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

Let’s talk about Thursday night’s TV!

LAW & ORDER: The real case is so messed up, I almost wish they had dug a little deeper into how absolutely screwed up and manipulative these cults can/will be. But it was a perfectly fine episode.

NEXT LEVEL CHEF: Oh, I’m sad for Vinny. It feels like it has to suck when part of your exit is tied to a mistake you made—and, yeah, he messed up by not making his egg correctly to even put him in the elimination round. I’m going to miss him on the show.



LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: Yes, SVU has done “wildly unnerving mother who has a deeply messed up relationship to her son” episodes before (one of which, technically, included tonight’s guest star Joseph Cross—season 5’s “Home”), so if they were taking another swing at it, I’m glad they went all out. (Because, really, it was very, very, very, very messed up.)

Admittedly, I actually didn’t really know Michelle Gomez’s work before this. I had seen her in a couple of episodes of TV, but I went into this with very little expectation of what she might bring. But she was a (terrifying) badass. Going toe-to-toe with Mariska Hargitay is no easy feat; that face-off between Olivia and Connie at the courthouse was just chilling and even Olivia was thrown.

Because holy moly, this was bonkers. Connie tainted her son’s cocaine with cement?! (Boy, is that a weird sentence to write—and one that’s going to get me on a watch list, somewhere.) And, yes, we know she would do anything for her son, but it was also interesting to see the relationship flipped with his dad, who was so frustratingly selfish in the opposite way. He was passive and left his child to continue being abused in order to get himself free. I’m sorry, but a dysfunctional mother is not better than no mother when the DYSFUNCTIONAL MOTHER TRIED TO COMMIT MURDER. Maybe worry she’s going to take that out on your kid?

I’m glad Carisi got to do more this episode, between his hilarious “Cocaine and Abel” comment and his very important reminder that, yes, this man was a victim of his mother, but he was also a rapist and that shouldn’t be ignored. I really wish they were actually utilizing him as a lawyer/in the courtroom more, but I’m glad we got to see more of him.

Oh God, we know Teddy slid into Churlish’s DMs…they’re dating now, aren’t they? Please, writers, I beg you to not make this an opportunity for these women to start fighting again. Please. I don’t mind drama and conflict, but this level of tension between them was actually the perfect amount and how it should have been from the start—they don’t need to be best friends; they’re very different humans with different perspectives. There were differences in opinions and approaches, and they worked through it. Please don’t let it backslide over a guy.

(I also deeply hope at some point we have the same cast in two consecutive episodes.)

I will say, I really wish the show had actually let us see Olivia and Noah in this episode. I’m sure there are a million production reasons why it was necessary, but the cold open was eight minutes long. You could have cut it in half and spent that extra time with Olivia and her son. How does she parent when she’s facing a case like this, especially in the aftermath of their shared trauma from BX9? I would have loved to have seen it. I’m glad she at least acknowledged she was going home to hug him. (These episodes were before SVU and OC officially shared a showrunner, but it’s funny SVU did a mothers-sons a week after OC’s fathers-sons episode. Would have loved for SVU to have their own version of OC’s Elliot and Eli scene.)

GREY’S ANATOMY: Yeah, Maggie and Winston need to be done. That was…a bad fight. She should not have to diminish her shine (and their issues are NOT all her fault by any means), but she’s also been awful to him and needlessly cruel. Which sucks, because this doesn’t actually feel like Maggie, either. I wish they had just had Maggie realize she outgrew him and that relationship versus her spending weeks telling him how she had no respect for him.

Really loved the interns in this episode, though!

Fingers crossed Bailey remains safe. That doxxing is terrifying.



LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Every once in a while OC does its own ripped-from-the-headline story, and this one is, unfortunately, very real to what’s happened in NYC in recent months. I didn’t love the last one-off episode, but this one worked really well for me. And Ayanna’s dynamic with Eric was so heartbreakingly great. It’s sad these are discussions that still need to be had in 2023, but it felt like the show handled it well.

Not for the first time this season (and I assume not the last): Danielle. Moné. Truitt. What a showcase. I’m so deeply glad the series had Ayanna reckon with the parts of her she had to quasi-ignore/diminish to survive in the world/NYPD. To be clear, it’s tragic she had to do that, but I hope the show leans into her discovering who she is outside of a cop, mother, and (ex-)wife.

I know I’m also a broken record on this, but the partnership between Ayanna and Elliot is unparalleled right now. Ayanna admitting the toll the case took on her, and Elliot acknowledging he doesn’t know what she’s going through—but he would be there to support her? It was perfect. Truitt and Christopher Meloni are so incredible together, and the quiet, steady, support they bring to each other both as acting partners and in-character partners is just so freaking lovely. (And I’ll fully admit I was about to cry during that scene until Ayanna said he almost made her cry and she joked she’d have had to fire him if he had…at that point, I burst out laughing. A gift to be able to seamlessly make the audience go through an emotional roller coaster like that.)

Speaking of laughing: I had to pause the scene where they explained Elliot’s undercover profile to him because I could not stop laughing. The look on his face—and all of his colleagues’—as everything was being explained to him? I died. Oh my God.

Which shows did you watch last night?

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