Though I think in L&O: SVU's over-a-decade-long run, that the writers have done their best to "spread the love around" when it comes to the more personal stories involving the detectives, I used to bitch and complain about Mariska Hargitay's Olivia Benson getting the lion's share of the Emmy-worthy episodes, (and don't get me wrong - I LOVES me some Mariska.) Goodness knows that the more intimate details of these crimefighters' lives are usually meagerly doled out in service of the story, and when there is a character-rich episode, it's always a "very special two-parter", or a one-shot deal that blows the doors off.
This particular episode, putting Elliot Stabler's woes front and center for our perusal once again, is a stunner. He gets pulled off of a pretty serious rape case when something more intense happens: his son, Dickie and a ne'er-do-well former junkie pal of his come up missing, and even worse - they're connected to the very same case.
Over the course of solving this crime, Elliot is forced to deal with some issues that he has to admit he's done a less than stellar job of addressing: his temper (BIG surprise there...NOT!), his inability to connect or communicate with his son, and his own personal prejudices, which prevent him from seeing a crucial piece of the puzzle in the case, that could've prevented a senseless tragedy from occurring.
Because he makes playing Stabler look so easy, we might be tempted from time to time to forget that Chris Meloni is an actor who has a pretty damn good handle on his craft. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the closing scene of this episode, when he is faced with what has to be every father's worse nightmare: the prospect of losing their son for good. That scene alone is Emmy-worthy, in my not-so-humble-opinion, and it definitely makes up for the times when such opportunities have been few and far between for Elliot...and for Chris.
This particular episode, putting Elliot Stabler's woes front and center for our perusal once again, is a stunner. He gets pulled off of a pretty serious rape case when something more intense happens: his son, Dickie and a ne'er-do-well former junkie pal of his come up missing, and even worse - they're connected to the very same case.
Over the course of solving this crime, Elliot is forced to deal with some issues that he has to admit he's done a less than stellar job of addressing: his temper (BIG surprise there...NOT!), his inability to connect or communicate with his son, and his own personal prejudices, which prevent him from seeing a crucial piece of the puzzle in the case, that could've prevented a senseless tragedy from occurring.
Because he makes playing Stabler look so easy, we might be tempted from time to time to forget that Chris Meloni is an actor who has a pretty damn good handle on his craft. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the closing scene of this episode, when he is faced with what has to be every father's worse nightmare: the prospect of losing their son for good. That scene alone is Emmy-worthy, in my not-so-humble-opinion, and it definitely makes up for the times when such opportunities have been few and far between for Elliot...and for Chris.