This 'SVU' Script Must Have Been Written By The Witches From "Macbeth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                    The season opener--Number 22!!!!!!!!--was called "Guardians And Gladiators," referring to two types of cops.  The so-called "Guardians" are  those who seemingly drip empathy while, with subtle understatement,  cover up their biases.  The "Gladiators" don't care.  They wear their biases openly, like the Proud Boys,  White Supremacists they are.

                                     But, really this should have been called "Witches Brew," because everything was thrown  into the pot--the Amy Cooper case,  George  Floyd, Jr. and Breonna Taylor, the "Karen" meme, and even the danger of closet cases.  I have to say it gave me a sadistic sort of pleasure to see Olivia Benson sweating openly over  her  situation,  and  having her too-close-to-puberty-for-his-time-on-the show son, Noah, call her  out as a racist.

                                       The scene  opened with a brilliant performance by Carolyn Baeumler, as Collen  Reynolds,  the Amy Cooper/Karen of the piece.  Once again, in  the Ramble,  in Central  Park,  she confronts a  Black  man, Jayvon Brown, played by Blake Morris, only this time instead of accusing him of attacking she and her dog,  she has a child, so she cries assault and terrorizing his son.  The actor playing the kid  is  flat out  embarrassed, and runs off,  only to discover the beaten  and unclad body of a young  man--a med student named Eric Aquino,  who has  been homosexually raped.  Beaten, bleeding, and with semen,  coming from the  rectum.   Uh huh.  The Aquinos are Filipino, devout Catholics,  so his poor,  grief stricken mother  does not know  about his orientation,  but his brother, Mark,  does,  so the squad  knows it  has to search among the gay community. 

                                           I could not get over how the cops, with the possible exception of Finn, did not  know of the reputation  the Ramble  is famous for!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

                                          So,  why go after Brown?  Just because the body is  found at the time  of his quarrel  with Colleen/Karen,  they assume he  raped Eric.  This is where the show goes off the rails about what has  been  going  on with the police.  Any amateur could see Brown had nothing to do with Eric,  nor was inclined that way.

                                         But,  it  turns out that on video was caught a white man,  one Joe Murphy, well played by Peter Hargrave, who filmed the whole  thing.  But, what was he,  a lone man,  doing in  the Ramble?  Uh-huh!  Before  one  can say "Closet Case," they discover Murphy is unmarried, and living with his  mother, Bernadette, played by Jeanine  Flynn.  Oh,  yeah, a great, big Closet Case!  The joke  was this perp being  described  as 25, when it clearly has been a long time  since  Hargrave himself saw that age!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                            Yes,  there were  moments,  here and there,  but the whole thing was a jumbled mess.  And Closet Case Murphy fails to be indicted by the Grand Jury he is brought before,  so he walks?  He lies  on the stand,  saying he  was coerced by the cops, feeding on the jury's fears, and the times  we  live in.  So he walks.  Oh, and he says he is "bi."  Yeah,  right.  He will go on living with Mama, getting  fellated and  sodomizing in parks  till caught, until he goes to prison and becomes some inmate's cornhole bitch!!!!!!!!!!!  That is what should happen to all closet cases, anyway!  And often, it does.

                                               But, of course, an  anguished Olivia, played as a desperate-to-show-she-can-act-when,-really-she-can't Mariska Hargitay, gets the last shot.  Ho hum.  Thank God for all the supporting players, as well as regulars, Kelli Giddish, Peter Scanavino,  Ice T, and Jamie Gray Hyder.  Plus Demore  Barnes.

                                               Girls, I am telling you,  I had forgotten how good it feels  to write about 'SVU'.  So stay tuned, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!