Decently dramatic episode, though I was confused by the scene with Barba and Olivia. It feels like I'm only getting about half of this episode not having seen the other show, though.
Quite a disconnected episode, may be there is a past but not correctly run through in the preamble
Omg... why does this show has to do its old characters dirty??
God how can they make me hate barba?! But the buildup over the few episodes since his departure was good. I was wondering about him for the anniversary episode tho, love that they brought him back (well kinda I guess, depends if they make things up, which I doubt, then I might dislike the storyline after some rewatches. Oops. But how can they make him from this great justice warrior who went against childhood friends to a guy who destroys good friendships over a shitty client (let alone defend him, but that is fair I guess)).
I am however still waiting for Elliot and Liv to have a conversation about what happened to her in s15(?) when he left. Sure they are not on that level of talking, but I would LOVE to see that on screen, and have been waiting for it since the beginning of organized crime. I was hopeful for the anniversary episode again, and then this episode. Maybe a decade-after- sort of thing. Olivia did get past it, but trauma stays with you, as the show has proven over the years. And they have a track record of bringing back old storylines, especially recently. The conversation might never happen, but a girl can dream.
This episode is basically pointless filler if you're not also watching Organized Crime. As nice as it is to have more Stabler, Barba returning, and even seeing the two of them interact at bit, you're only getting a fraction of the whole story here. Hell, the story isn't even resolved here.
EDIT: Now that I have the full context of having watched OC up to this point - I still don't get why they did this. It's an important piece of the OC story, and has very little to do with SVU. I guess they wanted to entice more of the SVU audience to tune into OC? Such a weird decision.
Also, they want you to think that Eli's disappearance has something to do with Wheatley. Nope, not really. Completely unrelated. Well, not completely, but the actual reason he left is unrelated. It's just bullshit misdirection to make the cliffhanger more appealing. In fact, what ends up being the truth makes less sense than if he was just simply kidnapped.
I also think Barba's reasoning here was a massive stretch. It doesn't fit his character, in my opinion.
Barba has been losing his moral compass for some time, ever since he left the DA's office. Him representing Wheatley and the way he rationalised it as helping Olivia because she had risked her career by letting Stabler be on the case made complete sense to me. He's always seen himself as a white knight, and he has a saviour complex.
The moment when he realised he got completely played by Carisi, someone he considered less experienced, and Stabler, someone he considered out of control, was absolutely beautiful.
Shout by hannahBlockedParent2021-12-12T03:38:43Z
this of all recent decisions feels like kind of a reach—from what we know of barba and his relationship with the svu and benson in particular i can't honestly see him having decided to represent wheatley if not for the plot device.