Tonight’s SVU ripped its story from the headlines of Elliott Rodger, the “virgin killer” who published a deranged manifesto about his misogynist rage and non-existent sex life before going on a killing spree.
Recap:
A creepy young man named Holden Chase uses his phone to film himself lurking around New York while monologuing about how much he hates women who have rejected him, men who are more sexually successful than him, and his own virginity.
Holden starts hunting down a series of pretty blonde acquaintances he obsessed over but who never noticed him. He quickly graduates from stabbing the women to killing them.
The SVU detectives go all out to find him, eventually executing a search warrant on his apartment. They find Holden’s 100 page “manifesto” detailing all the injustices he believes he’s suffered.
Our detectives compile a list of all the people he might target, and go to warn them. Defying needle-in-a-haystack odds, Amanda and Nick go to a school to warn the husband of a schoolteacher Holden once adored – and find him shot to death. Holden has taken five students hostage.
Amanda and Nick break several rules of hostage negotiation by putting down their guns and allowing themselves to be taken as hostages too. But Amanda – no shirker in the pretty blond category herself – soon sweet talks Holden into letting everyone go.
Once the hostages are released, she purrs, “May I kiss you?” – a line that’s been used by no real hostage negotiator, ever. But Holden goes for it. Moments before their lips meet, a sniper sends a bullet through the kid’s skull. The blood that spatters Amanda’s face was certainly more pleasant than kissing this psycho would’ve been.
Verdict: B+
What They Got Right:
Truth is stranger than fiction, and the unbelievably deranged character of Holden Chase was based on the unbelievably deranged real murderer Elliott Rodger. The privileged, Hollywood-raised Rodger wrote a 100,000 word “manifesto” describing how women rejected him despite how superior he was. And so he decided to kill everyone. He wrote:
“My orchestration of the Day of Retribution is my attempt to do everything, in my power, to destroy everything I cannot have….All of those beautiful girls I’ve desired so much in my life, but can never have because they despise and loathe me, I will destroy. I will kill them all and make them suffer, just as they have made me suffer. It is only fair.”
A day before his attack, he posted a video to YouTube, in which he sat in the leather seats of his BMW and gave a chilling monologue, delivered in a flat voice:
The next day, he killed his roommates in his apartment, then went to a sorority house. When no one answered the door, he killed some passers-by, then went to a deli and shot another person. He hit several people in his car along the away. Eventually, he turned the gun on himself.
The tragedy led to the usual debate about gun control and mental health in America. Congress put together a resolution condemning the day – but did pretty much nothing else. Every few months, it seems, there’s another crazed young man with too much hate and too many easily accessible guns. What will it take, America?
Twitter users responded with their own experiences with misogyny, using the hashtag #YesAllWomen. It’s worth checking out this compilation of the most powerful tweets.
On to another tragic plot point – why didn’t Olivia and Nick didn’t detain Holden on his bike? They were right – at that point, they didn’t have enough evidence. And when the crowd whipped out their cell phones to videotape the argument, Nick worried about the Eric Garner case.
Eric Garner was a NY man who reportedly stepped in to break up a fight. When NYPD arrived on the scene, they inexplicably arrested Garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. The police put him in a choke hold, while he cried out that he couldn’t breathe. Garner died. The entire appalling incident was captured on another man’s cell phone – leading to a huge public outcry and changes in police policy. More and more, civilian cameras are capturing interactions with police – and the resulting accountability is forcing reform.
What They Got Wrong:
I couldn’t believe Olivia left her baby in the ICU! At that point, one woman had suffered some superficial stab wounds and a groping. There are 100 other SVU detectives – let them take care of it! I feel for her; as a working mom, I’ve been in a similar situation – a baby in a hospital, while work was calling. But I got a colleague to cover for me, and used sick leave. Every working mom I know would do the same. Olivia is going to have to learn how to balance work life with mommyhood.
That said, Noah’s old rib fractures were very realistic. In child abuse cases, we would often see a child in the hospital for a new injury – a broken leg, say – and in the course of examination, we would then find evidence of older injuries that were never treated. Broken ribs are a common healed injury. Bone scans of at-risk toddlers can provide a heartbreaking glimpse of a life that has already been filled with too much tragedy.
Finally, the execution of the search warrants were off tonight. Just because the police have a warrant doesn’t mean they can look through everything in the house. Our detectives only had permission to look for Holden’s knife. But they started clicking through his computer. They wouldn’t find a knife there. If they wanted access to e-files, they needed to present a judge with probable cause that they would find evidence of a crime on the computer. And Olivia can’t just shoulder her way into Holden’s neighbor’s apartment. She’d need a separate warrant for that – even if the neighbor is dead on the floor.
James Pollock says
16 October, 2014 at 3:16 am“Just because the police have a warrant doesn’t mean they can look through everything in the house.”
No, although by saying they’re looking for something small, they can open any container big enough to hold it. And, of course, once they’re lawfully inside, anything they can see in plain sight is admissible.
“Our detectives only had permission to look for Holden’s knife. But they started clicking through his computer.”
I got the impression that Mr. Psycho had staged the computer to draw attention to the manifesto, having neatly printed it out for them.
This is the point where the police’s interests may vary from the prosecutor’s. The prosecutor, of course, wants the police to (lawfully) collect enough evidence to obtain a conviction. The police, on the other hand, want to capture a spree murderer as quickly as possible.
There are tow penalties on the police for violating someone’s rights… first, they can be sued for it, in a section 1983 civil rights suit. Second, evidence seized in violation of a person’s civil right can be declared inadmissible in a trial against them. (In this case, neither penalty will be applied, as dead people cannot file lawsuits, nor do they receive criminal trials. Of course, at the time, our plucky detectives did not know that Mr. Psycho would not be captured alive.) With the motivation of “stop the spree killer” on one side, and “the city of NY might get sued later” on the other, it’s not hard to understand why they did what they did.
“Olivia can’t just shoulder her way into Holden’s neighbor’s apartment.”
I think there’s a good case for good-faith belief that exigent circumstances existed. They went to check on the neighbors because they knew that Mr. Psycho had a grudge against them and was attacking people aginst whom he had grudges, and the door was unlocked.
More signifcantly, Mr. Psycho doesn’t have a privacy interest in his neighbor’s apartment; the evidence within is admissible against HIM because his rights weren’t violated.
Allison Leotta says
16 October, 2014 at 9:52 amJames, great points, as always!
JDP says
16 October, 2014 at 10:57 amI thought it was really irresponsible of the writers to have Holden’s mom say he was “on the spectrum.” While I realize this was an easy way to get their point across that he was smart and socially awkward, it is just lazy writing. As more children (and adults) are diagnosed with ASD it is important to not perpetuate a stereotype. It is a disorder that is already so misunderstood. My son is “on the spectrum.” I was irked that SVU would have a dangerous psychopath labeled as ASD rather than a sociopath or narcissistic.
James Pollock says
16 October, 2014 at 3:26 pmThey also said he was a male, and a human being, both categories I happen to belong to.
There are millions of people “on the spectrum”, and one “virgin killer”.
There are millions of people with medical degrees, there was one Dr. Crippen.
“I was irked that SVU would have a dangerous psychopath labeled as ASD rather than a sociopath or narcissistic.”
Because people can’t be both?
Naaman Brown says
18 October, 2014 at 6:06 amLabelling kids with Alphabet disorders is big business these days, and I can understand a parent upset that a crime show villian gets labelled as an ABC or XYZ. The ignorant public who take these shows seriously are shallow enough to stereotype all ABC or XYZ with the villian. Specific descriptors like “sociopath” or “narcissitic” accurately describes root cause and bad behavior better than ABC or XYZ labels that get broadly pasted.
The favorite analysis I have read of a real life bad acting person was “schizotypal with a narcissistic axis”. He would lash out at people with threats of arson or rape over little or nothing then portray himself as the victim of bullying when people reacted to his threats. In fact, much like Holden in this past weeks’ episode.
Thil says
20 October, 2014 at 8:40 pmWell I believe in giving film and TV makers the benefit of the doubt in these situations I must say I think your profoundly naïve if you don’t think it’s likely that most of the time they are just playing into the audience’s stereotypes for the sake of ease.
James Pollock says
20 October, 2014 at 9:20 pmSometimes they structure things in a way they know is wrong.
For example, the way a suspect is arrested, and they everybody starts preparing for trial. In real life, the trial is months away, sometimes years. Or the way the same couple of characters always seem to be on the scene. Or, as in L&O shows, the way a main characters testifies to what some other character saw or said.
Sometimes, they just make mistakes due to not knowing what they’re talking about. Virtually ANY scene on ANY TV show about hackers is laughably wrong. The writers of “How to Get Away With Murder” either decided not to pay a legal consultant, or decided that the advice they were getting was getting in their way. They have a person allegedly teaching criminal law to first-year law students who employs some of the students DURING THE SAME SEMESTER who tells a roomful of law students about how important it is to lie effectively if you want to be a defense counsel. Fortunately, these fictional law students will take a mandatory legal ethics class before they can graduate!
Bottom line… they don’t care if they’re accurate. They care if people are watching.
Thil says
20 October, 2014 at 10:19 pmSpreading inaccuracies is different when they are likely to hurt people. No one’s going to get bullied at school because SVU didn’t accurately depict trial proceedings. Someone might because they depict autistic people as crazy killers.
“Bottom line… they don’t care if they’re accurate. They care if people are watching” not an excuse
Naaman Brown says
18 October, 2014 at 6:09 am“More and more, civilian cameras are capturing interactions with police – and the resulting accountability is forcing reform.”
Hot button issue at lawyers’ blog Volokh Conspiracy (now a blog at Washington Post website, formerly a stand-alone blog; Eugene Volokh is a strong advocate of citizens’ 1A, 2A and 4A rights) is the First Amendment (1A) right to video and audio record public interactions with police. Some jurisdictions’ “reform” is to criminalize citizens who record interactions with police.
Thil says
20 October, 2014 at 8:30 pmFor a few seconds at the start I thought the SVU guys had just hired a really abysmal actor then I realized what they were referencing and remembered that Elliott Rodger really did sound that flat and stilted in his delusional monologues internet
Olivier leaving the baby for work did seem out of character for her. You can get away with the sort of thing if the main character is a Gregory House type who’s supposed to be messed up and weird priorities, Olivier is supposed to have more common sense than that I thought.
James Pollock says
20 October, 2014 at 9:29 pmI’d argue common sense says that she should leave. She can’t do anything to help the baby recover by being there. It isn’t rational thought that says stay, it’s emotion.
When my daughter was a newborn, she had a case of meningitis. Viral meningitis is annoying, bacterial meningitis is lefe-threatening, and you can’t tell which is which right away. So my daughter stayed in the hospital for a couple of days. I went to work. Now, before you call me a monster (I SAID BEFORE!), A) I’m the father, and our sexist society still has different expectations of fathers and mothers, and B) her mother stayed in the hospital the full time, because the baby was still eating every two hours, and C) if she’d been old enough to tell if I was there or not, my decision would have been different.
Finally, stop using his name. He went on a killing spree so people would notice/remember him. What he deserves is namelessness.
Thil says
20 October, 2014 at 10:11 pmwhen you were at work were you doing something dangerous and distracting (like trying to hunt down a serial killer) that would prevent you from being in touch with the hospital if anything happened?