Law & Order: SVU 27.1: Olivia Benson vs. ICE

Just caught up with the season 27 debut of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on NBC this past Thursday evening. It was excellent in all kinds of ways, but none as ethically important and politically relevant as Olivia Benson standing up to the American Gestapo aka ICE as they do their utmost to impede Captain Benson and the NYPD from bringing a rapist to justice.

ICE is bent on taking Benson's witness into custody and having him deported to El Salvador or who knows where.  Never mind that the witness is here legally.  He looks like a foreigner and that's all Trump's racist goons need to haul him off.  When Benson attempts to stop them, she's taken into custody.

Benson's arrest is actually the least of what these Federal criminals have been doing in real life to fair-minded, hardworking people in government who try to do their job and stand up to ICE when necessary, which is all too often.  Alex Padilla, US Senator from California, was thrown to the ground, when he tried to ask Homeland Security Kristi Noem a question, by another branch of Trump's Storm Troopers a few months ago.  But it was good and important to see a fictional character, wonderfully played by Mariska Hargitay all these years, do the right thing in New York.  Hats off to NBC.

Would a real captain of the NYPD do what Benson did?  I would certainly hope so, but I don't know that I would bet on it.   I don't know that other networks and streaming services would have characters in their dramas do what Benson did, either.  I'm a lifelong devoted Yankee fan, and it's always great seeing them play baseball on YES.   But I was very disappointed to see ads for ICE more than once in between innings on YES in the past few months.

Baseball is about American as you can get.  ICE is about as un-American.  Good to see NBC and Olivia Benson on the right side of this battle for our democracy.

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My Mom Jayne: Mariska Hargitay's Heroic Struggle to Find Herself and Her Mother Jayne Mansfield

Mariska Hargitay was already an excellent rarity in television -- indeed, unique, in that her character Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has been on TV some 26 years and counting, longer than any other character in a TV drama.  That's no surprise, given that Hargitay plays Benson with sensitivity and power in episode after episode.  It's therefore also no surprise that My Mom Jayne, Hargitay's documentary about her mother Jayne Mansfield, is also unique, sensitive and powerful and unlike any documentary I've ever seen.  My wife and I saw it last night on HBO Max, and were glued to the screen, often with tears in our eyes.

I grew up in the 1950s and early 60s, and my friends and I in the Bronx would often debate whom we'd like to spend the night with -- Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, or Mamie Van Doren.  Of course, they all were highly attractive.  But, believe it or not, we also discussed whom we'd like to talk to.  We knew that Marilyn was married, then had been married, to playwright Arthur Miller, so we figured she had to be pretty smart.  We knew almost nothing more about Jayne and Mamie than what they looked like.

My Mom Jayne makes the convincing case that Jayne Mansfield was no dummy either.  She not only was contemplative and intelligent, she played the violin and piano.  And after she'd established herself as a hot dumb blonde bombshell, she worked very hard and not very successfully to demonstrate that she had a brain, endeavoring to explain that the dumb blonde was an act. The popular culture is very resistant to that kind of change.  It's hard to negate what made you famous, and get your devoted admirers to accept that all of that was just a stepping stone to something else.  (One of the things that made The Beatles so transcendent is that they were able to move so smoothly from "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" to "A Day in the Life" and the Abbey Road medley.)

Jayne Mansfield's struggle to get the world to know who she really was, cut short only by her untimely tragic death in an auto accident in 1967, is one of the two central themes of My Mom Jayne, and epitomized in an interview we see of Jayne by Jack Paar.  That host of The Tonight Show for just five years (1957-1962) -- who, by the way. introduced The Beatles to America -- was the intellectual's intellectual, more so than Carson, Letterman, and even Dick Cavett.  So Jayne must have figured she had a chance of convincing Jack about her fine mind and talent.  But the interview ends with a smirking Jack saying he'd like Jayne to kiss him.  (Speaking of Jack, he also sounds in that interview a lot like Johnny, which shows that Johnny adopted more than created his inimitable way of talking to his guests.)

The other central theme of My Mom Jayne is Mariska Hargitay's lifelong struggle to find out who she really is.  Mariska was just three when her mother died, so she has no memories of her mother.  Mariska's quest to find out who her mother was and therefore who Mariska is and how she got here turns out to be such a riveting, complex story, with so many twists and turns, it could almost have been a two-part episode of Law & Order: SVU.  Indeed, there are so many surprises packed into the end, I won't say anything more, except that if you've been a fan of Mariska or Jayne, or a devotee of our popular culture, or just like a compelling true story, you'll want to see My Mom Jayne.

                  science fiction/fantasy novelette

Podcast Review of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Season 25 Premiere

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 370, in which I review Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Season 24 premiere.

Read this review.

Check out this episode!

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 25 premiere: Better Than Ever

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, season 25, debuted on NBC last night.  Good old-fashioned broadcast television.  And the season 25 premiere of this superb series -- there is reason, actually, more than one reason, why the series has lasted so long -- was better than ever.

[And there are spoilers ahead ... ]

First of all, Mariska Hargitay, who has played Olivia Benson, who has moved from Detective to Captain since the series began on the doorstep of the 21st century in 1999, is an incredible actress, delivering a continuum of emotion ranging from tenderness and compassion to searing outrage with an ease and effectiveness that makes you think she actually is Olivia Benson.  Same for her supporting staff, which now consists of Ice-T as Sgt. "Fin" Tutuola, Peter Scanavino as ADA Sonny Carisi (who started as Det. Carisi), Kelli Giddish as a Professor at Fordham Law (yes! I'm looking forward to saying hello to her in a faculty meeting in an alternate reality; like Carisi, she started the series as a Detective, and the two are now happily married; she has much less screen time now as professor, though), and Octavio Pisano as Det. Joe Velasco, are all in fine form, too.  (But here's a minor complaint: how come Det. Terry Bruno, played Kevin Kane, isn't featured in that zoom-in photo in the beginning at the episode?  He's a major player on the squad.)

The basic plot of this premiere episode was outstanding, too.  A 15-year-old girl is kidnapped.  Benson soon after sees her in the kidnap vehicle as Benson is driving her son.  Her SVU instincts tell her she's seeing something wrong underway, but a blinding sun and understandably talking to her son get in the way of her immediately following through on her instincts.  This in itself is one of the best beginnings of any Law & Order: SVU, with Benson having even more motivation than she usually has, which is maximum, to find the kidnapped girl and bring her home safe and sound.

And this sets up a painful but realistic ending of this episode, with Benson and the SVU team unable to find and free the kidnapped victim, at least for now.  Hats off to the SVU writers and producers for going with realism rather than a happy ending.  (As my wife said, their skills didn't diminish at all during the time off for the strike).

Other parts of this show I really liked: the toast to Munch even before the kidnap; the introduction of Carisi's cousin as a possible but unlikely romantic interest for Benson; the introduction of the New Jersey SVU detective Mary McKenzie (well played by Cindy Lentol), whom I hope Benson brings into the Law & Order: SVU team, and the montage of scene shots, also before the kidnapping, of Benson's work for SVU over these 25 years.

So good to see the show back in business!

Law & Order SVU and Organized Crime: Stabler Is Back

I rarely review Law & Order SVU, but it's one of my favorite shows, and my wife feels the same.  But I couldn't help but review the SVU crossover with the new Organized Crime Law & Order last night on NBC, given that it featured the return of Elliot Stabler, who left SVU some ten years ago, in the wake of the actor Christopher Meloni not being able to reach agreement on a new contract with NBC.

Stabler's partnership with Olivia Benson was the heart and soul of SVU, and his departure came with no explanation in the narrative.   We learned last night that he was also incommunicado with Benson these part ten years.  This creates an excellent narrative tension as the two reunite in New York after Stabler's wife is mortally wounded in a bomb blast intended for Stabler.

Benson is understandably torn between feeling protective towards her former partner and hurt, even angered, by his sudden departure and ensuing silence.  But just to be clear, and not to get too "meta" about this, that departure was not Stabler the character's fault -- it presumably was NBC's fault, for not giving Meloni the actor what he requested.  In any case, Olivia's struggle to get some bearing now on Stabler, especially since she has moved up from Detective to Captain on SVU, was played out over both SVU and Organized Crime last night, was appropriately inconclusive, and was the best part of these two episodes.  

It was also gratifying to see some kind of romantic energy between the two -- at this point, of course, unacknowledged.  Given that Stabler's wife died, and Olivia has been without romantic involvement this year, I'd say that possibility is real.   In fact, one of the best parts of the crossover event is the letter Stabler gives to Benson, who can't read it then.  At the end of the second episode, Benson shows up and wants to talk to Stabler about the letter, but he's too engrossed in the case at hand to talk to her at that moment.  So what's in the letter? It has to be something good, from a narrative point of view, and I'd guess promising for their future relationship. In fact, I'd predict that if Organized Crime stays on the air for at least a few years, we'll see the two together as a couple.  Maybe even if Organized Crime doesn't make it.

On that account, the show has been faulted by the usual Greek chorus of complaining critics.  It wasn't the most original or scintillating opening episode, true, and it lacked the usual Law & Order pacing and flourishes.  But, hey, give it a chance.  The lives of every SVU character have been both enriched and challenged by Stabler back in their picture (speaking of which, great scene between Fin aka Ice T and Stabler in SVU last night).  Meloni and  Mariska Hargitay have a crackling chemistry together as actors, and I'm eager to see where this goes.

Written Report on 3rd Day of 2020 Democratic National Convention

What a speech by Barack Obama on the third night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, the first virtual National Democratic or Republican Convention in history.  I thought the speech was so pertinent and powerful it was even better than his speeches as President, and in his campaigns for that office.  Unafraid to call out the monster, the would-be destroyer of our democracy, now in the White House.  Sobering, inspiring, chilling, and so very necessary.

Kamala Harris gave an outstanding speech, too, accepting her nomination as Vice President on the Democratic ticket.  Her empathy for the victims of racism and COVID, combined with her astute attack on Trump, and her winning charm, show what a wise choice Joe Biden made in selecting her as his running mate.  And wasn't it excellent to see him come out on stage and join her after her speech, especially impressive in this age of COVID.

Elizabeth Warren's speech was powerful, as well, preceded by real people across the country whose businesses have been jeopardized to the edge of extinction by the COVID pandemic and the poor leadership -- non-leadership -- of Donald Trump.   I hope she gets a prominent position in Biden's cabinet.

And the segment on victims of gun violence, followed by Gabby Giffords, was also ever timely and necessary.  Good for the Democratic National Committee for not letting this life-and-death issue get lost in the toxic sea of COVID and racism and attempts to suppress the vote that beset all Americans. 

So this third night was a real joy and inspiration.  Biggest surprise for me: Mariska Hargitay of Law & Order SVU endorsing Biden for President!  You just can't beat a Benson endorsement!

I'll see you back here tomorrow after the fourth and final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

See also Written Report on 1st Night the 2020 Democratic National Convention ... Written Report on 2nd Night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention