Family Values

Someone dumps a body off the Manhattan Bridge into the East River and it turns out to be the wife of Stephen Shellen, contractor and quite the seducer. He's married to the victim and stepfather to Sarah Poulson and also involved with Poulson. And that's hardly the limit of his involvements.

It's either one or the other who is the doer though one might have been an accomplice or a witness. No way Poulson could have gotten her dead mother in a car and dumped her by herself.

I can't say what it is but Sam Waterston draws to an inside legal straight and might put his career in jeopardy with this one. In a similar situation in an episode where a daughter actually confessed to shield her guilty father, Waterston declined to take the route he takes here.

Look also for another of Shellen's involvements portrayed by Anna Holbrook. She has three very critical scenes.

One of the L&O golden oldies with one of the best police/DA lineups: Briscoe and Logan doing the detective work and Jack McCoy and Claire Kincaid prosecuting the case.

Anna Holbrook has a supporting role in the episode, which is a real treat because she knocked it out of the park every time she was on L&O or SVU.

Sarah Paulson is also great playing the teen-aged daughter. I recommend watching this episode back to back with the 2010 season 11 episode of SVU called Shadow, where 16 years later Paulson plays another rich daughter.

This one's real soapy: rich people, affairs, a cruel ex-husband, a young daughter who is simultaneously spoiled and stifled, and even a floater (dead body) in the East River.

The suspects are quickly narrowed down to a small handful of folks in the detective half of the show, and then to pretty much just two people in the prosecutor's half. It's never terribly original, but the acting is good (bolstered by a young Sarah Paulson as the daughter character), and it definitely yanks you around in that classic, twisty Law & Order fashion.

My assumption of who did it turned out to be wrong; watch this one and see if you have better instincts than I did!

The premise sounds quite basic, well all the stories in the previous three Season 5 episodes were conceptually quite simple and predictable-sounding. There have been quite a number of examples of episodes in the 'Law and Order' franchise that have episodes that sound simple and obvious but are anything but in the execution, of the previous three episodes "Coma" actually managed to do that (the other two not so much). The premise also sounds basic in "Family Values" on first glance.

Like "Coma" though, the execution is anything but. Personally do not agree wih "Family Values" being the joint lowest rated of the four episodes up to this point of Season 5, to me it is actually the best, most surprising and the first great Season 5 episode. The first episode where McCoy's character writing didn't actually bother me anywhere near as much and the one that is closest to the "keeps one guessing all the way through to the end" quality a lot of 'Law and Order' episodes have.

Very little to criticise here, but the list of suspects to me was narrowed down a little too early.

However, the suspects are well written and interesting with their motives clear and plausible. Maggie especially. All the cast deliver with no exception, the best performance coming from Sarah Paulson who manages to give nuance and feeling to the spoiled daughter role that could easily have been too bratty, instead we see how she came to be the way she became and understand. Anna Holbrook also brings surprising complexity to her scenes (three that play a critical role to the story and beautifully written and acted). The character interaction never looks stiff or disengaged, lead and supporting.

After not caring all that much for him in his previous three episodes, McCoy is more professional here and isn't too much of a jerk. The story starts off a little too on the simple side, but actually quite quickly become quite twisty without being too full of turns and they don't feel confusing. Was expecting the ending to be obvious in all honesty, but actually it was one of the most didn't see it coming endings of Season 5. The procedural elements are intriguing and make sense and the legal scenes aren't too rambling and provoke thought.

It's an intelligently and tautly written script throughout, especially in the latter stages, and sympathetically directed. The production values are slick and have a subtle grit, with an intimacy to the photography without being too claustrophobic. The music isn't used too much and doesn't get too melodramatic.

Concluding, great episode and the first great Season 5 episode. 9/10