photo: nbc
Behave
Original Air Date: Sep 29, 2010
Caitlin- Associate Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com
SVU has always been a deeply emotional show, touching subjects most others won’t on a regular basis. This week, it’s been actively raising awareness about the backlog of untested rape kits all across the country- and does so in this episode with an especially affecting storyline and guest star Jennifer Love Hewitt.
A street preacher finds a woman on a bus. Her head is bleeding, and she’s apparently in shock. She says she was raped, but denies it at the hospital and runs from the detectives. They soon find a broken bottle where she was attacked matching the glass in her hair and discover she was using a fake name.
Her real name is Vicki, and she was using an alias because she’s being stalked by her rapist. She never leaves her home, having an assistant bring her food and work materials. The only time she did go out to go to work was the day she was attacked. Olivia and Elliot plant themselves outside her apartment to wait her out.
Eventually, Elliot has to leave, but Olivia remains behind and finally manages to persuade Vicki out of her home. The rape kit can still be done, and while materials are being collected, Vicki says her rapist attacked her in 1995, 1998, and 2000, and stalked her everywhere she went in the ten years since until he did it again. At each attack, he would tell her to “behave”.
A bottle of moisturizer used as lubricant brings us to a fancy hotel with a bartender named William Harris. Vicki indentifies him in a line up, but he has an alibi, having been at a hotel at the time of the rape. But Vicki’s sure it’s him, going to far as to throw herself at him in the station and plead with him not to hurt her- and Olivia believes her. She stays at the station all night, and gets a break when she discovers Harris slipped out his window and rented a car to go track down Vicki.
Olivia goes back to Vicki’s house and again eventually manages to get her to go to trial. Meanwhile, the detectives take out a little karma on Harris, following him and even handing out posters with his photo. He eventually breaks and reveals just how much he hates women. From this, the detectives realize he has been stalking not only Vicki, but victims from all over the country he has been following and attacking at random for the past two decades.
Olivia starts trying to track down the rape kits for these cases to help convict Harris, but finds out they’ll all caught in backlogs. She goes to Detroit and Chicago, and in both cities the kits have been lost or can’t be used. Finally, in Los Angeles, they find a workable kit and a warehouse where Harris kept photos of all his victims, the drivers licenses and other things he stole from them, and videos he took of them in secret.
Unfortunately, the LA kit does not have complete DNA, and even though they have a solid case otherwise, it’s not allowed in court. Just when all hope seems lost, they find a roll of duct tape in Harris’s possessions that matches evidence taken from a past attack on Vicki. She comes to the station to see him locked up, and says “Now I’ll always know where you are”, and tells him to behave.
After the curveballs of the season premiere, it’s nice to have an episode that’s straightforward and easy to follow. It’s also deeply disturbing, both in terms of what Harris did to all his victims, and the fact that he nearly walked free because of something completely beyond the detectives’ control. Jennifer Love Hewitt was powerful in her guest role, and we were left with the satisfaction of seeing justice served. It felt like one of the good old episodes of SVU.
I still have a few issues, though. Could the detectives really have done what they did to Harris when they knew he was the attacker? The save with the duct tape felt almost too miraculous. And for all they talked it up, I felt like only a small portion of the episode focused on the backlogged rape kits. I’d go into where Munch was, and how he and Fin barely get any screen time these days, but this has been a constant issue in recent years, and I won’t hold by breath for a change.
That said, my overall feelings are very positive. This felt like an episode Mariska Hargitay might use for an Emmy shot, and with good reason. She also took a very personal role in the episode’s campaign, joining in its involvement with her own organization, Joyful Heart Foundation. If you’re interested in how to help end the backlog untested rape kits, check the shows websites to see a blog post from her and links to Joyful Heart and endthebacklog.com
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TheTwoCents 
I love Mariska. She is fantastic. And Beautiful.
Watching the show, I was surprised to realize that JLH actually pulled off the role.
That being said, I don’t think most of what the police did was on the up-and-up. But the guy knew he was guilty, so he didn’t push the matter.
Only nitpick is, I don’t think he was a bartender at the hotel, just a regular client that socialized.
Tl;dr
I just need to spew.
The two new episodes of the new season reveal that the damn ADA problems contintue for this show.
The rest of this review will be written in this vein.
Gillian “Jill” Hardwicke
GD, this tough exterior with a heart of gold is hard to pull off. I’m not sure anyone has done it justice since Diane Neal’s, Casey Novak, and perhaps that’s why this new ADA looks a bit like her.
Unfortunately, SVU still has not found the ADA to fit the bill. Taking these two episodes to be an opportunity to build this character, I must say I’m disappointed.
In the first episode, Jill comes across as totally heartless. This is a problem. What they need to go for is thoroughly pragmatic. As Jill is written, or acted, there is no heart of gold as the promotion has been pushing. In an effort to show her tough side, she has been completely dehumanized.
I think that the character they are going for is the that Tom Cruise guy in “a few good men.”
In that movie he would settle his cases during batting practice with out a though of what the facts were. Such a shithead, but they later developed his character into less of a sociopath and merely pragmatic. The facts of the cases were there, his clients were probably guilty, and this is the deal he could get for them. Its all simple math and requires little attention, but once he had to come face to face with the truth of the matter, his concious took over. Jill doesn’t seem to have that.
I’m guessing that this is why she was on the right side in the second episode, but its not enough. She works as a neutral robot. A law machine. Her character has no depth in this way.
I think she should be devastated by the abuse of the child in the first episode. Torn and struggling over the right thing to do. This is not what happens. The whole time she seems like an outside observer, keeping score and that’s it. She doesn’t anguish over any of it. That’s weird.
Then, comes the second episode where the pedo is shot and she sees a defense, but is unaffected. She simple says, “hey, this time the victim gets away with it. Thats just how it worked out. You people seem to think that’s a good thing, but whatever.”
They just can’t seem to write a compelling and understandable ADA anymore. Let the character feel the plight, damn it! Sure she can tell it like it is, but let her frustration show, and not by sinking so low as to berate the detectives that have the same goals. And Eff the queen bee thing. That might be ruining it all…..
Dear new ADA, we’re all on the same side. We recognize that you have no doubt over come adversity to get to this point. Please let down a wall or two so that the viewers can, if not like you, buy you as a real person like Tom Cruise in that lawyer military movie.”
I speak for myself, but I’m getting sick of being sold this crap sociopathic or megalomaniacal ADA with no heart who is completely neutral in seeing child sex abusers walk.
If they don’t care, neither do I.