Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 4 Left Us With More Questions Than Answers After A Disturbing Crime

Critic’s Rating: 5 / 5.0

5

Some SVU cases are hard to find the words to talk about.

Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 4 was one of them. This story was disturbing and upsetting and worked on multiple levels.

As a bonus, we finally got the side of Carisi we expected after the last two cases.

The case on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 4 was as messy as it was disturbing, with two young girls being choked during sex and one of them dying as a result.

Cases involving kids always upset me the most, and in this one, it was doubly hard because there were so many negligent parents involved in what happened.

Benson: This is not a coincidence.

Carisi: No, more like negligence.

Josh Blake set off a chain reaction that led to his son choking and raping his girlfriend and his nephew doing the same thing to a 12-year-old who then died.

A 12-year-old. Let that sink in for a minute.

Of course, the kids weren’t entirely blameless, though I thought SVU did a good job of showing how parental neglect can lead to these situations.

I find it difficult to discuss this case because I don’t want to cross the line into apologizing for rape or rapists.

Yet in this case, the parents were more to blame, especially that awful Josh Blake, or at least that’s how it seemed from the way the case was presented.

Ryan shouldn’t have experimented with choking, at least not without discussing it with Hannah, even if it was his first sexual experience.

But at the same time, he was an inexperienced kid who trusted his father, and his father showed him a VR simulation of choking and told him women liked it.

This is how rape culture spreads, so I’m glad SVU is addressing it in a more nuanced manner than it might have in the past.

We know there are plenty of boys and men who believe women exist to give them sexual pleasure and wouldn’t see what the big deal is that Hannah didn’t want it.

Those horrible attitudes come from somewhere, and SVU did a good job of exploring that angle of the problem.

Ryan seemed like a sweet kid who genuinely would have stopped if he knew Hannah didn’t like it, but she wasn’t able to tell him because he was choking her.

Josh: Remember, son, women are the buyers.

Ryan: What does that even mean?

Josh: It means, they have the power of choice. We’re the sellers. So we have to do whatever it takes to seal the deal.

His father, however, was filling his head with problematic statements that could have led to him growing into one of those entitled guys who fully embraced the idea of women being there to gratify his sexual needs.

Josh knew how to make it sound like he was a decent guy when he was anything but. He gave lip service to women having agency, and his confession in court didn’t sound at all sincere.

Carisi was right that Josh was a neglectful parent who gave his son the tools to hurt girls.

Josh was the most egregious, actively encouraging inappropriate behavior, but he was far from the only neglectful parent involved in the situation.

Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 4 was full of them.

Hannah’s mom probably thought she was being a cool parent by going out so her daughter could have sex in her house, but that seemed overly permissive to me.

That doesn’t mean that what happened to her daughter wasn’t a horrific crime. Hannah was lucky her mom came home in time to get her to a hospital and save her life, and that shouldn’t be ignored.

But being THAT cool with your sixteen-year-old having sex with her boyfriend didn’t seem realistic, or great parenting.

Mrs. Blake was the most interesting of all of these parents.

At first, it seemed like she was the typical clueless mother who often turns up on police procedurals, the one who had no idea her son was having sex and was convinced he was an innocent angel who had never watched a porn video.

But by the end of the hour, I saw her differently. She seemed like an abused wife — not physically, but trauma-wise, the signs were there.

She knew what her husband was all about but denied it to herself until she couldn’t anymore. When her nephew was arrested for murder because of the chain reaction that started with her husband, that was it for her.

She rejected him and everything he stood for and was so angry about it that she was willing to air all their dirty laundry in front of their son until Benson stopped her.

Benson’s Fight For Justice Was Less Clearcut

The scene where Benson promised Eliza’s grieving parents justice was one of the most heartbreaking in SVU history.

Nothing would bring their daughter back, so what did justice look like?

It was fair that Ryan and his cousin faced charges. The kids and the parent who started this needed to be held accountable.

But if the boys had gone to juvie while Josh Blake got off scot-free, that would not have been justice.

Yet it seemed hard to find anything to charge him with that would result in more than a slap on the wrist.

In the end, Josh pled guilty, but his insincere apology meant little, and it certainly didn’t bring Eliza back.

Carisi Finally Had The Meltdown We Expected On Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 4

Carisi’s been carrying a heavy burden the past few weeks.

The cold case he tried on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 2 had to have reminded him of Jessie. The victim was her age when her powerful stepfather began molesting her.

Yet there was no reaction from Carisi. He went on as normal, not mentioning a word about any of that to Rollins when she visited on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 3.

Sadly, that’s realistic. Trauma survivors — including those who have vicarious trauma like Carisi — often try to go on with their lives as if nothing had happened until they can’t anymore.

There should have been signs over the past few episodes that Carisi wasn’t coping as well as he claimed, but SVU can be forgiven for that because the mask is off now.

The last straw for Carisi on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 4 was some guy on the street leering at his nine-year-old.

(Side note, I LOVE that Carisi considers Rollins’ girls his.)

Getting in that guy’s face was risky. Jessie could have wandered off or been taken by someone else while Carisi wasn’t looking, and the guy could have gotten violent.

Still, it’s important to stand up to this kind of crap, so I can’t fault Carisi for how he handled it.

However, it clearly impacted him, along with everything else he’d dealt with recently when it came to this case.

He was so riled up about these teenage boys and their parents getting away with what they’d done that Benson had to question whether he needed to take a step back from the case.

That’s unusual for Carisi. He couldn’t get out of protective mode once he started standing up on Jessie’s behalf.

This is what getting triggered looks like, and it’s so important that SVU shows the toll this job takes on all genders.

Part of the mental health crisis in this country stems from men being taught that expressing emotion or having a hard time emotionally is a feminine trait, so the more shows depicting men who are emotional without losing their masculinity, the better.

Random Thoughts About Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 4

• Silva finally made an appearance, but it was only a cameo. I’m still wondering why the heck they introduced her if they aren’t going to use her for much.
• The look on Benson’s face when Josh Blake was “apologizing” said everything that needed to be said.
• Does anyone else find it weird that Carisi calls Rollins by her last name when talking about her to Benson?

Over to you, Law & Order: SVU fanatics.

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Law & Order: SVU airs on NBC on Thursdays at 9/8c and Peacock on Fridays.

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