“Huff and puff all you want, you’re going down!”
By: Jacob Politte, Online Editor
Law & Order SVU: “Solving For The Unknowns”
Season 21, Episode 19
Airdate: 4/16/20
“Solving For The Unknowns” is an above-average episode of SVU, but I’m not sure that it will be remembered as a particularly notable one. A creepy man works with a freelance bartender to drug and sexually assault women, and both of them are appropriately punished for it in the end. That being said, their sentences are shorter than one would expect given the significant number of women that they raped; this is because they developed the drug themselves, and thus it can’t legally be proven to be a controlled substance because no one had ever seen it before.
It’s an enjoyable hour of television that was well-written, well shot and interesting enough, but like I said, it’s not particularly memorable.
I’ve expressed this in previous reviews over the years, but one thing that genuinely bothers me about SVU episodes over the last few seasons is how the initial victim or victims are used as a MacGuffin in order to advance the real plot. This episode did circle back to Jill, the small business owner who is featured in the cold open, but once the other victims were introduced she basically disappeared until the end. I would have liked to see her be involved more with the investigation, even if her presence threatened to tank the case.
Another thing that happened in the cold open: Captain Benson informed Detective Rollins that she’d been promoted to the rank of Detective, 2nd Grade. I thought this was a cool thing to do, even though I’m not sure a big deal has ever been made of Detective Ranks in any Law and Order show before. Rollins was at the rank of Detective, 3rd Grade since her introduction, and now that she’s been promoted to the rank of 2nd Grade, it comes with a pay increase and presumably an increased level of trust and respect.
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE:
– Benson: “Tell the judge that it’s your cop instincts!” Carisi: “Except I’m an ADA now.” THANK YOU CARISI.
– Ice T yelling “Pizza, pizza, pizza, baby!” was the funniest thing that I’ve seen in quite awhile on this show.
– It’s very cool to see Benson in her full NYPD uniform.
