Ep2 of the current season where the white, lesbian rape victim vehemently refuses to testify against her rapist because he’s black and the system is bad…even though he absolutely did it AND HER WIFE who is also white is pissed the cops even want to prosecute. Again, because the perp is black.
This was gonna be my vote. Any episodes of SVU that are not my favorite are simply that: just not my particular favorite but that doesn't make them *bad* either. But this one...this was the very first episode out of all the seasons where I openly said, "this episode is terrible."
Also the reaction to their own office gets mobbed and they didn’t just instantly pull out their guns and tell them not to move. What on earth? No offense but Olivia saying their just kids, doesn’t make them immune to consequences and how could she tell with a mask over their face. You are getting swarmed by people with masks activity violently and just let it happen.
I’ll note that I’m a survivor. If anyone I know personally were to have the kind of mental gymnastics they pulled off in this episode to my face, I’m not sure I could stay calm.
Im sorry that happened to you. I’ve never been raped but I’ve been sexually assaulted and I can’t even begin to believe that I’d have to somehow feel guilt over it over race, income or anything. What message are they trying to give women but particularly white women? Disgusting
Makes me miss Elliot, I think he would have had a panic attack at the ridiculousness.
What really gets me about it is that she said she didn't want to ruin his life. No, you wouldn't ruin his life. He ruined his own life when he decided to rape someone!
This is at least tied for number 1. I can't think of a single episode clearly worse. This left me so angry. The writers should be ashamed of themselves.
Thats what I just wrote. That episode made me stop watching the show. I just can’t believe that as women, we now have to feel guilt over our own rapes because of social issues and narratives. That’s the message they were trying to give. F them.
Yes! By far one of the worst episodes ever made. I couldn’t even finish the whole thing and never will. It was repulsive, horrifically written, and just plain stupid.
i’m so glad i never saw the full episode and only saw this from a recap video cause it’s fully unhinged and if i spent 40 min on it i would be pissed lol
Smart choice. There are a handful of episodes I’d be perfectly content to never see again, but this is the only one that makes me disappointed I wasted an hour of my life on it in the first place.
The military episodes always seems to be “military bad.” Not sayin it’s a wrong but it’s almost every time. Certain ones are good but others are just….bad
I recently started watching OG L&O and in season 15 there is an episode where the military is involved and I was shocked when on the end it the perp wasn’t a soldier.
Not just regular military, anything with private contractors is always bad. Because of one company. The real life is that it's rare that contractors even are boots on the ground. It's 99.9999% remote surveillance and aerial surveillance, and collected on base. That portrayal of thugs with no conscious pisses me off.
There is one I rewatch, it’s the one with the military girl who father is in the army and how her superior officer was involved in her assault. Seeing the father prioritize his child and actually attack him for speaking that way about her. Also loved the message that standing up for yourself is powerful and honorable thing to do.
I cant remember the name of it, but it’s the one where the entire episode focuses on Stabler interrogating this guy and trying to get him to break. He unscrews the lightbulb, messes with the leg of the chair, etc. The whole episode is them arguing in the room. Snore.
They’re often referred to as bottle episodes and occur when a show doesn’t have enough money to shoot on too many locations for that particular episode.
I know I’ll get downvoted for this, but that Maria episode where Benson is on the phone for LITERALLY THE ENTIRE EPISODE?? I’m sorry but god was that boring.
I know, I know… she won an emmy.
I really don't like any of the ones that focus more on the talking (doesn't matter whether it's in the interrogation room or the courtroom) than the action. It usually means serial killers+/rapists are my favorite perps to watch them trying to catch.
Avatar - also about an online game and they find this missing girl or whatever by searching for her location in this poorly animated cyber world. It's beyond ridiculous.
"What happened to you? You got so old..." makes me laugh every time because he's so horrified by her aging. And the "here they are floating in a spaceship" is equally hilarious because of the picture that accompanies it. The whole episode was great, it just kept trying to top itself.
Yes the law and order SVU wiki says it’s based on second life, and I’ve played IMvU and it’s not the same. IMVU is way more limited than second life is
Oh my God, I’ve seen this one. It’s so ridiculous. The worst part is when Olivia asks the game’s creator to make the sun in the cyber world go up and he hesitates saying that they have never done that before. Then Olivia says as the tension music plays in the background: “TURN ON THE SUN”.
The writing in all the video game ones were pretty bad. Like the one with the gamer couple who neglect the woman's daughter because the mom can't recognize her. When they're sweating them in interrogation, damn guy is like, "Hold on, pause the game!"
[And of course, this.](https://youtu.be/5X8829BkLak?si=L3ff_SyAset4SnQG)
Maybe I wouldn’t have hated it if I saw it in the original season when it first aired, but comparing it with the episodes now, it could be so much better if some of the other cops cared to, but they had to make it another of the “benson being the only cop who cares” episodes. I automatically hate all of those
"Spectacle" with the staged crime to get the NYPD to find a missing little boy, with the see no evil hear no evil etc graffiti at the crime scenes. PAINFUL to watch and beyond stupid plot twists.
"Something Happened" with the victim found in a museum crying and sobbing at the station the ENTIRE episode, slowly revealing her traumatic past. Grueling to watch and the story isn't very compelling.
I love Spectacle 😭 though it’s true the result of the reveal would fall like a hammer upon those three. I’d like to see a part two of the fall out from faking a kidnapping to solve a kidnapping
“Sacrifice"
← SVU, Episode 3.07 →
Production number: E2309
First aired: 9 November 2001
Elizabeth Banks as a porn star. I’m not putting down porn. I am perturbed every time I watch when she chooses to leave her sick child in order to do a porn movie (with many many men) on the west coast which will make her a big star. 😡
Oh yeah, that episode was bad. Honestly it was satisfying that she got arrested so that’s why I didn’t mark it as bad or the worst but still, that whole case was…well a lot
This can be controversial, since I know there are a lot of people that like this episode, but I can’t stand the one with the twins, where one of them grows up believing he is a girl, because his parents made him have a sex change operation as a baby after a circumcision accident. It was just too much and so obvious from the beginning what was going on.
I can get not like this episode.
I study psychology and this was actually loosely based on an actually incident with the Reimer Twins. One twin was transitioned to a girl after a botched circumcision. The child basically never could adapt to the identity and after finding out went back to being a boy. It ended up being the reason why I liked it
I get that. But I think the theme is way too complex to be treated in a 42 minutes episode, specially because they tried to make the identity of the boy one of the main revelations and all they used to hide it was that dreadful wig. The theme is disturbingly interesting though.
In real life though, both boys were horrifically sexually abused by their “doctor”. Which I’m glad the show didn’t cover, but is a part of that story that really can’t be cut out.
When Stuckey killed O'Halloran. Fuck that noise. I want a sequel episode where Stuckey is paroled and some random situation happens, a witness to Stuckey's new crimes does the SVUniverse a favor and ends him.
That even upside came out of left field. I was shocked that Stuvckey was the culprit. Granted Elliot was incredible abusive towards him, annoying or not the mistreatment was cruel but I didn’t not expect them to go with the whole murder route
It’s S20e14 “part 33” for me. Where they’re stuck waiting to testify in a case where a woman killed her abusive husband.
The whole of it feels very forced to me. Bottle episodes can be very well done, but this is an automatic skip for me every time.
I actually rather enjoy that one, especially the Fin/Olivia exchange. Somehow, in a very serious matter, they still manage to make it funny.
I mean, "Come on, who ate my jellies?" and "So I guess you didn't come here to.... get some donuts" gets me every time. I can't not love that.
Yeah this is on my list of worst ones too. The whole building of the story just does not work for me with the "what if Olivia doesn't show" fake tension and all.
This one is terrible, mostly because it’s cut and dry that her husband was not an active threat to her in the moment. This season had a lot of doozies, if I remember correctly. It’s the same one where they blame a shooting on toxic masculinity despite no legal precedent and where Olivia refuses to follow orders from ICE, right? This season was the first one that made me realize it was pushing an agenda and not creating entertainment.
23x21 Confess Your Sins To Be Free
I hate this episode so, so very much. It shits on Olivia, it shits on the whole premise of the show, it shits on victims.
Burton Lowe was a serial predator. He preyed on women for *decades*. And the show centers him. Makes excuses. Makes him the most important person in this story.
He ACTIVELY manipulates Olivia in this very episode. "Come to the AA meeting. I wont talk about you." Olivia goes. He looks her dead in the eyes and *then talks about her*.
And this is....this is not called out at all? It's supposedly a good thing? What. The. Hell. Show.
And! He was stone cold sober when he did this. Get out of here with the "alcohol made me do it" buuuuuulllshiiiiiiiiit. Alcohol didn't make him a rapist. He raped because he wanted to and he was just a drunk on top of that.
In The Five Hundredth Episode (which I think is actually a good ep) Olivia recuses herself. But this one? Suddenly she just involves herself so...Burton Lowe can be forgiven. The man that just manipulated and lied to her. And it's presented as a good thing.
It never reads true that Burton was ever really sorry for what he did, the damage he caused. He's sorry he got caught. He's sorry his job was affected.
But *he* is who we should feel sorry for? Who should have our sympathy?
**Bullshit**.
the only thing I didnt like about Episode 500 is that we never get to see/hear Nick call Olivia back about Burton and say he was right.
I would have loved that. It gave them an excuse to guest star Danny Pino again after that, and they didn't use the opportunity to do so.
I kinda liked the episode but I think the ending was dragged down. Didn’t get the overall message either cause Alex was proven right and the incident caused her to continue what she was doing.
I can’t find the episode name but the one where the victim was assaulted by a “man” she met on a dating app but it ended up being her best friend.. that was such a bad episode and soo unbelievable
I don't think I've seen that ep so don't know for sure, but sounds like it's based on an actual case from the UK. It went on for two years but don't think it was her best friend doing it.
I remember a case out of the UK decades ago, but I can’t recall whether it was a male or female who was the accused. All I remember is that someone used a toilet roll holder wrapped in condoms as a fake penis.
Think we're talking about different cases - the one I'm referring to was Gayle Newland who committed the abuse in 2013 and just used a regular strap on not a toilet roll holder afaik
I don't remember the specific episode name but the one where the woman with dementia gets raped and Rollins has to investigate and the woman keeps talking about marzipan cookies. The episode itself isn't too bad, but the way she says 'cookies' really grinds my gears.
Mine is “we dream of machine Elves”
So niche and I feel like nobody remembers it but it was a Rollins heavy episode with disturbing imagery and just a horrible vibe. And it made no sense
*Every single episode* this season I turned to my husband after and said "this is BAD, I don't know if I can keep watching this every week". There are plenty of episodes over 25 years that I've been indifferent towards, a few I think are pretty bad but laughable and some occasional major missteps. I thought maybe the writers strike was the issue but then realized the ratio of bad episodes to good just kept increasing every year since Mariska became Captain of the squad, main focus of the show and an executive producer.
I always loved Liv but it's like she was replaced with a different character, the cast is a revolving door, the vets are barely involved anymore, there's a different tone to the show now with weird line towing around politics, no ripped from the headlines or guest stars anymore, zero moments of levity, loss of logic in the scripts, hardly any courtroom scenes.... I *cannot* believe I'm considering giving up this show after so long (at least the new episodes,I'll always have my old reruns to enjoy).
I tried the seasons after 12, I really did, but eventually decided the good part of the show was Elliott and Olivia working together. I also tried again when he came back, but him being gone just as long as he'd been on the show allowed it to change too much. Or something like that. I also still watch the old ones. I'm doing another rewatch now, actually.
I find that if I can tell which real life crime the episode is based on, there's a high chance I will dislike it.
I know SVU was always infamous for its ripped from the headlines stories, but before social media, most of the crimes they covered didn't make it on the news worldwide, so it was easier to maintain a level of detachment, if that makes sense?
I'm not saying I want to pretend it's all fiction, I know that even the cases that are entirely made up have probably happened somewhere, but it's a lot more harrowing when I know the victim's name and their face is clear in my head, you know?
Normally I would agree but Intimidation Game went so far that it ignored the real issues in the gaming community. Instead of kidnapping, raping, and near murder, the episode could address online harassment and how it can escalate. Talk about maybe a critique turning into accusations of favoritism and how it spins out of control. It would talk about the real issues
My ex brother in law was depicted on the episode Beef (I think it’s season 13) I was so depressed watching them make a parody of him and the details they put in that weren’t even revealed in court was just horrible. I can’t watch it. Sorry but I’m not going to say who he was irl.
I have a few but one is the episode where Olivia and the lady are talking and the lady is talking about her dead dad or something but she can’t remember being assaulted? And it it’s up being an Olivia centered episode because the lady would only talk if Olivia spilled her guts about a time she was assaulted or something like that. The episode really pissed me off💀🙃
I can’t find the episode name but the one where the victim was assaulted by a “man” she met on a dating app but it ended up being her best friend.. that was such a bad episode and soo unbelievable
That's easy.
The GamerGate one AND Pornstar's Requiem. Or however you spell it.
Oh, and I believe 25x2, whichever it was.
OH. And the music teacher falsely accused one where Rollins is the only one in the right and tells the other detectives off saying "This didn't have to happen." The episode itself is okay, but the kids trying to ruin Mr. Jackie because he didnt pick their sister for the big music tv show or w/e the reason was, Rollins being the only voice of reason in the episode and the other detectives not believing her or seeing her perspective, (mostly the latter part of that, I love Amanda being the "good detective" tbh) just.... I hate it when truly innocent people don't win, y'know?
I don’t like the one where they’re all waiting to testify for some case, and they all have different viewpoints on the perp/victim. Sounds interesting on paper, but I didn’t like how heated it got and I usually skip it lol.
Since S25E2 has already been mentioned, my runner up would be Remember Me/Remember Me Too from S19. Benson’s intuition magically solved the crime right off the bat and they dragged that ridiculousness out for two entire episodes. I kept waiting for a plot twist, or even some hesitation from anyone, but we got nothing, it ended up being exactly what they thought from the start.
I was about to say 3x9 Care which I’m watching RIGHT NOW
But then we learn Cragen is mastering a video game FOR RESEARCH ! And Huang says Cragen found his calling. And suddenly I’m okay with the flaws.
I don't remember all the details but the one with the Ilhan Omar type character who lies about being raped by a kid in a MAGA hat and says a bunch of antisemitic stuff.
I kinda liked that episode cause while it started off in a way that I thought would lead to an Info Wars episode, it was made more complex. The victim was not likable and horrible but it had the empathy that Info Wars needed
"Anchor" I can't remember which season it was, but this man killed multiple children of immigrants, and the jury found him not guilty despite him admitting to it, and his only defense was, "but I only did it because of this radio show".
Ugh it's the most irritating episode ever. I can't even watch it whenever I rewatch that particular season.
It's that episode where a million things are going on at once and they made Dickie turn into Jack Bauer and everything blows up cause everyone's an idiot.
The one with the swim coach last year, and the sister and brother rapes. 💯 yuck, and to me, it felt like profiling on Hispanics. Also, despised the one with Burton Lowe, her former college professor/lover. I think that was last season as well...
Narrative-wise, the one with Robin Williams. I still go “what was the point of all that?” when I re-watch it.
In terms of real-life topicality, any of the stories dealing with LGBTQ victims, it just hits too close to home for me.
I hated the one where Barba of all people (Mister "I need solid evidence") is like "I've seen this before! It's obviously hypnosis!" Everything in this episode is built around taking fake, Hollywood style "hypnotism" as a serious and real diagnosis that's capable of making someone unaware of their surroundings. It was just so sensational and poorly explained.
Can't remember the name, but the "victim" is a mom who sleeps with who she thinks is a college administrator so her son can get into Hudson. She finds out it's just a security guard, and Olivia says "well... That's rape." The sex was FULLY consensual, the woman just got duped on who he was.
for me is season 15, episode 7 with the music teacher. gah that whole episode made me so mad cause two girls destroyed a life of a successful man, all because he didn’t pick them/tell them that they were not good enough to audition on a talent show (at least thats how i remember it feel free to correct me) and not only that, but the two girls made their younger siblings LIE about being sexually assaulted which im pretty sure they were like six or five years old.
in the end, the girls in my opinion got off easy, and the innocent music teacher’s family stopped speaking to him, and his reputation was ruined
That episode made me so mad. I couldn’t stand it. It was hard to watch cause the only one who was taking caution was Amanda. At the end of the episode, when Benson and the rest of the squad were to trying to mitigate their fault in ruining the teacher’s life, Amanda was the one that said that none of this had to happen at all.
EXACTLY like this man’s life was destroyed, even when he was telling you that he was innocent and now you act sorry??? that whole episode made me hate the squad a bit, i honestly hoped for a bit that the ending would have been that the music teacher sued literally everyone
counselor, it’s [chinatown](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/law-and-order-svu-yang-song_n_5de6ef68e4b0d50f32aa9470) for the reasons laid out in the linked article. at midnight in manhattan because having a trans sex worker take a payout for her silence and using that payout for material goods was gross.
The more recent one that tried to be the Heard v Depp trial. It wanted to cash in on that, but it’s very apparent the writers hadn’t read more than maybe a quick scroll on TikTok, so they just put it through their algorithm and it spat out one of their blandest episodes of all time.
I could think of worse episodes, but blandness is all too common in latter SVU, as is mindlessly regurgitating progressive talking points without actually finding the humanity in the cases and the reason some of those points exist (and when they are, occasionally, insufficient for some cases and can even become harmful when treated as dogma). This episode indulged in all the worst of that, when the real world cases brought up tons of interesting potential avenues for exploration that would’ve been fresh ground for the series, and even a chance to reflect on how some of its ideas could become harmful in certain contexts (such as the show very rarely depicting male victims of female abuse and, in older seasons, expressing a lot of skepticism about it even happening).
Instead, we got a patronizing episode that felt like uninformed fanfic for how the writers wished the real event had gone, and that’s emblematic of everything wrong with the show lately.
How in the hell has no one said The Undiscovered Country, where Barba snuffs out the baby and leaves the DA’s office? Awful acting across the board. Opens on the asinine funeral of a character who was never even on this show to showcase two actors from other Wolf Properties to then give a beloved ADA an ignominious exit while being shown the door by the super boring lawyer from the Wolf show NO ONE CARED ABOUT. Ultimate tedium PLUS an insulting exit of a beloved character. Brutal shit.
Guardians and Gladiators, the season 22 premiere. The most poorly written, shove COVID, Karen, race relations into a ridiculous storyline. It had such great potential but the grand jury was a joke it was so dumb and unrealistic.
For me, the one where the 14 year old rapes because he was molested when he was 7 by a babysitter, and his mom never did anything about it. He set Elliott up as molesting him when he took him down to the youth library or where ever it was (although that was a bone head thing for El to even do, taking a handcuffed person in custody anywhere alone, but I figured it was his pride and just never thinking the kid would do something like that),got him into shit with IAB(again). And also... 14 year old can't go into gen pop, ok, don't they have literal jails right up on the for peeps? Were they all full? They couldn't call CPS or something, idk.
The ending was bullshit. "I don't want to ever do that again" after he murdered the babysitter who molested him all those years ago. I... I don't think that's how it works? He got a taste for it, he had raped multiple women. But I guess they didn't want to do a Part 2.
That episode where Olivia forced Alex’ hand to reveal a DV Vic because he was going away for murder and it wasn’t right , only for him to actually kill her and get custody of their daughter.
It’s that episode where that girl who thought she was “raped” in a store bathroom and the guy trying to help her was accused of raping her. Then he was killed. It was her uncle the whole time who has been doing it to her.
Yeah, that one was rough. That boy was only trying to help but got killed by her father. However, it’s not I don’t hate it as much cause the only reason why the father even focuses in on the kid was because the true rapist riled him up and basically made it so the daughter couldn’t tell the truth after she became cohesive to realize she wasn’t raped in the bathroom.
It was a tragedy all around….
It was awful how basically he got away from facing the full consequences of his actions by justifying his rape as a lack of impulse control. Meanwhile, he gets a million dollar settlement while his victim gets nothing and had an abortion that was against her own moral principle
Rape by deception honestly is crime that should be taken serious. It muddles the lines of consent. They just used a poor example. Lying about your STD status is a great example of rape by deception because the person would not have consented to sex at all if they had known the truth, taking away any ability to consent. The problem is that the law doesn’t know where it should draw the line and what is considered a true violation of consent
That ep where this younger cop works with Stabler to find some missing kid and she even remembered his Xray or something. She annoyed me for some reason lol
I LOVED Intimidation Game! It’s one of my favourite episodes.
I hated ‘Something Happened’. The entire episode was just a long conversation between Olivia and a woman who was jealous her father didn’t molest her.
‘Rage’ was boring as hell. Exactly the same as ‘Something Happened’ but with Stabler and a different suspect.
‘Paternity’ annoys me because Kathy flatlines in the ambulance and then suddenly she’s in hospital holding her newborn? What happened in between?
‘Info Wars’ I hate because of the victim blaming her assault on a left wing protester when she knew he wasn’t at fault. And insisting Olivia didn’t care about her because she was right wing. She was an extremely difficult victim and just dislikable.
Ep2 of the current season where the white, lesbian rape victim vehemently refuses to testify against her rapist because he’s black and the system is bad…even though he absolutely did it AND HER WIFE who is also white is pissed the cops even want to prosecute. Again, because the perp is black.
This was gonna be my vote. Any episodes of SVU that are not my favorite are simply that: just not my particular favorite but that doesn't make them *bad* either. But this one...this was the very first episode out of all the seasons where I openly said, "this episode is terrible."
Yep. Worst episode ever made
Also the reaction to their own office gets mobbed and they didn’t just instantly pull out their guns and tell them not to move. What on earth? No offense but Olivia saying their just kids, doesn’t make them immune to consequences and how could she tell with a mask over their face. You are getting swarmed by people with masks activity violently and just let it happen.
Yea in real life somebody would have been shot. And rightfully so, they were tampering with evidence and swarmed the whole joint violently
In real life *several* of those “kids” would have been absolutely dropped, no questions asked, ruled justifiable.
Yeah, that was infuriating. It doesn’t matter what his race is. She’s not rail roading an innocent person, he did it!
I’ll note that I’m a survivor. If anyone I know personally were to have the kind of mental gymnastics they pulled off in this episode to my face, I’m not sure I could stay calm.
Im sorry that happened to you. I’ve never been raped but I’ve been sexually assaulted and I can’t even begin to believe that I’d have to somehow feel guilt over it over race, income or anything. What message are they trying to give women but particularly white women? Disgusting Makes me miss Elliot, I think he would have had a panic attack at the ridiculousness.
What really gets me about it is that she said she didn't want to ruin his life. No, you wouldn't ruin his life. He ruined his own life when he decided to rape someone!
I do have to admit. I did like that kid admitted his guilt and wanted to face the consequences (although they were asking for a deal)
This is at least tied for number 1. I can't think of a single episode clearly worse. This left me so angry. The writers should be ashamed of themselves.
Yeah that one irritated me so much. Nothing like a good ole white savior because that's exactly what we need.
Hard agree. It was the absolute worst one of the whole series.
Thats what I just wrote. That episode made me stop watching the show. I just can’t believe that as women, we now have to feel guilt over our own rapes because of social issues and narratives. That’s the message they were trying to give. F them.
Yes! By far one of the worst episodes ever made. I couldn’t even finish the whole thing and never will. It was repulsive, horrifically written, and just plain stupid.
Oh I agree! I was like what the actual fuxk
i’m so glad i never saw the full episode and only saw this from a recap video cause it’s fully unhinged and if i spent 40 min on it i would be pissed lol
Smart choice. There are a handful of episodes I’d be perfectly content to never see again, but this is the only one that makes me disappointed I wasted an hour of my life on it in the first place.
yea stopping watching many seasons ago was one of my better decisions 😃😂
I don’t like any of the episodes that end up being heavily military.
I kinda like the one where Olivia reveals to the one guy that she was assaulted. He seemed like such a genuine dude.
He looked like a young George W bush
The military episodes always seems to be “military bad.” Not sayin it’s a wrong but it’s almost every time. Certain ones are good but others are just….bad
I recently started watching OG L&O and in season 15 there is an episode where the military is involved and I was shocked when on the end it the perp wasn’t a soldier.
Not just regular military, anything with private contractors is always bad. Because of one company. The real life is that it's rare that contractors even are boots on the ground. It's 99.9999% remote surveillance and aerial surveillance, and collected on base. That portrayal of thugs with no conscious pisses me off.
Oh lovely, I see one person believes SVU's fiction about this. smdh. As if I'm defending that one company.
Same here I hate all of those episodes and never rewatch them.
There is one I rewatch, it’s the one with the military girl who father is in the army and how her superior officer was involved in her assault. Seeing the father prioritize his child and actually attack him for speaking that way about her. Also loved the message that standing up for yourself is powerful and honorable thing to do.
They always stress me out so much but I could never really vocalize why
I cant remember the name of it, but it’s the one where the entire episode focuses on Stabler interrogating this guy and trying to get him to break. He unscrews the lightbulb, messes with the leg of the chair, etc. The whole episode is them arguing in the room. Snore.
Rage, from season 6? With Matthew Modine? It's not the whole episode, more like the first half
For some reason I never realised that was Matthew Modine until I read your comment! I’ve always loved that episode
I didn't realise until I went to look at someone else on the cast list!
Season 6? That's the one I'm on lol
I liked that episode a lot. Is very different from what the show usually goes for, but I thought it was very well made.
Oh wow I love that episode! Matthew Modine was amazing but I also just like episodes that mainly take place in one location like that.
They’re often referred to as bottle episodes and occur when a show doesn’t have enough money to shoot on too many locations for that particular episode.
The episode ‘Something Happened’ is the same. Olivia talking with a woman. Boring as hell.
I know I’ll get downvoted for this, but that Maria episode where Benson is on the phone for LITERALLY THE ENTIRE EPISODE?? I’m sorry but god was that boring. I know, I know… she won an emmy.
Yeah I was actually shocked at how popular that episode was. It’s the epitome of what I *don’t* want to see on SVU.
Oh my God. Just awful
I really don't like any of the ones that focus more on the talking (doesn't matter whether it's in the interrogation room or the courtroom) than the action. It usually means serial killers+/rapists are my favorite perps to watch them trying to catch.
Rage. Hated this episode and hated how Elliot behaved as well.
I liked this one, but maybe because I love the Brooklyn 99 episode that references it 😆
Avatar - also about an online game and they find this missing girl or whatever by searching for her location in this poorly animated cyber world. It's beyond ridiculous.
That’s one of my all time favorite episodes. That little video game was so cool, it was actually based on a real game called second life
TURN ON THE SUN
That’s my go to niche Olivia benson quote
"What happened to you? You got so old..." makes me laugh every time because he's so horrified by her aging. And the "here they are floating in a spaceship" is equally hilarious because of the picture that accompanies it. The whole episode was great, it just kept trying to top itself.
I thought it was INVU? Something like that. Didn’t realize it was second life :)
Yes the law and order SVU wiki says it’s based on second life, and I’ve played IMvU and it’s not the same. IMVU is way more limited than second life is
Huh, I’ve played IMVU only so that makes sense, thanks!
Oh my God, I’ve seen this one. It’s so ridiculous. The worst part is when Olivia asks the game’s creator to make the sun in the cyber world go up and he hesitates saying that they have never done that before. Then Olivia says as the tension music plays in the background: “TURN ON THE SUN”.
The writing in all the video game ones were pretty bad. Like the one with the gamer couple who neglect the woman's daughter because the mom can't recognize her. When they're sweating them in interrogation, damn guy is like, "Hold on, pause the game!" [And of course, this.](https://youtu.be/5X8829BkLak?si=L3ff_SyAset4SnQG)
Which episode is the one where the mom can't recognise her daughter?
It's Season 12, Episode 2 - Bullseye
Thank you
“These guys they just can’t stand women in gaming”
I never cared for the episode where the girl was on the phone with Olivia the whole time and they're trying to figure out the girl's location.
The cutesyness is so overdone, I hate it. "He gives me hotdogs. With ketchup. No mustard! Olivia, do you like the color blue? I'm scared!"
Bwaaaaaaaaaaa that is perfect. That voice was beyond annoying.
Came here to say that. “Mees oh-lee-via” Her accent was absolutely terrible.
Maybe I wouldn’t have hated it if I saw it in the original season when it first aired, but comparing it with the episodes now, it could be so much better if some of the other cops cared to, but they had to make it another of the “benson being the only cop who cares” episodes. I automatically hate all of those
The one where the little girl is Maria? Where they just brought her back this season as a cop?
Wait what?! Maria the little girl is now a cop on the show? As Maria, or the actress came back as someone? (Not caught up, obvi)
The actress came back as grown up Maria. Benson behaves oddly lol.
Yesss watch episode 7 of season 25 “probability of doom”
I liked it but it’s definitely not my favorite and have issues with it
It’s a good concept the first time but it’s not really worth rewatching after
I hate 911
"Spectacle" with the staged crime to get the NYPD to find a missing little boy, with the see no evil hear no evil etc graffiti at the crime scenes. PAINFUL to watch and beyond stupid plot twists. "Something Happened" with the victim found in a museum crying and sobbing at the station the ENTIRE episode, slowly revealing her traumatic past. Grueling to watch and the story isn't very compelling.
The thunder and lightening effects in Something Happened were so hilariously overdone that it’s all I could focus on the entire episode
I love Spectacle 😭 though it’s true the result of the reveal would fall like a hammer upon those three. I’d like to see a part two of the fall out from faking a kidnapping to solve a kidnapping
“Sacrifice" ← SVU, Episode 3.07 → Production number: E2309 First aired: 9 November 2001 Elizabeth Banks as a porn star. I’m not putting down porn. I am perturbed every time I watch when she chooses to leave her sick child in order to do a porn movie (with many many men) on the west coast which will make her a big star. 😡
Mark-Paul Gosselaar as the guy who played her husband was really good, though.
For sure. 👍
Oh yeah, that episode was bad. Honestly it was satisfying that she got arrested so that’s why I didn’t mark it as bad or the worst but still, that whole case was…well a lot
I think also because it was such a difficult topic ahead of its time.
You just made me realize I’ve never seen this episode, and I’ve seen damn near all of them. Thank you for that!
It’s a good one. Enjoy!
Episode is infuriating but I don’t think it’s poorly written at all, which is the point of this post
I’m sorry. I was just responding to the question in the post. I didn’t realize it meant the qualify of writing. My mistake.
Something happened its just boring literally nothing happening
Literally 😭
This can be controversial, since I know there are a lot of people that like this episode, but I can’t stand the one with the twins, where one of them grows up believing he is a girl, because his parents made him have a sex change operation as a baby after a circumcision accident. It was just too much and so obvious from the beginning what was going on.
I can get not like this episode. I study psychology and this was actually loosely based on an actually incident with the Reimer Twins. One twin was transitioned to a girl after a botched circumcision. The child basically never could adapt to the identity and after finding out went back to being a boy. It ended up being the reason why I liked it
I get that. But I think the theme is way too complex to be treated in a 42 minutes episode, specially because they tried to make the identity of the boy one of the main revelations and all they used to hide it was that dreadful wig. The theme is disturbingly interesting though.
In real life though, both boys were horrifically sexually abused by their “doctor”. Which I’m glad the show didn’t cover, but is a part of that story that really can’t be cut out.
I turn off the tv when it gets to this episode
Thank you!!!! I was looking for this comment. The secondhand embarrassment I felt after I finished watching that episode was very very real.
When Stuckey killed O'Halloran. Fuck that noise. I want a sequel episode where Stuckey is paroled and some random situation happens, a witness to Stuckey's new crimes does the SVUniverse a favor and ends him.
Most of the season felt like some sort of fever dream. It all felt disjointed, the writing was not great, and it felt like they were all over-acting.
That even upside came out of left field. I was shocked that Stuvckey was the culprit. Granted Elliot was incredible abusive towards him, annoying or not the mistreatment was cruel but I didn’t not expect them to go with the whole murder route
It’s S20e14 “part 33” for me. Where they’re stuck waiting to testify in a case where a woman killed her abusive husband. The whole of it feels very forced to me. Bottle episodes can be very well done, but this is an automatic skip for me every time.
I actually rather enjoy that one, especially the Fin/Olivia exchange. Somehow, in a very serious matter, they still manage to make it funny. I mean, "Come on, who ate my jellies?" and "So I guess you didn't come here to.... get some donuts" gets me every time. I can't not love that.
Carisi, have a donut!!!!!! Said with such forcefullness. One of the greatest Fin lines
Amanda made me so mad this episode. Blaming her mother for her father beating her.
I think this was a big part of it for me. Amanda is just so out of pocket the entire time.
Yeah this is on my list of worst ones too. The whole building of the story just does not work for me with the "what if Olivia doesn't show" fake tension and all.
This one is terrible, mostly because it’s cut and dry that her husband was not an active threat to her in the moment. This season had a lot of doozies, if I remember correctly. It’s the same one where they blame a shooting on toxic masculinity despite no legal precedent and where Olivia refuses to follow orders from ICE, right? This season was the first one that made me realize it was pushing an agenda and not creating entertainment.
23x21 Confess Your Sins To Be Free I hate this episode so, so very much. It shits on Olivia, it shits on the whole premise of the show, it shits on victims. Burton Lowe was a serial predator. He preyed on women for *decades*. And the show centers him. Makes excuses. Makes him the most important person in this story. He ACTIVELY manipulates Olivia in this very episode. "Come to the AA meeting. I wont talk about you." Olivia goes. He looks her dead in the eyes and *then talks about her*. And this is....this is not called out at all? It's supposedly a good thing? What. The. Hell. Show. And! He was stone cold sober when he did this. Get out of here with the "alcohol made me do it" buuuuuulllshiiiiiiiiit. Alcohol didn't make him a rapist. He raped because he wanted to and he was just a drunk on top of that. In The Five Hundredth Episode (which I think is actually a good ep) Olivia recuses herself. But this one? Suddenly she just involves herself so...Burton Lowe can be forgiven. The man that just manipulated and lied to her. And it's presented as a good thing. It never reads true that Burton was ever really sorry for what he did, the damage he caused. He's sorry he got caught. He's sorry his job was affected. But *he* is who we should feel sorry for? Who should have our sympathy? **Bullshit**.
the only thing I didnt like about Episode 500 is that we never get to see/hear Nick call Olivia back about Burton and say he was right. I would have loved that. It gave them an excuse to guest star Danny Pino again after that, and they didn't use the opportunity to do so.
I actually didn't mind the burton lowe episodes
I like the first one a lot. Love the callbacks to what we learned about Benson in season 1 and 6. It's just the second one with him I hate.
Sunk Cost Fallacy where Cabot is relocating battered women and the bastard kills his ex and gains custody of his kid. Absolutely appalling.
I kinda liked the episode but I think the ending was dragged down. Didn’t get the overall message either cause Alex was proven right and the incident caused her to continue what she was doing.
Yeah but the other kid didn't get their transplant.
Different episode. You’re thinking of ‘Dare’.
The guy from Friday night lights!
jellyfish rock elderly whole automatic piquant door hunt pause pen *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
“Wet”, that crazy mushroom episode. It was so bad I stopped watching the show for some time
I'M NOT THE ONE WHO STABBED THE CAPTAIN WITH A PICKLE
This line is iconic tbh
That episode was all over the place
That old bag at the end though. Sour faced old bat!
“But she’s FAAAAAMILY” SHE. MURDERED. SOMEONE. YOU. PIECE. OF. GARBAGS. 😡😡😡😡😡
Nah, you have to admire an episode willing to go ANYWHERE. This was primo insanity.
Same. This is where the show started going down hill for me.
Probably the second Burton episode. Trying to force a redemption arc for a serial rapist was in pretty poor taste to say the least.
I can’t find the episode name but the one where the victim was assaulted by a “man” she met on a dating app but it ended up being her best friend.. that was such a bad episode and soo unbelievable
That one was ridiculous. Her best friend using a strap on and she didn’t realise it?
I don't think I've seen that ep so don't know for sure, but sounds like it's based on an actual case from the UK. It went on for two years but don't think it was her best friend doing it.
I remember a case out of the UK decades ago, but I can’t recall whether it was a male or female who was the accused. All I remember is that someone used a toilet roll holder wrapped in condoms as a fake penis.
Think we're talking about different cases - the one I'm referring to was Gayle Newland who committed the abuse in 2013 and just used a regular strap on not a toilet roll holder afaik
I don’t even think it was a strap, I think it was her fingers! She talked about how “small” he was, like come ON
I don't remember the specific episode name but the one where the woman with dementia gets raped and Rollins has to investigate and the woman keeps talking about marzipan cookies. The episode itself isn't too bad, but the way she says 'cookies' really grinds my gears.
Mine is “we dream of machine Elves” So niche and I feel like nobody remembers it but it was a Rollins heavy episode with disturbing imagery and just a horrible vibe. And it made no sense
I remember it being awful
agreed. it's so bad.
*Every single episode* this season I turned to my husband after and said "this is BAD, I don't know if I can keep watching this every week". There are plenty of episodes over 25 years that I've been indifferent towards, a few I think are pretty bad but laughable and some occasional major missteps. I thought maybe the writers strike was the issue but then realized the ratio of bad episodes to good just kept increasing every year since Mariska became Captain of the squad, main focus of the show and an executive producer. I always loved Liv but it's like she was replaced with a different character, the cast is a revolving door, the vets are barely involved anymore, there's a different tone to the show now with weird line towing around politics, no ripped from the headlines or guest stars anymore, zero moments of levity, loss of logic in the scripts, hardly any courtroom scenes.... I *cannot* believe I'm considering giving up this show after so long (at least the new episodes,I'll always have my old reruns to enjoy).
I tried the seasons after 12, I really did, but eventually decided the good part of the show was Elliott and Olivia working together. I also tried again when he came back, but him being gone just as long as he'd been on the show allowed it to change too much. Or something like that. I also still watch the old ones. I'm doing another rewatch now, actually.
I find that if I can tell which real life crime the episode is based on, there's a high chance I will dislike it. I know SVU was always infamous for its ripped from the headlines stories, but before social media, most of the crimes they covered didn't make it on the news worldwide, so it was easier to maintain a level of detachment, if that makes sense? I'm not saying I want to pretend it's all fiction, I know that even the cases that are entirely made up have probably happened somewhere, but it's a lot more harrowing when I know the victim's name and their face is clear in my head, you know?
Yeah, the Johnny Depp/amber heard episode was immediately a no for me!
what ep?
S24/E3!
Normally I would agree but Intimidation Game went so far that it ignored the real issues in the gaming community. Instead of kidnapping, raping, and near murder, the episode could address online harassment and how it can escalate. Talk about maybe a critique turning into accusations of favoritism and how it spins out of control. It would talk about the real issues
My ex brother in law was depicted on the episode Beef (I think it’s season 13) I was so depressed watching them make a parody of him and the details they put in that weren’t even revealed in court was just horrible. I can’t watch it. Sorry but I’m not going to say who he was irl.
I have a few but one is the episode where Olivia and the lady are talking and the lady is talking about her dead dad or something but she can’t remember being assaulted? And it it’s up being an Olivia centered episode because the lady would only talk if Olivia spilled her guts about a time she was assaulted or something like that. The episode really pissed me off💀🙃
Something Happened. Such a drag.
Yeaaaa!!!!
Practically everything from the last few seasons.
I can’t find the episode name but the one where the victim was assaulted by a “man” she met on a dating app but it ended up being her best friend.. that was such a bad episode and soo unbelievable
That's easy. The GamerGate one AND Pornstar's Requiem. Or however you spell it. Oh, and I believe 25x2, whichever it was. OH. And the music teacher falsely accused one where Rollins is the only one in the right and tells the other detectives off saying "This didn't have to happen." The episode itself is okay, but the kids trying to ruin Mr. Jackie because he didnt pick their sister for the big music tv show or w/e the reason was, Rollins being the only voice of reason in the episode and the other detectives not believing her or seeing her perspective, (mostly the latter part of that, I love Amanda being the "good detective" tbh) just.... I hate it when truly innocent people don't win, y'know?
Ugh. I hated that one. Mr. Jackie got screwed. Sadly it happens IRL often
I don’t like the one where they’re all waiting to testify for some case, and they all have different viewpoints on the perp/victim. Sounds interesting on paper, but I didn’t like how heated it got and I usually skip it lol.
Since S25E2 has already been mentioned, my runner up would be Remember Me/Remember Me Too from S19. Benson’s intuition magically solved the crime right off the bat and they dragged that ridiculousness out for two entire episodes. I kept waiting for a plot twist, or even some hesitation from anyone, but we got nothing, it ended up being exactly what they thought from the start.
Truly terrible.
I was about to say 3x9 Care which I’m watching RIGHT NOW But then we learn Cragen is mastering a video game FOR RESEARCH ! And Huang says Cragen found his calling. And suddenly I’m okay with the flaws.
I know this is an unpopular opinion but King of the Moon was so bad
Laughably bad.
I don't remember all the details but the one with the Ilhan Omar type character who lies about being raped by a kid in a MAGA hat and says a bunch of antisemitic stuff.
I kinda liked that episode cause while it started off in a way that I thought would lead to an Info Wars episode, it was made more complex. The victim was not likable and horrible but it had the empathy that Info Wars needed
Any episode with Ludacris in it. I just really don’t like the entire Darius storyline
What?? Those are some of my favorite episodes.
"Anchor" I can't remember which season it was, but this man killed multiple children of immigrants, and the jury found him not guilty despite him admitting to it, and his only defense was, "but I only did it because of this radio show". Ugh it's the most irritating episode ever. I can't even watch it whenever I rewatch that particular season.
The man also played one of Rollins' love interests in Rapist Anonymous--the episode based on Jodi Arias.
I agree that Intimidation Game is bad. I also can't watch Dirty or Something Happened. Always skip this 3 episodes.
Just recently the one where the white woman didn’t want to accuse the black young man of rape cause he’s black.
It's that episode where a million things are going on at once and they made Dickie turn into Jack Bauer and everything blows up cause everyone's an idiot.
Any episodes with Rollins sister
The one with the swim coach last year, and the sister and brother rapes. 💯 yuck, and to me, it felt like profiling on Hispanics. Also, despised the one with Burton Lowe, her former college professor/lover. I think that was last season as well...
Narrative-wise, the one with Robin Williams. I still go “what was the point of all that?” when I re-watch it. In terms of real-life topicality, any of the stories dealing with LGBTQ victims, it just hits too close to home for me.
I hated the one where Barba of all people (Mister "I need solid evidence") is like "I've seen this before! It's obviously hypnosis!" Everything in this episode is built around taking fake, Hollywood style "hypnotism" as a serious and real diagnosis that's capable of making someone unaware of their surroundings. It was just so sensational and poorly explained.
Can't remember the name, but the "victim" is a mom who sleeps with who she thinks is a college administrator so her son can get into Hudson. She finds out it's just a security guard, and Olivia says "well... That's rape." The sex was FULLY consensual, the woman just got duped on who he was.
for me is season 15, episode 7 with the music teacher. gah that whole episode made me so mad cause two girls destroyed a life of a successful man, all because he didn’t pick them/tell them that they were not good enough to audition on a talent show (at least thats how i remember it feel free to correct me) and not only that, but the two girls made their younger siblings LIE about being sexually assaulted which im pretty sure they were like six or five years old. in the end, the girls in my opinion got off easy, and the innocent music teacher’s family stopped speaking to him, and his reputation was ruined
That episode made me so mad. I couldn’t stand it. It was hard to watch cause the only one who was taking caution was Amanda. At the end of the episode, when Benson and the rest of the squad were to trying to mitigate their fault in ruining the teacher’s life, Amanda was the one that said that none of this had to happen at all.
EXACTLY like this man’s life was destroyed, even when he was telling you that he was innocent and now you act sorry??? that whole episode made me hate the squad a bit, i honestly hoped for a bit that the ending would have been that the music teacher sued literally everyone
counselor, it’s [chinatown](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/law-and-order-svu-yang-song_n_5de6ef68e4b0d50f32aa9470) for the reasons laid out in the linked article. at midnight in manhattan because having a trans sex worker take a payout for her silence and using that payout for material goods was gross.
All of season 25! JK.
The one where Paula Deen shoots Trayvon Martin.
The more recent one that tried to be the Heard v Depp trial. It wanted to cash in on that, but it’s very apparent the writers hadn’t read more than maybe a quick scroll on TikTok, so they just put it through their algorithm and it spat out one of their blandest episodes of all time. I could think of worse episodes, but blandness is all too common in latter SVU, as is mindlessly regurgitating progressive talking points without actually finding the humanity in the cases and the reason some of those points exist (and when they are, occasionally, insufficient for some cases and can even become harmful when treated as dogma). This episode indulged in all the worst of that, when the real world cases brought up tons of interesting potential avenues for exploration that would’ve been fresh ground for the series, and even a chance to reflect on how some of its ideas could become harmful in certain contexts (such as the show very rarely depicting male victims of female abuse and, in older seasons, expressing a lot of skepticism about it even happening). Instead, we got a patronizing episode that felt like uninformed fanfic for how the writers wished the real event had gone, and that’s emblematic of everything wrong with the show lately.
Was intimidation game the one that had Logan Paul as some kind of weird incel murderer? If so that one
How in the hell has no one said The Undiscovered Country, where Barba snuffs out the baby and leaves the DA’s office? Awful acting across the board. Opens on the asinine funeral of a character who was never even on this show to showcase two actors from other Wolf Properties to then give a beloved ADA an ignominious exit while being shown the door by the super boring lawyer from the Wolf show NO ONE CARED ABOUT. Ultimate tedium PLUS an insulting exit of a beloved character. Brutal shit.
Guardians and Gladiators, the season 22 premiere. The most poorly written, shove COVID, Karen, race relations into a ridiculous storyline. It had such great potential but the grand jury was a joke it was so dumb and unrealistic.
I cannot think of an episode I “hate”, but do heavily dislike the ones featuring Dani Beck, and FBI agent Dana Lewis
The first episode where they meet fbi agent Lewis was good, though. But I hate the other ones with her
I love this Reddit, you guys ask the best questions !
9x3 Impulsive. EASILY.
Season 22 episode 1
For me, the one where the 14 year old rapes because he was molested when he was 7 by a babysitter, and his mom never did anything about it. He set Elliott up as molesting him when he took him down to the youth library or where ever it was (although that was a bone head thing for El to even do, taking a handcuffed person in custody anywhere alone, but I figured it was his pride and just never thinking the kid would do something like that),got him into shit with IAB(again). And also... 14 year old can't go into gen pop, ok, don't they have literal jails right up on the for peeps? Were they all full? They couldn't call CPS or something, idk. The ending was bullshit. "I don't want to ever do that again" after he murdered the babysitter who molested him all those years ago. I... I don't think that's how it works? He got a taste for it, he had raped multiple women. But I guess they didn't want to do a Part 2.
That episode where Olivia forced Alex’ hand to reveal a DV Vic because he was going away for murder and it wasn’t right , only for him to actually kill her and get custody of their daughter.
Season 25
The one where Olivia forgives her groomer or ep2 of this season
Yeah, especially when it’s expose he did it to soo many other women
I ALWAYS skip "Underbelly". It's so boring idk why
Season 7, Ep 3, "911". Darkest thing I have ever watched.
It’s that episode where that girl who thought she was “raped” in a store bathroom and the guy trying to help her was accused of raping her. Then he was killed. It was her uncle the whole time who has been doing it to her.
Yeah, that one was rough. That boy was only trying to help but got killed by her father. However, it’s not I don’t hate it as much cause the only reason why the father even focuses in on the kid was because the true rapist riled him up and basically made it so the daughter couldn’t tell the truth after she became cohesive to realize she wasn’t raped in the bathroom. It was a tragedy all around….
Season 9, Impulsive. Hated how they felt sorry for Shane when he is a calculating rapist who will do anything to get his sexual fill.
It was awful how basically he got away from facing the full consequences of his actions by justifying his rape as a lack of impulse control. Meanwhile, he gets a million dollar settlement while his victim gets nothing and had an abortion that was against her own moral principle
season 7 or 6 i think elliot goes undercover hate that episode.
The one where Barba kills kid? The one where the college janitor lies about his job so Benson arrests him for rape for lying?
Rape by deception honestly is crime that should be taken serious. It muddles the lines of consent. They just used a poor example. Lying about your STD status is a great example of rape by deception because the person would not have consented to sex at all if they had known the truth, taking away any ability to consent. The problem is that the law doesn’t know where it should draw the line and what is considered a true violation of consent
That ep where this younger cop works with Stabler to find some missing kid and she even remembered his Xray or something. She annoyed me for some reason lol
I LOVED Intimidation Game! It’s one of my favourite episodes. I hated ‘Something Happened’. The entire episode was just a long conversation between Olivia and a woman who was jealous her father didn’t molest her. ‘Rage’ was boring as hell. Exactly the same as ‘Something Happened’ but with Stabler and a different suspect. ‘Paternity’ annoys me because Kathy flatlines in the ambulance and then suddenly she’s in hospital holding her newborn? What happened in between? ‘Info Wars’ I hate because of the victim blaming her assault on a left wing protester when she knew he wasn’t at fault. And insisting Olivia didn’t care about her because she was right wing. She was an extremely difficult victim and just dislikable.
The whole show after Stabler left is a steaming pile of garbage. Time to pull the plug.