Procedural Junkie: Jennifer Love Hewitt vs. Sideshow Bob on 'Law & Order: SVU'

Jennifer L.H. did a fine job on that episode. Yes, it had an over the top plot, but it was no more ridiculous than the actual fact they wanted to shed light on. It is completely unacceptable that thousands of rape cases remain unsolved in this country because there is no money to process the rape kits. I admire Mariska for working so hard to bring awareness of this tragedy to as many people as possible.

Seriously, who is the casting director on this show and what nefarious powers does he/she have to make all these TV and movie stars portray rape victims and rapists? The celebrity guest stars for this show have been insane. I am just wondering why. Do famous actors secretly want to play victims/perpetrators of vicious, heinous trauma?

I see another guest actress Emmy nomination coming from SVU for LJH along with Joan Cusack from last week

Dude, you are an amazing critic.
I just keep flashing back to the horrid memories of ‘The Other Guys’ every time i hear Ice-T’s voice. How do you cope?

The snarkiness of this review is unneccesary. The entire point of this episode was to draw attention to the THOUSANDS OF RAPE KITS THAT ARE BACKLOGGED AND NEVER PROCESSED. From Mariska’s own blog:
“The episode, “Behave,” shows not only how traumatizing a sexual assault can be, but how complicated, difficult—and yes, traumatizing—the road to justice can be. When Vicki makes the courageous decision to have a rape kit performed she thinks that she will finally get the justice she deserves. But what we learn in the episode is that simply having a rape kit collected is not a guarantee that anything will be done with the evidence.

That is a lamentable—and unacceptable—reality of rape in the United States. Experts in the federal government, including the Department of Justice and members of Congress, have estimated that hundreds of thousands of sexual assault evidence kits are sitting untested in police and crime labs throughout the country.
With rape, the victim’s body is the crime scene is the victim’s own body is . When a person reports a sexual assault, she—or he—can undergo an exam to gather DNA evidence from her or his body. Rape kit testing can identify an unknown assailant, confirm a suspect’s contact with the victim, corroborate the victim’s account of the assault, identify serial rapists by connecting crime scene evidence from separate incidents, and exonerate innocent suspects. National studies have shown that cases in which rape kit evidence was tested were more likely to proceed through the criminal justice system and lead to arrests.

But the benefit of testing rape kits goes beyond providing prosecutors with investigative tools to bring offenders to justice. It goes beyond introducing the clarity of DNA evidence into the arena of rape and sexual assault, the crimes with the lowest reporting, arrest, and prosecution rates in the United States. These kits represent human beings who have suffered greatly. Testing their rape kits sends victims the fundamental and crucial message that they and their cases matter.

As many of you know, in addition to my role as Olivia on SVU, I’m also I am the founder and president of the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization that works to bring healing, education, and empowerment to survivors, and awareness to the public about sexual and family violence. When I first learned about the rape kit backlog, I was shocked that something like this could exist in the United States. Then I, along with Joyful Heart’s board and staff, was moved to action. Fortunately, we are not alone. Law enforcement, public officials, and advocates have paved the way and continue to work in partnership with us on this important issue.”

I totally hate how SVU tries to be all cool, ‘Oh yeah we should have her fly across the country to LA for this episode” Like they tried to make it all deep and sad and I think JHL did a pretty good job, but like all the non realistic drama? Give me a break!!!

I thought JLH did a great job.