I've seen worse episodes of SVU than this two parter but this season opener was mediocre at best. It failed on a few levels. I sensed they were going for epic here but rather than come up with something original or at least a twist on something they've done before, they took a "throw in everything minus the kitchen sink" approach and unconvincingly linked several issues (rabid masculinity, parental bullying, molestation, school gun violence, dysfunctional parenting and legal responsibility etc etc etc) into a ridiculously forced mess of a story. The writing was lazy and preachy. They set up several ongoing cliched story arcs for some of the main characters (ie squeaky clean Clark Kent Winchester starts drinking and having orgies to deal with the pain of his sister's death). Noah (who kind of drags down everything he's in) goes snotty belligerent bratty at the end and the list goes on. It was watchable with some good performaces (Carisi and the shooter son in particular) but nothing close to noteable considering it was the opener to an important and historic season.
Review of Man Down
