S23.E12: Tommy Baker's Hardest Fight - Law & Order: SVU

I think this may have been the best episode of the season, it’s not often that I praise the show, but a lot of this felt like classic, golden age SVU, it wasn’t perfect but given what we’ve had this season, it was superior to the usual quality of the current show.

The case took a lot of good twists and turns, and there was good detective work from everyone. I never saw it coming that Phil would be involved, and I didn’t peg the culprit, my money was on Duke the first half of the episode, and I really liked the twist that instead of being a bigoted asshole Duke turned out to be an okay guy who wanted to make things up with Tommy before he died, that surprised me and I liked that. I didn’t see the culprit coming or that Phil was involved.

Each detective got a good role - Fin finally got a large role, Velasco was good, Rollins was good, even Benson was solid most of the time. I liked how everyone got to work together and get to the bottom of it. I did miss Carisi and wish he had been in a couple of scenes, but this was an investigation heavy episode and I liked it, like I said above, much of it felt like classic SVU.

The opening was good, I liked Rollins and Velasco getting ready to watch the fight, and Fin telling Benson that McGrath should get a life. I loved that instead of an opening where everything was spelled out, this time we had no idea who the culprit was, it was a well done opening, something I rarely say about modern day SVU.

Now to the weaker part of the episode - McGrath. St Olivia giving him one of her sermons near the end was just the typical “let’s make Benson look awesome” part of the episode, and it felt weird that McGrath unloaded about all of his personal problems to Benson given that they are always at odds, and then Benson at the end seeming to care about him, I’m not sure what to make of it, McGrath has proven himself to be a turd over and over, forcing Garland out, denying justice to the one rape victim because he only cared about the rapist being convicted of his friend’s daughter’s rape, and generally being a politically obsessed dick, I’m not sure where his story is going but I wonder if he will become the latest convert to the church of St Olivia or if he’ll stay the same. McGrath just isn’t compelling, he’s a one dimensional jerk, and he’ll either get forced out or start worshipping St Olivia, and I just don’t find it compelling. That being said, I would rather see McGrath than Noah or the Rollins family, so the episode having no personal drama on that front was nice.

Overall this was arguably the season’s best episode - a strong case with suspense and good twists and investigation with a nice role for each squad member and no personal drama. I don’t often praise modern day SVU but I liked this one.

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