It certainly looks like it, because, even from the trailer, I recognized what was going on. To call this episode "Complicated" is to insult it. But then, no one, least of all, the writers, seem to care.
Let me say that sometimes reworking can result in a valid, and different take. The best example I can think of is "Uncivilized," first aired on November 15, 1999, evolving into "Lost Traveler," aired November 30, 2011, which was the show's treatment of the then notorious Leiby Kletzsky murder case.
"Complicated," aired on October 25, 2017, was an inferior reworking of "Stranger," first aired on January 6, 2009. I guess the writers think viewers are so dumb they will not catch on.
I have a surprise for you guys--we have!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Stranger," the better of the two, went like this--
Ellen Woglon, impersonating the Hallander family's missing daughter, Heather, walks into this family's life, claiming to be her. What is not known, at first, but becomes apparent on a second viewing, is that two members of the household know she is not Heather--and why they know is part of the big reveal. While the impersonator was abducted, abused and escaped, she turns out to be one Kristen Vucelik, imprisoned and abused by her father, who told her her mother was dead, which is why, when she read about Heather's case, and notices her resemblance, she decides to go to the Hallanders. But it turns out middle daughter Nikki, brilliantly played by Natalia Payne, and Mother Hallander, wonderfully played by Tess Harper, knew Heather had been killed years before, by Nikki. Heather had caught troubled older sister with drugs, threatened to tell on her, so Nikki lured her to this rooftop, where she pushed her into this chimney. She was arrested for trying to do the same thing to Kristen, to cover up Heather, and reveal her hidden secret. Her last line is brilliant, and displays no remorse. As she is lead away, she turns to Kristen and says, "Why did you have to pick us?" Because criminals get caught eventually, Nikki. And I thought Mother Hallander should have been charged.
"Complicated," except for Brooke Shields' guest appearance in the Noah subplot, is pretty much the same. Into the lives of the Lawrence family--mother Karen, father Bill, and older brother, Glenn, walks one who is thought to be their missing daughter, Emma. Like Heather, "Emma" turns out to be Brittany Taylor, 21, and a con artist, fleeing from an abusive, drug addicted family, aged out of the kids shelters, and dreading the adult ones. Can you blame her? The story keeps coming up that "Emma" was abducted in the park by a man who called himself, Steve. She and older brother, Glenn, were playing in the park--Prospect, in Brooklyn, not Central, in Manhattan--when she was abducted, and he could not protect Emma. But, for the SVU team, something about this does not all add up. I could have saved them the trouble of investigating. Because, as in "Stranger," two members of the Lawrence household, know this is not Emma. Those turn out to be father Bill, and son Glenn. When Emma was six years old, she liked to dance in front of the TV. Normal enough. Nine-year-old Glenn did not like this, and so he smothered her to death, Desdemona style, with a pillow, to "keep her quiet." Whether he tells the father, or the father discovers the truth is not clear, but he helps Glenn by taking Emma's body, burying it outside the city, and claiming she went missing. The difference here is both father and son are charged, which is how it should be. And the actors who play them, Paul Schulze (Bill) and Mike Faist (Glenn) enact sociopathic monsters. Emma/Brittany, once the mystery is solved, becomes useless fodder for the writers, and so is tossed into the world, the system, the workforce, like Lara, at the close of "Doctor Zhivago." I care about where she ends up, but apparently no one else does.
I do not know who played Karen Lawrence, but I felt the most sorry for her. She says to the SVU team, "I wish you had never found her. Because, before I had hope. Now, I have nothing." If the episode had ended right there, it would have been impacting, and redeemed itself. But no, we get all fuzzy with Olivia, Noah, and Sheila. It is no surprise that the actor playing Noah takes to Brooke instantly--hell, who wouldn't?--leaving Olivia gloomy and neglected. Meaning while things may now seem hunky dory, eventually they are not going to be.
Which brings me now to what I have seen of next week's episode, which has the potential of being another reworking. It concerns a home for troubled girls--Drugs? Pregnancy? All of the above, most likely!!!!!!!!!--and seems, so far, to be a reworking of an episode, from a much better show, "Cold Case," entitled "The Goodbye Room." Much of that episode was set in 1964; 'SVU," I am sure, will stick to the present day. Reworking an episode from an earlier one of your own shows may work, sometimes, as I have pointed out, but borrowing from a much better show????? How about getting some better guest stars? When, in recent years, have we gotten to see the likes of Tess Harper? Or the brilliance of someone like Natalia Payne???????????
One last thing about "Complicated." Once the secret is out, I kept wondering about "The Bad Seed." Didn't Bill Lawrence realize what his son was? Didn't he fear what he and his wife were living with? I am glad he was charged, because, while he says it was to protect his son, it was to cover his own ass. And the other way he did that was denying him the psychiatric treatment Glenn needed. He had Glenn's number, but unlike Nancy Kelly as Christine Penmark in "The Bad Seed," Bill acted selfishly.
And I have exhausted a lot of space on an episode that wasn't worth it. Except I am so pissed about how the show is being permitted to go down the tubes, this season?
To quote John Adams from "!776"--"Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?"
I guess not.
Like when a sitcom uses a plot straight from an old Seinfeld episode.
ReplyDelete"Lame", as the kids would say.
ReplyDeleteI guess reworking is more
common than I realized. But
the second result is generally not
as good as the first.