One can see a pretty strong decline in SVU scripts by this point, away from episodes dealing with even modestly complex drama and titling more and more toward formulaic and often polemical melodrama. There are two stories here, not exactly running in parallel. The first concerns a trashy, manipulative sister for Rollins -- herself a character that vacillates between mopey and melodramatic -- who probably seemed like an ingredient that would "spice things up," that is if you think like a 17-year-old. Instead, she's mostly annoying. The second, more interesting story concerns an Olympic hopeful who wants to be an escort for reasons that are not entirely clear. She could be a complex character, with a complex motivation, but instead, seems merely an excuse to ask (yet, again) whether sex workers can be victims of assault (of course they can, something that should not only be obvious through common sense but from dozens of other SVU episodes). Worse, there's a tired gimmick that is meant to suggest her motivations but comes across like an after-school special. Dialogue is stilted and obvious in its connect-the-dots way of framing the story more as an editorial: "I don't want to be the kind of husband who checks up on his wife." Who actually talks like that? It's yet another SVU story where the men outside of SVU are either horrible, sneering villains (the nasally bland Wheeler) or mind-numbingly ignorant bystanders. SVU used to let the viewers come to some conclusions, but those days are gone.
Review of Heightened Emotions
