Eid.17: Real Ugly Cluster&*%$

Recap:

Congressman Luke Bolton shows up at SVU and demands Lt. Benson and Co. investigate fake allegations of Bolton's participation in a sex trafficking ring (not) operating out of the Coral Dragon restaurant. Benson doesn't appear to want to do this but she does anyway, probably a good move considering he is a Congressman after all. They head over to The Endless Truth's HQ (a.k.a. Duca's apartment) and Rollins is steady with shade as he weaves a dragon's tail, a vegetable, and some snaps of fathers and daughters into a citizen's indictment of the Coral Dragon. At the restaurant, Fin and Carisi are welcomed by the owner and then have to disarm and arrest an Ammon Bundy wannabe who somehow was walking around Chinatown with a giant fucking rifle. However, Bolton is right. Ten minutes into the episode Benson's on the news announcing the Dragon is all good and legit and not housing teenage prostitutes in their basement which they don't have anyway. Case one, closed. So, since there are thirty or so minutes to fill, back at SVU it is discovered that an Endless Truther has discovered a real sex trafficking site on the dark web. At One PP the indifferent and jaded computer crimes lady pointlessly schools the detectives on how good child porn addicts are at covering their tracks but, guess what, Luke Bolton's name pops up, he's obviously been hacked, maybe by Serbia, maybe by Russia, who the hell knows, so they go back to Duca who refuses to relinquish his hard drive to assist SVU in catching the real bad guys and ADA not Rafeal Barba argues successfully to force Duca to give them up. Case Closed...again.

But wait there's more!

While TARU and facial recognition and NCMEC are doing the work, SVU's about ready to celebrate and move on to the next case, but a pissed off Duca has posted pictures of Benson with Noah and Rollins with Jesse who he apparently had followed just in case he needed ammunition for retribution after the judge's ruling didn't go his way. Benson neck scratches and morphs into Mama Bear Mode, demands they arrest Duca for breathing, ships Noah and Jesse off to the Garden State with Lucy, and Benson comes close to pulling a Hank Voight in the interrogation room until Fin pulls her out and he and Rollins tell her One PP has the hacker...another one, who leads them back to initial suspect and past and present perv Ronald Fleming who almost kills himself but leads SVU to the actual sex trafficker, well, eventually, they finally find the correct basement and liberate the girls.

But it's still not over!

OMB threatens Duca, is reunited with Noah, but not for long, sorry little man, because Benson must go to the Coral Dragon to remind the idiots on scene to get his teenage daughter out of there so she doesn't have to sit five feet away from her blood-covered dead father. Oh, wait. That didn't happen. #FakeNews

Ramblings...

So what we have here is a sampler of three #SVU plotlines that have been previously used and explored (in depth!) in one sampler-platter (#42Minute) show. The squad has had its share of run-ins with provocative and unscrupulous journalists (not that I would call Duca a journalist). Noah has been a point of contention more times that he needed to be. And, sex trafficking? See Johnny D.; see Cousin Eugene (DAMN I promise I meant to avoid Tucker thoughts today).

The thing is, though these three storylines put together in a mishmash with some token details for "continuity's" sake make for an episode so convoluted that, by the time Bolton was lying dead in the middle of the Coral Dragon I was exhausted.

The Fake News perpetrator, Duca, was never punished or held accountable (other than being deprived of his hard drive). It would have been entirely more poignant and timely to really dive into this issue and I would have loved to see Barba finagle a criminal case out of what everyone seems to assume is protected speech. Also, this ended up being about catching the super adept hacker on the dark web, not necessarily "fake news." 

The sex trafficking "ring" wasn't really a ring--it was apparently some asshole named Jerry pimping out girls from his basement...but those girls came from somewhere and were lured by someone other than Jerry. Where's the rest of it? Hey--would've been a great time to loop in Declan, even if by mention only (I have more to say about Declan, hang on).

Finally, I'm really getting tired of Noah either being in bed or being part of a case, but in this particular case, the door seemed to be open to maybe maybe maybe accuse Benson and SVU and IAB (Tucker again) of, perhaps, orchestrating Johnny D's suicide-by-cop. Instead we get some bullshit about single moms and, oh, those kids must be payoffs because how else would single female cops get kids. 

Benson freaking the fuck out at her son being targeted was understandable; however, I did not like the implication that she would invent crimes and evidence in order to exact revenge on Duca. That scene with him at the end was badass, but, come on, Liv, are you really going to risk everything to set up that POS?

#622 on the list, huh, Fin? Please can we have Rollins as Sarge instead? I wasn't impressed with Fin. I hope Eid isn't fixing his lines to make him look like a dolt because of what Ice-T said about "Unstoppable." I don't care how many times he barks "Shut up," he and his lines seemed insignificant and maybe a bit amateurish.

So, once upon a time Rollins had an awesome nanny (remember Mike telling her to go home?) and I can't believe Declan would shirk child support so money shouldn't be an issue. All this to say the babysitter just not showing up was weird. Thank gawwwwd for sweet Lucy and also for Jersey grocery stores. Come on, Rollins.

And also, how did the unis miss the fucking gun in Fleming's office? 

Ain't No Party Like An #SVU Party

Jamie on the rocks.

Fashion

Benson wins green.

Props to Rollins for scoring those adorable Ugg-ish boots for Jesse. I balked at Noah's jacket with the fur-lined hood at first, but then I remembered OMB bought it for him, and I'm never objecting to OMB's fashion choices.

Quotable

"That baby is not a mystery. That baby is my son." Swoon. I know, I know, everyone went gaga over that but....GAHHHHHHHH

"Fleming said a black one." #BensonSarcasm

"Lucy has a doggie." Oh, Noah, that reminds me of the last time you mentioned a dog...

"Who eats dinner at four o'clock?" Ok, Duca, but, seriously, now that we know your "evidence" was a whole bunch of nothing...my real problem with Rep. Bolton's email was the fact he felt so strongly about broccoli. WTF?

Is It Next Wednesday Yet?

Can't say I'm disappointed to see Rita Calhoun again. I assume she's back on the bad guy's side and, therefore, a thorn in SVU's. Eid has pretty much either obliterated personal stories or brushed them aside, so I assume we will not hear any more about Carisi being a lawyer or Kim or Declan or Fin's grandson, or the threats against Barba...

Speaking of our beloved ADA...WOULD THIS NOT HAVE BEEN A PERFECT EP TO AIR AFTER "Know It All?" Ya know, when we were supposed to wonder about Barba's fate?

Lastly, I hope MH is going on an extended vacay to celebrate her emancipation because, damn, was I the only one who noticed or perceived how desperately she was trying to single-handedly make this episode tolerable?