User Reviews

Tom Irwin is stabbed in a parking lot in a most indecent part of his body. It's kind of touch and go to see if he's even going to survive. But the nature of the stabbing is what brings SVU into the case.

Irwin and his wife at first glance are the most all American of couples, their own teenage daughter has just started dating under the strictest of supervision. But in actuality these two belong to a swinger's club and it's their activities there that get Irwin stabbed up.

Or more Irwin's in particular. He's fallen for a variation of the old badger game by a pair of con artists the beautiful and seductive Rose McGowan and her biker boyfriend Ryan Hurst.

But that's far from the end of it. This story ends in tragedy all around for victims and perpetrators and nobody here is really all one or the other.

Rose McGowan will certainly get the male hormones jumping. And Irwin proves to be one huge patsy. Nice performances all around.

It is a story full of turns where you curse the victim separately and curse the delinquents separately. Everyone here is bad person. The most innocent: ones are mother and daughter and the couple who matched Olivia at the party. They're also a little bit bad... not in the criminal sense. In short, it is a weird episode.

I laughed out loud at what the couple who initially found the injured victim did to him. Even they have become wicked without realizing it.

(Now watching Svu is like getting used to the deer-hunting crocodile, lion, and snake in natgeo documentaries.)

It is self-consistent and gripping, with many twists at story. It surprised me and frankly I liked it.

It's like you're in a speeding car. You dodge the road with constant bends and turns. But the last hard crash and boom...

Olivia and Elliot are beautiful.

It was clear from the beginning of the year that Elliot would go, right? There are so many Liv and El contacts from him this season, right?

You're bad, you're really badass : / Loves ;)

After Halloran, Paxton, and Morales, B. D. Wong is also leaving the drama. When the familiar faces are gone, there is a feeling of emptiness. The final blow hasn't come yet, Elliot...

I really liked Rose McGowan in Scream but she makes this episode almost too hard to watch. The acting is so bad and the plastic surgery is beyond distracting. The cherry on top is that she is portraying an irresistible woman. It's too difficult to take seriously.

Season 12 did have a reasonably high number of episodes that did little for me on first viewing and almost all of them were still majorly flawed on re-watches. Despite finding myself being disappointed by at least one episode in each season from Season 7 onwards, all the episodes of 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' have been re-watched at least once when the show reruns on television every night in order to be fair. And also because there have been episodes that have improved on re-watch.

"Bombshell" is not one of the episodes of Season 12 that improved. In fact, like "Dirty", "Spectacle" and "Bully" before it, it fares worse now. All the major flaws that bothered me on first watch still are major flaws now but even more glaring, and like those three mentioned episodes more problems arose. Will say again that this is not coming from someone who hates 'Special Victims Unit', actually love a vast majority of Seasons 1-6 and love quite a large number of Season 7 onwards episodes and still stick with the show due to being so fond of many episodes, individual scenes and guest stars.

There are good things here in "Bombshell". The production values are still slick and suitably gritty (without being too heavy in it). The regular acting is without issues, with Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay being solid as rocks, and what particularly makes the episode bearable is the great chemistry between Stabler and Olivia.

Have always loved their partnership and it was often the show's heart when Stabler was still present. The episode does start off intriguingly.

It is a shame though that it loses its way too early and never really recovers. It is a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, meaning too much going on and feeling over-stuffed in the case. It also feels bland and phoned in due to pedestrian pacing and very little new done with too many recognisable elements in plot and characterisation. Further ruined by an over-emphasis on shock value, and this felt gratuitous and not very tasteful. Especially the twincest and Stabler's line about the transvestite.

Will say that "Bombshell" does try very hard to be a 'Special Victims Unit' episode, but this felt forced and only the beginning and the Stabler and Olivia interaction felt like 'Special Victims Unit' in a case that felt more like 'Criminal Intent' in subject. The dialogue is very overripe and the writers could have had a lot more fun with the dialogue for Stabler and Olivia, it's thanks to Meloni and Hargitay that the interaction between them worked so well. Usually have no problem with the music, but it comes over as intrusive and repetitive. One of the worst aspects is the performance of Rose McGowan, her role needed a good deal of edge and she was a complete plastic blank in it.

Overall, very little explosive and closer to being a bomb. 4/10.

This would have been a decent episode but Rose McGowan's poor acting and silicon face made everything sour.