Competence

S. Eptha Merkerssen is the one getting grilled in this Law And Order episode. Lt. Van Buren while with her children is accosted by two young kids, one of them with a gun. Big mistake to hold up a police officer, she shoots one of them.

But this particular kid was slightly retarded and as the younger and more malevolent one Omar Scroggins says, he keeps him around because he looks menacing. I can understand that I had a friend who also was big and hulking and looked intimidating. Once he opened his mouth he spoke like Bullwinkle. But stay silent and you can get away with it.

Scroggins is a real punk, but he learned it from an older brother played by rapper Fredro Starr who's a career criminal. When his parole is threatened he has no hesitation in giving up his little brother and that leads to the his weapon.

Even though the Grand Jury clears Van Buren the DA wants to see some justice as far as the surviving perpetrator. But Scroggins has himself a civil rights attorney in the Alton Maddox/C.Vernon Mason tradition. Google those names if they're unfamiliar to you now. Samuel E. Wright is the attorney and he's trying this in the court of public opinion. Waterston will have to button this one down real tight.

Merkerssen is the dominant cast member, one of her best performances on Law And Order.

This one puts the spotlight on Lt. Van Buren, played forcefully by S. Epatha Merkerson. When she shoots a would-be young adult robber in self defense while making a late-night ATM stop, she is thrust before a grand jury and the unapologetic EADA Jack McCoy. While Detective Logan and ADA Claire Kincaid believe Van Buren implicitly, Briscoe isn't so sure, and McCoy refuses to treat her with any favoritism.

And that's just the first half of the episode.

The second half involves the DA's office attempting to prosecute the OTHER kid robber - the one who didn't get shot and who, it seems, may have been manipulating the mentally disabled victim. I cringed a few times at the characters' flippant uses of the word "retard," which is today typically used as a cruel insult; there's also an undercurrent of condescension in the way it rolls off the detectives' lips. Even the victim's mother, played by Lisa Louise Langford, uses the term kind of contemptuously... maybe it was just her performance, but when she speaks about her dead son she definitely sounds irritated with him.

The episode tries to assuage some of its political incorrectness by having another intellectually disabled character, played here by Jacklin Brooke Sanford in her only acting credit. She's convincing as the victim's friend who attended the same school he did, and she ends up being extremely important to the case. A later scene has the camera slowly panning across the victim's room, lingering on movie and baseball posters as well as other memorabilia - the passions and hobbies of a boy just like any other, snuffed out by tragedy, and a message from the show that it really *does* want you to feel bad about the kid's death, despite how dismissively everyone in the episode speaks about him.

Whether that takes it out of the realm of "problematic" territory is up to you, and "Competence" is otherwise a neat little yarn that squeezes some unique character beats out of the main cast in what is usually almost exclusively a plot-driven show.

It is so great to see one of the 'Law and Order' franchise's longest serving characters (fourth after Olivia Benson, Donald Cragen and John Munch), and the longest serving of the original 'Law and Order', Anita Van Buren in the spotlight for the first time since she was introduced in the Season 4 opener "Sweeps". Liked her character from the very beginning and that like became love quite quickly, and the way S. Epatha Merkerson portrays her plays a large part in why.

Van Buren really shines here, in a way that she didn't do quite as brightly before with her material not being as rich, as does Merkerson for reasons that will be elaborated upon later. "Competence" ('Special Victims Unit' had an episode from Season 4 with the same name just to mention briefly, great episode that) is a very good episode from Season 5, though a couple of steps down from "Family Values" and especially "White Rabbit".

Am going to have to agree with another reviewer regarding feeling uncomfortable with the use of a certain word now considered ableist yet still thrown around. Being somebody who is autistic and disabled it has always been an offensive term to me and just as bad was how flippantly and contemptuously it's said. It did make the detectives less likeable.

Did think too that "Competence" did start off on the routine side.

Which is a real shame in regard to the first criticism, because "Competence" is actually a very good episode otherwise. Van Buren fascinates as a character and the episode shows a more conflicted edge to her that makes her situation rootable, even when things are not looking good for her. Merkerson is brilliant here and gives one of her best performances of the show, she gives not only authority to Van Buren but also a deeply felt sincerity. "Competence" also does really well at not taking sides in whether the other lead characters believe Van Buren or not, part of the conflict is the division the situation causes. Really appreciated that McCoy is more professional here than he was in his first three episodes and doesn't let personal feelings get in the way or bias cloud his judgement.

"Competence's" story is very involving with some nice tension and the moral dilemmas of the case being tactfully yet forcefully done. One is kept guessing and the gutsy approach that the show and franchise have continually shown is here in abundance. The rest of the performances are also great, with the other standout being a moving Jacklin Brooke Sanford. This is Merkerson's episode though. The script is tight and smart as one expects.

Photography and such as usual are fully professional, the slickness still remaining. The music is used sparingly and is haunting and non-overwrought when it is used, and it's mainly used when a crucial revelation or plot development is revealed. The direction has some nice tension while keeping things steady, without going too far the other way.

Very good on the whole. 8/10

Another excellent episode of L&O - it reminds the viewer of the constant pressure Van Buren was under either because of her colour or her sex !

As a plus, the girl who pkayed Gwendolyn (Jacklin Brooke Sanford) was superb - shame it appears to be her sole role so far !