Really disliked "Deadly Ambition" on first watch. While loving Kelli Giddish and also Fin's role, the over-obviousness, lack of suspense, the character behaviours and especially Kim really spoiled the episode. It was great to see some more development to Rollins, who has just started to get interesting, but her subplots varied wildly since she was introduced. With every episode with Kim being pretty difficult to take. Personal opinion of course.
"Deadly Ambition" did fare better on rewatch, with the good things standing out more which helped make it more watchable. It is still not a particularly good episode though, with the drawbacks still being the same and being even more problematic. Season 14 had some great episodes, especially "Lessons Learned" and "Monster's Legacy" as far as previous episodes go, but also some mediocre ones. "Deadly Ambition" only just about avoids being in the latter category, but it was close.
There are good things. The best thing about it is Giddish, who is fantastic in by far her best performance up to this point of the show (her first knocking it out of the park performance). Really rooted for Rollins and there was real hope that she would get out of her predicament. Also loved Fin's role, he was very underused in far too many of the latter season episodes but when he is used more and well he is great. His chemistry with Rollins is beautifully controlled and sympathetic and Fin once again for the first time in too long shows his softer side.
A few other things were good. Visually it is well made, especially the intimate photography. It looks stylish and slick with a more refined look than when 'Special Victims Unit' first started all the way back in 1999, while maintaining the show's grit. The music doesn't overbear and is not overused. Internal Affairs' role is somewhat interesting.
Unfortunately, it's also one dimensional and has been seen before too many times. While Robert John Burke does a more than serviceable job, Tucker is too panto villain-like (meaning too easy to hate). "Deadly Ambition" is far too predictable, Kim's role was not a surprise at all because of such an over-obvious personality that wouldn't fool the viewer for a minute. There is a complete lack of suspense, to me showing the shooting straightaway was a mistake and it should have happened later and off-screen in my view.
Have always intensely disliked Kim as a character, and not only does "Deadly Ambition" do nothing to change my mind on her it strengthens my dislike of her. Her manipulation is far too overt and overdone to the extent that it is frustrating and insulting that the viewer sees through her well before the rest of the characters do. Have always found her too over the top in the acting department and truly annoying as well. Am aware that a paragraph has been dedicated unintentionally slamming her but that is how much, and so badly, she and her role unbalanced the episode.
It was rather insulting to see the other characters being written too naively and too easily manipulated, especially Rollins (who never learned to not be too naive or be too trusting because it happened again in all the succeeding episodes featuring Kim, who to me should have been disowned by now) and also to a lesser extent Amaro (uncharacteristically so in his case). The writing is too overripe and melodramatic.
Overall, better on rewatch but far too many problems to recommend. 5/10.
