About Last Night…GHOSTS, LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME, and More

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT — “Showdown” Episode 27008 — Pictured: Noma Dumezweni as Chief Tynan — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

Let’s talk about Thursday night’s TV!

LAW & ORDER: The case itself was twisted and interesting; I appreciate that the ADAs had to acknowledge they may have gone down the wrong path.

The problem is, this really felt like this should have been an episode the show did before Riley and Walker started their permanent partnership. It was so heavily focused on the ADAs—correctly!—that we got no real continuation from the Riley/Walker ultimatum; it didn’t even feel like anything was brewing there in the subtext. And we’ve had that problem basically all season: There’s been interesting personal tidbits delivered, but then either not followed up on or their setting it up/follow-through aired out of order.

GHOSTS: I was a little wary about how much the ghosts might act up in order to get to a place where they called in Kyle, but I actually really loved this episode. It was fun to see them more desperate than normal, see Jay try to fight back (poor Jay), and Kyle try to make amends. It’s really sad how isolated Kyle feels from the world (I get it!), so I do hope we see him back again at some point.

[For more on the episode, here’s what Asher Grodman shared.]

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: The frustrating thing is that a lot of the pieces of the episode worked, but they just didn’t work well together.

To dig deepest into the Benson versus Tynan battle: First of all, Mariska Hargitay and Noma Dumezweni have been fantastic together. Olivia and Tynan are two characters who have a respect for each other, but also firmly believe they are correct and the other is wrong, and won’t be moved. The good/bad thing is they’re both correct. (And it’s led to some incredible acting moments from them both.)

There’s arguably no one better equipped to handle survivors than Olivia Benson; when she’s written well, she’s passionate, caring, fiercely fighting to get justice, and is the ultimate warrior. No matter what, she gives every piece of herself to the job, for better or worse.

The problem is, like Tynan has been repeatedly pointing out, Olivia’s current job is also to be the boss. It’s not saying she can’t be on the scene when it’s needed, but she simply should not be the person who is hands-on the entire time, either, for every single case, because she has a whole team to manage and she has to deal with the bureaucratic BS of being the one running the unit. With basically anyone else, I’m guessing most of the audience would argue it’s bad leadership to try to do everything yourself. But it’s a TV show, we love Olivia, we want to see her doing what she’s been doing well for 27 seasons, so a lot of times we hand-wave that away.

But it being a TV show also makes me wonder where this is actually going. Olivia (as the boss of SVU) has had tension with most of her bosses, even if it sometimes settles (like Garland) into a largely respectful/friendly relationship. She’s frequently pushed back when necessary, especially when it comes to defending survivors, but it’s kind of wild she wouldn’t even do the press conference here, especially given how the public perceived the case was important to Nikki’s recovery and any subsequent trial, too. (We saw her do them with McGrath, even if she disagreed!) And Hargitay is the show, so it’s not like this is leading to her exit. 

Olivia made it very clear she will not be backing down, and she, uh, requested her boss stay out of her way. Tynan reiterated that’s not how it works. So will Tynan move her out, temporarily? Will she wait until Olivia does something that undeniably is too much and then pull her? The trap we’ve seen the show fall into repeatedly, especially in recent years, is that Olivia might do something that is wrong/harmful, but then the show “justifies” it because she’s also ultimately correct—will they repeat that here? So while I desperately don’t want anything bad to happen to Olivia, and obviously I don’t want her to leave SVU, even short-term, it’ll be an odd storytelling choice if it doesn’t lead to something.

I’m going to bullet point a few of the other highs and lows…

• (When Tynan said Olivia should come to Police Plaza so the unit could be led by a captain who “understands how to supervise”…I’m very much wondering if she has someone external in mind she wants to bring in, or her pointing to the squad was indicating that she meant Curry.) 
• After a season of utilizing Carisi well, this episode was an uncomfortable miss. He was deeply inappropriate and unprofessional to Griffin, Bruno, and Olivia when he came into the squad raging about the forms. It wasn’t handled well, writing-wise, because it’s not even like there was a build-up in the episode where Carisi’s outburst felt justified. (Or any kind of lingering mess that he was resenting Griffin for.) And his insisting Griffin had to be prepared for cross…that’s quite literally his job to help him prep? It was a very weird choice, especially given how twisty the case was, and everyone else made it clear it was not actually Griffin’s fault. 
• The squad teasing Griffin about the Sunday dinner was cute, even if it seems weird that they’ve largely dropped their suspicions of him.
• Nothing against Detective Whalen, but it was very odd to include him here, especially when they had five SVUers working the case? There were a couple of light-hearted moments he got to be a part of, but it’s not like he added anything significant to the investigation; he was either in too much (he could have been fun as just a part in the teaser!) or too little of the episode (he could have testified, etc.).
• “You know how it is when it just clicks.” “I do. I do.”
• Tynan working with Griffin’s dad for nine years—and him dying when Griff was only 12—makes the Tynan/Griffin dynamic, and how Tynan may be utilizing him, even more interesting. She cares about Griffin, clearly; it seems less likely she would actively sabotage him in an attempt to push out Olivia. So is she utilizing him, knowingly or unknowingly, to be her eyes and ears? Does he know what’s going on? And will Griffin side with Tynan over Olivia and the squad? (It actually would be interesting if he did.)
• I lamented this at the start of the season, but this is an instance where I really, really wish Olivia had Cragen to lean on or call. There’s been so much she’s dealt with as captain that she can’t really talk about with anyone else in her life because they’ve never been in that exact spot. I thought they handled Cragen’s death well in the premiere episode, but since then, they’ve entirely dropped it, even when it would have been relevant to their decisions/storylines. And I get they can’t be grieving the whole season, but Olivia going through troubles as a captain should be making her think about her former captain and what he did right and wrong. She should be thinking about how he handled the higher-ups, what he was willing to compromise, and what he wasn’t.
• We’re also at multiple cases so far this season that weren’t resolved/didn’t lead to a victory for the squad. Will any of them come back? Or was this done to show that these kinds of investigations often don’t have clean resolutions?

ELSBETH: I wasn’t sure how a killer nun would work, but it did! This was actually delightful and super fun. (Sorry if that’s sacrilegious.) I know I’ve said this before, and it applies here, too: I appreciated that there was a different level of complication for Elsbeth here versus it just being her taking on a Bad Guy. Taking on a nun shouldn’t be easy.

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Before I get to the excerpt, I do want to point out that I said in June it was difficult to judge the episode based on what it was because my perception of it would change pretty significantly if it were a season finale versus a series finale. Now we’re in November, and there’s still no clarity, so that’s still true.

It’s deeply frustrating that the show remains in limbo, despite being the best LAW & ORDER series in the franchise for (arguably) all but six-ish weeks of its five-season tenure. Despite it being the only L&O show with a canonically queer series regular, with a cast that has largely been inclusive in a way the other shows aren’t. Despite being the most ambitious with its storytelling, while also deeply respecting the history of what led these characters to where they are/the franchise as a whole. (You can argue that ambition is what makes it more difficult for some viewers, and I get it, but…it’s 2025 and franchises should be taking swings.) Despite it holding up in the ratings as a repeat this season, with almost no promotion. (And to be “fair,” there was very little NBC could do since these episodes had already been promoted for Peacock.)

And, look, I get it—being a good show certainly doesn’t equal an automatic renewal…there are a billion things that go into it. I’ve been doing this job for my entire adult life, and I get the reality of the business. But this show has always deserved better; here’s hoping, somehow, we get a season 6 at some point. 

[An excerpt from what I wrote about the finale back in June.]

One of the frustrating things about the way a lot of streaming platforms work is that we as viewers don’t know if the show is coming back when we watch the final episode of the season. And I’ve said before I try to keep news-y things out of this column, this also is a case where I was hyperaware while watching the hour that my take on the episode would be very, very, very different if this is the end of the season or ends up being the end-end.

Overall, I liked it. A lot of the things that had been set up actually paid off: While Bell and Reyes were so missed the previous episodes, they also immediately proved what I had been saying the past few weeks—they knew Elliot too well for him to spiral alone/get away with anything. Reyes helped, but also pushed back and set limits. Bell was caring, but suspicious, reaching out to him and questioning her team. 

While, personally, there are probably half a dozen L&Overse characters I would have preferred to see Elliot work the case with, McKenna also made sense for this specifically because he was such a wild card and we saw Elliot reach him in his own darkness. So much of this season has been about Elliot’s growth, about him not falling into some of the easier pitfalls of shutting down and shutting everyone out. And after losing his brother, it could have pushed him to the edge, to a darker place than we’ve ever seen him. McKenna very easily could have allowed him to go fully dark in a way that no other person he might have worked with would have, which gave the episode inherent tension it might not have had otherwise.

Instead, Elliot walked up to the very edge of the line; I’m wildly glad he did not cross any lines he couldn’t come back from because that was one of my big fears going into the hour. There were moments of discomfort, there were things I imagine may haunt him, but when push came to shove, he ultimately did opt to loop OCCB in. He wants to live and not let his grief/anger consume him. [To read the rest, click here.]

Which shows did you watch last night?

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