So sick of people posting 1 star reviews for a still brilliant show most of them targeting politics or making out things are unrealistic. Neither is true however many episodes are extremely hard to watch because of the painful, traumatic experiences of the victims. This is one of them so I only mark this 2 points off because if that. But it's still a dramatic suspenseful he said she said episode that is brilliantly played out as usual. After 20 years the writing of SVU has never wavered. I seriously dint know how they keep up such quality!
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lbowdls25 September 2019
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shahla_selena13 January 2022So, so bad - I am literally surprised this got the green light to aor. The girl Lourdes was so unconvincing . Her acting was marginally better in part two. Miguel not much better. Storyline interesting enough but overall an underwhelming episode in an underwhelming season.
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bobcobb30111 June 2018An interesting case here and while it wasn't exactly something we haven't seen yet, it came off as a big deal and felt season finale-worthy.
The acting was a little weak, but my bigger problem was the show's predictability. We knew that he was going to actually be guilty. Just once I would like to see the show flip the script and have the woman as the one who was bad. -
saramgia4 July 2020A community gives its nannies a "Mommy's Night"--night off to go out and have fun. The nannies go to a nightclub. While there, she sees the coyote who sat in her mother's kitchen, promised her a better life as a nanny in America, and subsequently tortured and raped her throughout the journey. He doesn't remember her. She goes to a condo with him and once there, points a gun at him and demands a full confession. The audience then learns the condominium is rigged to live feed to the dark web. Lieutenant Benson volunteers (again) to go in unarmed and negotiate with the woman to release the coyote, but that's not the end.
The woman's story is representative of what women experience. It's realistic that she would carry after having been victimized. The concept of meeting one's rapist in a random Manhattan night club is the stuff of fantasy, but film is the stuff of fantasy. If you suspend your disbelief on that incident, it's a good revenge story. It plays out realistically.
The plot is perfect. The script is well written and well acted. My favorite part was that the lawyer for the human traffickers was named Efrain Hernandez, which is one letter off from the name of a sociopath I know. Don't you love it when that happens? -
bkoganbing27 May 2018SPOILER: Way back when SVU debuted the episode concerned some women from Kosovo recognized a Serbian terrorist who was a serial rapist of Moslem women. 19 years later while at a club in Manhattan, Genesis Rodriguez spots the coyote took her across the border. Carlos Miranda. She instantly snaps, but she's worked out somewhat whatever she might do if she ran into this creep again.
She comes on strong and Miranda thinks he's getting a little something something. But she pulls a gun on him and takes him hostage and pistol whips the older man she was staying with.
An open and unsecured cellphone gives her situation away. But Olivia Benson gets caught up by the perpetrator in a truly stupid move which is why the episode gets so low a rating. She and another patrolman are now hostages as well.
While Miranda protests his innocence, maybe he just looks like the coyote who did her wrong. Mariska Hargitay starts to slowly believe her. Just a question of reaching Rodriguez.
Unlike the other reviewers I was blown away by Rodriguez. She is one scary and wronged woman. She was the best thing about this story. -
TheLittleSongbird7 February 2023First impressions on my first watch when "Remember Me" first aired were not good at all, with the dull, repetitive story, the unspeakably bad guest turn and Olivia's behaviour particularly standing out in a bad way. 'Law and Order: Special Victims' varied wildly when it came to episodes revolving around hostage situations or have one as part of a case. When it did it well, it was hard hitting and suspenseful, like the climax of Season 14's "Poisoned Motive". When done badly, like here, it was needlessly melodramatic and severely lacking in tension.
"Remember Me" on rewatch is every bit as bad as remembered. Even worse actually, with the flaws being the same but even stronger and also managed to find more wrong it. Is it irredeemable? No, the worst episodes (such as "Intimidation Game") are very bad they all still had a couple of halfway decent things and "Remember Me" did have those. That however were lost underneath everything that was wrong. For me, and this was true for first watch, this is the worst episode of Season 19.
Beginning with the very few things that were good, some of the production values were slick and gritty enough. The music has moments of unsettlement without being too intrusive.
Had a low opinion on the acting this time, but there was an exception and that was a sturdy Ice-T who was the only one who seemed involved and concerned properly about what was a potentially tense situation. Appreciated that he wasn't underused
Did on the other hand feel that this time the acting was poor near-all round, something that even most of the other lesser episodes didn't suffer from. This is including the regulars, Mariska Hargitay more often than not is good and more and even brilliant, but she is at her most one dimensional here with perhaps two or three repeated expressions. Genesis Rodriguez's overwrought performance particularly sticks out like a sore thumb. Didn't find myself caring for any of the characters, including and especially Rodriguez's because of how extremely she behaves.
The episode moreover suffers from a very thin story that would only just about been enough to fill 25 minutes or so but feels really over stretched. And from a dull pace, especially in the second half where the story was clearly struggling to keep the exhaust fumes going. The dialogue is very repetitive, as is everything that goes on in the apartment, everything regarding the past crime was like going round in wildly melodramatic circles. The tension is severely lacking, the climax is not nail biting or suspenseful but rather whatever.
Like most episodes from Season 19, this reviewer really hated Olivia's character writing, coming over as self-righteous and making up her mind and won't listen to another. Have had it with her being too trusting of victims and being insistent of them telling the truth when there have been some episodes where the victims lied. Team work is almost non existent for too much of the length, with a lot of staring at technology and there is nowhere near enough urgency.
In conclusion, very weak with many terrible things. 3/10. -
ellenrm-0709425 July 2022If Benson knew the attacker was in that apartment, why didn't she stop and ask for backup before entering? Whole thing could have been avoided. She's usually not that dumb but it just made this episode frustrating to watch.
However to the other reviewers: if you don't want politics in your tv shows, you're watching the wrong one. -
Absolutely terrible. Nothing good about it. Olivia was especially exhausting to hear and watch. She had me angry and upset almost the entire episode.
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jose_dumass11 November 2021I understand SVU is short staffed but the level of involvement in the nitty gritty the Lieutenant in COMMAND has is beyond ridiculous. If the writers wanted to keep SVU the Olivia Benson show, they should never have promoted her. The newer episodes clash so glaringly against the first seasons. My review for this particular episode? I get Lourdes is a victim, but she committed murder. Olivia needs to stop giving the ADA disgusted eyes because he won't put his head in the sand like she does.
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I have had many things happen to me in life. It's unfortunate. It's frustrating. It's horrible. And it can be downright confusing. That doesn't mean I am going to hurt others equally (or more) to get my story told. That's not how life works. Years ago, I had my whole life changed by two racist professors in graduate school. They dug into my life and pretty well destroyed it. It took years for me to recover. Not many know of my story, not many can understand the significance of the hurt and damage they did to my life, nor did I get any justice for their wrongdoing, but I was also never taught to hurt others regardless of my perspective of needed justice for wrongs done to me.
This episode of Law & Order: SVU is teaching younger views - and, sadly, even some adults - that some crimes, especially if you have "had it worse," which is also a matter of your own perspective, is perfectly fine. If your story hasn't yielded enough attention, then commit a crime, especially against the person(s) that harmed you. And if someone gets hurt or killed in the process, as it did happen in this episode of Law & Order: SVU, then that's okay, too, because that's all that matters in the end, at least to those writing and running this show seem to suggest.
Seeking revenge is NEVER, ever an okay thing to do. It's that plain and simple. -CDM -
bkkaz5 December 2020Warren Leight seems to have learned about producing TV from textbooks -- on pottery-making. The episodes he's connected with are all over-the-top melodramas, mired in soap-opery entanglements among the main characters, lots of mugging by sour Mariska Hargitay, who also shakes her head in disgust often enough to be a bobble head, and buzzwords that seem to have come out of a Redbook quiz. This week, they're "s--t shame" and "t---some." Even the music on SVU has become so maudlin and intrusive, I have to turn the volume down. We get it -- something dramatic is happening. "Kat" continues to be the most uninteresting character since Ben Stone's bland-man-walking son, kind of a cross between Richard Belzer and Howdy Doody. She has maybe two expressions on her face and bobs and weaves her head like she's playing defense for a junior high gym soccer team. The episode itself is all over the place, seemingly about alleged sociopath Amanda Knox, but as with so many under Leight's tenure, full of lame distractions and out-of-nowhere explanations. Apparently now no one is wearing masks anymore, at least not consistently (but have the ever really?), but perhaps this episode was filmed out of sequence even though you'd think from the title there it was more current. Anyway, I don't want to give to much away about the "story" since there's not much there, but it's not particularly good.
Summary: Another episode where shouting and histrionics stand in for drama and intelligence -
fleck05IMDB18 May 2019Watching old SVU's and wanted to see how the season wrapped up... oh my gosh this was horrible! They write Benson so stupid - gets herself held hostage, sides with the woman that took her hostage, wants to help her get the suspect. The hostage-taker kills the owner of the apartment and just wants to be deported to Mexico. The hostage taker is viewed as a victim, only. Super weak story and writing, especially for a season finale.
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bighebeal30 January 2022I see this got almost uniformly abysmal reviews here. The show's politics, always heavy-handed, are really, really beyond the pale this episode. The woman, beyond all her other psychotic, appalling behavior, SMASHES A STRANGER'S SKULL IN WITH A HUGE TROPHY, MURDERING HIM, and Benson wants her to be let off for it because she's a 'victim'. Despite not having a particle of evidence, Benson is willing to believe every single accusation made by a screaming and deranged woman who is in the middle of committing multiple felonies because she is a 'victim'.
Well, I'm sorry. I believed her accusations, but her actions made her just plain despicable.
That's it, I'm done. I watch the ION-TV marathons of these on Saturdays, and I've just bailed on the follow-up episode to this. -
alexa-downing14 June 2021The only way the main mystery makes sense is if you already know Benson is right. All of the tension- questioning what the detectives know, how their biases might be affecting their opinions - gets thrown out the window for railroading the audience into a cheaply and inconsistently politicized action storyline that doesn't make sense given the information the audience is given. Also, a block of wood has more emotional range than Phillip Winchester, he does not behave like a real person would under that amount of pressure.
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xhidden996 August 2020Even for this show this is insane. All you have to do is cry rape and Olivia Benson will excuse you for murder three counts of assault and kidnapping and torture.