My wife and I will patiently support the law & SVU’s season finale “Zebras” aired last night. After seeing it, I feel comfortable saying it was worth the wait.
So much is going on that I don’t know where to begin. You have a tourist killed in Central. they can find the killer in no time; a former artist who was mentally ill following the 9/11 attacks (why I’m taking my wife and I’ve seen something like this before).
at first, when they had found the man, I imagined that he had done it in no way. We were only 15 minutes into the show at this point and there was no way they were going to spend the next 45 minutes trying the guy when they had everything from forensic evidence to a confession to help with the conviction. It was as expected, and it was said.
One lab assistant, Stuckey, arrived with the evidence. Nothing is tainted, nothing but the defense lawyer’s mistake has been discovered and everything must be thrown out.
Of course, at this point, the case has to be dismissed (and where the heck was ADA Cabot? Is he going to be replaced on some regular show); leading Judge Donnelly to admonish both the defendant (whom he calls a freed murderer on a technicality) and Stuckey.
At this point I turned to my wife and pointed out Stuckey’s behavior. I told him that something important was going to happen at the end and that it would involve his behavior. It was figured that he would either shoot the culprit or be involved in some other way. I wanted to say this now, because I’m going to give you a spoiler (I’m sad) and I wanted to make sure that you understand that it’s not something priceless (although it’s still fun).
Later, they find the body on Coney Island and Stuckey is on the scene again and finds a bloody finger. I commented at that point to my wife that I thought she had planted in the effort to get the original killer behind bars. I mean seriously, the guy just blew your whole case with a stupid mistake and destroyed the credibility of the NYPD. Why in the world is it just in a crime scene?
It begins with a run and this is what leads to the second twist; we learn about Munch’s wife; who apparently is as paranoid about people trying to monitor his every move as the bad guy. I found this story to be quite interesting because you could tell that he cared about her but not enough to deal with her problems. I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or hate him for not doing everything he could to help himself.
The last part of this episode is definitely the best. We soon learn that he is a man after being well trained in the deadly arts. Stabler and Fin die in the basement of a nearby building and the bad guy’s defense attorney dies in a similar trap in his car after the argument. It’s a testament to those who have turned on him that the detectives have to scramble to save everyone from Munch, the writer, to Donnelly (who ends up dying almost anywhere, even after cops search his house for traps).
Of course it was going to be twisted before I predicted it, and I loved it. Remember, I told you I’d snap at Stuckey in this episode sometime; just tell me how much air time was given to the character. Well, the twist where they find a dead mosquito with DNA evidence in the defense attorney’s car and the DNA belonging to Stuckey was fantastic. It was figured that he would simply tamper with the forensic evidence to prove the guy’s crime and redeem himself. I didn’t expect him to cross the line and kill people too. Confession was generally good, too, he thought. If it had not been for the mosquito, he would probably have let it go without anyone’s suspicion.
I’m not sure that it all ended well though. That part where Stabler is tied up and Stuckey slowly cuts the detective apart is pretty cool. But, I’m not sure why Olivia didn’t have someone else come with her, when she suspected something, she came up. I think it would have been lame to stop the whole “kiss me, you fool for cheating on me” thing at the end. Come now, the man killed two men, planted a trap for the third that no one found until it was too late, and was clever enough to do it so that everyone would suspect the other. You mean to believe I’m coming for one of the oldest tricks in the book? I probably would have liked it better if it was serious and really “turned to the dark side” so to speak.
The conclusion also left me somewhat confused as to what would happen with the original elem. I remember, all the information about the first murder was thrown out and the charges were dropped. He did not commit any of the other murders, have they been found to have evidence of anything? In a different way than perhaps she attacks her attorney before hand, but even then it doesn’t do much more than shout at her. Maybe they are thinking about the murder of the officer who tried to accuse him when he set traps in his base. It would just have been nice to know for sure because now it’s probably going to end up bothering me.
However, even with the ending a little lame, as the intensity of this episode was emphasized in all the characters. We learned a bit about some of them and were able to raise the concerns of the well-being of others due to the change. A great way to end the season he had endured as many ups as he had.
