User Reviews

This is the kind of episode, where you really have to pay attention too or you'll miss little details here & there, that have significant meaning later. The acting is superb, as usual. A cop is attacked and sexually assaulted in this one. Which is pretty rare in SVU episodes, especially in the older ones. Business women, house wives, college & high school students, kids(which are the worst) but rarely cops...But Olivia is at odds. The victim (who happens to be Olivia's training officer and helped mold Olivia into the brilliant, bad*** we see today lol) changes her story all of sudden....and then recants her entire assault. (Which the audience is shown parts of, at the beginning of the show, so we know something went down). So Olivia can either play ball and drop it, and turn a blind eye to a friend/colleague (even at her request)....Or she can do what Olivia does, and what her training officer taught her to do, and that's use her skills and get to the truth despite all the "blue line" crap. And investigate...."Ya know" what cops are suppose to do lol. Every SVU fan already knows the answer to this. No "spoiler" disclaimer needed

With "Paranoia", we are a little halfway through Season 2 and in the second half of it (the thirteenth of twenty one). All the previous episodes of the second season of 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' range to me between decent and outstanding, with only "Asunder" disappointing slightly. So of course one understandably would have high hopes for "Paranoia", as well as that it did have an interesting subject that is hardly irrelevant now.

"Paranoia" joins the quite high number of great Season 2 episodes and ranks towards the best of them. It makes an interesting subject even more so and delivers well on any tension and emotion. As well as characterisation, with a victim worth rooting for, a perpetrator that makes the skin crawl and development for Stabler and Benson. Things that 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' excelled so well in when in its prime, shame that in my view generally it just doesn't feel the same in recent years.

Have very little, and still have very little (although the show in my opinion is not as good now), to criticise the production values for. They came on a lot here since 'Special Victims Unit' first started, and the show looked good in its Season 1 too, especially in the editing which is sharper and more fluid. The photography is still as slick as ever and the locations are well used. The music is only used when necessary and doesn't overbear when it is.

The writing is taut, intelligent and one thinks hard during and after watching the episode. The case is quite a complex one, a bit too much so at times (my only complaint of "Paranoia" really) but also very compelling with a keeping-one-guessing mystery, the police tensions has intensity and one really roots for the case to be solved and have a satisfying outcome. Benson brings a lot of heart to the episode and it is great to see how much it means to her to get justice for the very rootable (apart from the way she tells them to leave her alone) victim. Without getting unprofessional or too personally involved, like it did admittedly in "Abuse", though one does understand her good intentions in that episode.

Stabler also has a great and quite heartfelt subplot that doesn't thankfully get too soap-operatic or get in the way too much of the case, did find that the later seasons didn't do so well with balancing cases and personal life subplots but that may be just me. All the characters are compellingly written, it was hard to not root for the victim and the perpetrator is one nasty piece of work. Christopher Meloni and particularly Mariska Hargitay are very good as usual, while Khandi Alexander is affecting and James Hanlon gives one the creeps.

Concluding, absolutely great if not quite one of the best. 9/10