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A crossover event so lame it took three hours to tell.

It starts in what's supposed to be Ukraine during the war with a
civilian family being targetted. I think. I couldn't quite understand
the action because the Ukrainians were clearly irregulars but the
Russians also looked like irregulars. A teenage girl survives the
encounter and ends up in the United States.

Why is this shown to us? We think the victim witnessed something back
home that gets her killed in Queens but the scene is irrelevant. We
suddenly jump to a scene in which the victim is in a physical fight with
a much older man. She escapes and gets chased. She gets struck by a
vehicle. Donovan, who is having lunch with his daughter who is exactly
the same age.

We will learn that the girl is a runaway now being prostituted by a
Chechnyan mobster who has been recruited by a thin attractive woman. If
she's meant to be Ghislane Maxwell, they do nearly nothing with her.

There's no theme music, just an electronic note. The DVR recorded it as
three separate episodes: Organized Crime, SVU, then L&O, but the episode
breaks don't exactly for at the recording start points. I missed some
dialogue at the beginning of L&O.

Actors are listed in order of the individual series but Jeffrey Donovan
had more screen time on the two "foreign" hours than the stars of those
shows had.

Anthony Anderson is so disassociated with the show that Kevin Bernard
character isn't even referenced.

An actor I like -- Mehcad Brooks -- plays Jalen Shaw. He's just
introduced at the crime scene. Donovan is a witness to the murder and
had tried to help the victim before her death.

Shaw is from the local precinct but in the grand tv tradition, Donovan
simply announces that he's lead on the investigation. Camryn Mannheim
later announces that they'll work out of her precinct, I guess so
producers don't have to build another police set. Clearly these two
cannot be partners unless Shaw gets transferred but I guess that will
happen before the next episode.

Donovan starts investigating then pisses of Stabler whose task force has
targeted this Chechnyn criminal.

Stabler has this barely stable C.I. who is way too pushy and therefore
not trusted by the target who takes all sorts of chances in sneaking in
surveillance equipment onto his cell phone. The C.I. will die during the
second hour. Stabler gets a dramatic moment but I'm not sure the
audience cares.

Has Stabler ever obtained a warrant in his life?

Say, am I the only one who stills sees Chris Keller and cannot suspend
disbelief that Christopher Meloni plays a cop?

The evidence from the phone turns out to be downloaded security footage
from this enormous yacht the bad guys leased in which they prostitute
teenage girls. There's another girl, 14. I guess she's Cuban or Puerto
Rican. The cops keep talking about trying find her but the audience
assumes she's been murdered to cover up the reason for the murder
of the other girl.

Nope. She's alive. Why?

It gives Benson someone to do her sympathy act on. By the third episode,
Benson has snuck her off to Toronto so Price cannot put her on the
stand. (Turns out Canada was a lie as we see her and Benson back in New
York at the very end of the episode.)

There's this Russian who turns out to be the financial backer of the
Chechnyan who gets drunk and likes to show off all his evil schemes to
the prostituted teen girls.

Ok. Before I get into what was heard, they go to the massive home of the
Chechnyan. There are security gates. Stabler just has his teen girl
copette with computer skills (played by some actress who reminds me of a
less vacant Lucy Hale who could still play a high school girl on tv).
She has no trouble hacking the security gate to open.

The cops demonstrate tv breeching procedure. All the detectives go into
the house along with the breeching team wandering around and doing the
"clear" thing without actually clearly anything.

At one point, Shaw leads one of the breechers upstairs.

Yes, yes, I know. Real detectives wait OUTSIDE till the breeching team
has literally cleared the house.

No one is home. But they discover that he's been building a massive
explosive device.

Wait. What? In his own garage, he's building an explosive device? They
keep saying he's no bomb-making expert.

Who does this at his own home?

JTTF is called in but the FBI guy has little to do with anything. They
can't figure out what any possible targets are.

Suddenly, it turns out that there's this NATO conference that none of
the three-dozen detectives in the room have any inkling about.

I remember when we got NATO in Chicago. It was a major pain in the ass.
Everyone was told to stay out of the Loop, and notoriously, Rahm chose
McCormick Place to hold it at. One of the major buildings was built over
an active railroad (that also has commuter and Amtrak service) so it all
had to be shut down for close to 8 hours.

NATO is meeting at this gorgeous hotel we've seen on tv before. It's mid
block. The streets aren't blocked off. Police enter the lobby with no
security.

Like the first WTC bombing, it's an SUV the bad guy has no trouble
driving into a full parking garage (that we all recognize but it's not
under the hotel) under the hotel. For no reason anyone can figure out,
the evil Checnhyan has driven the SUV and hasn't left the hotel. Donovan
spots him as does Kelli Giddish. They've never distributed his picture
to any of the other cops. this is actually stated in dialogue.

Shaw finds the bomb and yes, it has a red countdown timer that Roger
Ebert always made fun of.

Shaw keeps arguing with Camryn Manheim and the bomb squad, demanding to
be told how to diffuse the bomb. How the fuck would they know? The wires
aren't even color coded. There's no green wire to cut!

Lots of people leave the hotel and even Shaw finally leaves. This is
beyond stupid because unless everybody gets a significant distance away,
they are absolutely still going to be in harm's way.

The bomb explodes. They can't even be bothered to tell us how many
casualties there are, given all the cops in the street not to mention
people at the conference and everybody else.

There's a foot chase. Stabler ends up being the one to confront the
Chechnyan and Donovan plays less of a hothead, talks Stabler into NOT
executing him.

The Russian gets taken into custody to; I forget how.

The reason the 15 year old prostitute slave was murdered was because the
moronic Russian got drunk and told the two prostitutes about the bomb
plot. She made a video of it with her cell phone then lost her cell
phone.

Price has a problem getting the video into court. It's valid evidence
according to Rule 9 but must be authenticated. Price has made a deal
with the henchman who found her cell phone that he won't be compelled to
testify and his name will remain private.

They need the 14 year old prostitute slave. She's in a safe house. The
caption provides the address of the safe house. Ok. Everybody knows the
address, right? The Russians put a hit on her. Kelli Giddish is shot in
the stomach, in one of those wounds that would bleed out even if the
patient were shot in the stomach whilst on the operating table. She gets
through surgery and is stable by the end of the episode.

Benson sends her to Canada to keep Price from putting her on the stand.

If you think the Russians can't kill her in Canada, that's ridiculous.

You know where this is going.

Price has two men to prosecute. There's lots of evidence against the
Checknyan, who is a drug trafficker and a white slaver of teenage girls.
Plus he's murdered two people. This is a really bad guy.

Price cannot use the evidence he has against the Russian and really has
no way to prosecute him.

You get one guess as to which man gets prosecuted and which man gets the
sweet deal.

Eventually, the Russian wants to make a deal to get his fmaily protected
(which seems beyond Price's abilities). They meet in a secret
interrogation facility. This time we don't get its address on the
caption. Still, the Russians are able to assasinate him.

Everybody knows where to find these secret places.

On 9/22/2022 11:30 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> s
> p
> o
> i
> l
> e
> r
>
> s
> p
> a
> c
> e
>
> A crossover event so lame it took three hours to tell.
>
> It starts in what's supposed to be Ukraine during the war with a
> civilian family being targetted. I think. I couldn't quite understand
> the action because the Ukrainians were clearly irregulars but the
> Russians also looked like irregulars. A teenage girl survives the
> encounter and ends up in the United States.
>
> Why is this shown to us?

Good question!

We think the victim witnessed something back
> home that gets her killed in Queens but the scene is irrelevant. We
> suddenly jump to a scene in which the victim is in a physical fight with
> a much older man. She escapes and gets chased. She gets struck by a
> vehicle. Donovan, who is having lunch with his daughter who is exactly
> the same age.
>
> We will learn that the girl is a runaway now being prostituted by a
> Chechnyan mobster who has been recruited by a thin attractive woman. If
> she's meant to be Ghislane Maxwell, they do nearly nothing with her.
>
> There's no theme music, just an electronic note. The DVR recorded it as
> three separate episodes:

My DVR only recorded the first episode. It was a bit of headache
pulling the rest of OnDemand. Not that they weren't easily available,
but the episodes aired outside the usually running order so intuitively
the running order didn't make sense at first. There was even a
disclaimer at the start of each episode that it was part of a larger
series of episodes.

Organized Crime, SVU, then L&O, but the episode
> breaks don't exactly for at the recording start points. I missed some
> dialogue at the beginning of L&O.
>
> Actors are listed in order of the individual series but Jeffrey Donovan
> had more screen time on the two "foreign" hours than the stars of those
> shows had.
>
> Anthony Anderson is so disassociated with the show that Kevin Bernard
> character isn't even referenced.
>

And I forgot all about him.

> An actor I like -- Mehcad Brooks -- plays Jalen Shaw. He's just
> introduced at the crime scene. Donovan is a witness to the murder and
> had tried to help the victim before her death.
>

Although I did notice he was new to the show. But I wasn't sure if he
was permanent or not. I sort of assumed he would be permanent since
they got Brooks.

> Shaw is from the local precinct but in the grand tv tradition, Donovan
> simply announces that he's lead on the investigation. Camryn Mannheim
> later announces that they'll work out of her precinct, I guess so
> producers don't have to build another police set. Clearly these two
> cannot be partners unless Shaw gets transferred but I guess that will
> happen before the next episode.
>
> Donovan starts investigating then pisses of Stabler whose task force has
> targeted this Chechnyn criminal.
>
> Stabler has this barely stable C.I.

What was the deal with that C.I.?!? Did they tell the actor to play the
character as if he was 12? And was Stabler secretly his father? Good
grief, it was ridiculous!

who is way too pushy and therefore
> not trusted by the target who takes all sorts of chances in sneaking in
> surveillance equipment onto his cell phone. The C.I. will die during the
> second hour. Stabler gets a dramatic moment but I'm not sure the
> audience cares.
>
> Has Stabler ever obtained a warrant in his life?
>
> Say, am I the only one who stills sees Chris Keller and cannot suspend
> disbelief that Christopher Meloni plays a cop?
>

It was worse during the first few seasons of SVU. During Oz, I couldn't
help but think Chett got on the wrong side of Lisa and that is where she
put him. Every episode!

> The evidence from the phone turns out to be downloaded security footage
> from this enormous yacht the bad guys leased in which they prostitute
> teenage girls. There's another girl, 14. I guess she's Cuban or Puerto
> Rican. The cops keep talking about trying find her but the audience
> assumes she's been murdered to cover up the reason for the murder
> of the other girl.
>
> Nope. She's alive. Why?
>
> It gives Benson someone to do her sympathy act on. By the third episode,
> Benson has snuck her off to Toronto so Price cannot put her on the
> stand. (Turns out Canada was a lie as we see her and Benson back in New
> York at the very end of the episode.)
>
> There's this Russian who turns out to be the financial backer of the
> Chechnyan who gets drunk and likes to show off all his evil schemes to
> the prostituted teen girls.
>
> Ok. Before I get into what was heard, they go to the massive home of the
> Chechnyan. There are security gates. Stabler just has his teen girl
> copette with computer skills (played by some actress who reminds me of a
> less vacant Lucy Hale who could still play a high school girl on tv).
> She has no trouble hacking the security gate to open.
>
> The cops demonstrate tv breeching procedure. All the detectives go into
> the house along with the breeching team wandering around and doing the
> "clear" thing without actually clearly anything.
>
> At one point, Shaw leads one of the breechers upstairs.
>
> Yes, yes, I know. Real detectives wait OUTSIDE till the breeching team
> has literally cleared the house.
>
> No one is home. But they discover that he's been building a massive
> explosive device.
>
> Wait. What? In his own garage, he's building an explosive device? They
> keep saying he's no bomb-making expert.
>
> Who does this at his own home?
>
> JTTF is called in but the FBI guy has little to do with anything. They
> can't figure out what any possible targets are.
>
> Suddenly, it turns out that there's this NATO conference that none of
> the three-dozen detectives in the room have any inkling about.
>
> I remember when we got NATO in Chicago. It was a major pain in the ass.
> Everyone was told to stay out of the Loop, and notoriously, Rahm chose
> McCormick Place to hold it at. One of the major buildings was built over
> an active railroad (that also has commuter and Amtrak service) so it all
> had to be shut down for close to 8 hours.
>
> NATO is meeting at this gorgeous hotel we've seen on tv before. It's mid
> block. The streets aren't blocked off. Police enter the lobby with no
> security.
>
> Like the first WTC bombing, it's an SUV the bad guy has no trouble
> driving into a full parking garage (that we all recognize but it's not
> under the hotel) under the hotel. For no reason anyone can figure out,
> the evil Checnhyan has driven the SUV and hasn't left the hotel. Donovan
> spots him as does Kelli Giddish. They've never distributed his picture
> to any of the other cops. this is actually stated in dialogue.
>
> Shaw finds the bomb and yes, it has a red countdown timer that Roger
> Ebert always made fun of.
>
> Shaw keeps arguing with Camryn Manheim and the bomb squad, demanding to
> be told how to diffuse the bomb. How the fuck would they know? The wires
> aren't even color coded. There's no green wire to cut!
>
> Lots of people leave the hotel and even Shaw finally leaves. This is
> beyond stupid because unless everybody gets a significant distance away,
> they are absolutely still going to be in harm's way.
>
> The bomb explodes. They can't even be bothered to tell us how many
> casualties there are, given all the cops in the street not to mention
> people at the conference and everybody else.
>
> There's a foot chase. Stabler ends up being the one to confront the
> Chechnyan and Donovan plays less of a hothead, talks Stabler into NOT
> executing him.
>
> The Russian gets taken into custody to; I forget how.
>
> The reason the 15 year old prostitute slave was murdered was because the
> moronic Russian got drunk and told the two prostitutes about the bomb
> plot. She made a video of it with her cell phone then lost her cell
> phone.
>
> Price has a problem getting the video into court. It's valid evidence
> according to Rule 9 but must be authenticated. Price has made a deal
> with the henchman who found her cell phone that he won't be compelled to
> testify and his name will remain private.
>
> They need the 14 year old prostitute slave. She's in a safe house. The
> caption provides the address of the safe house. Ok. Everybody knows the
> address, right? The Russians put a hit on her. Kelli Giddish is shot in
> the stomach, in one of those wounds that would bleed out even if the
> patient were shot in the stomach whilst on the operating table. She gets
> through surgery and is stable by the end of the episode.
>

In article <tgjjq9$2fibc$1@dont-email.me>,
"Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

> There's no theme music, just an electronic note. The DVR recorded it as
> three separate episodes: Organized Crime, SVU, then L&O, but the episode
> breaks don't exactly for at the recording start points. I missed some
> dialogue at the beginning of L&O.
>
> Actors are listed in order of the individual series but Jeffrey Donovan
> had more screen time on the two "foreign" hours than the stars of those
> shows had.
>
> Anthony Anderson is so disassociated with the show that Kevin Bernard
> character isn't even referenced.

I watched these last night and I'm only just now realizing he was
nowhere to be seen. I knew there was something missing from the L&O
segment: without Anderson, there was no race-baiting.

> Donovan starts investigating then pisses of Stabler whose task force has
> targeted this Chechnyn criminal.

Stabler was being ridiculous. As if every detective in New York is going
to check in with OCCB before knocking on someone's door to talk to them?
> It gives Benson someone to do her sympathy act on.

Not only is the sympathy act beyond tiresome at this point, but the
hang-dog look she uses during it really does her no favors as she
continues to age ungracefully.

> By the third episode, Benson has snuck her off to Toronto so Price
> cannot put her on the stand. (Turns out Canada was a lie as we see
> her and Benson back in New York at the very end of the episode.)

Yes, none of that made any sense. If she really sent her to Canadia, why
bring her back to run through Central Park? The case was over at that
point, so there was no reason for her to come back to New York.

If Canadia was a lie, then Benson committed a felony and running around
with the girl in public was a spectacularly stupid move.

> The cops demonstrate tv breeching procedure. All the detectives go into
> the house along with the breeching team wandering around and doing the
> "clear" thing without actually clearing anything.

I've given up ranting about this. At least they didn't do the
Danny-on-BLUE-BLOODS thing where Danny actually *leads* the SWAT team
inside, then the SWAT team literally disappears, leaving Danny the only
one searching the dark, shadowy building so he can be the one to catch
the bad guy-- but not before being sandbagged by him and having a
dramatic fist-fight first.

> JTTF is called in but the FBI guy has little to do with anything. They
> can't figure out what any possible targets are.

Yes, when faced with the reality of a Chechen with a VBIED and stated
intention to use it, the FBI hands over control of the case to... the
NYPD's sex crimes unit.

<rolls eyes>

> Suddenly, it turns out that there's this NATO conference that none of
> the three-dozen detectives in the room have any inkling about.

And when they did get an inkling about it from the livery driver,
instead of calling ahead to the cops on scene who would be working the
event to start an evacuation, our heroes all had to waste what would
realistically be the better part of an hour racing to the scene so they
could be the ones to dramatically walk into the auditorium holding up
their badges and yelling for everyone to walk as slow as possible out of
the room.

> I remember when we got NATO in Chicago. It was a major pain in the ass.

You're welcome. I was there and helped implement your misery.

> Everyone was told to stay out of the Loop, and notoriously, Rahm chose
> McCormick Place to hold it at. One of the major buildings was built over
> an active railroad (that also has commuter and Amtrak service) so it all
> had to be shut down for close to 8 hours.

Yep. When we told the city that, their heads nearly detonated. We were
like, either the trains get shut down or y'all find some other venue.
For some reason they were really jazzed on McCormick Place, so no trains
it was.

> Shaw finds the bomb and yes, it has a red countdown timer that Roger
> Ebert always made fun of.

I didn't see a lot of bombs over the course of my career but of the ones
I did see, not one ever had a countdown timer on it.

I took a course once called TD-FAM (Terrorist Device Familiarity course)
and it consisted of five days of bomb-making instructions, taught by
JSOC operators. We started with simple black powder and worked our way
up to explosively shaped plasma projectiles. Each day, the morning was
spent in the classroom learning about the day's explosive, how it works,
how it's used, etc. And after lunch, we'd go out to the range and build
the device we learned about that morning and then set them off. At no
point were we ever instructed to put a red digital readout with a
countdown timer on any of our projects.

(For my final exam, I had to build and successfully initiate a bangalore
torpedo. I put it lengthwise under the transmission of an old Army
deuce-and-a-half. When it blew, that 10-ton truck lifted up a dozen feet
in the air and flipped upside down. Best week of training I ever had.)
> Shaw keeps arguing with Camryn Manheim and the bomb squad, demanding to
> be told how to diffuse the bomb. How the fuck would they know? The wires
> aren't even color coded. There's no green wire to cut!

Stupidest scene in a cavalcade of stupid scenes. The series premiere of
FBI had a similar scene-- hell, the entire "chasing a bomb, having to
evacuate a prominent conference, bomb counting down in the basement"
plot was almost identical on both shows, right down to the lone agent in
the basement looking at the ticking clock and demanding to be guided
through the render-safe procedure over the phone.

I think Dick Wolf is just doing search-and-replace with the character
names is his scripts these days.

> The bomb explodes. They can't even be bothered to tell us how many
> casualties there are, given all the cops in the street not to mention
> people at the conference and everybody else.

They told us later that three people were killed inside the building.

> The Russian gets taken into custody to; I forget how.

They had that confrontation on the sidewalk in front of the hotel where
the Russian private security guy got uppity with Shaw and tried to draw
down on him.

> Price has a problem getting the video into court. It's valid evidence
> according to Rule 9 but must be authenticated.

Even after Price quoted Rule 9, which specifically said it *didn't* have
to be authenticated and it was up to the jury to judge its authenticity.

Nothing in that scene made sense.

> Kelli Giddish is shot in the stomach, in one of those wounds that
> would bleed out even if the patient were shot in the stomach whilst
> on the operating table. She gets through surgery and is stable by the
> end of the episode.

With Carisi stopping in to check on her in the one scene he was given in
this three-hour marathon.