21 replies to this topic

[Spartan Girl]

This show is pretty bleak, so I thought I'd start a thread for the big bummers of an episode.

My first choice would be "Baby Killer." A little boy shoots a little girl, but it turns out to be an accident, since the boy was trying to aim at the criminal he saw shoot someone at his babysitter's house. Then that little boy is killed by some punk as revenge for the little girl. Just a sad, pointless tragedy.

My second choice would be the episode I don't remember the name of, when a teen girl claimed she recovered memories of her father sexually abusing her and the whole family turned against him, despite his pleas of innocence. Then he's killed by another daughter...and it turns out that that he was innocent the whole time; the daughter's shrink intentionally manipulated the fake memories, ruining the whole family.

What do you think are the saddest SVU episodes?

[madeleine68]

The second episode you're referring to is "Repression", from season three.

I think the top four saddest ones were Fallacy, Guilt, Damaged, and Juvenile, mostly because all of them show the futility of the justice system; the good guys sometimes aren't able to win, and sometimes the good guys become bad guys, and there are just no easy answers and no clear right thing to do.

[Stacym25]

One of the "saddest episodes" that comes to mind for me is of course Loss for obvious reasons. But, even just the fangirl loss of my beloved Alex/Stephanie March aside, the scene towards the end where everyone is sitting in the squad room (before Liv and Elliott find out Alex is actually alive) is pretty painful IMO. The look on Olivia's face combined with Elliott reading the front page of that newspaper gets me every time. I just imagine them thinking, "we were aware of the threats, we should've done more to protect her" and just feeling so awful, missing a close friend that they think is gone forever and losing her so abruptly. Then the icing on the cake when the captain walks in asking if they've received a trial date for some other case and Elliott says, "well, nothing we can do. You've got SVU cases being handled by ADA's from other bureaus; they don't give a damn." Painful because Alex.gave.a.damn! Loss is my saddest episode for sure.

I also definitely agree with both above posters though, especially madeleine68 with Damaged. Anything bad happening to innocent children really kills me, and that episode especially I think just because I imagine Missy's little sister looking up to her and stuff only to have Missy a) knock her out nightly and abuse her and b) set up her murder with no remorse. That episode really haunted me. I think I pull a T!I!P! with that ep just because I have a much younger sister like Missy did and we're really close. I just can't even fathom anything like that. Eek. Angels I find heartbreaking for the same innocent children being harmed reason.

[episodes where] there are just no easy answers and no clear right thing to do.

Again agreed; these are certainly my saddest episodes. Included in this category for me are Fallacy, Mercy and one that I can barely even watch just because it rips my heart right out; Stolen.

[madeleine68]

I also definitely agree with both above posters though, especially madeleine68 with Damaged. Anything bad happening to innocent children really kills me, and that episode especially I think just because I imagine Missy's little sister looking up to her and stuff only to have Missy a) knock her out nightly and abuse her and b) set up her murder with no remorse. That episode really haunted me. I think I pull a T!I!P! with that ep just because I have a much younger sister like Missy did and we're really close. I just can't even fathom anything like that. Eek. Angels I find heartbreaking for the same innocent children being harmed reason.

The saddest part about Damaged, to me, is that Missy was made that way by her father's abuse, and she turned into this monster who abused and then bribed someone to kill her sister. I wonder what would have happened to that little girl in ten years, if she would have turned out like Missy did.

[Stacym25]

The saddest part about Damaged, to me, is that Missy was made that way by her father's abuse, and she turned into this monster who abused and then bribed someone to kill her sister. I wonder what would have happened to that little girl in ten years, if she would have turned out like Missy did.

That's a great point - I forgot how Missy ended up that way by her father's abuse. Just another example of innocent kids going through hellish situations that kill me. Damn these episodes. I would think the little girl would most likely end up somewhat like Missy, at least a criminal in some form as abusers are so often abused as kids. Just a vicious cycle and these (along with eps that have no clear solution) are the types of episodes that I usually find to be the saddest.

[Spartan Girl]

I rewatched Scourge last night, and I can't believe I didn't put this one in the saddest episodes category. Four people die -- including two innocent tourists -- because the guy literally lost his mind to syphillis. So the killer is going to die and he has to live with what he did for the rest of his life, as does his family, and the victims don't get justice is mentally incompetent to stand trial. Nobody won. That hateful look that the widow/mother shoots Benson and Stabler at the end...I can't really blame her. That stuff stays with you.

[alexaxle]

Execution. Similar to Scourge, no one really wins. The Coopers get a shaky confession- all Brodus does is slip Debbie's name out on accident- and Brodus can't be executed now, meaning the rest of the victims don't get justice. Stabler risked his career for that confession, which now means very little, and he and Huang both were injured by him.

Charisma. Based on the Branch Davidian cult, where the cult leaders, about to be caught by police, set fire to their home, killing dozens of people, mostly children. In this case, it was only children the man killed, and it was so sad.

Stolen. A child's life is turned upside-down, his identity shaken, because of Cragen's attempt to help. The victim's family can't see that what's best for him is to stay with the family he has, and so the kid is torn from his healthy, loving family to stay with them. It is a sad case of truth in television.

Repression. A family is shaken by a woman's accusation against her father. The whole family turns against him and believes he's a child molester, even when the case is thrown out. Then two of the daughters kill him. And it's also revealed that the molestation as the victim described it couldn't have happened because she had an intact hymen. It turns out that a psychiatrist, convinced that every girl must have been molested at some point, used sodium amytol and brought forth a repressed memory that turned out to be false. As Huang called it, "The power of suggestion run amok." So the man was murdered by his own daughters, his whole family turned against him, and the daughters had their lives ruined by that phony.

Sick. A boy makes an accusation against a millionaire who is totally not supposed to resemble Micheal Jackson. However, the boy's reputation is very shaky and the case can't be won with just his word. Then another girl turns up and gives the same story. This girl is very sympathetic, as she's dying of leukemia. However, the boy recants and it's implied that the reason is that the father got paid off by Tripley, and if he allows the boy to testify he'll have to pay it back. He hides the boy upstate and takes the jail time so he won't have to pay the money back. Then the girl's grandmother is caught stealing, and it's revealed that the girl was never sick at all... her own grandmother was poisoning her with mercury because she wanted the attention and sympathy. So the girl has permanent organ damage and has to live with that hurt, and the boy, who was legitimately harmed, won't see justice, and Tripley is free to keep molesting kids.

Poison. An adopted child is abused and ends up in the hospital because her mother made her ingest something toxic (antifreeze, if I remember correctly). The child survives but has permanent brain damage. However, the judge lets her off at court because he thinks she's a good mother. Then it's revealed that in a similar case where the mother wasn't as... "ideal", the judge convicted her without even allowing critical scientific testimony to be delivered. Novak tries to get him thrown off the bench, but all that happens is he's demoted to family court and Casey's reputation is damaged. The mom, meanwhile, succeeds in killing her daughter.

[Spartan Girl]

Re "Sick": That one killed me. Two children are victimized by the greed of adults. People who hurt their own children don't even deserve oxygen.

I'm starting to regret ever starting this thread. God, these episodes were so brutal.

Edited by Spartan Girl, Feb 8, 2012 @ 1:37 PM.

[Seana James]

"Baby Killer" is definitely one of the saddest because they had managed to save the kid from prosecution only to have him killed by another kid over race.

There's an episode in season one that features Munch that's really sad--he connects with a kid and the kid ends up dead-- and another one in Season 4 I think when Munch is really close to the victim who is also a talk radio personality. Munch is such a great actor and they usually have him pouring his heart out to Olivia, who does empathy so well.

"Loss," of course, and "Ghost" but Ghost is also sad because of the little boy whose family was killed. I always loved fan fiction that had Alex taking him as her son in witness protection afterward. Antonio? Wasn't that his name?

[mimine]

There's an episode in season one that features Munch that's really sad--he connects with a kid and the kid ends up dead.

I think you might mean episode 2.04, Legacy (stupid one word titles...) It gets my vote too as saddest episode, I have seen it several times and still I always cry in the end when Munch reads to the little girl.

I'm wondering what you mean about the talk radio personality because the only episode with anything similar that comes to mind is the one with Maggie Grace as a teen star and that horrible Howard Stern type fellow who makes disgusting comments that incite one of his listeners to rape her... This can't be it, the guy was a complete jerk!

As sad episodes go (besides the obvious choice of Baby Killer) another perhaps not very obvious choice for me is Nocturne. This is in season 1, the one where they investigate a pedophile piano teacher and find out that the boy he had abused for years has participated in abusing younger children. It was a very affecting episode for me because along with the detectives it is hard not to feel anything for that young man even though he is in the end also a perp.

I was also very saddened in that episode that starts with an old woman with dementia breaking into the apartment that used to belong to her best friend. Elderly abuse is less represented but no less sad.

[JaneM19]

and another one in Season 4 I think when Munch is really close to the victim who is also a talk radio personality.

I'm wondering what you mean about the talk radio personality because the only episode with anything similar that comes to mind is the one with Maggie Grace as a teen star and that horrible Howard Stern type fellow who makes disgusting comments that incite one of his listeners to rape her... This can't be it, the guy was a complete jerk!

I think that Seana James might be thinking about the episode "Remorse" which starred Jennifer Esposito as a news anchor who was raped by two men while walking home one night. Munch was the detective on the case and he did become very close with the victim. It was a very good episode and also a very sad one as the victim ended being killed by a bomb sent by a deranged stalker who thought he was doing her a favor. He was upset by her rape and thought killing her would end her suffering.

[AtlanticVamp]

I'd like to nominate the two episodes in which Benson was given temporary custody of a perp's child. One was the child of a rock star (the little girl was played by Hayden Panitierre, IIRC), and the other was the son of a drug addict. In both cases, the kid ended up with a bad parent: the rock star's kid ended up going back with the mother, who immediately went on tour and left her with a nanny. The drug addict's kid went with his grandparents.

I also think it's sad because Benson kept having this happen in the storyline because the writers were trying to say, "Oh, poor tortured Benson! She was the product of rape, and gave herself to 'the job', and this might be her last chance to be a mother!"

[CharityB]

I thought "Limitations", in which the SVU team scramble to find and arrest a serial rapist before the statue of limitations on all his crimes run out, was basically a series of gut-punches. Every single minute of it was concentrated anguish and frustration (in a good way); even the "happy" ending when the detectives "win" was still a downer ending considering how they got here and who they were taking into custody.

[madeleine68]

This may not be a popular choice, but I thought "Payback" (the pilot) was also very sad. The scene with Olivia and the woman who had been blinded and put in a wheelchair by her rape was so heartbreaking, and seeing how messed up the victims were by this horrible man was awful. By that same token, "Witness" was another sad one for me.

[Spartan Girl]

I thought the end of "Tangled", where the assaulted wife finds out her murdered husband planned the whole attack to kill her so that he could be with his girlfriend, was a bummer. It's always horrible to find out you were married to someone you didn't even know.

[glitterintheair]

Sorry for bumping old threads -

What's the one with the little girl named Marnie? The piano teacher and the rest of her family turn out to be involved :( felt sorry for everyone at the end of that one.

[Scorpiosrule]

What's the one with the little girl named Marnie?

That would be "Totem."

[NMdum1]

Oh hell yes, I was forgetting about 'Totem'. Probably the most depressing later period episode of the lot. And a candidate for having the worst parent of all time in it as well. I thought maybe June Frye really wanted to take the whole can for her sister, worrying all the while that little sister might do it all again.

Early phase of course is 'Loss'. I tend to break the show into three sections, first season and Cabot as regular = Early Phase, Middle Phase = Casey period i.e. when they stopped paying as much attention to details and just winged it more. And Later Phase = post-Casey i.e., when they stopped giving a crap (albeit they do seem to be trying a little harder this last year if only because Neil Behr has gone). Not sure what the most depressing of the Middle Phase is, I shall have to think about that.

[The Wild Sow]

Stolen. A child's life is turned upside-down, his identity shaken, because of Cragen's attempt to help. The victim's family can't see that what's best for him is to stay with the family he has, and so the kid is torn from his healthy, loving family to stay with them. It is a sad case of truth in television.

Stolen was just on. Still tops my list for Saddest. Episode. Evah!

Not only the situation described above, sad as it is -- but what's going to happen when his dad's ex-wife goes to jail? That woman -- the woman who killed his mother! -- is the mother of his 2 half-brothers! And those boys are going to hate him & blame him for their mom's troubles. And naturally he's going to hate them, since after all their mom killed his mom!

Way to set up some sibling rivalry on a par with Cain & Abel, show.

[Arjumand]

One of the first episodes I ever watched, of SVU, Taken (Season 2), was always the saddest for me, especially as it was one of those Law and Order episodes to which the final sting was " . . . and then the innocent accused guy dies in jail before he can be released. There! Life sucks."

And then Munch had to tell his wife/girlfriend what had happened. And I don't think anything happened to the people who set up the whole fake rape to be able to sue the hotel (I think) or something.

Oh, and the one where Adam Kaufman (who I then knew as Parker from BtVS) kills the guy who raped him regularly (and pimped him out) from when he was 8 years old, but he's the one who'll be going to prison.

So depressing!

[biakbiak]

And I don't think anything happened to the people who set up the whole fake rape to be able to sue the hotel (I think) or something

They give the younger sister immunity and she testifys against her brother, sister in law and their other accompliance and its implied that they go to jail for the fraud. Then she is arrested for causing the guy's death in prison.

[00redsvt]

Okay, the episode where the girl comes in and starts shooting and Stabler shoots her. Don't know the name, but it has stuck with me for some reason. Obviously it's not the saddest of the sad, IMO, but, it just automatically pops in my brain when I see this thread.