About Last Night…LAW & ORDER, GREY’S ANATOMY, LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME, and More

Let’s talk about Thursday night’s TV!

LAW & ORDER: Mehcad. Freaking. Brooks. What a performance. It was an intentionally enraging hour, but he carried it effortlessly.

It is deeply frustrating Shaw was (repeatedly) warned against turning against his NYPD brothers, but it’s also, unfortunately, highly realistic. An hour that had the racist cops learn a lesson might have been more gratifying, but it would also, frankly, gloss over the continuing problem in the police system.

Cosgrove having Shaw’s back—both in the immediate aftermath of the misidentification and also as Shaw debated how to proceed—was also very important. I don’t love it, but I get why the show had Dixon be a bit more pragmatic. We frequently see people who have risen up in the ranks outside of the norm (especially if you’re not a white, straight male) have to conform to harmful thinking to survive. It was important the show didn’t have her cross a line (and they didn’t), but she knew how it would turn out if Shaw dared defend himself.

(It goes without saying, but screw those cops. And having the chutzpah to try and guilt Shaw into not reporting them? Ugh. May we never see their faces again.)

The case itself was also good and compelling. Truly, one of the best episodes of the revival series, and it’s not even close.

GREY’S ANATOMY: After being extremely, extremely, extremely distressed about the notion of Meredith’s house burning down, I’m VERY glad it was just the attic that was torched.

The hour was perfectly imperfect to me. Was the Meredith and Nick thing messy? Absolutely. It certainly seems like she faked not hearing him to…avoid the relationship? Just don’t answer his call. Tell him you can’t. There are lots of ways to avoid declarations of love and not cite shoddy cell reception. (I can understand how Meredith/Nick fans might hate the hour, though. I liked them, certainly one of the best post-Derek couplings, but my biggest hope for this episode was no further trauma for Meredith, and I’m glad, at least, she left as happy as possible.)

But the flip of the iconic Meredith/Derek “pick me, choose me” to Meredith telling Nick she was going to pick herself and her kids was a moment that made me pause, because it reminded me, again, oh, yes, we’re losing this woman. And, man, I’m going to miss Meredith. It’s been a roller coaster, but she’s consistently been there.

(I absolutely teared up when Bailey couldn’t say what she wanted to during the speech portion of Meredith’s goodbye party. They’ve grown so much together!)

It wasn’t a part of the “main” storyline, but it was beautiful that the show utilized Amelia’s history of losing a child. Caterina Scorsone was just stunning in her scenes, both as she told the scared parents about her loss and how much she still thought about her dead child and in the aftermath when she needed the space to grieve. A lot was going on in the episode, but Caterina was incredible and it needs to be noted.

Also, I’m sure that Bar Mitzvah cake was awful, but dammit, I want some.

(Okay, but it’s also funny that GA ended with Meredith reading a children’s book to her kids on the plane and SVU ended with Olivia reading a children’s story to a, well, grown man. A complete accident, but I laughed when I realized they—somehow—had the same ending beat.)

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: Mariska Hargitay did a great job directing. I deeply wish, however, that the writers had just trusted the episode to be its own thing without putting the (drastically tonally different) Velasco storyline in the mix. If you’re going to go for the surreal, whimsical tone, go all in! (It felt very THE X-FILES’ “all things.”)

(Look, I know this is splitting hairs at this point—and I don’t want him to go—but if they’re worried about the optics/everything, isn’t Velasco technically a liability until he gives up the name of the person who helped save his life back in the day? And Churlish…committed a felony?! Doing the wrong thing for the right reason is not good policing or anything aspirational, especially in 2023.)

Also, Olivia…I think your problem is you do have an emotionally available man who has made it abundantly clear he wants to be a part of your life. (Not always at the appropriate times, but…still.) What are you talking about?

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Okay, can we get a Jet clone over here? HOW DO WE FIND OUT WHAT HER PASSWORD IS? (Do we need to get Elliot to work on Jamie? I don’t care if they’re fictional, this is now something I need to know.)

But, my God, again, please stop with the shootouts. At least the car accident was something quasi-different. But I promise we don’t need the shootouts, especially when they reiterated just a few episodes ago that when Elliot kills someone, he gets benched and sent back to therapy. (Yay therapy, less yay for not being able to keep track of how much time we’re jumping over.) If they keep having shootouts, they’re going to be in 2034 before we know it, because we keep having to lose weeks/a month for every break he has.

As nice as it was to get a little bit more insight into Elliot’s marine past (though a bit murky, since Elliot was definitely a cop during Kuwait…and joined SVU in the early ’90s, too), the real highlight was, of course, Ayanna coming to Elliot’s house at the end. She knew he wasn’t okay—of course he wasn’t—and might need a shoulder to lean on. For as messy as their lives are, I’m so glad they have each other.

While I would have loved to see a bit of fallout from Jet’s UC op, I’m really glad we got to see her just working and doing her thing. Hopefully they do come back to it at some point, though.

Which shows did you watch last night?

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