Law & Order SVU – Recap & Review – Wet

photo: nbc

Law & Order SVU
Wet

Original Air Date: Oct 13, 2010

Caitlin- Associate Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com

After a couple weeks of very intense dramatic issues, things calm down a bit this episode. Of course, there’s still controversy. It is SVU. The most interesting thing about this episode is that there’s a new ADA- or is there? It’s left up in the air by the time the credits roll.

A couple sneaks out to, apparently, play in a city fountain, but instead find a woman drowned in the shallow water. Her blood red eyes indicate that she drowned, and the ME (bring back Melinda!) says that a chunk of her hair was cut off by someone who wanted it as a keepsake.

There is a guy who cuts of pieces of women’s hair in the park. Olivia tempts him with her haircut, and he takes the bait, but has a “lullaby” for where he was at the time. (The detectives, by the way, are in a new precinct and not at all happy about it.) Enter a new ADA named Mikka Von with a hit to a man who had sex with the victim, Lindsey. They find him through his sister (a mime, of all things), and he’s a total jerk but innocent. However, he took video of his “encounter” with Lindsey. As the detectives watch this, a man barges in- it’s her husband.

The husband says Lindsey did PR for a soda company and had a lot of enemies. They talk to people on both sides, including a woman who says her son killed himself when pop made him fat. The detectives have some debate of their own, but Huang brings an end to it with news Lindsey was killed by toxic mushrooms at a party held by a socialite and her granddaughter, Emma. Pictures from the party show a man being pulled from it after screaming at Lindsey that she couldn’t “own” the rain. Lindsey’s company was taking advantage of public water sources and the guy was a doctor who knows all about toxic mushrooms. Olivia gets a whiff of these as they take him in and then passes out during interrogation.

She’s fine, of course, but a killer headache puts her not at all in the mood to deal with doctor, Vinnie, who rants about water conservation. He’s been affected by the toxins, but not enough for an insanity defense. Mikka embraces this, and though Vinnie’s not locked up and riles the media, she’s sure she has him when his mushrooms match the ones that killed Lindsey. Emma and her grandmother turn up just long enough for us to learn the latter treats Emma with near scorn. Vinnie becomes still more riled up, and fires his attorney before confessing to the murder. But in court, he gives the wrong number of mushrooms used. When Mikka ignores Elliot telling her this, he pretends to be high himself to stop the proceedings.

Our new ADA does not take well to this. While the detectives comb over the facts, she makes a mysterious phone call and pledges to take Vinnie to court anyway. However, it becomes clear she really told his new attorney to take off and him not to come to court. For this, she is quickly fired. Guess all those comments about how ADAs never stick around were foreshadowing. The detectives show Vinnie photos from the party, and he hesitates on one of Emma. When they leave, he runs off to give her a warning. He keeps trying to take the blame for Lindsey’s murder because he and Emma were in love. It’s not until he goes to her outside her interrogation room that she confesses.

She killed Lindsey because Lindsey made a deal with her grandmother to buy up water on their property. Though she talks about loving Lindsey like a sister, she was bitter about the older woman preferring Lindsey over her. Then she eats mushrooms from the evidence bag. The hospital manages to pump her stomach and save her, just in time for the grandmother to show up and basically disown her. When Vinnie comes though, he forgives her for letting him take the blame for her crime

I admit I’m biased because I do like pop, but a parts of this episode felt somewhat preachy. Of course, the water issues are important, but the rest was a bit tiring. That aside, I’m still not sure what to make of this episode. Everyone at least irritated me at some point. There were the red herring suspects, Lindsey’s own actions, and then Emma, who started out sweet and quiet and ended up being a murderer; and her grandmother who became progressively more and more horrible. At least Vinnie started out annoying but became something of a tragic hero. And now the woman he loves will be taken away for murder. What the heck, writers? The promo made it look like this episode was going to be at least somewhat amusing. But, again, it is SVU.