I love L&O, but this one unfortunately reminded me of one of those mid-'90s "do you know where your children are?" type presentations. There's even an unintentionally hilarious line from a ridiculously nonchalant teen girl about how "We'd all go to Shane's place after school, watch Beavis and Butthead," before she would have sex with a group of teen boys (the "Mack Rangers") while they filmed the act. "They're not gonna get all goofy on you, like they're your boyfriend or anything," she says. It's a parody of how kids really talk, and that Beavis and Butthead line is so contrived I could practically see the writers wagging their fingers at '90s "youth culture."
And yet... just look at today's headlines. Rape, and especially rape within male fraternity culture, is alive and well. The sickening things the Mack Rangers do to the female victim in this episode are undeniably plausible (they are, in fact, based on the real life "Spur Posse" teen rape gang in California that made headlines in the '90s).
This one gets pretty graphic: we're forced to watch the disgusting tape the perpetrators made of themselves abusing the victim not once, but twice. Monica Keena gives a horrifyingly realistic performance; she does not just scream, she squeals and whimpers in a way that made my blood curdle. One wonders what Michael Moriarty, who claimed to have resigned from this show after the previous season over fears Attorney General Janet Reno was looking to censor it, would have felt about "Performance." (Seems he had nothing to worry about.)
There's some cool legal wrangling, including about 10 minutes of runtime even after the verdict is delivered; it takes our characters to appeals court, where Jack has to defend his prosecutorial tactics. But overall, I found it disappointingly unsubtle in its critique of '90s kids. It's all summed up by DA Adam Schiff's final line, in response to a comment from Jack about the wrongheaded youths maybe learning their lesson:
"Teenage boys?" he rhetorically asks. "Good luck."
And yet... just look at today's headlines. Rape, and especially rape within male fraternity culture, is alive and well. The sickening things the Mack Rangers do to the female victim in this episode are undeniably plausible (they are, in fact, based on the real life "Spur Posse" teen rape gang in California that made headlines in the '90s).
This one gets pretty graphic: we're forced to watch the disgusting tape the perpetrators made of themselves abusing the victim not once, but twice. Monica Keena gives a horrifyingly realistic performance; she does not just scream, she squeals and whimpers in a way that made my blood curdle. One wonders what Michael Moriarty, who claimed to have resigned from this show after the previous season over fears Attorney General Janet Reno was looking to censor it, would have felt about "Performance." (Seems he had nothing to worry about.)
There's some cool legal wrangling, including about 10 minutes of runtime even after the verdict is delivered; it takes our characters to appeals court, where Jack has to defend his prosecutorial tactics. But overall, I found it disappointingly unsubtle in its critique of '90s kids. It's all summed up by DA Adam Schiff's final line, in response to a comment from Jack about the wrongheaded youths maybe learning their lesson:
"Teenage boys?" he rhetorically asks. "Good luck."