User Reviews

This episode is INCREDIBLY well done. Not only is their portrayal of the danger of "Incels" realistic and hard-hitting, the performances of Carol and her attacker are stellar.

The writers did such a tidy, informative job of encompassing all the important information about a danger that most probably dismiss as "silly." I mean, let's not forget, an Incel really did drive a truck up onto the sidewalk in Toronto and kill a woman because he was single. As much as some want to dismiss this episode as far-fetched ... it's not.

The twist at the end is so hard-hitting! What a poetic gut-wrench, and a perfect example of how what Incels toxically obsess over can easily be something so tiny that they miss altogether.

One of my top favorite episodes from this season. I'd even like to see them maybe revisit this topic again in future. Kudos to SVU on this one.

It may be embarrassing that I actually knew what an incel was before this episode, but that is besides the point. These are exactly the kind of people that would end up on this show so it made for an entertaining and somewhat believable episode.

Not the strongest of the season, but definitely entertaining.

Once upon a time, it was possible to feel at least some sympathy for nerds, but now that being a nerd has become mainstream, the real nerds -- not just the ones with the dorky haircuts and the birth control glasses for fashion, but the ones picked on, overlooked, and mistreated simply for being inferior -- have slid further away. No longer are they merely despised but instead hated as villains.

Of course, they must do something to earn this, so the concept of the "incel" was born. This is the nerd who, enraged over not getting any sexual gratification, turns to bigotry and violence as an outlet. Incels online have posted some of the most horrendous things about women -- and, yes, there don't seem to be any incel women -- and earned the wrath of any numbers of "woke" people. How much of what's posted is real and how much is fabricated or exaggerated, who knows. It's the Internet. But it has spawned a vocal reaction and another soap box from which to condemn others. Worse, some individuals identifying as incels have acted out on their violent threats.

So, this SVU episode should be timely. If that were the only criterion, it would be a fine episode. But as with nearly all SVU episodes within the past five years, it's written at such a pedestrian, connect-the-dotes level, there are no surprises and no genuine moments. You'll feel manipulated by writers who appear to have read a Cosmo article and sketched out the most obvious of elements and used the most cliched of concepts to bring this clumsy melodrama to life. It has all the subtlety of a Mack truck.

The gist is that a series of attacks are happening, when at first seemingly random victims are found to be linked, perhaps by name. It's clear there's a pattern villain out there, but what's the pattern and why? Before you can say "Could it be incels"" here comes the Internet, and we're introduced to two sniveling, goofy-looking twerps who live cretinous lives and hate women for not loving them. They're probably on the autism spectrum and their hate is rooted on some level at their being abused -- shunned and ridiculed during their formative years -- but none of that matters. They're villains, pure and simple.

That may sound like a defense of incels. It's not. Someone who chooses bigotry and violence doesn't deserve any. But good drama relies on tension, and in years past, SVU would have tried to have played with our feelings a little more, leaving us conflicted. After all, how many episodes have said the abuser was abused to make us, if only a little, squirm at tragedy? Here, there is no gray area. These jerks may have been picked on for no other reason than they got unlucky at the DNA wheel, but we'll be having no sympathy here.

What's left is a heavy-handed, uncomplicated assault on the incel movement. This may work well on the simple-minded -- who are mistakenly thinking right now this review is a defense of incels when it's not -- but not the more discerning viewer. They're an easy target. That's part of the reason they're in the situation they're in to begin with. Better drama, though, is messy. It makes us question our views and informs us of ideas that, perhaps, we've not considered. When the deck is stacked this much, it's not drama. It's an After School Special.