This wasn’t a great episode.
Law and Order: SVU “Exile”
Season 20, Episode 6
Airdate: 10/25/2018
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Staff Writer
This review will be rather brief; that’s for a few reasons. First, there isn’t much to discuss.
Secondly, if we’re being honest, I thought that “Exile” was a boring and poorly written episode. It’s this season’s weakest entry thus far. There were good things to acknowledge here. The actress who portrayed the victim, Sophie, was fantastic in the role. As a matter of fact, I thought she was much better than everyone else this week in terms of acting. That being said, I didn’t like the case too much. I’ll be diverting from my usual format this week, instead of talking about one aspect of the show at the forefront of the proceedings in “Exile.”
One of this week’s main subplots revolved entirely around Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Ben Stone. If I can diverge briefly from SVU for a bit, I must come forward and say that despite my criticism of his story here, I do like ADA Stone. I first became accustomed to seeing him on the silver screen when he debuted on Chicago P.D. and later on when he became a part of the ensemble for P.D.’s short-lived spinoff, Chicago Justice. It was primarily as a result of Justice’s cancelation, in tandem with the departure of Raúl Esparza (who portrayed ADA Rafael Barba,) that we got Philip Winchester (and Stone) on SVU.
The great thing about all of the shows in the Chicago franchise is every main character on is given a fully fleshed-out backstory — something SVU struggles with. In fairness, SVU is a procedural, so it shouldn’t necessarily have to craft those types of stories for each year. I don’t watch this show every week to view the squad’s personal drama, I watch this show because I want to see the squad effectively combat heinous offenses.
In “Exile,” Stone is still dealing with the emotional fallout from his sister Pamela’s murder in the Season 19 finale, which he was a witness to. In case you don’t remember, a Mexican drug cartel threatened Stone to back off prosecuting one of their members. He didn’t and the cartel stormed the psychiatric hospital where his sister was being held, kidnapped her, and eventually she was killed.
Normally, that’s a solid story to work with, but there’s a problem. I don’t care much about Stone’s sister. I never did and don’t think many SVU fans did either. She was introduced abruptly following Stone’s arrival in New York and during one of SVU’s crazier episodes (it’s titled “Send In The Clowns” and you should totally watch it because it’s amazingly absurd); we had never met her before or ever knew she existed. This abrupt introduction, along with fans of the show still reeling from Barba’s departure, caused fans to turn on Stone.
I still like Stone on SVU. He does something that a lot of people don’t do: he calls Benson out when she goes off the rails. He holds her accountable for her lack of investigative work and is courageous enough to stand up to her when he feels she’s making the wrong call. I love Benson, but there are times where she is seemingly running the place with unchecked authority. Towards the end of his tenure, Barba gave into Benson’s ideology and he even admitted it during his final scene on the show.
I really hope Stone doesn’t become the same way. Benson is a crusader, fighting admirably to get justice for victims walking into her squad room. Olivia Benson is my favorite television character and it goes without saying that she’s definitely one of the good guys. However, every call she makes can’t be the right one. The more people with the gall to stand up to her, the better.
JACOB’S FINAL VERDICTS:
– Stone basically getting called old by the woman he was trying to pick up was hilarious!
– It’s Cap’n Crunch, not Captain Crunch. Benson really needs to gain some more knowledge on cereals.
– I like Carisi, but he says the wrong things at the worst times.
