» 20-5: "Dignity" 2009.10.23 Options

[alynch]

When Dr. Walter Benning (Guest Star Matthew Boston) is killed in church, Detectives Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto) and Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson) arrive at the scene and are informed a white male was seen fleeing in a dark sedan. The minister, XXX (Guest Star Michael Hollick), tells the detectives that Dr. Benning was a late-term abortion doctor and had been shot at before and threatened many times; and his wife, Phyllis Benning (Guest Star Tracy Sallows), is convinced it is a pro-life zealot who is responsible. While the detectives scan the several protestor suspects, Lieutenant Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson) gets more bad news and ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza) faces a moral dilemma causing tension among the team. Also starring: S. Epatha Merkerson (Lieutenant Anita Van Buren), Sam Waterston (District Attorney Jack McCoy), Alana De La Garza (Connie Rubirosa), and Linus Roache (Michael Cutter).

It was a little too arbitrary in the way they made sure that the characters were so evenly divided on the abortion issue, but they at least made sure to back up each character's point of view. I can't remember the last time that the defense attorney was such a meaty part, but the actor playing him was great. There were many opportunities for him to overdo it, but he went understated every time. Lastly, this was probably Roache's best performance to date, so good on him for that.

This post has been edited by alynch: Oct 23, 2009 @ 8:10 pm.

[samsnee]

Man this cast kicks ass and makes SUV look like complete shite. I love that the story drives the characters, and not the other way around like in SUV.

I felt the judge was a little biased. Even though it made for compelling drama, the testimony of the nurse about the botched abortion shouldn't have been allowed as it really wasn't relevant to the defense's case.

Ultimately I'm glad he was found guilty. Regardless of where anyone comes down on abortion, pre-meditated murder is never justified. I do wonder though if Cutter's breakdown in the closing argument was planned on his part.

[Irlandesa]

I felt the judge was a little biased. Even though it made for compelling drama, the testimony of the nurse about the botched abortion shouldn't have been allowed as it really wasn't relevant to the defense's case.

Yeah, and that took me out of the episode a bit which meant it didn't quite live up to the reviews for me.

I also would have preferred that Connie's decision to tell opposing counsel been all about ethics instead of her getting emotionally manipulated by the one woman's story. (And that's another witness whose relevance I thought was iffy.)

Ultimately I'm glad he was found guilty. Regardless of where anyone comes down on abortion, pre-meditated murder is never justified. I do wonder though if Cutter's breakdown in the closing argument was planned on his part.

I really hope it was.

[Tripp3235]

I agree on the testimony of the defense "witness". It was touching but are you telling me the defense counsel was stupid enough to not check first and see if she would answer such obvious questions from the prosecution?

That and the dead infant was the marks on what I found to be one of the best episodes of the season. Great job interaction between Cutter and Connie. Will be interesting to see if this will cause even more tension between them in later episodes.

[petitchanteuse]

I can't remember the last time that the defense attorney was such a meaty part, but the actor playing him was great.

That was Richard Thomas.

Goodnight, John-Boy.

[txhorns79]

I feel like Bernard and Liv Benson should become a couple. She's like living proof of both sides of his argument as to whether a raped woman should have her child.

I felt the judge was a little biased. Even though it made for compelling drama, the testimony of the nurse about the botched abortion shouldn't have been allowed as it really wasn't relevant to the defense's case.

Ya think? This is what I really disliked about the episode. Rather than just let the original case speak for itself they have to throw in that the doctor was also killing babies after botched abortions.

I also kind of think Connie should have been fired or at least suspended for her conduct. I think even ethically she had a pretty shaky case for telling the defense about the botched abortion. It wasn't relevant to the case at hand, and there was no way the defendant could have known about it to make it part of his justification defense.

[jkbbunch]

Does anyone else feel like they just got run over by a truck?

BEST. EPISODE. EVER.

And I don't think Connie should have been punished, not with all the shit they've let Cutter get away with.

[alynch]

This is what I really disliked about the episode. Rather than just let the original case speak for itself they have to throw in that the doctor was also killing babies after botched abortions.

I actually really liked that. For me, that's what made the episode really interesting because it was about the last twist I was expecting. The original case wasn't really all that complicated. People who perform abortions shouldn't be murdered. That's a fairly uncontentious point that the show has made in many episodes over the years. This time, the show said that even if the doctor quite literally "killed a baby," it still wasn't justifiable to murder him. That's what made the episode not a retread.

This post has been edited by alynch: Oct 23, 2009 @ 9:07 pm.

[niceboo]

Wow. I think I'd be hard pressed to find an hour of tv that had ever infuriated more than that episode just did. I'm sure it's partly because I'm too close to this issue, having previously worked with drs. who provide late term abortions, including Dr. Tiller himself (whose murder this episode "ripped from the headlines") but the implication that a late term abortion provider was a willing murderer makes me FURIOUS. So many people already believe that these drs. are basically murderers - turning one of the few providers into an ACTUAL murderer isn't a law and order twist; it's telling people yup, what can you expect from these people? Of course you should consider them as murderers, and then we have the lovely Dr. who testified at the trial as further evidence that late term providers are just a bunch of sociopaths who figured out how to kill babies.

As an attorney, I'm also sad to see that the days of L&O being remotely legally correct are so far gone (yes, I know SVU is ridiculous legality-wise, but original flavor is usually pretty good on legal issues). Neither of the defense witnesses should or would have been allowed to testify in this case, and the fact the the jury came to the "right" decision despite this testimony is just plain manipulative - here, we'll cover our asses as a show by having the jury find Groban guilty and thus not condoning the murder, but make sure to get in lots of heart-tugging stories about late term abortions so viewers will realize how "awful and selfish" the mothers who have them are. I'll spare you all the lecture but there are numerous medical and psychological reasons why the "dignified" idea of having a live birth and letting the baby die can be a terrible option for a mother, which is why late term abortions are allowed in the first place.

And don't even get me started on Rubirosa. Are you freaking kidding me that she defied a direct order, turned over something to the defense that was completely irrelevant to the case at hand but still so prejudicial that the information could (and probably would - as I said, I found the verdict to be totally ridiculous, and don't believe that even in NYC that jury wouldn't have been hung) cause a mistrial, and she gets a 'work it out' from Jack? Many of the jr. ADA's have been axed for much less. What she did was completely unethical and should have gotten her ass fired. UGH. Seriously, I've never written a letter complaining about a TV episode to a network in my life, but I'm so infuriated over this I think it might be my first.

This post has been edited by niceboo: Oct 23, 2009 @ 9:58 pm.

[txhorns79]

I actually really liked that. For me, that's what made the episode really interesting because it was about the last twist I was expecting. The original case wasn't really all that complicated. People who perform abortions shouldn't be murdered. That's a fairly uncontentious point that the show has made in many episodes over the years. This time, the show said that even if the doctor quite literally "killed a baby," it still wasn't justifiable to murder him. That's what made the episode not a retread.

I thought the episode was a retread honestly, so they could do the ripped from the headlines storyline. The only difference was that the victim was also a murderer, but it was just a red herring issue here that had nothing to do with the justification defense being presented. I think I was just annoyed at the botched abortion murder even coming in. It was so ridiculously prejudicial, and the defendant had no idea about it when he did the killing, so it literally only serves to inflame the jury.

I realize the writers want to keep up the drama, but when they leave reality like that, it hurts the story I think.

This post has been edited by txhorns79: Oct 23, 2009 @ 10:03 pm.

[Vella]

This just really felt like late term abortion providers are blood lusting killers. The emotional 'truth' was that abortion is wrong, but TPTB covered themselves by making the guy guilty anyway.

Either way, I just felt myself getting angrier and angrier with the underlying point of the episode.

[Prevailing Wind]

Excellent post, niceboo.

Perhaps Connie didn't get disciplined because Jack's boinking her, too.

I want to know why everybody's so hot to die with "dignity" in the first place. Death is NOT dignified. In any way, shape or manner. Live your life with dignity, cause you're not dying that way.

There's a simple way to determine if a fetus is a person: does the IRS recognize it as a dependent? Can it get a social security number?

[boewyr]

While I thought the episode was a good exploration of the issues surrounding late term abortion, I had some slight issues with the way it was done. I thought Cutter's case was really weak when it shouldn't have been. The ridiculously biased judge, okay, I get and can buy as a story device. But couldn't he have crossed some of those really irrelevant witnesses on relevance? Like "Have you ever met the defendant?", "Did you ever tell the defendant about this story?" and so on? In addition to his closing, which seemed weak from a legal standpoint.

Alana De La Garza was great. Yet it will be Mariska who gets the emmy nom at the end of the year.

As a whole I thought it was well written and well acted and the sensitive subject matter was dealt with fairly respectfully. I don't really think one side dominated. But then again, I sat through the two episodes Boston Legal did on abortion, which were pretty horrendous (espescially the first one). So maybe it's just relative. I do wish the good old Law & Order "Who cares about his reasoning, he committed murder" attitude was a bit more pronounced, though.

Perhaps Connie didn't get disciplined because Jack's boinking her, too.

I assumed that was the real reason he didn't want her transferred into white collar crimes, too.

This post has been edited by boewyr: Oct 23, 2009 @ 11:29 pm.

[Wallyhorse]

Perhaps Connie didn't get disciplined because Jack's boinking her, too.

I seriously doubt it. Connie's too young for Jack (and besides, if that were to have happened, it would have during season 17 in all likelyhood, before Linus Roache essentially replaced Fred Thompson in the cast). Now, if it were Sonya Paxton (played in four "SVU" episodes by Christine Lahti), I could see that given Sonya is probably very close to Jack's age.

Anyway, this episode had in a lot of ways a very sad finish to it. As others have noted, it also (again!) blows away anything "SVU" has done in recent seasons (it would be interesting to see Mariska do another crossover, perhaps as suggested with Olivia working with Bernard on a cause). The moral dilemmas in this episode were quite interesting, and in all honesty, I could not see Connie being fired for what she did, mainly because she seemed genuinely concerned about a potential Brady violation (remember when Casey Novak, played by Diane Neal on "SVU" from 2003-'08 commited one and wound up disbarred?). Whether it was relevant or not, if it had turned out they didn't divulge the info Connie gave them and they found out on their own after he was found guilty, perhaps the defense attorney might very well have tried to go for severe sanctions.

One other thing that came out of this to me is that it's now clear that Connie and Michael are clearly NOT a couple, and probably never have been: Connie's wanting to transfer to White Collar after what happened, but Jack denying it I suspect sets up for even more tension (and I suspect they may have done that as well in case Dick Wolf decides later this season to have either ADLG or LR (or both) pull double duty and have their character(s) cross over to "SVU" to finish the season in the ADA's slot on that show after Stephanie March's current run on "SVU" ends following the 14th episode).

[alynch]

This just really felt like late term abortion providers are blood lusting killers. The emotional 'truth' was that abortion is wrong, but TPTB covered themselves by making the guy guilty anyway.

I don't know. I really don't think they were trying to make any sort grand all-encompassing statement about late term abortion providers. I thought they were doing it solely as a plot twist, and I believe it worked from a dramatic standpoint. For the first half of the episode, they were covering some pretty well-trod territory and the episode was kind of losing me, when this twist was introduced, I sat up and was leaning forward for the rest of the episode. What can I say, it grabbed me.