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Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Difference between revisions
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* Stabler: pedophilia, incest (due to the many male offender-young female victim cases he has worked; it doesn't help that he has kids), {{spoiler|and now mental illness}}
* Tutuola: drug abuse, race ([[Missing White Woman Syndrome|especially how some victims are treated compared to others]])
* Munch: [[Halfway Plot Switch|suicide, big government, infringement of civil liberties, assisted suicide]], child abuse (this may be a case of [[Writer
* Cragen: alcoholism (since he is a recovering alcoholic and card-carrying member of AA)
* Huang: pseudo-psychology (it insults his intelligence) and, as of "Hardwired", gay-bashing, especially since {{spoiler|he's a gay man himself both in-universe and in real-life}}.
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This trope works backwards too; we learn more about the detectives by noticing what kinds of people they empathize with. When the usually cool attorney Casey Novak is uncharacteristically lenient to a young girl who committed vehicular manslaughter while off prescription medicine (thanks to following the advice of a popular artist who was against them, after his own tragic story), you later find out that, quite predictably, she has a [[Broken Bird|personal history]] with mental illness - her ex-fiancé (who she abandoned and later found in the streets) suffered from schizophrenia.
Detective (later Sergeant) John Munch is a crossover character who started out in the (originally unconnected) show ''[[Homicide: Life On the Street]]''. Also, Captain Cragen appeared in the early seasons of ''[[Law and Order]]''.
''[[Sesame Street]]'' did a spot-on parody with muppets called [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5121VjLwqZM ''Law and Order: Special Letters Unit'']. [[Parental Bonus|The primary audience probably don't watch the original.]] (Or at least we hope not)
[[Law
Not to be confused with the [[Patlabor|Special Vehicles Unit]].
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* [[Conspiracy Theorist]]: Munch. Hearing a police officer rant about the nefarious machinations of The Man make them sound all the more ridiculous.
** On the rare occasion an episode will hilariously turn it into a case of [[Chekhov's Hobby]] whenever the case involves needing to worm through a layer of paranoid conspiracy nuts. Then Munch becomes an effective means of getting through to them.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: Munch listing the former partners who have left him? Cassidy, Jeffries, and even Bolander from ''[[Homicide: Life On the Street]]''.
* [[Crime and Punishment Tropes]]
* [[Crime-Time Soap]]: Big time.
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* [[Dawson Casting]]: The episode "Obscene" revolves around a 16-year old starlet, played by a 21-year old actress.
** In-universe: In the episode "Demon", they try to see if a rapist is guilty by baiting him with an adult cop who can pass for a teenager.
* [[A Day in
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Back when Munch had actual lines.
* [[Dead Little Sister]]: Used with a huge twist. {{spoiler|Olivia's half-brother Simon is accused of rape. The accusation turns out to be false, and the one who framed him was the older sister of a mentally unbalanced woman he once dated, who commit suicide after he left her.}}
* [[Death
* [[Deggans Rule]]
* [[Demoted to Extra]] If you began watching after the first half of the first season, you probably are not aware that Elliot has 4 children. While his son Dickie and middle daughter Kathleen have continued to appear occasionally, his oldest daughter Maureen and youngest daughter Elizabeth have not been seen since the seventh season.
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** The [[Narm]] of the line actually led the clip to be included on [[The Soup]] that week.
* [[Double Standard]]: The treatment of female villains and male victims on the show is vastly different then the treatment of male villains and female victims.
* [[Double Standard Abuse (Female
* [[Downer Ending]]: Starting with the events in "Venom", "[[Meaningful Name|Screwed]]". Everything goes downhill for the cast as their past mistakes come back to bite them. Not to mention the results of those mistakes become the key reason why {{spoiler|[[The Bad Guy Wins|Darius Parker walks away]] [[Karma Houdini|scot- free]]}}.
** A significant chunk of the episodes fall under this.
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*** Not to mention this leads to {{spoiler|Elliot Stabler leaving the force}}.
* [[Dramatic Irony]]: Olivia frequently expresses her fears that the combination of an alcoholic mother and a rapist father will one day make her into a monster; Elliot reassures her that she's fine, and that it's not all about the genes.. but he's the son of a mentally unstable mother and a physically abusive father, and he's been violent with at least one of his kids, and his daughter has the same mental difficulties as his mother.
* [[Dressing
* [[Driven to Suicide]]: Often spurred by somebody crossing the [[Despair Event Horizon]]; most often a victim who's given up on seeing justice done or a former suspect who couldn't take the team's usual methods of interrogation.
** A big one is {{spoiler|the mentally ill witness whom Olivia bullies into temporarily stopping taking his meds so he can testify in a specially difficult case. She later finds the dude's lifeless body, as he has hung himself due to both her behavior towards him and the side-effects. [[Karma Houdini|That's the only punishment she gets]] for basically ''driving a mentally-unstable person to commit suicide''.}}
* [[Driven to Villainy]]: Seen in many guest stars, often thanks to the actions of the detectives.
** One notable example is in "Spectacle" where a girl is taken captive and raped with one of her kidnappers threatening to kill her when confronted unless his demands are followed. {{spoiler|Turns out it was all a ruse (with his partner and ''the victim herself'') to get the police to search for his younger brother, after being pushed aside so many times for other events, [[Genre Savvy|knowing that they would do so]] [[Missing White Woman Syndrome|if the life of a young girl was at stake]].}}
* [[Drop the Hammer]]: "[[Exactly What It Says
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* [[Empty Cop Threat]]: A favorite trope of the entire franchise. Don't expect anyone to be called out on it no matter how much they use it to strong-arm people into talking.
* [[Enhance Button]]: Used often. Notably deconstructed in ''Authority'' guest-starring [[Robin Williams]]. He acts as his own defense attorney and questions the techie on the software used to enhance a photograph that showed him leaving a library, which was the key piece of evidence against him. He coaxed the techie into admitting that the software can only make educated guesses based on various factors of the picture itself and can't actually recreate the scene shown the photograph in higher resolutions. Williams's character then presented the original photograph, where his face is too shadowed to be seen. It works and the jury lets him go.
* [[Ephebophile]]: The writers think these guys are scum. [[Writer
* [[Every Car Is a Pinto]]: Occurs to hilarious effect in "Bullseye". A suspected pedophile takes off in his car outside of a courtroom and drives into the side of a truck at a relatively low speed. The crowd reacts with shock as the officers sprint towards the crash, and after several seconds have passed, the car explodes in a spectacular fireball complete with several-story high flames. From minor front end damage that barely even crumpled the bodywork.
* [[Evil Counterpart]]: [[Robin Williams]]' character in "Authority". As a freedom-loving, anti-authoritarian anarchist whose "noble" goals are actually a cover for more selfish personal motives, he forms a poetic contrast to the SVU crew, whose fascistic tendencies are born out of a genuine, if perhaps misguided, desire for the greater good of the people.
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** The best part being when Olivia asks, "Why does everyone think I'm a lesbian?"
*** No, the best part has to be Olivia fooling the suspect into confessing by ''pretending'' to be a lesbian, [[Fetish Fuel|swaggering into the interrogation room in a leather jacket.]]
* [[Females Are More Innocent]]: Despite the fact that they have meet several bad women the detectives of this show seem to stubbornly believe this especially if the girl is childbearing age (older women are sometimes considered capable of evil). The worst offender is probably Olivia who has at various times refused to believe that a woman was capable of murder, bent over backwards to prove a vicious female rapist and mutilator was justified in her actions, refused to arrest a girl for filing false charges and killed an even younger girl, and once even argued that [[Double Standard Rape (Female
* [[Flanderisation]]: UnStabler. If you go back and watch the pilot, El is actually the more sensible one of the two of them, and chews out Liv for yelling at a victim's wife. Add eight seasons, shake, and serve the resulting king of the [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique]] in a highball glass. [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Or maybe that should be screwball.]]
** This could be explained, at least partially, by Olivia being new to SVU in the first season. As she gets more used to dealing with victims, she becomes the more rational of the two. Especially because in one episode they mention that Eliot's been in SVU for something like six times longer than the average cop.
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* [[Jurisdiction Friction]]
* [[Just a Flesh Wound]]: Without fail, every bullet taken by one of the main characters will "narrowly miss" a lung or major artery, and they can be expected to make a "full recovery", though occasionally the injury will carry over into the next few episodes.
** See also M.E. Warner's [[A Day in
* [[Just One Little Mistake]]: Susan Delzio in ''Bedtime''. {{spoiler|It turns out the man everybody thought dead was actually alive, hidden away by Susan.}}
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* [[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.
* [[Left Hanging]]: The season eleven episode "Savior" did this. A young prostitute goes into premature labor and her baby is put on life support. The mother then runs away, giving power of attorney to Olivia, effectively giving Olivia the choice of whether the baby lives or dies. The episode ends with the baby needing immediate brain surgery and the doctors hammering Olivia for a decision that she never gives. This turns into a case of [[What Happened to
** 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.
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* [[No Ending]]: The episode featuring Billy Campbell as an art professor accused of raping his student. We never find out whether he was found guilty or not.
* [[No Periods, Period]]: Averted in one episode. A serial rapist kept track of his numerous victims' menstrual cycles because his entire intention was to impregnate them.
** Another episode had a [[Stalker
* [[No Rest for The Wicked]]: The detectives will go without sleep for days at a time.
** A witness suffers from Fatal Familial Insomnia, which makes him appear crazy (the victim's blood on his clothes doesn't help). Dr. Huang looks really guilty when the guy perks up and asks if he'll get better.
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== O - P ==
* [[Odd Friendship]]: Olivia and a defense attorney (she's pointed several clients including {{spoiler|her half-brother}} his way). Their friendship is especially odd since they first met {{spoiler|when he won a case against a rapist}}. It's also rather inconvenient since they both do everything they can for justice, and in the attorney's case that includes revealing {{spoiler|Olivia's romantic relationship with the ADA}}.
* [[Off
* [[Once For Yes, Twice For No]]: Subverted in an episode with a brain-dead patient; they set things up to look like this in order to engineer a [[Bluffing the Murderer]] moment.
** Played straight at a number of points in an episode with MS patients.
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* [[Psychopathic Manchild]]: {{spoiler|Stuckey... or something.}}
* [[Put Down Your Gun and Step Away]]
* [[Put
** {{spoiler|She voluntarily went back on the bus after a witness told her about the horrific rapes in Africa and joined an NGO to prosecute the rapists for crimes against humanity. She came back after the summer.}}
** Starting on Season 13, Elliot Stabler. He took early retirement but from Olivia and Cragen's reactions you'd have thought he [[Ate His Gun]] {{spoiler|like his father}}.
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== Q - R ==
* [[Quip to Black]]: Usually Stabler or Munch, sometimes Olivia.
* [[Rape
** 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.
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* [[Revenge Before Reason]]: Sometimes fall into this, despite all possible reasons why their actions wouldn't be a good idea. Especially if its an [[It's Personal]] moment.
** A major example of this is in "Blinded" where Olivia deliberately informs the feds of a perp's location, knowing that he would be sent back to Louisiana to be executed. All to get revenge for him headbutting Elliot into a car window, which caused him to go blind (He got better). And after Casey [[What the Hell, Hero?|calls her out on it]], she informs the DA that she threw the case (Which she did, but that's another issue).
** Twisted up in the episode where Terrence Howard's DA from ''[[Law
* [[Rich Bitch]]: ''[[Up to Eleven|Holy hell]]'', the grandmother (who's [[Spider
{{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! }}
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** [[Screw the Rules, I Have Connections]]: If you have ''government'' connections, your chances may improve.
* [[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
* [[Shot in
* [[Should Have Thought of That Before X]]: In one disturbing example, a man is framed for raping a teenage girl, and is subsequently abused in prison. He pleads with the officers for protection but they just tell him, "You should have thought about the pecking order before you raped that girl." {{spoiler|He ends up getting killed.}}
* [[Shout-Out]]:
** Elliot and Olivia are named after two of Dick Wolf's children.
** In "Pure", Huang basically outlines the premise of ''[[Lie to Me (TV series)|Lie to Me]]'', including namedropping Lightman's real-life counterpart, Paul Ekman.
* [[Smart People Know Latin]]: Dr. Huang effortlessly steps in to correct a mistranslated Latin word in the episode "Silence".
* [[Smug Snake]]: Most of the recurring defense attorneys, which come in various shades of [[Jerkass]] and most of whom are as just as slimy, smooth and arrogant as all other Hollywood lawyers. On at least one occasion though, one such attorney (albeit reluctantly) helped the detectives bring in his AWOL client when he failed to show up at court.
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** In one episode the sex is consensual and the woman loves her boyfriend. It's just that she happen to have a medical condition that make her [[Older Than They Look|look like lolicon]]. The detectives [[What the Hell, Hero?|consider her chronological, mental and emotional maturity to be a technicality]].
** 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
* [[Traumatic C-Section]]
* [[Trailers Always Lie]]: Previews made it seem like Tutuola was going [[Vigilante Man]] on the gay-bashers who beat his son's fiancee into a coma; actually {{spoiler|the gay-bashers were found fairly quickly and the real story was about a copy-cat}}.
* [[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 ''[[
* [[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]].
* [[Twincest]]: {{spoiler|Rose Macgowan's con-artist character}} truly loves her twin brother (it helps that they [[Half-Identical Twins|don't look]] [[Huge Guy, Tiny Girl|alike at all]]).
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* [[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]].}}
** "Chameleons" has a prostitute perp (based on serial killer Aileen Wuornos) who tries making herself out to be some kind of [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]], and it appears to be working with the court, since her victims included guys like a known wife beater and a fellow serial killer. In the end, {{spoiler|it's discovered she had lied about her horribly abusive past, and the baby son she claimed to love so much isn't hers; she stole him from the real mother, a random woman she strangled to death.}}
* [[Writer
* [[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.
** Sadly, this is actually [[Truth in Television]]: The episode is based on an actual case. Just like the character in the episode, the [[wikipedia:David Reimer|real man]] vehemently reverted to a male gender identity as soon as he got the chance. Sadly, the real man ended up killing himself {{spoiler|instead of killing [[wikipedia:John Money|the doctor]] like his fictional counterpart in SVU did}}.
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== Y ==
* [[You Look Familiar]]: Casey Novak; her actress played a one-episode character before Casey's introduction... one of the aforementioned Wall Street higher-ups ladies, in fact.
** [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0190962/ This guy] has played an FDNY Captain, a bartender, and a character named Erik Pullham. And that's ''only'' on SVU. On ''[[Law and Order]]'' and ''[[Law and Order: Criminal Intent]]'' he has played four additional one-off characters.
** [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001384/ Ice-T] normally plays Fin, but in the in-universe movie ''Exiled'' he plays Seymour Stockton, a pimp.
** The newest ADA, Gillian Hardwicke, is played by Melissa Sagemiller, who made her ''acting debut'' in an episode of the first season.
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** Liza Lapira has played two other characters besides a lab tech, see [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0487594/ here].
** [[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.
* [[You're Insane!]]: Elliot to a particularly disgusting pedophile perp who's trying to defend his rape of young girls (and dressing a woman ''as'' a young girl to rape her) as "natural". When he calls the "love" he has "natural" as that which [Elliot] feels for his wife, Ell is visibly trying not to [[Berserk Button|leap up and beat the scumbag to death]].
** The prisoners at Riker's do everyone a favor and take him out.
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[[Category:Crime and Punishment Series]]
[[Category:Law And Order Special Victims Unit]]
[[Category:TV Series
[[Category:Law & Order: Special Victims Unit]]
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