Adam H. Kerman
2024-10-14 05:39:25 UTC
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Essemtially, the audience was tricked into watching an episode of SVU. I
hate SVU with a passion.
The first half of the episode has nothing whatsoever to do with the
second half. We see the murder victim, whom we will learn later has
created E.L.I., the perfect man of the episode title, a fully-
interactive dating app (short of being a sexbot) that's capable of
breaking up marriages. We learn still later that people left his company
because they think the technology is manipulative and dangerous and
shouldn't be commercially exploited, but maybe the victim likes
exploiting women's emotions through the app.
There is a sinister focus on the victim writing in a notebook.
In the second half of the episode, we learn he's a garden-variety
stalker, although he kept showing up in places the murderer would be.
Was that spying through technology? Never addressed in dialogoue. In any
event, the victim never committed a criminal act nor threatened the
murderer.
Riley and Shaw manage to investigate without any P.C. moments. At one
point, Maura Tierney and Mehcad Brooks go out to interview a suspect, I
swear it's for the humor of emphasizing how absurdly short the actress
is to be playing a cop.
Maroun and Baxter have nearly no lines.
The cops and Price get approached by Benson (Mariska Hargitay) to
SVU-splain the psychobabble of rape victims and their heightened fears
and how this explains away premeditated murder. The murderer (Hey! It's
Emily Meade! Lori from The Deuce!) "just knew" all the stalking and
unwanted attention was going to lead to her getting hurt or killed, even
without a threat, so she planned to murder him, anticipating that he was
following her. Or something.
Benson claimed she took her rape case, but I couldn't spot that episode
listed if it existed. She played different characters on other SVU
episodes.
Her defense attorney is Elizabeth Marvel, a recurring defense attorney
from SVU.
The whole thing is a cheat. Again, the cops never learned any of this.
Furthermore, other than Benson's rants, we get no sense of the
murderer's fears or character nor the victim being threatening, so it's
not possible for the audience to sympathize and see her as a tragic
character. The descriiptions of the stalking sounded menacing.
The trial must have had BTR1701 tearing out his hair. Price made a dozen
objections, and Marvel made one. At no time was the reason for the
objection stated.
In another episode, this would hVe really pissed me off but in this
episode, it's barely noticeable. Brady orders RIley and Shaw to run
forensic evidence through CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) and the
local databaee. Riley objects to "problems" with the local databae, but
we don't learn till much later in the episode what those problems are.
This is actually worth some soul searching ethical discussion, but we
don't get any. The local database includes rape kits, and I'll assume
evidence from crime victims and those incidental to a crime scene who
are neither perpetrators nr victims.
Now, the federal database has loads of biological markers, DNA,
fingerprints, photos. Every enlisted man has had fingerprints taken, and
so has everyone requiring a federal security clearance.
Does the FBI truly keep biological markers of victims out of these
searchable databases?
It's perfectly reasonable to say that someone providing elimination
evidence thought he had an expectation of privacy from having such
evidence be compared to evidence at an unrelated crime scene; same
applies to a crime victim providing evidence.
But what if the police are trying to identify the victim of a crime or
an accident, say somone found unconscious without ID, or dead? Do we
care about the privacy implications that the DNA wasn't collected from a
criminal?
I just wrote more than was said in dialogue that was essentially brushed
off, although Baxter promised to stop using the local database, which is
utterly stupid.