Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 25 Episode 2 Review: Truth Embargo
After starting off the season on a high note, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 25 Episode 2, “Truth Embargo,” drops the ball and leaves the audience with a bitter taste.
What could have been a great storyline gets extremely messy with what the defense lawyer calls white guilt and with the last scene trying to make us feel bad for the rapist. By trying to be politically correct or even woke, the episode is extremely disappointing.
Hopefully, this is a glitch in the season, and the upcoming episodes will be better.
From the moment Brooke, the victim’s partner, talks to Fin and Velasco and criticizes the NYPD, we get the feeling that something isn’t sitting right with her about the case and how it’s being handled.
Throughout the episode, as the audience, we can’t help but feel like Brooke isn’t being supportive of Natalie. Her concerns lie more on the attacker and the justice he might get than on her partner and the justice she deserves.
What the defense lawyer calls white guilt is what we also know as white savior behavior, and that is exactly what the episode portrays Natalie as. Instead of trying to put the man who raped her behind bars, she is too worried about him getting a fair trial.
We later find out this is because her brother got a rotten deal and ended up in juvie, which resulted in him making bad decisions in his life. For that reason, she doesn’t want to be the one to put a teenage boy behind bars.
However, this behavior (and the storyline as a whole) makes it seem that the victims don’t deserve justice, and she should be more concerned with the man who assaulted her than with what happened to her.
For a show that champions victims of sexual assault, this episode definitely lets them down. Especially by trying to make us feel bad about the rapist when he shares his life story with Carisi.
Just like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 25 Episode 1, “Tunnel Blind,” this episode reminds us of Benson’s dedication to the victims and the work she has been doing for over two decades. We are reminded of this in two instances.
The first reminder is the fact that Benson is still wearing Maddie’s bracelet. This is a clear sign that she’s not giving up on the teenage girl and will continue to do everything in her power to find her.
This is confirmed when she talks to the FBI and basically demands to be included in the investigation. Throughout the episode, it is Carisi who brings up Maddie, pointing out that he knows Olivia is the only one who can find her.
The second reminder is Olivia’s conversation with Brooke. When the woman asks her how she can do this every day, Benson says she focuses on the healing part of her job. She is still very much committed to the victims.
This commitment is the one part of the episode that makes survivors feel good. Benson’s continued push for Natalie to testify reminds us of the importance of supporting victims.
When the episode seems to try and keep victims quiet, Benson is that voice of reason that reminds everyone what the show truly is about.
With a captain, a sergeant, and two detectives, this is probably one of the smallest squads we have seen on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. However, it feels the most the squad has ever collaborated.
There are scenes more than once with the entire team sitting in the squad room and going over the evidence. This collaboration and everyone bringing their ideas, theories, and knowledge to the table makes the show function properly.
Even though Benson is still the voice of reason and the one that holds the team together, it is the teamwork that has always made Manhattan SVU so special.
These are also the moments that make us wish Bruno was a series regular. He has a dry sense of humor that brings a different vibe to the squad, but at the same time, he is extremely committed to helping victims and catching the bad guys.
Seeing Benson running after a van, thinking Maddie might be in it, talking to the FBI, and asking Carisi to go over the behavioral analysis with her are hints that Maddie’s case will be a recurrent topic throughout Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 25.
As Carisi says, we know only Benson is capable of solving this case. She isn’t giving up on Maddie, and that is the fierce dedication that pushes her to solve every case that comes her way.
That is why Law & Order: Special Victims Unit still works. If it weren’t for Olivia Benson, many of us would have given up on the show a long time ago.
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What did you think of this episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Law & Order: Special Victims Unit airs Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC.
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Lara Rosales
By day, Lara Rosales (she/her) is a solo mom by choice and a bilingual writer with a BA in Latin-American Literature known as a Media Relations Expert. By night, she is a TV enjoyer who used to host a podcast (Cats, Milfs & Lesbian Things). You can find her work published on Eulalie Magazine, Geek Girl Authority, W Spotlight, Collider, USA Wire, Mentors Collective, Instelite, Noodle, Dear Movies, Nicki Swift, and Flip Screened.
6 comments
Last night’s episode (Season 25 episode 2) was absolutely the most awful, woke.garbage, I have ever seen on Law & Order SVU! I found myself yelling at the the tv, the actors, and most of all whatever writers and producers who allowed that garbage to fly on TV. I was appalled at how they were willing to excuse someone being a RAPIST, just because they were–Black!! I decided right then, if they ever pull something like that again, it will be the last time I ever watch the show again!
Completely agree. That episode was shameful. A rapist is never a victim. I will never watch this show again. Woke garbage.
Way to go sub, you managed to push white guilt and demoralize victims of rape. Not bad for 2 episodes.
This episode was infuriating, I can’t believe how woke SVU has become! Seriously?! Having sympathy for a rapist b/c he’s a teenager and black?!? WTF So what no accountability.. how insulting for all the VICTIMS of rape. Why does race have to focus
After tuning in to SVU for 23 years It is time to stop watching. Pathetic that the show’s good plots are now used to make nothing but woke statements that are inaccurate. White shaming is pathetic and the people doing it are low esteem guilt ridden “elitist want to be’s “using their “championing” voices and actions for the alleged victims of white supremacy is a form of supremacy in itself. I know that is over most leftist comprehension….but think about it.
I had a subscription to the Peacock Channel, after seeing parts of this episode I cancelled my sub and will NEVER watch this garbage again. This is why I watch old movies and TV shows less woke garbage being pushed and spewed
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