About Last Night…LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME, DAISY JONES & THE SIX, and More

Let’s talk about Thursday night’s TV!

LAW & ORDER: After being emotionally destroyed by a recent EQUALIZER episode dealing with antisemitism, I thought I’d feel a little more while watching this. I get there’s a greater good going on, but, yeah, having to make a deal with a white supremacist sucks. A bad situation. Sigh.

NEXT LEVEL CHEF: It’s insane Preston went from being the best dish last week to serving (unintentionally) raw fish to making tortellini in the face-off. What a roller coaster. But I’m glad he’s sticking around.

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: I…

Look, I’ll give them credit for it not being a twist I saw coming in the cold open. (Though the opening felt needlessly long; maybe it’ll up the creep factor upon rewatch, but it just felt like too much for the first go-round.) And Carisi got to shine in the courtroom (no pun intended) by pulling off the “can you ID this person in the dark” trick. But he still didn’t get a full victory, which is frustrating. I wish the show would let him do more and actually get to have wins; he’s been the ADA since season 21 and it feels like he’s still not trusted in the role. Peter Scanavino can pull it off—please let him.

I won’t pretend I understand Jenna’s logic in any capacity, though. She knew Zoe was upset and thought she could still pull off “Klaus” scheduling a second meetup? She tried to impregnate Zoe with Zoe’s dead husband’s nephew’s sperm? I repeat: I…

I’m also frustrated by how the show is handling the Churlish and Velasco of it all. It makes sense Olivia is upset and feeling betrayed by her detective; it also feels like it’s pushing Velasco to a darker place to cut off all (possible) positive influences in his life. (Not to mention, there is not a pairing in SVU’s history who wouldn’t have gone around the boss to talk to their partner. Olivia absolutely would have gone around Cragen for Elliot or Nick.)

And the Churlish of it all…I deeply, deeply, deeply wish they had not made her illegally record Velasco to get proof he did something wrong. It would have been way more interesting if Churlish and Muncy were butting heads because Churlish had a hunch/discovered something legally and Muncy was reeling/protective of her partner. It would have been considerably more compelling if Muncy believed he was flawed but had a good heart, and Churlish didn’t trust him given his history. There is drama within that! But Churlish broke the law, something the show itself established. And Olivia is, seemingly, shrugging it off while welcoming her into the squad. Again, doing the wrong thing for the right reason is not good policing. I don’t get how Olivia’s being so blase about this, because it makes Churlish a liability. And that sucks.

GREY’S ANATOMY: God, Addison detailing how she’s been terrorized in a post-Dobbs decision world was absolutely gut-wrenching. As was the picketing outside of the hospital.

But, sorry, no, nothing is actually going to happen to Addison. I know GREY’S has been brutal in the past, but there is no way they’re doing anything like that to her, now, given what is going on in the world and given how many other long-term characters they’ve been losing.

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: I love Jet. This is not about that. But how the heck is she a second grade detective?! She wasn’t even a detective when the show started less than two years ago!

The case took a little bit of time to draw me in, but François Chau’s Quan is an interesting villain. (Also, Chau is an incredibly underrated actor.) Now that the gloves are off, I’m intrigued to see how he fights back against the task force…he now has dirty money and a political campaign at his disposal. Good luck, OCCB.

I’m guessing the Kathy acknowledgment probably isn’t appreciated by a lot of fans, but I was actually grateful for it specifically because Elliot seemed fine. For so long that loss was a gaping wound he was navigating around, frequently in clumsy and destructive ways. But even when he had to face the parallels head-on, Elliot acknowledged it and carried on. (Yay for therapy and growth.)

And is Bell about to get a new love interest…? (I’m all for it.)

DAISY JONES & THE SIX: (A warning this section is going to discuss both the show and the book.)

I loved the show, but I keep thinking about how it was originally set to be 13 episodes; I could have absolutely watched another couple of hours of them on tour before everything fell so spectacularly apart.

For as many things changed in earlier episodes, it felt like these two episodes had the biggest changes from the book. Almost all of them worked for me.

The one I keep going back and forth on is the swap from Camila and Daisy having a heart-to-heart in the book to Camila and Billy having a fight that leads to the Julia/narrator reveal. I think the way the show handled it probably allowed both Camila and Daisy to have more agency (Camila was going to walk away and Daisy turned Billy down when it was clear he didn’t want them to get better), but that book moment was so special, too. Ultimately, I think it works, but I also think Riley Keough and Camila Morrone would have killed the scene if it played out how the book was written. (As it was, they got a variation of it pre-final performance, but it was much more tinged in anger than compassion.)

But, wow, Keough and Sam Claflin were absolutely electric in the final two episodes. You needed to buy these two people would be drawn to each other, despite all logic telling them it was a bad idea, and their chemistry was off-the-charts. Them sharing her mic in Chicago? With him putting his arms around her to grab the microphone? Bye.

I also think there was gorgeousness in how they ultimately fell apart. It makes sense a despondent Billy would ask Daisy to let them be broken together. But she didn’t want him to come meet her in the depths of her addiction, she wanted to be better; she wanted them to be better together. And he wasn’t in the place to do that then. And it was clear from the start that Billy needed his family. If he could only see being with Daisy if they were spiraling together, she had to let him go, too.

(It was also brilliant to have Book!Billy’s memorable “Everything that made Daisy burn, made me burn” be split up into a split voiceover that Billy and Daisy shared; they were the same, so it feels only fair they got to express the sentiment essentially together.)

I was verrrrry nervous about how they would handle Karen and Graham’s pregnancy/abortion/breakup, but I was glad that stuck pretty true to the book. It’s hard because they were very lovely together, but they wanted two very different things; I’m glad she’s still a musician and he got the family he always wanted.

The interesting thing about the show’s adaptation is that by changing the timeline (in the book, the interviews are done closer to four decades after the band broke up; in the show, it’s been 20 years, AKA it’s 1997), one of the biggest twist—Camila’s death—is inherently a lot more tragic. Camila dying at 63? Awful. Terrible. Way too young. Camila dying in her 40s? Ohhhhh, it hurts a lot more.

But the change in timeline also makes the potential future for the show very intriguing. It’s officially billed as a limited series, but the very nature of the book (and the show) leaves the door open for more. Putting them in their 40s, in 1997, they absolutely could have a second season based on their post-CD success and a reunion album/tour. And if we presume Julia did anything with this footage (even if it was a docuseries/documentary), there’s a real chance the bandmates would have learned stuff they didn’t know the previous two decades. (Or at least see the way certain things impacted others.)

There’s always risk in continuing a story. We’ve seen so many limited series be extended into a full-on series to the detriment of the story. And it would have to be different given it wouldn’t be a story being told with two decades of reflection/separation. But part of me desperately wants a little bit more of this world. After all, Billy did tell Daisy, “I think we will be together in 20 years. Writing songs, playing stadium shows. Sold out crowds.”

A few other stray thoughts…

• I absolutely love how fiercely the band protected Daisy from Nicky. And how she rebuffed the guys’ attempts at comfort, but instantly fell into Karen’s care.
• Similarly, I love how Camila knew something was wrong with Karen and was there by her side throughout the process.
• If they decide to expand the DAISY JONES universe and not follow the band, I’m intrigued by Rod’s story he said was for another day…
• I’m just so happy for Simone and Warren getting their respective happily ever afters.
• I loved the format of the finale, as the show was building up to everything falling apart. And with so much of the concert shot, there is a part of me that hopes Prime Video had the foresight to essentially film a quasi-live concert experience so we can watch them perform. (Also, for the love of all that is holy and unholy, please send this cast out on tour.)
• I’m also begging Amazon to release the songs that weren’t official tracks. I’d also take the live recordings of the band performing the songs. (Or Simone joining them for “The River.”) Seriously, let me play those songs on repeat; I will buy them!
• That very Daisy smile when she saw Billy after two decades? My heart.

Which shows did you watch last night?

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