Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8 Offered a Heart-Pounding Fall Finale, But It Wasn’t An SVU Case

Critic’s Rating: 3 / 5.0

3

Violent, armed robbers. Unnecessary deaths. Carisi in danger.

Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8 offered an adrenaline-pounding story meant to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

Benson’s been held hostage twice, and a stalker kidnapped Rollins from her therapist’s office once, so it’s not like this type of story is anything new, but it gets points for the thrill factor anyway.

The Aftermath Will Be Better Than Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8

Every police procedural does the cop-in-danger trope at least once, but lately, it seems like most of them do it once a season.

It’s easy to become desensitized to it when you know your favorite character will not leave the show and will not be killed off, no matter what.

Additionally, these stories don’t belong on SVU.

This series is supposed to be about empowering sexual assault survivors, and instead, once in a while, we get an entire hour of one of the heroes being held hostage.

The aftermath of these stories is far better because it shows the cops (and yes, I know Carisi is an ADA, but he used to be a cop, and he was in cop mode this whole episode) struggling with the same trauma they have been helping others deal with.

But there are other ways to get there, particularly with Carisi.

The man’s been dealing with vicarious trauma and practically breaking down all season long.

Last week he was hyperfocusing on getting one pedophile off the streets, as if that was going to magically make his girls safe.

If Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8 wanted to set up a mental health storyline for Carisi, they didn’t need to have him get randomly held hostage.

Instead, he could have lost a case he really wanted to win, one involving someone who preys on young girls.

That could have led to a powerful final scene in which he completely broke down, making it feel like a REALLY long time before SVU returns on January 16.

Still, the closing scenes, in which Carisi insisted he was okay even though it was obvious he wasn’t, were strong.

I was especially touched by Rollins calling him “Sonny” rather than Carisi.

Those two usually call each other by their last names, so her refusal to do so showed how worried she was about him.

It was weird that the kids were with Rollins’ mother, though. Last I heard, she was disowning Rollins for not enabling Kim’s nonsense anymore.

Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8 Wasted Rollins’ Involvement

Rollins doesn’t appear in many episodes, so when she is around, I’d rather she do more than fight with a hostage negotiator and get told to take a walk.

The logline for this episode said that Benson and Rollins devise a risky plan, but I didn’t see Rollins doing much of anything.

She wasn’t as useless as the “top-notch” hostage negotiator, who couldn’t even get the perps to talk to him, but I’d have rather she had a subplot about the ghost guns she’s trying to get off the streets.

That would have been a far more interesting use of Rollins than whatever that was on the sidewalk outside the deli.

Carisi’s Performance Made This Episode

If you’re a Carisi fan, you probably enjoyed Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8.

It shouldn’t have been a Carisi-only episode. We needed more of an ensemble than we got, considering that Benson has a full team and that, at this point, she and Rollins are as experienced with hostage negotiation as the actual negotiators.

However, this was a strong episode for Carisi. Peter Scanavino did some of his best work to date during this hostage scenario.

His determination to stay with Ali and try to save his life was great. This guy wasn’t just a store clerk to him. He was a friend, and Carisi’s reaction when Ali died broke my heart.

Carisi: I’m sorry I couldn’t save your friend.

Elizabeth: I’m sorry I couldn’t save yours.

I also enjoyed the way that Carisi used psychology and his knowledge of the law to confuse the robbers and throw sand in their intimidation operation.

Boyd reacted violently to not being in control, but it also confused him that Carisi wasn’t as scared of him as he wanted him to be.

Carisi’s interactions with Deonte were so heartfelt that he fooled me, too.

I also thought he was genuine about helping Deonte out if Deonte helped get them out of the situation. I should have known better, I guess, but I felt like Deonte was redeemable.

He was young, naive, and had spent too much time in the system as it was, and although Carisi was right that he could be held liable for felony murder, I felt like the fact that he didn’t actually pull his trigger on anyone until he’d had enough of Boyd’s crap should count for something.

(He also looked like he could have played a young Randall Pearson on This Is Us and his last name being Mosley got me all distracted thinking about how that’s Gabi’s last name on Found, so what weird mash-up was going on here?)

Anyway, I especially liked when Carisi told him it was either help him out or go home in a body bag. That was a powerful exchange, though I found it confusing that Deonte’s response was that he knew Carisi used to work for Benson.

I don’t understand how they could find that out by looking on his phone. Does he have Benson saved as “Captain Olivia Benson (my former boss)?”

Tess’ Rape Was Tangential to Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8

The situation described in the logline was much more closely aligned with SVU’s mission than what played out.

If Carisi had tried to stop a rape in progress and ended up in a hostage situation, that would have at least been an actual SVU case.

Instead, Tess’ rape felt like it was added in to make it relevant to SVU.

She was traumatized, and Benson and Rollins comforted her after she was finally released, but she was such a minor character that it didn’t feel impactful — and that’s the opposite of what SVU usually stands for.

Over to you, SVU fanatics!

What did you think of this Carisi-centered hostage situation?

Did it meet your expectations for SVU in general or for the fall finale?

Vote in our poll to rank this episode, and then hit the comments with your thoughts.

Law & Order: SVU airs on NBC on Thursdays at 9/8c and on Peacock on Fridays. It will return with all-new episodes on January 16, 2025.

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