How Much More Is One Expected To Believe????????????????????????????????

                            Every week, as one 'SVU' episode ends, and another is previewed, the announcer always states, "An 'SVU' you have to see, to believe."  Well, I am running out of hope.

                              Lat week's episode, "Murder At A Bad Address" interestingly brought back 3 performers from the better days, if not glory days, of the show.  Tamara Tunie, as ME Melinda Warner, Michael Weston as Liv's half brother, Simon Marsden, but who wants him around, and Wentworth Miller, this time cast, not as the cop wannabe years back, on the Sharon Stone episode, but this time out as a Queens ADA names Isiah Holmes.  He looked great, though his hair was so short, looking like he had either been incarcerated, or was suffering from alopecia.

                               Each of these top notch performers were featured in throwaway scenes where any actor could have played it, but their presence made the moments extra special.  Good thing, too, because the rest of it was just a routine search for a 16 year serial rapist amid housing projects, and, routinely, the perp turns out to be Tim Stanton, played by an actor with the name--get this--Happy Anderson!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He is a projects worker, wears an orange jump suit, is red headed, Irish and bigoted.  A White supremacist.  Surprise, surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                   I know this type.  Some of my relatives are like this.  Which is why I do not see them.  But couldn't the viewer have been given the satisfaction of seeing Stanton taken down, because he is the kind anyone would want to give a good slap to?

                                    No, because Mariska has to have her moment.  Though, in a way, Michael Weston, as Simon, steals the show.

                                      Simon was last imprisoned on domestic violence and drug charges. He seemingly bumps into Olivia and Noah on the street, and she is genuinely startled.  He states he is working at a carpeting company in New Jersey (code for not doing too good; especially living in Jersey; the only place worse is Queens!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and he is clean.  They agree to have lunch the next day, and Simon takes off.

                                       He is late for lunch the next day, and, thinking Simon is up to his old tricks again, Liv disses him for being late, and says never to call her again.  She is harsh, and wants him out of her life.

                                          Well, she gets her wish, because Simon is found dead of a heroin overdose.  He said he was clean, but I have a theory, which I will get to.  Olivia spends the rest of the episode, hanging her head in guilt, and this is what the episode ends on, over whether or not Simon heard her message, so she is somehow responsible for his death.

                                              Here is my theory.  The world does not revolve around Olivia, as she thinks.  I do not think Simon got that message, because, by the time Olivia said it, he was already dead.  I am convinced he committed suicide, because he knew he could not beat smack.  He wanted to see Olivia and Noah for himself, and realize they were OK, before taking his life.

                                                I feel strongly about this, because I am reminded of a high school classmate of mine, who was a year ahead of me, and took her life, back in 1977.  She was either a nurse's aid, or an LPN, who, along the way, acquired an addiction to pharmaceuticals.  She tried to beat it, even rehab.  Then, in the Summer of 1977, she told her parents she was going to the Jersey shore, to visit friends, and that was the last she was heard from.  She was found in a motel room, down at the shore, overdosed on pills, with a note stating she knew she could not beat this, and did not want to be a burden to anyone any longer.  She was only 23.

                                                 I was really struck by this.  She was such a funny, lively person.
This episode took me back to that time.

                                                  I wish I could say it was better than it was.  So, don't believe the announcer each time he says his spiel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                   This guy has cried "Wolf!" once too often.

                                                    And so has Dick Wolf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!