keith Machekanyanga), whom he “protected” in prison (though writers David Graziano and Julie Martin do no more than hint about what Lynch got out of Mosley for “protecting” him). The crooks hold hostage Carisi, Ali and two women in the deli, including Tess Milburn (Paige Herschell), who so audibly worries about her boyfriend and what he’ll think if she shows up at their meeting late because she was literally held up that we know she’s going to get raped by the time the episode is over. That does indeed happen (by Lynch) after the robbers hit on the idea of locking their hostages – except for Carisi, whom they let stay in the store in the hope he’ll be a valuable bargaining chip in case the police surround the place – in the deli’s meat freezer.

Lynch forces Ali to call the deli’s absentee owner for the key to the safe hidden on the deli floor, and when Ali attempts to answer the deli’s land line – which the cops are calling to establish contact and communication with the hostage-takers – Lynch, who for some reason doesn’t want any contact with the outside world, shoots him dead. Carisi futilely tries to keep the guy alive, including pressing against his body at the location of the gunshot wound, but to no avail. Later Carisi tries to exchange himself for Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), arguing that an NYPD captain is a much more valuable hostage than a mere assistant district attorney, but the switch doesn’t happen because Lynch and Mosley refused to let Captain Benson in and release Carisi. Carisi tells the uncomprehending Mosley that whatever Lynch has done, as his accomplice he’s equally liable legally, meaning he can be charged with both murder and rape even though he didn’t commit those crimes: Lynch did. Ultimately Lynch freaks out and thinks Mosley is going to switch sides on him, and Mosley shoots Lynch dead, whereupon Captain Benson and the police who’ve been waiting outside crash the place, rescue the remaining hostages and arrest Mosley, who seems not to understand that whatever Carisi said to him about acting in self-defense, he did commit several crimes for which he’s legally liable as Lynch’s accomplice. After a genuinely disturbing and demanding Law and Order episode, this SVU all too obviously returned to the strict moral conventions of policiers, with good-good cops, bad-bad crooks and an overall sense of black-and-white characters. Deonte Mosley is the only truly conflicted role here, and even he – despite Keith Machekanyanga’s success in portraying him and his dilemmas – isn’t strong enough to make this more than a by-the-numbers people-in-terror thriller.