Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Difference between revisions

*** As of the episode ''Turmoil'' it can be confirmed that he is also physically abusive as he attacked his son [[What the Hell, Hero?|after he pointed out his violent tendencies]], of course knowing how he acts the fact he is violent with his kids is not a big surprise

*** 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.

** Disturbingly enough, Munch is the only one who is bothered by the suspect's death (as opposed to being glad the woman and her accomplices didn't get away) and takes the trouble of informing the dead man's ex-girlfriend (who, it turns out, was the same girl the suspect purportedly "molested" when they both were teenagers, he 17 and she 15 and who, it also turns out was still in love with him and had been for nearly a decade).

** In another episode, a young woman "recalls" that [[Parental Incest|her father sexually abused her]] in her youth after [[Fake Memories|a psychiatrist "recovers" memories of the abuse]]. In typical SVU fashion [[It Got Worse|it goes downhill from there]], with the father being vilified as a monster by everyone, including the SVU department and his own family, culminating in the [[Self-Made Orphan|father being shot by his other daughter]] [[Knight Templar Big Brother|in a misguided attempt to protect her sister from him]]. Only then does the truth come to light.

* [[Action Girl]]: Olivia. And how. Rollins, too.

* [[Activist Fundamentalist Antics]]: In one episode, a guy has tried for eight years to get his kidnapped brother back. The police and everyone else stopped caring many years ago, so now he resorted to kidnapping and raping a woman just to get the police's attention. {{spoiler|Oh, and the woman is of course in on it. Pulling off a little [[Romanticized Abuse]] show to the audience as her "rape" gets broadcasted on the web.}}

* [[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.

*** 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).

* [[Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving]]

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

** 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-Time Soap]]: Big time.

* [[Critical Psychoanalysis Failure]]

* [[Crossover]]: Cragen and more recently ADA Cutter came from original ''Law And Order''.

** 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 the Limelight]]: Munch and/or Fin, occasionally. Munch got to shine when his uncle Andy (played by none other than Jerry Lewis) got involved in a crime; the same happened with Fin and the episodes involving his gay son Ken, his ex-wife Theresa, and {{spoiler|his evil stepson}} Darius.

* [[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 by Sex]]: WAY too many times to count, but considering the fact that it's the main character's job to investigate sex crimes, it's a [[Justified Trope]].

* [[Deggans' Rule]]

* [[Dirty Old Woman]]: Rita Wills in ''Bedtime''

{{quote|'''Rita Wills''': For you, I'll even say ''ahh''.}}

* [[The Doll Episode]]

* [[Do Not Pass Go]]: In one episode, said very seriously by Stabler to a perp when he's finally been caught and is going to jail. It's not...actually relevant to the plot, [[Hand Wave|but whatever]].

** 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 on the Tin|Hammered]]".

 

== E ==

** In one episode, a shoe fetishist kills a woman for her boots. Dr Huang insists that fetishism is a harmless sexual variation, and a very tragic story is gradually revealed. {{spoiler|It turns out that the murderer's mother hated her son for being sexually "abnormal". She tried to "cure" his fetishism by beating him in the head with frying pans and other hard objects, and eventually this abuse caused him permanent brain damage that made him unstable enough to kill a woman by mistake.}}

* [[He Who Fights Monsters]]: Said by the FBI agent (who committed as [[Vigilante Execution]]) in "Signature" before [[Driven to Suicide|blowing her own brains out]].

* [[Hidden Depths]]: The [[Badass]] undercover FBI Agent played by Marcia Gay Harden is also a [[Happily Married]] [[Action Mom|mother]] of two and lives in the girliest apartment ever seen in the series.

* [[Hollywood Law]]: Frequent, a solid "objection" seems to be "anything that upsets me."

* [[Hostage Situation]]: ''Shattered''.

* [[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.}}

* [[I'll Kill You!]]: Spoken word for word by Ann Margaret in ''Bedtime''.

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

* [[Internal Affairs]]

* [[I Take Offense to That Last One]]: Happens often to the detectives when interrogating a suspect. An example is in "Hate":

{{quote|Finn: "I've got some words for you--killer, psycho."

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

* [[It's Personal]]: So frequent, it's arguably the premise of the entire show. Again, see also [[Idiot Ball]].

** 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.

* [[Made of Explodium]]: The car that Edwin Adelson drives in "Bullseye".

** The exploding car gambit happens to Tim Donovan in "Loss" as well.

* [[Mama Bear]]: Sophie Gerard in ''Shattered''. Do ''not'' tell her that {{spoiler|her son is dead and not coming back.}}

* [[Manufacturing Victims]]: The show has played this card a few times.

** There's a few episodes that deal with "repressed memory" therapists and the problems they cause, since "repressed memories" are usually false.

** The cast does it too, though. There are numerous incidents where a "victim" doesn't think she was victimized, and she is portrayed as being in denial. Which is possible, although in some cases it seems more like they legitimately weren't traumatized by whatever "should" have traumatized them.

* [[Mauve Shirt]]: This show is even better than the original at maintaining a large recurring cast. In addition to the billed cast (of whom both Dr. Huang and Dr. Warner were [[Promotion to Opening Titles|promoted to the opening titles]]; before that, they too were examples of this trope), we have the CSU techie(s), the TARU techie, about a half-dozen judges, about a half-dozen defense attorneys, Stabler's family, Finn's ex-wife and son, the recurring IAB guy... the list is endless. In some episodes, the only non-recurring characters to appear [[Spear Carrier|in more than one scene]] are the victim and the perp.

** And yes, at least one of these Mauve Shirts was conspicuously killed off. {{spoiler|It was the CSU techie(s).}} Plenty of others have had their share of close calls, too.

* [[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 on a Technicality]]: Going this route is a bad idea, since the show adores some [[Vigilante Justice]]. (It generally means you've traded jail time for being shot in the head shortly after leaving the police station.)

* [[Older Than They Look]]: Invoked in "Pretend," which involves a 16-year-old high school student who {{spoiler|turns out to be a 28-year-old woman who's been posing as a teen for ten years in order to scam the foster-care system}}.

* [[Old Man Marrying a Child]]: This show has an episode about this. The marriage is not legally binding, but it's treated as a real marriage by the cultists.

* [[Online Alias]]: One season 11 episode has a guy who goes by "Master Bater" online.

* [[Only Sane Man]]: Criminal profiler and FBI Special Agent Dr. George Huang often fills this roll pointing out things like sexuality is complicated and a person can be attracted to both men and women in "Lowdown" while every one else believes that there are [[No Bisexuals]]. Or pointing out in "Clock" that sleeping with some one of legal age that is [[Older Than They Look]] is not a crime. Unfortunately they usually do not listen to his (professional and usually well-informed) opinion.

** 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.

* [[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.

** Season 13: Complete, unexpected turnabout. The Unstabler is gone, the [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Techniques]] are gone, the questionable legal antics are gone, the [[It's Personal]] / [[Idiot Ball]] episodes are gone . . . it's like a miracle!

* [[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''.

** The show has two formulas: One for the [[There Should Be a Law]] episodes, and one for the [[It's Personal]] eps.

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

 

** 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 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.

* [[Traumatic C-Section]]

* [[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]]'': 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]].

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

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

* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: Elliot and Olivia, as well as quite a few of the perps.

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

* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: Often pulled on Stabler -- and sometimes, on Olivia -- when going too far.