SVU Episode #19: Bombshell

Summary:  I feel like I have whiplash, there were so many twists in this episode.  I’m not sure I can sum them up in a paragraph.  Here goes . . .  A middle-aged guy is stabbed in the groin and falls into a coma.  The detectives meet his seemingly perfect family, but soon learn that he and the Mrs. frequented The Swing Set, a swingers club.  Olivia and Elliott go undercover as a married couple experimenting with sex (with some fun tension between the partners).  At the club, they learn that Mr. Mid-Life Crisis fell in love with a beautiful young woman (the “bombshell” of the title), and felt sorry for her because she had an abusive boyfriend.  While the detectives are at the club, Bombshell’s scruffy biker boyfriend shows up and growls menacingly until Elliott arrests him on suspicion of knifing the older guy.  But Mr. Mid-Life wakes from his coma and says that his wife is the one who stabbed him.  The wife confesses.  The cops still want to arrest the biker boyfriend, but the DA says they don’t have enough evidence (she’s right).  The cops are still worried Biker might beat up Bombshell, so they follow him – and find the two tangling tongues.  Turns out, Biker and Bombshell are not exes – they’re still together.  The cops arrest both of them for fraud.  But Mr. Mid-Life is in love.  He bails out Bombshell, quits his job and is ready to start a new life with her . . . until the cops analyze DNA evidence and reveal that Bombshell and Biker are brother/sister.  Gross.  They’re also suspects in a murder in Miami and possibly grifters who use the battered-girlfriend act as a way to get cash from married swingers. In a fit of jealous rage, Mr. Mid-Life murders Biker.

Verdict: B-

What they got wrong:  Getting a married guy to drain his daughter’s college fund for you is rotten, but it’s not a crime.  Olivia and Elliott arrested the Biker/Bombshell duo for defrauding and extorting Mr. Mid-Life, but I don’t think they had much of a case.  If they did, too many presents between lovers would be subject to some kind of fraud claim.  The judicial system would be overwhelmed.  Where would we even start to draw the line among all the little lies lovers tell each other? You appear buxom, but only because you’re wearing a Miracle Bra.  Fraud charges?  You still hook up occasionally with the guy you call your “ex”– are you guilty of extortion?  I don’t think so.  I thought this was a pretty weak arrest.
            Also, in real life, we wouldn’t see two cops so concerned for the safety of a domestic violence victim that they’d tail her boyfriend.  I wish we had a system that could afford that kind of resources.  I’m sure many cops would be concerned, but in the real world, Olivia and Elliott would have been handling two unrelated 911 calls rather than following Biker as he strolled through Manhattan.

What they got right:  Remember that big geyser-like blood-spurt at the beginning of the episode, when the bystander in the parking garage pulled the knife out of Mr. Mid-Life’s groin?  I was skeptical about that much blood, but my brother-in-law, Mike, is a physician’s assistant, and he assures me that this was realistic.  Mike says the femoral artery contains all the blood that flows through your entire body, and if that artery is punctured, the blood can spurt to the ceiling.  Mike suggests that if you ever get stabbed in the femoral artery, that you leave the knife in place until a doctor can get it out.  I hope that you will never have to use this tip.
                 It’s also true that “swinging” isn’t illegal.  But, as we saw tonight, it might get you stabbed in the groin. 

All views expressed on this blog are mine alone, and don’t necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Justice.