Despite not being a fan overall of Season 19, not all its episodes were in the average at best category. It wasn't immune from good episodes, but when the season misfired like with the season finale goodness didn't it misfire. Not irredeemably so, but enough to make one consider whether to continue watching the show. Just to say, this reviewer loves many 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' and loves the early seasons, as well as being very impressed by quite a lot of latter season episodes.
So this is not coming from a serial detractor hating on the show for sport, am not that kind of person and never have been on here. "Send in the Clowns" is one of the weakest Season 19 episodes, it is a case of something that started off very, very well but loses its way far too early and not only never recovers but gets worse bit by bit. It is not a terrible episode, only the two part season finale came close to that but wasn't quite, but there are a lot of major issues.
There are good things about "Send in the Clowns". The 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.
Also thought that the acting is near-uniformly strong, with one exception and one that was a recurring problem since being introduced. As said, "Send in the Clowns" starts off very, very well, with an interesting and suspenseful opening.
Unfortunately, the rest of the story and the rest of the episode is hugely flawed in quite a major way. The story struck me as more silly than suspenseful and would have benefitted from a tighter pace. There are not an awful lot of surprises, actually had a bad feeling about one character that was proven correct and also guessed correctly about it not being as straightforward as initially seemed. Only one revelation is a shock and personally did have issue with how it was revealed, too out of nowhere. Much of the writing is too melodramatic, especially in the second half.
Moreover, the legal scenes felt very rushed, not just the pace of them in the episode but also the time period (which was like jump from one date to another quite far ahead). Not only that, the legal case was too flimsy with too little evidence for Stone to immediately take such drastic measures. Despite knowing more about Stone at this point than what was learned about Barba at this same point, Stone's personality was never anywhere near as compelling (very little spark yet and sadly this was never improved upon really). Phillip Winchester is still a blank.
Overall, mediocre with a few merits. 4/10.
