If there’s anything that I dislike about the recent seasons of Law and Order: SVU it’s the episodes where the story lines are inspired by top news headlines. They are so ridiculously over-the-top that every single time they air, I have no emotional response or connection to them. In fact, I consider them to be the joke episodes of SVU, the ones that were lazily put together because the writers and producers ran out of good ideas.
So when the previews came on that this week’s episode was going to be a play on the Carlos Danger Scandal (a.k.a. Anthony Weiner/Sydney Leathers), I let out a long, exasperated sigh. Then, shortly after, I found out that my SVU column was going to pick up this week, and I began imagining all the different ways I could destroy this episode in my first review.
But it turns out, I overall really enjoyed this episode (I know, I’m shocked too).
This week’s episode of SVU is centered around Alex Munoz, the new mayoral candidate of New York, who was (surprise surprise), caught sexting multiple women behind his wife’s back. However, throughout the hour there were a few extra tidbits aside from what we all already know about Anthony Weiner. For one, Munoz is a very close friend of A.D.A. Barba (Raul Esparza), thus resulting in the viewers learning more about his character other than his kick ass lawyering skills and his undeniable attractiveness. Two, the writers added a 16 year old girl to Munoz’ lady pool, which normally would throw me off, but it made more sense given that they had to somehow turn all of this into an SVU case.
The best part of the episode (aside from so much Barba on my screen) was the discovery of Munoz’ alter sexting persona, Enrique Trouble. It wouldn’t be a top headline episode without playing off Carlos Danger, and the way they went about it was priceless. I couldn’t stop laughing when the SVU team encountered Munoz’ full monty, and hearing Detective Tutola (Ice T) crack jokes and refer to it as the “full Munoz” will forever be etched into my memory. If only Detective Munch (Richard Belzer) were still around to play off him with more jokes (They should have waited a week to promote him to the DA’s office)!
Although I did enjoy this episode, I’m really hoping that there are more fictional accounts over the next few weeks that aren’t based on current news stories. However, this is the new SVU so I’m expecting a Hannah Anderson storyline to pop up sometime soon, at the very least. I’m looking forward to see what they come up with and hoping that we get some visually stunning episodes like last season.
Show graphic courtesy/credit to NBC/Universal.
