Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Difference between revisions

''[[SVU]]'' was retooled between the first and second seasons. The first season featured more of the characters' private lives, random courtroom scenes unrelated to the episodes' primary cases, and much brighter lit squadroom scenes. Also, there were several recurring Assistant DA's instead of a regular character serving that function. Some early episodes did not feature a trial portion at all. At the start of the second season, ADA Cabot was assigned to the unit and the show began to more closely resemble the original ''[[Law and Order]]'' series.

 

 

* Benson: rape and alcoholism (Benson is a child of rape {{spoiler|or so her mother told her}}, and her mother was an alcoholic)

* [[Abusive Parents]]: Several victims have these but the worst was probably in "Sick" -- the {{spoiler|woman who was poisoning her granddaughter to make it appear she had cancer. She used the child's "illness" to bilk charities, and then convinced her to say she was molested by a celebrity so they can get money from him, ''telling her she would die if they didn't''.}}

** Elliot is also implied to be one of these; he is, at the very least, neglectful and his wife has even left him at least once because of it. He apparently has not learned his lesson, as in the episode "Wildlife", he chooses to do his own undercover investigation on animal smugglers (which are not even in his jurisdiction) despite his wife, his partner, his boss, and even the FBI telling him to go home and spend time with his family. He ends up getting shot by the smugglers and ''still'' refuses to go home and be with his wife and kids, instead going straight back to see the guys who just tried to kill him before he is even slightly healed.

*** Given that in an earlier episode, ''Ripped'', we find out that Elliot's father was quite abusive himself<ref>To be more specific, when Elliot was a little boy his father deliberately stomped on his diorama (which he and his father worked on) because [[Disproportionate Retribution|he moved one of the trees]] and then called him weak (for crying about the stomped diorama) and a failure (something he apparently called him often).</ref>, it could be a case of it being [[In the Blood]].

* [[Acquitted Too Late]]: An episode starts off with a teenaged girl stumbling out of an elevator during a hotel opening. The staff shuttles her off to the side, and a suspect (who is on the sex offender registry as a pedophile) is later arrested. Turns out it's a scam to get money from the hotel, the supposedly under-age "victim" was in her 20s rather than her teens, the sex was consensual, and the "suspect" was a patsy set up by the girl and her family. Unfortunately, by the time anyone remembers that they have an innocent man in jail, the "suspect" had already been killed in prison (pedophiles being very unpopular in prison populations). Fortunately, that made the woman and her accomplices legally culpable for murder.

* [[Adam Westing]]: A rare non-comedic example with Jerry Lewis, whose Jerry-Lewis-like behavior is part of a manic episode {{spoiler|that ends in murder}}.

* [[An Aesop]]: If the murder investigation doesn't hammer it in hard enough, the B-plot with Elliot's family for that week will usually parallel the investigation in some way.

* [[Aesop Amnesia]]: In one third season episode "Wrath", a serial killer targeting perps put away by Olivia is revealed to be an innocent man who served 7 years before being cleared by DNA - because Olivia railroaded him. She's shaken to the core by this, which is interesting considering that ''never again'' does she ever show the slightest amount of hesitation in pursuing a suspect against whom only weak or circumstantial evidence exists.

** Never again is erroneous. Olivia takes issue with Porter's weak evidence against environmentalists in "Infiltrated". The episode "Denial" (in the same season as "Wrath") also shows Olivia suggesting that more evidence should be gathered before charging a murder suspect.

** ''Either'' because Elena is in the country illegally, and also because her conservative aunt and other relatives would not approve of her living in a polyamorous relationship,

** ''Or'' because they have kidnapped Elena and held her against her will until [[Stockholm Syndrome]] set in.

*** The only outright verification given for the [[Complete Monster]] viewpoint comes from the wife, and only AFTER she has been...

*** A. proven guilty of murdering Elena's aunt without her husband's knowledge or consent.

*** B. force-fed "oh, go ahead and blame it on your husband anyway" by the detectives as a [[Get Out of Jail Free Card]].

* [[And Starring]]: The credits have always ended with "And Dann Florek". The credits have always started with "Starring Christopher Meloni, Mariska Hargitay, Richard Belzer". In the first season, Florek immediately followed Belzer; as of Season 12, there have been a total of eight people credited in between the two of them (at different times).

* [[Ascended Extra]]: M.E. Warner, Dr. Huang.

* [[Attempted Rape]]: {{spoiler|Olivia, she was saved by Fin}}, in the episode ''Undercover''.

* [[Idiot of the Week]]: Elliot not believing that men could be raped by women, Olivia being scared of mentally ill people and/or being baffled as to why a gay football player would have it hard.

* [[I Have This Friend]]: In "Persona," an older woman tells a young battered wife that she had a friend who was abused by her husband and never told anyone. {{spoiler|It was her, of course, and she killed the guy in 1974 and got away with it for thirty-odd years, until the detectives put it together.}}

* [[In the Blood]]: The tragic and criminal pasts of several cast members and guest stars.

* [[Incest Is Relative]]: At least three times; one resulted in a child {{spoiler|two actually, but it was unreported}}.

Suspect: "Hey, I'm no psycho!" }}

* [[Ironic Death]]: {{spoiler|Sister Peg dealt with mentally unstable homeless people, vicious pimps, and drug addicts on a daily basis, not to mention the various attempts on her life, and the person who (accidentally) kills her? A random teenage girl who was aiming at someone else. Then again, Sister Peg risking her life and heroically sacrificing herself is very appropriate.}}

** Not even the judges are are immune to this trope, as in "Persona" Judge Donnelly temporarily steps down in order to prosecute a woman (whose case she had previously worked) who escaped conviction for murdering her husband for years, all because she inadvertently made her a laughingstock in front of the boys.

* [[I Was Quite a Looker]]: Ann Margret's washed up drunk character Rita Wills.

* [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique]]: At times, Elliot, Fin or Olivia beat up suspects and [[Complete Monster|culprits]] alike, or emotionally blackmailing both witnesses and victims, {{spoiler|driving at least one of them to suicide}}. It's all in the name of justice!

{{quote| Dr. Huang: "What's next, are you going to bash in people's skulls to make them talk?"}}

* [[John Munch]]: (Classic!)

* [[Jurisdiction Friction]]

* [[The Killer Was Left Handed]]: Or rather, he had two sets of DNA.

** [[Truth in Television]] It's called Chimera Syndrome.

** Subverted in the first episode, when a character tries to hide her left-handedness by using her right hand.

 

* [[Lantern Jaw of Justice]]: Stabler's Epic Chin of Justice.

* [[Last of His Kind|Last of its Kind]] The only remaining first-run series in a franchise that once roamed the NBC schedule like buffalo.

** Which becomes [[Fridge Horror]], as there's a very, ''very'' sound reason [[Downer Ending|why the baby wouldn't be heard from again]]...

* [[Legal Jailbait]]: An episode involves a 17 year old girl with the body of a 10 year old going out with an older man. The officers [[There Should Be a Law|try to bust the man]], but the girl was legal and consenting.

* [[Mighty Whitey]]: Stabler in the Chinatown-centric episode "Debt," especially since the actual Asian-American member of the main cast (Huang) ''gets shoved aside''.

** And this was kind of lampshaded with the exchange "What, you ''assume'' I speak Chinese?" "No, I heard you order take-out once."

** More than one interrogation session feels a ''lot'' like this. A good example is {{spoiler|Elliot and Dr. Rebecca Phoenix browbeating and pressuring a stressed and terrified little girl [[Pedo Hunt|into revealing who raped her]], to the point that she falsely accuses her coach to just. have. them. stop. }}. Another is {{spoiler|Olivia bullying a mentally-ill witness into putting a temporary stop to his medical treatment to have him clear his memories enough to testify in a difficult case; he does so, but he's so fucked up by Olivia's abusive behavior and the withdrawal side-effects that he commits suicide immediately afterwards.}} [[Truth in Television]], as police interrogations really can seem like [[Mind Rape]] in [[Real Life]] and very often do lead to false accusations and/or confessions.

* [[Mood Whiplash]]: the Commercial Break Cliffhangers have a tendency to lead into upbeat, family-friendly commercials, often with loads of [[Unfortunate Implications]] due to the perverted subject matter of the show.

* [[New Media Are Evil]]: The internet, more often than not, will kill you.

** And what doesn't kill you makes you a sex trafficking victim.

** There's an episode where an innocent man Olivia had arrested and provided the key testimony against (she had been acting in good faith and following procedure) goes around killing her other "victims" (the family members of victims she was unable to help and the like), obsessed with making her believe it was all her fault.

*** IIRC, at the end the other detectives tell her to just ignore the guy and that he was completely off base by blaming her, but she DOES accept that she contributed to these deaths through her actions while still seeming clear that she knows it wasn't her FAULT.

== Q - R ==

* [[Quip to Black]]: Usually Stabler or Munch, sometimes Olivia.

** She herself has also been a victim of attempted rape one but was saved by Fin.

** New detective Rollins was either raped or assaulted, possibly by someone in her own unit.

* [[Reactionary Fantasy]]: A favorite of the whole franchise, but taken to new levels considering this show focuses around sexual crimes. What would the horror of kidnapping a teenage girl be without a lurid recounting of the bondage and sexual perversions she suffered?)

* [[Reality Ensues]]: Season 13 seems to be built completely out of these, from a legal standpoint.

** Olivia launched a classic one to the leader of the teen pregnancy pact in "Babes." Flaunting pregnancy (as a teenager) is one thing, but bringing up Liv's [[Berserk Button|biological clock]] is just asking for it.

* [[Red Herring]]: Generally the first suspect that gets brought in, though occasionally subverted.

* [[The Resenter]]: "Theatre Tricks" (which might be an homage to ''[[Perfect Blue]]'' and by extension ''[[Black Swan]]'') had a very resentful {{spoiler|plain, chubby wannabe actress who was so jealous of her naive, pretty friend that she set her up to be raped by a judge and pinned it on her director because the pretty girl stole the plain one's part just by showing up while the plain girl had to prostitute herself in order to be considered and wanted her friend to "suffer for once in her life". The detectives found it ironic that out of all the exploitative men in the pretty girl's life (she had a stalker plus a sleazy director) the one who actually hurt her was a woman who acted like her friend.}}

** James Van Der Beek's character goes the extra mile to get revenge on the (admittedly insufferable) med school classmate who ruined his life by {{spoiler|stealing his identity and using "genetic attraction" to seduce his rival's three teenage sperm donor daughters (getting one pregnant) ''and'' the guy's "legitimate" daughter. When he's arrested he tells the wife (also his ex-girlfriend) that her daughter is dead -- she isn't, but she's now convinced her "lover" is her real father.}}

** Twisted up in the episode where Terrence Howard's DA from ''[[Law and Order LA (TV)|Law and Order LA]]'' [[Crossover|appears]] to defend his cousin, who {{spoiler|raped a woman who turned out to be the granddaughter of one of three men who raped his mother when he was a child ''and made him watch'' (and called her a whore to escape justice on top of it). Except he didn't -- he couldn't bring himself to do it and she only said that because grandpa told her no one would believe she was merely attacked and "black men always rape". The DA's cousin still gets a measure of revenge because the granddaughter A) is going to jail because of the false accusations and B) now utterly despises her grandfather.}}

* [[Rich Bitch]]: ''[[Up to Eleven|Holy hell]]'', the grandmother (who's [[Spider Man (Film)|May Parker]]!) in the [[Mushroom Samba]] episode "Wet," who sees her granddaughter as weak for becoming a drug addict and needing [[Sarcasm Mode|silly things]] like therapy and emotional support. Later, she visits her granddaughter after a suicide attempt just to take back her necklace and disown her {{spoiler|the granddaughter ''did'' kill someone (who grandma saw as more of a granddaughter than her own) but even the detectives can see how grandma drove her to it}}.

{{quote| '''[[The Unfavorite|Granddaughter]]:''' [[Freudian Excuse|I just wanted a mother!]]<br />

'''Grandma''' [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|(in a sweet old lady voice and a slight smile)]]: Well she's dead! }}

** To the point where an SVU marathon on the USA channel was called the "Ripped from the headlines SVU marathon".

* [[Romanticized Abuse]]: The show sometimes go for having their cake and eat it too, denouncing the horrors of sexual abuse by displaying it in almost pornographic details.

== S ==

* [[Salt and Pepper]]: Fin and Munch

* [[The Schizophrenia Conspiracy]]

* [[Sex Is Evil and I Am Horny]]: One episode featured a man raping other men, even though the thought of sex with males disgusted him, while another had a guy raping promiscuous women, who he was utterly disgusted by; he believed he was "purifying" them by raping them.

* [[Shipper On Deck]]: USA Network itself supports Elliot/Olivia, if the fact that they dedicated an entire marathon to the ship is any indication

* [[Spousal Privilege]]: One episode revolves around the concept that two abusers had married their victims precisely to abuse spousal privilege, something they openly mock the detectives with. Their overconfidence eventually backfires when {{spoiler|investigations dig up a prior marriage lisence they hadn't gotten annuled, making their current marriages null and void...}}

* [[Status Quo Is God]]: A great deal of the main characters are [[Static Character|Static Characters]]. Despite the many episodes that have carried anvilicious aesops about such, after twelve seasons Elliot is still abusing the [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique]] and bending rules without serious long-term consequences, Olivia is still getting too close to victims, and the precinct as a whole is still completely gung-ho towards convicting the first suspect that appears on their radar and trying to railroad them into a conviction despite shaky evidence. In particular to the last point, you could make a lengthy list of all the episodes where the first suspect they collar is a [[Red Herring]] and is completely innocent despite the evidence of their guilt, but they have not picked up on this nor have they learned from it.

* [[Stealth Pun]]: The Not-[[Michael Jackson]] episode has a scene where the medical examiner tries to take a pubic hair sample & finds the guy had laser hair removal done. Smooth Criminal, indeed...

* [[Straw Feminist]]: Olivia sometimes gets lines like this. At one point she stated she didn't think a woman could perform cold-blooded murder, and her general behavior around male victims likely gets her just on the edge of this trope.

* [[Strictly Formula]]: And how. By the 20-minute mark it's possible to determine what the entire rest of a given episode's plot looks like, up to and including who else dies, why, and when, ''to the minute''.

* [[Squick]]: Invoking this is a major chunk of the premises on the show.

* [[Sympathetic Murderer]]: Once a season, if that.

* [[Torture Cellar]]: "Signature" had a pretty horrific one.

* [[Totally Eighteen]]: The show sometimes treat the fact that a certain character is over 18 as an annoying technicality that make it harder to arrest people for having sex with them.

** In another episode, a girl is raped at gunpoint. She looks very young, and throughout the episode she is is consistently portrayed as a teenager who is not yet fully adult - neither intellectually nor emotionally. This is not held against her, instead it simply underscores how vulnerable she is. However, she happens to be 19, so the prosecution must prove that she didn't consent. And of course, the defense has [[Blatant Lies]] about the gun as one of their top priorities.

* [[Trapped By Gambling Debts]]: Random asshole of the week tries to pull this on {{spoiler|Rollins. She}} shows an impressive presence of mind, promptly confessing the problem to fellow officers and seeking help.

* [[True Companions]]: A notable subversion. Sometimes it's as if this lot are a family (there are certainly a few intensely close friendships amongst them, and woe betide anyone who hurts Casey Novak), but actually, they turn on each other pretty quickly. Fin and Elliot are consistently awful to each other, Munch took the sergeant's exam behind ''all'' their backs, and there is pretty sketchy suppport when any of them try a [[Clear My Name]] [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]] gambit. It shows up when you compare it to something like ''[[NCIS (TV)|NCIS]]'': when Tony is framed for murder, they all assume he's being framed and do everything they can to keep him in the loop. When Liv is framed for murder, they all act suspicious and do everything they can to stonewall her.

* [[Truth in Television]]/[[This Loser Is You]]: The characters [[Plot Induced Stupidity|occasionally display or outright express offensive, untrue, or ignorant beliefs about rape and sex in general.]] (See [[Double Standard]] for one of many examples.) They often reflect offensive, untrue, or ignorant beliefs about rape and sex in general held by people in [[Real Life]].

* [[The Unfair Sex]]: Comes up fairly often, especially in the case of female perps. The episode "Totem" has one of the worst examples: while the detectives come around relatively quickly to the idea that the person who sodomized and killed a little girl is female, it all starts rolling downhill once they find a suspect. The killer is sent to a mental facility without any mention of her going to prison because she was traumatized from being sexually abused herself and was therefore mentally unfit to stand trial. Male perps who use that defense usually earn nothing but disdain from the squad and everyone around them. Further, woman who sexually abused her is stated to be going to jail, but unlike ''male'' abusive parents, doesn't spend any time in interrogation, put on trial, or offer a flimsy excuse for the squad to be disgusted by or scoff at.

 

** It's bordering on [[Once an Episode]] territory nowadays.

* [[Vitriolic Best Buds]]: Munch and Fin, to the point of [[Ho Yay]].

* [[Wham Line]]: [[Promotion to Parent|End]] of "Trophy".

** Amaro got this from {{spoiler|his wife when she found out he had beaten up her army buddy after basically stalking her for days after he started to suspecting her of cheating. It ''seems'' that they're just friends}}.

* [[Worth It]]: In "Spectacle", the criminal states that's it worth being arrested and punished for {{spoiler|faking a kidnapping and rape}} because he accomplished what he set out to do: {{spoiler|getting the police to focus on finding what happened to his kidnapped brother}}.

* [[Worthy Opponent]]: The only defense attorney who is consistently portrayed in a positive manner is constitutional lawyer Barry Moredock, who clearly despises many of his clients but represents them anyway for the sake of the constitution. He even becomes a judge later in the show's run.

* [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit]]: Used more than once, like the case where a woman has consensual sex with her lawyer and then accuses her ex-husband of raping her... purely out of bitchy spite and to ruin his life. {{spoiler|The guy can't prove that he wasn't a marital rapist, loses it and ''sets her on fire''. In her very death bed, she ''keeps lying to Olivia'' about how she was "raped". Olivia only finds out the truth casually, as she speaks to the lawyer, and is appalled by how [[It Got Worse]].}}

* [[Writer On Board]]: To simply ridiculous degrees.

* [[Wrong Genetic Sex]]: One episode starts with a rapist getting killed by his victim and the DNA evidence leads the detectives to a teenage boy who just happens to have an ironclad alibi. It turns out his twin "sister" is actually his twin brother; it seems he lost his penis when they were circumcised as babies and the doctors who botched the operation covered their tracks by completing the job and talking his parents into raising him as a girl.

** [[Veronica Mars|Kyle]] [[Smallville|Gallner]] has appeared on the show as two different characters, in Season 4 and Season 9.

** [[Andre Braugher]] as an attorney. Kinda weird, given that ''[[Homicide Life On the Street]]'' exists in the [[John Munch|same universe]] as the ''[[Law and Order]]'' series.

** The prisoners at Riker's do everyone a favor and take him out.

* [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]]

[[Category:Crime and Punishment Series]]

[[Category:Law And Order Special Victims Unit]]