How many times has it happened on SVU that the rape victim takes the stand, and the defense attorney finds some falsehood in her story, and then the defense attorney hammers her with something like,"You lied to the police, and you lied in your previous testimony, so why should the jury believe that you are not lying now!? Aren't you just A LIAR!?!?"

And after she gets out of the courtroom and she's in tears, Benson or Barba tells her that she fucked up, that by not being completely honest from the get-go, she now looks like a liar to the jury, and the defendant will probably go free.

As Paff noted above, it's way better if they can just prove she's lying about the abuse, but it is certainly a viable strategy to just show that she's a liar in general.

"Miss Whatever claims she killed Mr X because he abused her, but she told the police and she told this court that she did not kill Mr X, and it wasn't until this trial was well under way that she suddenly remembered that Mr X had abused her. She was lying before. Why should we believe her now? She can't produce any witness to corroborate her story about being abused. She never confided in a friend or told a therapist. She never sought help from anyone. No one that worked with her ever saw her with unexplained bruises or cuts. She says Mr X broke her arm. Did she tell the doctor she was abused, or did she lie to the doctor too?"

Just being honest, but there were men on that jury, so not everyone in the box was going to take her claims of abuse at face value.

I understand what you are saying about the issue the episode was addressing, but the story was a goddamn train wreck if they leave a crater like that in the plot.

It really bothered me, they didn't focus on the frame job the show her as a liar. I could believe a woman not reporting the abuse and snapping one day to safe her life. What I couldn't believe is, that in her shock she framed someone else a few days later. That's much more damning than her lie about the broken arm.
Anyway I liked the 2nd episode a little bit more. The police part was week, but short. The DA part at least presented a nice dilemma, although I didn't like how they handeled it.

Well, even more damning is that she was never abused at all. She killed him to keep him from revealing the company was a fraud. but the judge had excluded much of that evidence so the DA could only dance around that theory. She tried to use "Me Too" as "Me Lie Too."

Before the claim of abuse they probably could have hung her with the frame job. Once she claimed abuse they had to figure that at least one juror would think she was justified in everything she did. She did us all a favor, rid the world of a piece of shit.
Remember the female DA mentioned they were in trouble because they didn't profile the jury members for how they felt about abuse during jury selection.
Now they have to prove she's lying about abuse. Only sure way to convict her. Lying about the murder and the frame job is out the window. The problem they had is how to make her out as a liar without appearing to be attacking an abuse victim. That could get her acquitted.
To some on the jury lying about the abuse is worse than the murder, lying about it, and the frame. So some guy is dead, that's small potatoes to the damage she may have to done to real victims being believed.

But they didn't know they would call her on a lie, so at least mentioning the frame job on cross would have been there biggest chance for a conviction. The broken arm was a gift and it was just dumb luck she didn't go alone to the hospital. They would have been left with nothing. Completely ignoring the frame job, just didn't fit right with me, although it was the lie which nailed her. The frame job was the biggest weapon to hurt her credibility during cross.

I understand why proving she was lying about the abuse was the best thing that could happen, but she had no proof, evidence, witnesses to back up her abuse story, and the jury knew she was a liar, so I don't think a competent DA would have thrown that strategy out entirely.

I'm just saying that they had a point they wanted to make, and I get that, but the plotting of the episode was for shit. Do better L&O!!

Aside from some ham-handed and clunky references to social media and influencers, I thought it was a top notch episode tonight. Everything I want in a L&O outing. Interesting police procedural, lots of grey areas in the trial, a slight twist in the final 10 minutes, not a completely satisfying finale (meaning, not everyone got what they wanted). Hopefully the show has found its footing because I rather enjoyed that.

I think they were trying to do an episode based off of the Gabby Petito story.

I really don't like Cosgrove. He's like a wannabe Vic Mackey with no personality.

Oh yeah, they were definitely hitting on "missing white girl" syndrome in the episode. I was also wondering if they were referring to the Maya Millette case, as her husband has been charged with her murder even though no body has been found yet and technically she's still "missing". That one hasn't gone to trial yet though.

Finally, the normal L&O episode I've been waiting for.

They definitely need to start writing Cosgrove differently. It's not working as-is.

Whew. Glad I'm not the only one who liked it. I wanted to post immediately after the episode, before reading anyone else's comments because I didn't want any negative reviews to color my opinion first.

Decent episode, still not as good as an average SVU. This week’s SVU episode shows you how it’s done.

I really liked this one as well. Price is probably my favorite new character. And yeah, there were definitely shades of gray in the trial but I agree with the decision that the DA (essentially Price) made in regards to that. And um, you failed to mention one of the best parts: They made a NY Jets joke in the episode!

The episode was so good I totally forgot they slagged the Jets till you reminded me.

And I have the feeling that the Jets joke will probably age better than the technobabble when this one hits the Sundance/WeTV reruns circuit. As in, someday you might have to explain to someone younger what an "influencer" was, but they'll fully understand that the Jets suck.

Another good episode but they really need to use some more ambiguous stories. It's not more clever to mash two celebrity stories rather than copying just one.

Yeah, it wasn't too hard to figure out where the inspiration(s) for this episode came from. Enjoyed it, but nowhere near as much as last week's. I like the tension between the two prosecutors. I bet they'll end up in bed together.

And it was nice for equal time that they ripped on the Giants this week instead of the Jets.

Better episode but there is something off about the acting compared to earlier seasons, maybe it is just this way now on network TV which I never watch but the acting is just not that good

I just don't like Hugh Dancy as the prosecutor. I just can't stand his voice, and I know he is British playing American, but his voice just bugs the hell out of me.

This weeks episode (7) was interesting but I can’t see a case ever going this way. A kid gets away with killing a high school principal and isn’t even required to undergo psychiatric treatment.

This L&O sucks IMO. The Law side banter/partner conflict is so forced.

And I don't like Hugh Dancy either. Just doesn't work.

I gave up on this.

30 minutes into watching this week's episode and they are seriously talking about granting immunity to a confessed murderer so they can go after his father. Holy fucking christ is this stupid!

The show has a tendency, -I mean it's always had a tendency, -to take a real, complicated story out of the news and try to make it simple in the last 30 minutes so that it gets the point that they're trying to sell across. Unfortunately, they're usually more simplistic than simple. This week's didn't seem like something that would (a) happen the way it does or (b) hold up in court and/or would be appealed.

Well, if you want unrealism in L&O (even the classics), just look at the days between the crime and the trial. Pretty sure no NYC high-profile murder case goes to trial a few weeks after it happens.

And the court case is always slightly different than the original crime, just to make it dramatic, two stories in one hour. Seriously, how many times is the second half just a rehash of the crime and the evidence? There have been a few, sure, but it's usually something better than that like, college co-ed is found murdered. Turns out she was a call girl, so the court case is the ringleader of the call girl racket being tried for enterprise corruption (great ep, by the way, from the Briscoe/Curtis era).

My complaint, like about last week's ep, is the way they shoehorned "CRT" into the beginning of the episode, when it wasn't really relevant to the story at all. Granted, they've done that before though, like I remember the ep where the mom wanted to do a female circumcision on Emmy Rossum so they brought in a Muslim doctor to do it, but the first angle they checked was if the Muslim doctor was a terrorist. And that ep was from before 9/11!

I read that Benson will appear in episode 10, the season finale. No renewal decision yet.