About Last Night…LAW & ORDER, LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, FOUND, and More

Let’s talk about Thursday night’s TV!

NEXT LEVEL CHEF: I’m so glad this show is back, but, man, the auditions felt so, so rushed. It also felt quasi-obvious who was going to be cut because we got their contestant package. (I’m sure we got some who stuck around, too, but it felt very noticeable with a couple of them.)

Meanwhile, I can’t believe a contestant dropped most of his chicken and still managed to stay safe. We’ll see if this is the most difficult thing Bobby has to deal with on the show.

LAW & ORDER: Odelya Halevi and Abigail Spencer were fantastic in the episode. We don’t always get to see the guest stars have big moments—especially if they’re not the actual killer—but Spencer got one of the more complex and well-rounded (albeit absolutely tragic) one-off characters we’ve seen on the show in a while.

Prefacing this with of course Michelle should have protected her daughter. Of course. That girl deserved better in every single aspect of her life. But…the (male) lawyers thought it wasn’t extremely relevant Michelle had lived with abuse and the lingering trauma of that for most of her life and it would absolutely be relevant? Insane. Thank goodness Sam stood up for victims of domestic violence and her own instincts. And thank goodness Price actually freaking listened to her and convinced Baxter they should shift their approach.

Between this and his SVU guest spot this week, they’re really making Baxter…almost uncaring about the complexity of humanity? He’s a fascinating character, but the whammy of these two episodes airing back to back when there should have been grace in both cases and he needed to be actively persuaded was something.

On a general note, I really appreciated how it felt like they were a lot more flexible with the format this week, too. The nature of the storytelling kind of demanded it, but it worked really well.



GHOSTS: Uh, so, any chance we can make that cult prediction actually come true? Asking for a doomed nation…

It’s a really tricky line to walk when Flower has emotional or growth episodes given the nature of the character, but the show handled it really well with tonight’s episode. It was lovely how her friends hyped her up and made it clear they didn’t really blame her. She might not remember every moment of the conversation, but we will.

(Also, I kind of love that Trevor and Hetty are missing each other. They’re a hot mess—and I mean that in a positive way—and it’s fun watching them team up together.)

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: There was a lot of good in the episode: Olivia was actually a boss to her team, and they frequently worked without her. The case was considerably more complex than we’ve gotten in a while. Juliana Aidén Martinez, who has largely been criminally underused this season, was fantastic as Silva took center stage and grappled with accidentally entrapping a man with mental disabilities. Silva and Bruno’s dynamic continues to be a wonderful surprise. (Though it was kind of odd he as positioned as the one to tell her to suck it up when his biggest known piece of backstory was that he was a whistleblower against dirty cops.)

The biggest issue of the episode for me was Olivia and Carisi’s entire storyline, unfortunately. On paper, I love that they didn’t agree—they may be friends, but their work interests don’t always align. We should be seeing more work conflict with them if they’re going to work together as frequently as they do. (Not to mention the fact that she was his boss for years always adds a different layer of tension and angst to their disagreements.) But the way this played out made both of them look bad and wasn’t true to either of their characters.

Of course Olivia cares about the survivors, but this wasn’t making a deal with one bad guy to, like, stop a shipment of drugs. He was offering up a whole ring of people who were actively pursuing non-consensual photos of minors…in what world would she not have taken that while also making sure Leah was protected and got justice? There could have been hundreds or thousands of victims that got justice if they actually took the group down, not to mention how many crimes it could prevent in the future, too. (Though the squad being transfixed by the fight between Olivia and Carisi and having to snap back to pretend they hadn’t been eavesdropping was very, very funny.)



On the flip side, once it was clear Matthew was mentally impaired…why the heck did Carisi insist on treating him like the other men they caught? (The episodes airing wildly out of order, still, remains a problem, as they ignored Carisi’s PTSD for weeks only to bring it up here as a card Olivia played against him. This was at least the third time this season I’ve had the thought that it has been detrimental to the viewing experience that I watch every episode…which is the first time I’ve ever had that experience with any show?) Matthew’s obvious impairments combined with his comments to Silva in the game should/could have made the entire thing completely moot for Carisi, and yet somehow he and Baxter were fixated on MUST GET THEM ALL!!!! until Silva, and then Olivia, pushed back. It was inhumane and unexpectedly cold of Carisi.

It’s also frustrating that the Baxter scene felt like it was purely inserted to be promo bait versus a way to actually enhance the episode. It would make sense to bring Baxter to the show—heck, he should have been in episode 9 as Carisi was spiraling—but this was a scene where if you lifted it from the episode, absolutely nothing changed; we heard a summary from Olivia to the team immediately after. If you’re going to use Tony Goldwyn, why not actually use him in a way that makes sense? There were dozens of ways to even work him into this episode and actually have it add to the depth of the storytelling, either with Olivia and Carisi or just Carisi. And yet…

And, look, I feel like a broken record about this, but it was actually extraordinarily relevant in this episode: It remains absolutely wild the only version they seem to want to show of Olivia is someone who seems to have forgotten her own son’s existence. This was a Silva episode and she deserved the chance to shine! I’m not looking for the central focus to have shifted. But…a case about teens and their actions online? Kids being lured into a digital game by predators? In half of his most recent appearances, Noah was doing things online behind his mom’s back that had, in theory, a life-changing impact. (Noah finding his half-brother and then Noah looking Olivia up and then having to be told about his biological parents and other traumatizing things.) You don’t need the actor if he’s not available for whatever reason, but a literal line from Olivia about how concerned she is about what her kid is exposed to on the internet would have been extraordinarily human. I don’t get the decision to strip her of any kind of personal layer this season especially while having so, so many teen-centric cases.

(Also: Eli and Oliver? Really?)

MATLOCK: Oh, Edwin, why the lie?! Sigh. Matty is going to be so hurt when she learns he contacted Alfie’s potential father behind her back.

Shae and Sarah teaming up to try and take down Matty made me so nervous. (I’m not saying these were rational nerves.) But, man, good for Matty for getting ahead of them again and potentially throwing them off the scent.

Senior protecting Shae, though…hmm. Just hm.

It was really fun to see Chris Gorham, too, as an ethically murky tech mogul. He had a great dynamic with the cast, even if he, uh, didn’t play the best guy.



FOUND: Oh, boy…Sir lying for Gabi was a special kind of torture for her. On one hand, if she had been imprisoned, Sir would have known exactly where she was. But like this, she’s free…and she’ll always know it was because he let her have that.

One of the things I was most intrigued to see in this hour was how Sir and Gabi interacted on their first day with him being her captive. How much would Gabi be spiraling? How much would Sir be trying to get under her skin or manipulate her? And, wow, Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Shanola Hampton did not disappoint. Sir was desperate to reach Gabi, to prove his worth. Gabi was spiraling, but trying so, so hard to keep everything under control. And, arguably, that was maybe the most we’ve seen her with things out of her control? She was trying to contain the Sir situation while also dealing with Margaret falling apart and everyone in her home while her biggest secret ever was downstairs. So, so, so good.

As for Jamie…sigh. I’m worried. I’m worried for them all.

[For more on the episode, here’s what Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Shanola Hampton shared.]

ELSBETH: Carrie Preston and Ioan Gruffudd were absolutely charming together. It was nice to have a break from the format, too, because we didn’t know exactly what went down and the Famous Guest Star wasn’t the killer. Will they have a future? Who knows. But it’s nice Elsbeth got a big romantic gesture and to see her as light as she was.

THE PITT: Uh, well, I didn’t see the twist coming that the woman had been drugging her husband because he was molesting their kid. Trinity threatening him was terrifying and excellent.

On the flip side, Mel’s humanity and kindness to the patient with autism was so lovely to see. And I’m so glad it was noticed by Langdon, too.

My relief that Kristi was finally able to get the abortion she was seeking almost instantly turned to heartbreak for Collins, who miscarried right after. Kristi so desperately wanted agency over her own body, and her mother finally listened. Great! But Collins clearly wanted this pregnancy. Sigh. I really hope the miscarriage is handled well given we’ll be living in the immediate aftermath for the rest of the season.

Which shows did you watch last night?

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