Post-Rage

As a practicing mental health professional, it was obvious that this episode didnt have one of us on set for consultation during the writing and production of this episode. Not only was this episode a bad cliché, it's a bad portrayal of what mental health challenges could/often/do look like. The LAST THING we need is more stigma attached to mental health challenges and more ignorantly skewed portrayals on TV of individuals struggling with their mental health. I was very disappointed in this SVU episode; SVU usually doesnt ever get it wrong this bad. I will also add that most of us specialize to some extent and it would be quite rare to have a caseload full of clients with such vastly differing presenting concerns. This was just a bad take on a bad premise and I wish I could un-see it.

SVU has fallen off over the years. The peak and consistent years are arguably seasons 3-7 and 13-17 and everything between and after is up and down. The show has had quite a few show runner/head writer changes over the years but since season 24 and the appointment of David Graziano as show runner, I do not recognize the show or Olivia Benson (who is almost going rouge needing to be right and make things right by making all the cases her personal agendas - not how an NYPD CAPTAIN acts) anymore and it's really trying. I'm going to keep my review specific to this episode though; this was a dud of a finale and doesn't do anyone justice from the actors/characters to the story itself. You get a brief bit of action with a scene where Bruno and Velasco are going after a suspect but otherwise... very lacking in substance. Meanwhile Velasco's "promotion" doesn't do him justice, and it's because of the slight sterotyping and inconsistencies in fleshing out the character. S23 Velasco started as someone who excelled undercover enough by Chief McGrath (Terry Serpico) that he assigned him to the SVU unit, much to the unit trying to figure out the rough new guy and who is/was he a spy for the Chief. By S24 and Graziano, he dropped all that to stereotype the characters background to match part of the actor's, the Mexico/running from & with cartels/"Chilly" storyline didn't reach to me and then it further complicated with him having feels for Detective Grace Muncy (Molly Burnett) who left the unit (the actress and the show parting ways). S25 and S26 he then became a character who was just there, he had that one episode to where he had to stand up for and with his neighborhood to catch a predator but beyond that, who really is Velasco? We never got to see what makes him tick and who he is and how he even really became a cop. While not a veteran actor, Octavio Pisano did what he could with what he had but the man deserved more than what he got, and so did viewers. Here's to hoping season 27 with returning writer Michele Fazekas as show runnner turns things around for the whole show. Hopefully she writes out Velasco better than how he was going out...with a dud.

Not sure svu has ever had a season-ender quite this underwhelming.

The episode started promisingly enough with the hunt for man who is terrorizing local mental health professionals.

There was also a bit more action in the streets than has been visible during this strangely boring season, which has leaned heavily on cheaper-to-produce interior scenes.

Detectives finally zero in on a suspect, get him in to interrogation, and then . . . . . . . Nothing

no mystery, no story, just a bland dissertation about why some people go a little crazy. Then St. Olivia offers one of boilerplate speeches to a victim, there's a last toast to an exiting cop, and it's over.

It will be good to see a new show runner coming in this fall, and hopefully new writers, because the last two years of this series have been boring, rough and mostly lifeless.