13 - I Don't Feel Like Wesley Crusher Could Take Care of Himself (S15E8 Military Justice) - Munch My Benson: A Law & Order: SVU Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A much by Benson. We try to stay as far
away from current events as possible, and somehow, even though
we recorded this episode in April, early April, mid April
something like that.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I think it was May. I think we recorded this
one in May, Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
So we recorded this episode in May, and unbeknownst to us,
there was a sadly, tragically, very similar event going on
on a US military installation, this time in Fort Hood
in Texas, and it involved a young woman named Vanessa Gien,
who was There's some strange similarities between her story and

(00:37):
the one described in Military Justice that we saw. Now. Tragically,
her story ended in a much more brutal manner. She
was murdered by presumably by the person who was harassing her,
but that is slightly unclear, and her body was dismembered
and mutilated. That whole thing kind of resolved itself near

(00:58):
the end of June in the It's kind of as
a background story going on with all the various protests
against police brutality. There's also issues regarding the US military,
not surprisingly, and its culture of acceptance of sexual assault
and sexual violence. But Josh, I know you've been working
on this episode so You've probably a little more intimately

(01:19):
familiar with it than I am.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, I guess this is sort of the nature of
SVU that sometimes we're going to have to do these, Yeah,
where we have to address the elephant in the room
that since that episode of SVU, there's been a much
more recent or much more horrific instance of the crime.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
And SVU happening in real life. Yeah, Vanessa gian is
far from the only female service member who's been who's
been raved by your peers and then mutilated. There are
so many articles you can pull up. There's one uncommon
dreams dot org from two thousand and eight that has
just a laundry list of women like Lavina Johnson, Tina

(01:59):
pre East, Hannah McKinny. There are so many, so many
women who have been brutalized and murdered by their fellow
servicemen and the military. Many of them have just been
ruled suicides. Yeah, reading about these is kind of horrifying. Honestly,

(02:22):
it seems like to drop this in light of the
venesseg and killing without addressing that would be irresponsible, I
guess of us.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
So apparently, in twenty eighteen, I'm reading a Military Times
piece from twenty nineteen. In twenty eighteen, six thousand fifty
women reported sexual assault. Now, official researchers extrapolated that number
and estimate that actually about twenty thousand, five hundred cases
of sexual assault occurred in fiscal year twenty eighteen.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
So it's just and that's of course inside the ranks
of the military.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Inside the ranks of the military. Yeah, in a large
but not infinitely large organization, just insane and disturbing.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Estimates are somewhere somewhere around what like thirty five percent
of women in the military have been sexual assaulted.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, something like that. Just insane. Now, one thing I
would say is that don't do what Vanessa ga En
did and try to solve the issue by yourself if
you were ever in this situation, because it's just so disturbing.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Sort of speaking to the point of the episode Military Justice,
there's a survey done every two years by the military,
and the survey revealed that twenty one percent of the
women who said they reported a sexual assault also said
that they suffered some type of retaliation and it's stopping
them making it a complaint.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
This was in an article at The Guardian from May
of last year about unreported military sexual assaults, jumping thirty
seven percent from the previous survey.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
I believe as of twenty nineteen, sexual harassment is not
considered a crime in the military.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Wait as of twenty nineteen, or until twenty nineteen, it
was not.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
As of May twenty nineteen, it was not. So it's
possible that it's changed in the last twelve months.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
But I'd posit that it's unlikely that it's changed in
the last twelve months.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
The military doesn't move very fast on things such as this.
It's not clear that anything has changed. So the military
seems to be aware of the problem.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
But yeah, so you have higher ups, you know, at
least giving the lip service. Yeah, lip service. Like Nate
Galbreeth said that the latest numbers were disheartening regarding that
survey that I mentioned, were disheartening and it personally makes
him angry. He said he wasn't without hope. I don't
understand how you could not be without hope when looking
at these numbers. Yeah, but there would seem to be

(04:44):
some people in power that want to see it changed.
But it seems like it's endemic to our military.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, sadly, anything else we should add to this. I mean,
there's definitely lots of resources online to find out all
the twists and turns of the story. It's a wild
story that there's going to be true crime podcasts and
novels about. It's disturbing and strange and has twists and turns,
but it's pretty depressing, frankly.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
There's a documentary about Lavina Johnson who her death was
ruled suicide initially, and then her father became suspicious when
her body was sent to the funeral home in Missouri.
I believe then the Army refused to release information about
their investigation into her death. She was found in her tent.

(05:29):
There were bloody footprints leading to her tent. The autopsy
revealed photos that she had a broken nosed, black eye,
loose teeth, burns from a corrosive chemical on her genitals,
and a gunshot wound that seemed inconsistent with suicide. Yeah,
I don't understand how DoD can rule that a suicide.

(05:50):
There's a documentary about that case, directed by Joan Brooker
called Levina Johnson The Silent Truth.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
There's another case that I'm reading about about Tina Priest,
who similarly, her death was ruled a suicide and kind
of just impossible manner. She's five feet tall and yet
supposedly shot herself in the chest with an M sixteen,
which is you know, you just sort of start doing
the math on how the geometry that works and it
doesn't really kind of add up. And she had also

(06:18):
apparently been accusing fellow soldiers of assaulting her on at
least one occasion.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
So Hannah Hannah McKinney in two thousand and six was
run over by a military vehicle. It was initially ruled
that it happened while she was just going to the latrine.
Then it was discovered that she fell or was pushed
and run over by a vehicle driven by the sergeant
who had first sexually assaulted her in her units. Their

(06:46):
case upon case upon case just like this.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
So yeah, yep, so good times.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Uh huh, I guess we can get to the show now.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
We're not looking for real world incidents to follow up on.
We want to live in a pretend world where the
police only care about solving crimes and the military is
good and everybody does their job. But that is not
that is not reality, man, it's dark.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
I mean, we're probably gonna hit some weird episodes coming
up to We'll see it doesn't seem like this is
gonna stop. Give them the hellscape we're living in.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, you know, everything's great, man. Presently. I think we
can still travel to Tanzania and Turkey and that's about it.
Maybe one or two places in the Caribbean, but we've
got a couple places we could still go. Yeah, so
that's cool.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
We can't even escape.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
That's fun.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, and you know Border patrol is snatching up people
in minivans in Portland because that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Now. Yeah, you think they would have spring for like
the cargo van, right, Don't you think that'd be more efficient?
You'd think, Yeah, those Dodge, those Dodge caravans actually have
a pretty pretty souped up engine and believe it or not.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
All right, well, on that note, onto the show. A
how are you, sir? Good talking to me? Yes, sir,
I wanted you to know that that boy was lying
in there. Every word, excuse me, how about we stepped
me come up all due respect, sir.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
Amelia hadn't been her daughter, she never would have made
it through training, didn't have what it took.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
That's enough, hear me out.

Speaker 5 (08:35):
Whenever she got in trouble, she'd let everyone know who her.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Father was, hey Admiral.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
In New York City, sexually based defenses are considered especially heinous.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
These are their stories, all right, guys, Welcome to yet
another episode of munch My Benson, where we take a deep,
dark look into the minds of the showrunners of SVU,

(09:30):
the longest running scripted television drama in TV history. My
name is Adam. I'm coming to you from Galveston, Texas,
where the weather is spectacular even though you really ought
not to go outside yet. Joining me on the line
is my co host, Josh. How's it going, Josh?

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Oh, it's great, you know, Sonny and terrifying.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Nice. Yeah. Have you been watching anything good recently?

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah? We just watched Mindy Kalin's show Never Have I
Ever on Netflix?

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Okay, good, I haven't seen it. I watched the season
one finale of Succession, which, Wow, that really that really
came out of the blue. That was a humdinger of
an episode. The season two first episode was fun because
it had one of my favorite Icelandic actors in it.
If you've never seen the show Trapped, I highly recommend
at least the first season is awesome. If you like,

(10:15):
you know, Nordic noir TV shows, it's a really good one.
And then I also watched a spectacular episode of Renegade
last night, so I had some good, some good TV going.
In this one, Reno Rains has to take care of
an eight year old girl who's real sassy. Hilarity ensues.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
You know.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Branscomb Richmond has a lot of great parts in this one.
He's got some wild style and I recommend it. Oh.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
I also watched The Manhofelder Earth nice for the first time. Yeah, nice,
never seen it.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
It's really weird.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, yeah, it's super weird. Tom's a weird new to
do too, Yeah, super weird. You get to see a
lot of Bowie Dick.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
You sure get to see a lot of Bowie Dick. Oh.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Speaking of which, I also watched the last the last
two episodes of b Readers The Martin Freeman Show, and
in those last two episodes, he's praying too. He doesn't
believe in a god, but he starts praying to Bowie.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, well I get it. Let's get into our episode
this week. This week we're doing our first Danny Pino
episode and it turns out that our first Danny Pino
episode is a Danny Pino centric episode, and we will
get a lot of Pino in this one. Lot of pen,
lot of pen, big big amount of pen in this one.
It is it is from season fifteen. It's called Military Justice.

(11:28):
You want to give us the rundown on Military Justice? Josh?

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Absolutely? Okay, so season fifteen, hour eight, but kind of
episode seven if you're watching on Hulu, called Military Justice
is basically Liz from the og Roswell gets arrested for
DUI and is super belligerent. Per the dashcam footage we
see more than once, she looks like she's been truly
messed up in a sexual assault, her Coast Guard uniform

(11:53):
in tatters. We don't find out how she prized herself
away from her alien romance, but I think it's safe
to assume she's on a mission to filtrate the lowest
branch of the military on behalf of Max. She's calling
herself a million now and she's cuffed to a hospital
bed on account of the whole Dui thing. But when
Benson and Tomorrow come back to visit in the morning,
she's out of it, like she's been sedated. She is

(12:13):
not forthcoming with details. Given that this is an episode
of SVU and she was in uniform, I think we
know where this is going. The semen or is it
Coastman Coast Coasty said that the semen she was drinking
with were clearly the perpetrators of the rape. Not knowing
that Liz literally fucks with aliens who have superpowers, but

(12:36):
apparently completely aware that she's a fucking admiral's adopted daughter,
and not caring, their commanding officer ships them off to
Somalia for a quote training mission, which screams, cover up.
Aliens can find you anywhere, fuckos, so can SVU, apparently
because these fuckers are back getting questioned the next day.

(12:56):
Of the two samples of DNA, only one can be
tied to these three perps, which means there was a
fourth participant in the gang rape. If you've ever watched television,
you know it's probably not someone you haven't seen on
screen yet, So we wait for taverts. The fuck mookiest
of fuck mook CEOs ever conceived to get fingered Rollins
gets the idea for tomorrow to uses almost ex wife's

(13:17):
guilt or whatever. Sneaky thing she's got planned for the
weekend to guilt her into getting the Coastguard's file on
the Amelia case, which almost torpedoes the case because the
testimony in a military court is forced and therefore inadmissible
in a court of law. It does give Amaro the
crucial information that he can hint at, though, after Amelia's
testimony gets picked apart by the defense, Benson and Rollins
get one of the purps to flip. The one who

(13:38):
was along for the ride had been attacked by others
on base because he was gay, which the CEO used
his leverage to get him to go along with the
rape plot. They planned everything because she didn't want to
fuck her CEO, who viewed this as unbecoming of a
coast because coasty's are supposed to do whatever the fuck
their CEO tells him to do, including blow them. Then,
outside the courtroom, Lieutenant Commander dick Bag tries to tell

(14:00):
Mentor the Admiral that his daughter was a shitty coasty
and invoked her father's name whenever she got real the
Admiral hauls off in cold cocks. The fucker cut to
the verdicts all guilty. They're going up the river. Presumably
Liz's alien friends are coming for them. Prepare for the probings, gents,
because y'all about to get fucked Roswell style. Liz is

(14:21):
getting honorably discharged from the Coastguard, but her dad's proud
of her in a sincerely tear jerking moment. Unfortunately, she's
going to go off and become a manipulated reality TV
producer after this, surely rutting all of that paternal pride
when she shows up an unreal and episode.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Dick Wolf, Dick Wolf. I gotta say, I was really
shocked at how competent this episode was. It was really good.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yep, Yeah, it's a really good.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
It had great performances from the mains, including Danny Pino,
who I often criticize. It had really great guest performances.
It had a cogent storyline, completely lacking from the last
episode we've done.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, it was all one plot, no crazy flipping of
the script, like everything makes sense together. It's one cohesive narrative.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Nobody jumped off a building in the middle of the
episode with no explanation for why.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yeah, nope, this is a normal episode. Yeah, the normal
episode of television, Like completely conceived in like a traditional television.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah, competent professional this episode, I guess, Okay, So because
it's a good episode, it's it's kind of funny how
this works. We have less to talk about because it's
a good episode. But I want to start with the
IMDP pages of these characters, because I mean, there's one
elephant in the room, and that's Danny Pino, who is
a major character in SVU. He'll be on ninety four

(15:41):
episodes of SVU, which is just it's just mind boggling
that we've watched thirteen at this point and there are
ninety four Danny Pino episodes alone, and he was sort
of the shortest lasting main character of them all, I
would say, I mean he was meant to replace exactly.
He was a huge character in the show. He's had
a big career in TV. For me, his most memorable

(16:04):
term is as Armadillo Quintero in The Shield. He was
the big bad guy in one of the seasons of
The Shield. He was also though in one hundred and
fifty one episodes of Cold Case. He's in May in
the FX Motorcycle Show right now. He was in the
burning plane with Charlie's Duran, John Corbett and friend of

(16:24):
the show Sean McGrath. So he's been in a lot
of stuff and he really kind of brings it here.
We get a lot of I can never remember his
real name, it's Nicka Morro backstory in this one because
his dumb ex wife is trying to date a guy
and so leaves the kids with him. I think it's
implied that the ex wife the guy she's dating, is

(16:45):
the one that provides her with the materials that she
passes on to tomorrow, which almost gets him, you know,
which almost gets the case turned to a mistrial.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, by the garrity rule.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, exactly, which is kind of fun and that you
know what, it kind of makes you'd think he would
kind of I don't know. That's actually an esoteric enough
thing that a local cop might not have to deal
with that too much. Of course, you mentioned Cheery Applebee
extensively in your intro. Yes, she's had a lot of stuff.
I mean, in addition to Roswell, she was in Er

(17:16):
for a season or two, she was in Charlie Wilson's War.
She's been a lot of good stuff too.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
She's a recurring on Girls. Yeah, she's a what Adam
Driver's girlfriend for a little bit.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Now, for me, the most recognizable characters are two of
the kind of smaller parts. Will Janowitz, who played the
gay rape you know a sister. He was none other
than Finn de Trolio from The Sopranos, who is Meadow's
dipshit boyfriend who wants to be a dentist and ends
up spilling the beans about Veto's homosexuality, which causes him
to get murdered. So he's kind of a major plot

(17:48):
point of one season of The Sopranos, and he's really
memorable from that. And then we also have John Gets
as the father admiral who is in everything. Gets is
in everything for me.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
I'm assuming he's Chris gets his dad, right, you.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Would think, yeah, Chris Getz of the Kansas City Royals fame.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Now when the Chicago White Sox front office.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Oh nice. For me, Gets is always going to be
a part of the greater Bosher verse because I believe
you could say that I haven't seen the latest season,
but in my mind his Bradley Walker commits the gravest
sin in the universe of Bosh, and that is killing
Bosh's mom and then covering it up. He doesn't do
anything to Bosh's daughter, and I don't want any spoilers

(18:29):
if somebody tries to mess with Bosh's daughter. But killing
Bosh's mom is a grave ass sin and it fucks
Bosh up for his entire life. He's listening to jazz
because of what this fucking guy did, this fucking admiral
who killed his mom.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
But he's also got a pretty bitching house in the hills.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
He has a great, great house in the hills. He's
got I.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Can't remember is Eric Overmeyer one of the producers on
this season or not. I didn't look.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
I don't know either I did.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
But Eric Overmeyer is the Bosh creator ye who also
worked on He was the co creator of Tremay with
David sim.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
And then finally, I mean Terry Serpaco is a really
recognizable face. He's a Lieutenant Commander Taverts the top Fighter CEO. Yeah,
the worst guy, really recognizable guy. I would say he's
kind of like a more attractive Barry Pepper. You know
this guy's face if you've been watching a lot of TV.
His biggest role, I guess is as Catherine Bell's husband

(19:23):
and Army wives. But I feel like I've seen this
guy in a million things. And then, of course, his
defense attorney is none other than TV's Delaney Williams akaj
Lansman from The Wire, who I'm a huge fan of.
He comes back to SVU a bunch he's in SVU,
I think in like thirteen fourteen episodes overall.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, and he's always the most horrible, horrible person as
a defense attorney. Yeah, Like, I love de Landy Williams,
and he's always been such an unrepentant prick in all
of these episodes.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
He sure is.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
He's really good at it though, So.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
I mean, next thing I really wanted to point out
is that I always take time to go through all
these locations that they point out in these episodes, because
usually it's something kind of funny comes out of it,
and this one, surprisingly, almost all the locations they use
are real. Now, the Coast Guard station that they go to,
that's a little bit of a fub. They talk about
it being in Sheepshead Bay. Now, there was a Coast
Guard installation in Sheepshead Bay in the forties and fifties.

(20:17):
It was a maritime training center, but that closed down
a long time ago. Now it's a community college. The
real Coast Guard station is on Staten Island, and they
have obviously go there because you can see the Arizona
and Narrows Bridge in the background of one of the
shots that they do. But that's just like a little
fub just to avoid having to put the real.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Government clearance exactly.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
But the rest of the cards are all real places.
The police precinct they go to is not the third
precinct like they say, but it's actually where the first
precinct is, and the DA's office is where they say
it is. And then finally, the bar where the assault
took place, is it a place. They call it the
Seahorse Bar and Grill. In reality it's called the Cowgirl Seahorse,
and it is the actual bar that they go to.

(20:57):
It's it's shocking that they would find such a place.
It is described on Google as quote a casual restaurant
with offbeat nautical decor serving Southwestern faves, some with seafood twists,
so it sounds like it is a little slice of Galveston,
Texas in the big.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
City, or at the very least if this were in Austin,
we would probably have ended up going there after work. Yeah,
and it would be called Captain's bar by anyone who
Prince pattleborgs.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, you got to spend more time down here, man.
There's so many captain's bars here. There's so many bars
with slutty mermaids drawings in the background. It's a fantastic place.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
I mean, I assume this is basically like the Gaff,
like Galveston is just the gash.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
Oh, basically essentially. I mean the good parts of Galvason
aer the gaff. Old people who.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
The gaff being a bar in Portorantis.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yes, old drunk people. That's what you find there most
of the time. Now, the thing about this episode is
it was competent. I mean, there was like not many
bizarre things to point out. There were some fun lines.
I really liked they were. Initially the fingers were pointed
at the quote unquote Mexicans who worked in the kitchen
at the Seahorse, and one of them had a fun

(22:02):
line you.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Would dance, and one thing led to another.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
No, we didn't rape her.

Speaker 5 (22:08):
She came back in here putting her chee cheese up
in my face.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
I figured she was trying to make her buddy's hut
but really like that, you know, served the plot, so
there's not too much I can say that's wrong about it.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah. Can we talk about how when she's trying to
cover for her rapists she she says that she lost
her tolerance from alcohol and ocs and drank too much.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Then she says she's an ensign, and ensinns are supposed
to be able to take care of themselves. I immediately
jumped to star Trek, which is where most ensigns ever
come into my life. Yeah, and so I'm thinking, Wait,
I don't feel like Wesley Crusher could take care of himself.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
No, Wesley Crusher couldn't do shit. I mean he could
solve transdimensional problems occasionally, but he could barely get to
work on time, and he didn't know where he was
half of the time.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
I mean Ensign Row she could take care of herself
big time. Yeah, Ensign Roe is top notch. God, there's
some really disturbing line about the rape that they get into, like.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Oh, it takes just one juror to believe that she
likes rough sex rough They practically tore her apart.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
That are just the kind of things that you don't
say on any show besides Law and Order SVU and
then the whole graver, he's the gay coasty. His whole
monologue about when he's coming out to them is pretty disturbing. Shit.
I was at a bar in sheep said, Bay, I'm gay.

Speaker 4 (23:35):
Okay, usually people can't tell. I got a little drunk.
There are three guys from my base. They started calling

(23:56):
me names, O fat. I walked out, They followed me,
pushed me in an alley. I woke up in hospital
bed with internal injuries.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, that one. That's really dark and sad. Man, you
feel so fucking bad for this guy. Yeah, it's weird.
The writers actually use kind of a bit of they
withhold a little bit here, because like it sounds like
his attack was much much worse than he's actually like
confessing to or disclosing. It sounds like the attack is bad,
and he doesn't explicitly say he was raped, but it
sure sounds like he was.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
It sure sounds like rap for being gay.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
I mean that the circular logic.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
In that is really fucked up. Yeah, it's really fucked up.
I woke up in the hospital bed with internal injuries.
That's implying. Yeah, some fucked up shit. And his his
his testimony about Albert's rape is also fucking disturbing.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Gosh, let's go back to a little bit of the investigation.
When they go see the CEO. He basically says that
she got raped because she has poor judgment.

Speaker 5 (25:04):
She was publicly intoxicated, she was arrested for dui, she's
supposed to be with a buddy at all times off base.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
All this shows very poor judgment on her part.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
She was gang raped, and he calls it poor judgment
on her part. Easy, Olivia, it's.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Not our urb.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
They don't want women here in the first place.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
She gets raped, they're gonna use it at the end
of her career.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
What the fuck live comes out of that office in
the sensed she is so fucking pistor Omaro knows what
the military is like for women. His wife is obviously
because she's DoD He's just like, yeah, being a woman
in the military is a fucking horrible thing, Like your
existence is basically terrible the entire time. And he knows
he can't like candy coat the fact that the military

(25:47):
just chews up and spits out women who ruffle any feathers. Yeah, Oh,
why the fuck did the cook run.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
I don't know that it unexplained. I think it's an
immigration thing. Immigration thing, that's my That was my feeling.
But I felt like they could have just said something
to kind of enlighten that, because this is two episodes
in a row when we've had people running for absolutely
no obvious reason and potentially getting themselves in much greater
trouble because of that, or dying in the case of
the last episode.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Ross check by Rollins into that like what it's like
an electrical box, I think, but he gets cross checked
out just like Dixus Fill.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, he was wounded after that. If we're going to
do get to a callback of that one are the
best episode we've watched so far, which was a ridicule
from season three. We gave it a rating of eight
point one two five. In that episode, the male victim

(26:45):
was tied down and raped by three women, and repeatedly
throughout the show they're wondering how the male victim could
be overpowered by three women. I think this episode showed
how that could happen, because Rawlins destroyed that guy, just
crushed she.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
She let him up like he was Joe Eisman's knee and.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Oh my god, so I think we should just get
to some segments. I mean, we've already kind of gone
over there.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Well here, I've got some more notes.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Please, yeah, please fire away, because I don't have very
many notes about this episode.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
I don't want to like ascribe a normal thought process
to Amelia in a post traumatic state. But she keeps
saying she doesn't want to let down her family and
draws her father as this guy who you wouldn't believe
would understand what happened to her. It's obviously not hard
to assume that an admiral would be like that. But
when he gets there, he's fucking awesome.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeh, He's totally fucking awesome. He totally stands.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Up for her. Her mom kind of secks, but he
is like completely there for her.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, it's a good setup in the show because the
mom is kind of what you expect maybe appearance before reality,
and so you expect the dad to kind of be
that buttoned up, tight military career guy who cares more
about the Coastguard than he does his own family, and
that's absolutely not the case.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Right. Fuck, Can we talk about Wooten for a second.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Uh? Yeah, talk to me about wudin whenever he's one
of the perpetrators.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Played by Aaron Dean Eisenberg. Whenever he is on screen,
I want to jump through the scrange fucking destroy this guy,
like I want to beat him, like Jared Leto gets
beaten fight Club. Like maybe it's the way his hair
is parted.

Speaker 6 (28:18):
It is.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
It's like a strong, dipshit Nazi vibe that that guy
gives off.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
If that's what it is, then good on the hair department,
Like yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
I mean, I mean it's I think it was a
good performance. He didn't have very many lines, and he's
really hate herble.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
The other he's instantly shiit heel misogynist serial rapers.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Yeah, exactly. Tip. It comes off as kind of like confused.
You know, deer in the headlights he's the other lower
order rapist.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, the one who used the condom.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
He did use the condom because he respects his rape ping.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
No, No, that's not y because he.

Speaker 7 (28:49):
Was no disrespect. But she's the one who let loose.
I look, you know what I did wrong? Cheated on
my wife, So you did sense?

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, that's what it was.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
We're a condom.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, I told you. I'm he's okay with raping someone.
But if he's gonna do it, he's gonna wear a rubber.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
He didn't come up to me as a monster like
the other two.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
There's one guy calling the shots and one guy that's
totally on board, and then the other guy is like, well,
this is my CEO. I have to listen to him.
And then the last one is like, the CEO has
shit on me.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, I have to do this or else. You know,
you know, terrible things are going to happen. Do we
actually find out what happened to his character, the graver character.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
I think they pled him out because they don't read
a guilty verdict and he's not still one of the
he's not still one of the defendants exactly.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
But we don't find out if he gets discharged.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
If I recall, I suspect that he probably pleads out
to a lesser charge because he's cooperating and he gives testimony.
But that's sort of like left.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
It's an implied thing, which is it's fine because it
totally makes sense that that would happen, and you don't
have to make a big deal about it.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Honestly, right right, I kind of want to whenever we
have one of these, we should probably give a nod
in some way whenever this happens. Maybe we have all
this song or a sound cue or something insane. But
with these these fuckers in custody, amorrow drops the getting
turned out an Attica threat for sure, the future consisting
of rapings on the rage to a rapist.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
I'm definitely drinking to this one.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah yeah, yeah. These sbu coms do this so much,
like it happens enough that we have to have like
alarm bells going off, so we have to like have
the regae horn go off when yeah yeah or vouvazella
or something something insane.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Absolutely, oh yeah, god, we have to.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Do something because it happens quite a bit. I'm shocked
that it took us as long to get to an
instance of where this happens.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
But there's nothing the asvu comps love more than prison rape.
It really is like one of their favorite things. Oh
my god.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
See this is why everyone is sector is calling her
a whore.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
When we left her, she wanted more.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
She probably went out and banged one.

Speaker 7 (30:55):
Of those Mexicans after really, So that's it.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
So you got it, and I want you to think
about what you just said he from now are getting
turned out by a cellmates an attica.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Thank you for thank you for noting that.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, it seems inappropriate, but I guess they're the ones
doing it.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
Sure, sure is.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
We're like celebrating the shock, the shock of this continuing
to be the thing. I do like that her dad
when he shows up, he finally gets her to spill
on who the fourth is.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah. Absolutely, I thought they did a really good job
developing these characters in a short amount of time. Like
the dad didn't need very much page to jump out
and be what you weren't expecting, but in a believable way.
So good on John Getz and good on the writers
for that one.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Indeed, we should probably give a shout out. It was
written by Lawrence Caplo, and obviously any TV show is
written by the staff committee. It's revised and all that.
How weird was it? The military protocol has not resist
sexual assault. If that's true, If that's actually true and
not just like a plot device, that's fucking insane.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Pretty fucked up. It wouldn't surprise me, but it's pretty
fucked up. I mean, I suppose what is left un
said is that the implication if you resist, you're likely
to be killed, and they would rather have you not
be killed. But it's pretty fucked up.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Okay, So when Barbara is talking about the defense team
that's going to pick her apart, were you expecting it
not to be Buchanan, not to be Delaney Williams, Like
I was expecting it to be like fucking Coast Guard
lawyers or something. I was not expecting him. Are you
a CEO, CFO or other executive facing these or similar charges?

Speaker 5 (32:53):
Why should you go to jail for a crime someone
else noticed? You don't need double talk, you need bob
blah blah, bob blah blah.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
I had such a big smile on my face when
he showed up. I was like, oh my god, I
love that guy's huge head. Yeah, because I look at
the cast every time, but I don't really look at
the recurring cast members that often, so I didn't see
his name pop up before I started watching. I look
at the guest stars.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
How great was it when Taverts tries to impugne her
after Graver's testifying, Taverts tries to impute the Admiral's daughter
to the admiral. Oh yeah, that was And then we
get we get what we want for this fucker to
get his smug fucking face punched in. He gets lit
up and that jacksim, he fucking dexim like he is
on his ass, and then we cut straight from that

(33:42):
to the slew of guilty Verdictsden. It's like just a
double gut punch right there to.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
The guy big as shiner on his eye. After that, Yeah,
it was good. It was a it was a very
gratifying end to that performance. So with that in mind,
how would you describe the dick wolf you wrote the
write up on this one.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, so it's weird. They're sort of weird issue where
the dick wolf is actually after the button where it's
this Amorrow. It's the Amorrow and his ex wife like
him telling her that she has something to wash out for.
So it's really like setting up some semi serialized plot point. Yeah,
that's gonna come up later. I mean really, the spiritual
dickwolf to the whole thing is the guilty verdict and

(34:18):
then her dad, you know, saying that he's so proud of.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Her exactly when she gets honorably discharged and he's proud
of her. That's like, yeah, we have this like perfect
point for a rising heroic dick Wolf, and instead we
get the showrunners of Second Half SVU building the mythology
basically yeah, which is super annoying.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
The dick Wolf should have come right when he's like
supporting her, and that would have been like genuinely sort
of heartfelt and tear jerking. You actually feel for her
and her dad's got her back the whole way.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
So I'm going to say, should be a supportive father
dick Wolf, not a dumb Amorrow backstory dick Wolf. Yeah,
all right, I like that. Should we get into ranking
this thing, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious, it's
a pinot era episode. The big bad is clearly the
lieutenant commander. It's not even close.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
I believe the big bad is the coast Guard.

Speaker 6 (35:09):
They asked me in front of twenty officers. How why
I opened my mouth during oral sex.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
I am so sorry.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
You think that's the coast Guard in general? I mean,
I think you could say that that's a good point.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Who is it's see you.

Speaker 6 (35:31):
Scy their tons.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Diverts. I've want him whole career. Why would he do
something like this?

Speaker 6 (35:45):
He's been trying to sleep with me since I got here.
He said that I needed his help. I wanted to
get ahead.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
And you said no.

Speaker 6 (35:56):
He did not like that. He said that no one
says no a commanding officer, especially a woman. Oh I'm
so sorry, dad.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
No, No, you have.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Nothing to be sorry for. There's a culture of rape.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
That's like, clearly, there's a code of conduct that is
definitely pro rape.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
So okay, it's literally codified.

Speaker 5 (36:24):
So the reason that you did not say no or
fight during a violent, vicious assault was because you were
following what you believe to be military protocol.

Speaker 6 (36:36):
That's correct.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Okay, So we're saying the United States Coast Guard. I
hope they're not listening because they are an important part
of my job.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
But I have a cousin. I have a cousin who's
coast guard. The episode is doing it.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, this is in the universe of Law and Order SVU,
not in the real world. I don't think it was
ripped from a headline. I didn't. Clearly was ripped from
a string of headline, but not from one specific.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
One like it echoes.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
It has echoes of the citadel look exactly. Yeah, tail
hook there.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
But yeah, this is more of like a systemic thing exactly.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Should we just get into ranking this again? I think
SVU absolutely would investigate this crime so arguably. Yeah, I
mean we've got a good run of those. It's been
a while since we had a one that they definitely
would not have. Yeah, So yeah, let's get into ranking
this thing every week again. We do a ranking system.
We have four metrics that we use. We rank them
between one and ten, one being not great, ten being fantastic.

(37:34):
We rank them on quality guest performances, how problematic they were,
and the depth and breadth of the live's ruined those
latter two. Paradoxically, the worse they are in the episode,
the better they are in this ranking system, which I
think makes sense to most avid viewers of the show.
So start off, Josh, what do you think about the
quality of the show overall?

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Just straight up general quality of the episode? I don't
know how many we've done that are clearly better this. Yeah,
I mean I think it's a I think it's got
to be at least a nine, right, you.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Think at least a nine. I think I think the
ones that are nine are the really really stand out ones.
I call it an eight, but I'm willing to go
really yeah, good, but it's not jaw dropping, you know.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
No, but it does something that SEU doesn't generally do,
which is actually developed a cast of characters very well
and then actually have you feel.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Something that's true. That is true.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
But I think, I mean, there are multiple moments when
you're getting teared up.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
I think so episode five Juvenile where that kid we
did in episode five where that kid goes to prison
for the rest of his life at the end, that's
a stunner. We gave that one a nine. So you're
saying this is as good as that one.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Oh, I think this is as good as that one.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Okay, I'm I'm I'm just at playing Devil's advocate here.
Oh yeah, yeah, I do agree with you that it's
a really good episode. It's just how good we're saying
it is. I'm fine with.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Well, it's also not gonna it's not like it's going
to set itself apart with other stuff like, it's not
it's not super super fucked up or anything. I think
just the general if we're just looking general quality of
the episode, I think that's nine.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
I'm fine with that. Okay, So let's go to the guests.
I thought there were great guests performances. I thought this
is at least an eight.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, agreed.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
I mean it doesn't have Luperi in it or anything
like that. It's not like an epical defining actor that's
that's co starring in it.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
But going against type, it doesn't have that crazy stunt
casting thing.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Yeah, it's not like the James Spader episode that I
hope we get sometime soon, but it is. It is
really just top to bottom. Every single one of the
actors is good.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
They do it they're supposed to do.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, exactly, they're really just in.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Some cases, is you want to jump through this computer
or jump through the screen and like kill them.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Yeah, but that was I mean that's exactly who you want.
But like the Will Janowitz character, I mean, Cherry app
will be John Gets. I thought they were all great.
So yeah, let's we'll say eight for that one. How
problematic it was, there were some good lines and it
had some definitely disturbing section.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
The accounting of both rapes was disturbing. Yeah, yeah, it's disturbing,
but and it's also dealing with with like systemic issues
in the Armed services, where.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
This is par for the course, but we're talking about
our show that goes some places that are Now I
think this is.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Sort of middling in this in this regard above average,
but I would say four or five.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Okay, five, four point five, we can give it.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Let's go five, let's go full five.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Okay. What it lacks in creativity at least as far
as the assaults, it makes up four in the descriptions
of them and how visceral and disturbing they are. So
I think it's I think that works. And then let's
talk about the lives being ruined by this.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Her career is over, her career is also dealing with
a fallout from a rape.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yes, but she was honorably discharged, which means she's not
going to have any troubles getting another job, so just.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
To a job that she wasn't going to be able
to go back.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
To anyway, exactly. So, I mean, if she had been
dishonorably discharged, you have to report that in every single
job application you make, and it will follow you the
rest of your life. But an honorable discharge is a
positive note in your CV. They're not going to ask
you about it. They might ask you about how is
your service, but they're not going to ask you, like,
why did you leave the armed forces? It's normal for

(41:18):
people to believe.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
There's also the presumption that there are many other victims
of tavers.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
That's true, but they aren't named.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Janowitz's character, Graver Graver, his life is probably rung. He's
getting a dishonorable discharge.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Surely you'd think so.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Because he went along with it.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
It's possible, again, because they leave it kind of open ended,
it's possible that it's dishonorable. It's possible it's a general discharge,
which I think.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
I don't think the Coastguard is going to be forgiving
of him because presumably he still has to clean out
guilty of something.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah, he's out of that. It's just like, in what
way is he out?

Speaker 2 (41:53):
I don't think he can get anything other than dishonorable.
He's surely played and guilty to a lesser felony.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
So in the law run, his life is probably the
most fucked of anybody.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
And I mean he he's a victim and getting.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Fucked here absolutely, So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
I mean, it's not crazy fallout, but it's not. It's
not it's a five, it's not it's not crazy.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
By SVU scamping exactly should.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Clarify that, But yeah, I think it's a five.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
I think it's a five, So that puts us at
a six seven five. It's above average, solidly above average. Yeah,
not the best we've seen, but certainly above average.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
And largely not the best we've seen because it doesn't
have the insane things going for it that's some of
the other ones to exactly. That's really the that's really
the key drawback to this episode is that there's nothing
just batshit crazy.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
There's nothing completely badshit crazy. It's so hard to judge
these things, right, because everything that happens in the show
is terrible, whether it's kidnappings or rapes or whatever. But
there is a scale that the SVU writers have created
and sometimes we were talking about.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Just possibly unwittingly created.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah, vomitable things happening to young children, and it didn't
have that happening. I do feel like even the Graver character, right,
the guy who's outed as gay and also raped, his
biggest fault, right is that he wasn't the one that
came forward. He wasn't as strong as Albers in reporting
his own you know, rape, and so in some ways,

(43:22):
again not that he deserved to have his life ruined
in this way, but he could have stood up for
himself in which which might have given him a better outcome.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah. Well it's basically they used toxic masculinity against him, Yeah,
to make him be more masculine big time.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, well, you got any other notes about this one?
I mean, I think it was a really fun episode.
I highly recommend people watching it.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
But it was the King. It's really good. It's it's
not like a thunder, It's not like it's not like.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Gone, Baby, Gone Gone, which we covered in episode.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Four, and asunder was a terrible one with a cop
perp and his wife.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Yes, Thunder was not good, not good, and not fun.
Neither one of those two. This one was. This one
was really good, not necessarily fun in the way that
we think of SVUS, but really good and had really
good guest performances. So I do recommend it absolutely, But
I think unless you have any other notes, it's time
to fire up the randomizer again.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Let's fire it up.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
I'm pressing the buttons now and putting all the variables.
I hate that fun and we are getting episode one
eighty two, That is Season eight, episode twenty one, an
episode called Pretend, So give me a second, I'll pull
it up. According to the Hulu caption, a teenage boy

(44:41):
dies in what appears to be an accident, but his
friends are hiding the truth. So it looks like it
could be a fun one.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
All right. So this one has guest stars. I hope
none that stick out. It's got a lot of the
Stablers though, so it's going to be probably a pretty
stable our centric episode.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Dicky heavy episode.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yeah, yeah, probably a lot of Dickey.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Oh my gosh, very long, very long plot.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Yeah yeah, well eight as it's nonsense. Uh, someone put
in a lot of work and then no one ever
put in an episode summary. No, we don't have a quick.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Well yeah, we'll see how this one goes. It should
be fun, but I guess until next time, have a
good one, Josh, and I'll talk to you next week.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Yeah, fingers crossed. Hope this is a good one.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Don't know, Tren, tell me you don't know. If you're not,
you're Heelia.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
You didn't do anything wrong. I'm an ensome. I am
supposed to be able to take care of myself.

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13 - I Don't Feel Like Wesley Crusher Could Take Care of Himself (S15E8 Military Justice)

Episode Transcript

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}13 - I Don't Feel Like Wesley Crusher Could Take Care of Himself (S15E8 Military Justice)