This show was fantastic. Jordan's Spiro is a terrific actress who really delivered the confusion and fear of a emotionally destroyed victim. And the court scenes.with Barba and Carisa were great. I wish Raul Esparza would return full time. Olivia and Stabler will never work. Stabler is too damaged and she is not much better. Love seeing Betty Buckley. This was a powerful emotional well written episode.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV Series)
A Final Call at Forlini's Bar (2022)
User Reviews
Review this title12 Reviews
Not 23 years
SarahKSeraSera12 May 2023
Olivia defending Stabler to Barba is one thing, but get the timeline right. Olivia was partners with Stabler for over 12 years and he left. She had no contact with him until he returned. She hasn't known him for 23 years. In the years since he's been back, their interactions have been limited. A lot can change in a person during the ten years he was away. She can't say she knows him, since almost half that time they had no contact. I think Barba was wrong in defending Wheatley, and Olivia was justified in her feelings. I support her defense of Stabler, but get the time period in defending him right.
A standout episode
Avantiel20 May 2022
AM I THE ONLY ONE?
virgo3166-836-39274221 July 2022
Am I the only one who feels that Benson has outgrown Stabler and them hooking up would be a big mistake? I like her better with Barba-he has loved her for a long time, Their relationship seems to be one that would be the most stable and fulfilling for Benson.
Great Finale
sturt3921 May 2022
What a beautifully written and well acted episode. I love, love Raul Esparza, he can convey such emotion in his eyes and expressions. He and Mariska H have such great chemistry, their conversations were the highlight of the episode along with the performance of the actress who played the DV victim. Looking forward to the next season, I hope they continue to explore Olivia's character in therapy.
Amazing Acting
wrenleung23 May 2022
SVU haven't been nominated for Emmy Awards in recent years but Jordan Shiro should get one for guest actress in a drama. The court scene was so powerful and I was ugly crying. Fantastic finale. Looking forward to the next season.
Bravo. Brilliant performances.
donaldsbelliveau31 July 2022
A tour de force performance by the lead guest star, the victim, in this episode. This seriously deserves an Emmy. The same goes for everyone. I especially loved Betty Buckley's performance in court. You could see the pain of her own trauma in her eyes. One of the best SVU episodes.
Off-Balance
yazguloner20 May 2022
It was a worthy story for the season finale. Especially watching stone and rock characters such as Rafael Barba (Raul Esperza) is a great pleasure.
Olivia and Barba's resentment towards each other is like a kind of tango dance. With Elliot's tracks, the dance ends with "Rafa ... miss you"... great. The scene where they talk from the mirror of Forlini's Bar, where they meet, was also beautiful.
I miss stone characters like Dr. Lindstrom (Bill Irwin), Chief Loraine (Betty Buckley). It was even nice to hear the names of other stones like Calhoun and Baird Ellis.
Svu today, Olivia, Squad, rock and stone characters all created a very nice balance together. This is the svu: both law and order. A little love, of course :) A little Barson... a little Ellivia... And of course a little Rollisi.
There is a complete imbalance in the file story of the episode. Strong themes such as spousal rape, husband terrorism, violence against women are embodied in a single character, Delia.
The knife used in the murder and violence is an iconographic element symbolizing the power of sexual difference in the power struggle of men and women.
We felt all the weight and trauma of the file as spectators. Guest star Jordan Spiro (Delia) gives a great performance. She makes a game to be applauded. The dark gray and hopeless, violent DV file is very good writing.
I miss svu already.
Olivia and Barba's resentment towards each other is like a kind of tango dance. With Elliot's tracks, the dance ends with "Rafa ... miss you"... great. The scene where they talk from the mirror of Forlini's Bar, where they meet, was also beautiful.
I miss stone characters like Dr. Lindstrom (Bill Irwin), Chief Loraine (Betty Buckley). It was even nice to hear the names of other stones like Calhoun and Baird Ellis.
Svu today, Olivia, Squad, rock and stone characters all created a very nice balance together. This is the svu: both law and order. A little love, of course :) A little Barson... a little Ellivia... And of course a little Rollisi.
There is a complete imbalance in the file story of the episode. Strong themes such as spousal rape, husband terrorism, violence against women are embodied in a single character, Delia.
The knife used in the murder and violence is an iconographic element symbolizing the power of sexual difference in the power struggle of men and women.
We felt all the weight and trauma of the file as spectators. Guest star Jordan Spiro (Delia) gives a great performance. She makes a game to be applauded. The dark gray and hopeless, violent DV file is very good writing.
I miss svu already.
Benson & Barba
monikiiita26 May 2022
Olivia At a Crossroads
shelbythuylinh20 May 2022
Warning: Spoilers
She is at a crossroads in her personal and professional lives. She has not found closer with Barba over him representing to now supposedly dead Richard Wheatley there.
As she brushes off by her counselor there over trying to find someone like Stabler to fill up her life like Carisi and Rollins now together.
Anyway over in a domestic violence dispute there as a messed up battered wife that keeps going to her husband with his sweet talk has in the nearing on the breaking point there.
But she the battered wife winds up in the defense table there. Rafael goes to defend her as now putting it on SUV there against their former ADA colleague once again!
As she brushes off by her counselor there over trying to find someone like Stabler to fill up her life like Carisi and Rollins now together.
Anyway over in a domestic violence dispute there as a messed up battered wife that keeps going to her husband with his sweet talk has in the nearing on the breaking point there.
But she the battered wife winds up in the defense table there. Rafael goes to defend her as now putting it on SUV there against their former ADA colleague once again!
Comes So Close to Not Pandering
bkkaz16 September 2022
Much of the episode is more like SVU in the glory days, when it wasn't just a melodramatic soap opera where Benson gets on her high horse about whatever and the blond alien sleeps around. But then it cops out at the end.
For several seasons, SVU had been nothing but pandering. In every episode, not only are the victims 100% perfect in their victimhood, but there's never an ounce of doubt.
Detectives are supposed to investigate crimes, with a combination of objective fact-collecting and skepticism about everyone until the investigation runs its course. That's not what SVU does anymore. Now, everyone is an advocate, meaning the victim is always right no matter what the story or where the evidence leads. And the dangerous fantasy SVU reinforces -- aside from always making the cops crusaders who never get it wrong or harm anyone -- is that these assumptions are shown to be true by the end.
Think about that for moment. It's the court system that's supposed to decide guilt or innocence. But St. Benson and crew week after wake intuitively know who is guilty and who is innocent, and in their dogged pursuit of the aggressors, become judge and jury. I mean, the courtroom scenes are just going through the motions for a foregone conclusion.
Which is why this episode is so maddening because it actually comes close to real drama. We have a familiar set up. A woman claiming years of domestic violence kills her husband. The episode correctly points out she not only put herself in harm's way by going to see her allegedly abusive husband -- who apparently beat on her for years -- without a working phone in the middle of the night, but could have simply left. Literally done any number of things instead of attack him. Instead, she picks up a knife and kills him. By the way, he makes no threat, physically or otherwise.
Now, the cheap, irrational, and just plain antithetical to jurisprudence response from the usual SVU soap box is, oh, yeah, she was justified. After all, if someone is victim, they get to have their pound of flesh, and it doesn't matter if they do it outside of the law. But as Carisi presses the case, it becomes clearer and clearer that no immediate threat existed, and that when you choose to kill someone who is not actually threatening or attacking you, that's called murder.
I mean, the same crowd who would applaud the "victim" here would likely castigate a police officer if she shot a perp who was making no threats nor was attacking her while brandishing no weapon and the police officer could simply have withdrawn. If that happened, there would rightly be protests in the streets that cops can't just blow someone away because they think they're a threat, no matter how much bad blood there may have been between them in the past.
But in SVU land, the victim not only has the right to do so, they must in order to preserve the moral sanctity of being the victim.
It's madness. Worse, it's immoral.
And this episode until the last 10 minutes works hard to make that case. But then it chickens out and turns to that old SVU standby deus ex machina of mental defect. Of course, the person is a victim of years of physical abuse that rendered them incapable of knowing right from wrong, thereby completely dodging the moral question the episode set up. So long as they're "triggered," all transgressions must be forgiven.
What a crock. What a bad message to send that it's now fine to kill people because you think they're going to do something and not because they actually tried. History has shown repeatedly what a bad idea that is, no matter how morally superior the person believes themselves to be.
For several seasons, SVU had been nothing but pandering. In every episode, not only are the victims 100% perfect in their victimhood, but there's never an ounce of doubt.
Detectives are supposed to investigate crimes, with a combination of objective fact-collecting and skepticism about everyone until the investigation runs its course. That's not what SVU does anymore. Now, everyone is an advocate, meaning the victim is always right no matter what the story or where the evidence leads. And the dangerous fantasy SVU reinforces -- aside from always making the cops crusaders who never get it wrong or harm anyone -- is that these assumptions are shown to be true by the end.
Think about that for moment. It's the court system that's supposed to decide guilt or innocence. But St. Benson and crew week after wake intuitively know who is guilty and who is innocent, and in their dogged pursuit of the aggressors, become judge and jury. I mean, the courtroom scenes are just going through the motions for a foregone conclusion.
Which is why this episode is so maddening because it actually comes close to real drama. We have a familiar set up. A woman claiming years of domestic violence kills her husband. The episode correctly points out she not only put herself in harm's way by going to see her allegedly abusive husband -- who apparently beat on her for years -- without a working phone in the middle of the night, but could have simply left. Literally done any number of things instead of attack him. Instead, she picks up a knife and kills him. By the way, he makes no threat, physically or otherwise.
Now, the cheap, irrational, and just plain antithetical to jurisprudence response from the usual SVU soap box is, oh, yeah, she was justified. After all, if someone is victim, they get to have their pound of flesh, and it doesn't matter if they do it outside of the law. But as Carisi presses the case, it becomes clearer and clearer that no immediate threat existed, and that when you choose to kill someone who is not actually threatening or attacking you, that's called murder.
I mean, the same crowd who would applaud the "victim" here would likely castigate a police officer if she shot a perp who was making no threats nor was attacking her while brandishing no weapon and the police officer could simply have withdrawn. If that happened, there would rightly be protests in the streets that cops can't just blow someone away because they think they're a threat, no matter how much bad blood there may have been between them in the past.
But in SVU land, the victim not only has the right to do so, they must in order to preserve the moral sanctity of being the victim.
It's madness. Worse, it's immoral.
And this episode until the last 10 minutes works hard to make that case. But then it chickens out and turns to that old SVU standby deus ex machina of mental defect. Of course, the person is a victim of years of physical abuse that rendered them incapable of knowing right from wrong, thereby completely dodging the moral question the episode set up. So long as they're "triggered," all transgressions must be forgiven.
What a crock. What a bad message to send that it's now fine to kill people because you think they're going to do something and not because they actually tried. History has shown repeatedly what a bad idea that is, no matter how morally superior the person believes themselves to be.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
