By Cody Heintz
This week’s episode of Law & Order: SVU, “Gray”, could have been a breakthrough episode for the series but in the end just followed similar plot devices of the series. This episode was billed as a serious look at rape on a college campus but ended up just becoming an episode dealing with the personal issues of the prosecutor and a defendant that the audience was told was guilty half-way through the episode. The episode could have dealt with the many aspects of college rape such as the problems of hearsay, alcohol and rape being under-reported but went off into something out of the blue.
The episode started off well with a “Take Back The Knight” event with Detective Stabler in attendance with his daughter Kathleen when student Elizabeth accuses fellow student Chuck Mills of rape. Even though the part of the episode that deals with the rape is great the show then diverts into a story about abortion. The part of the episode that deals with trying to find out if Mills is guilty of rape is done well and shows varying aspects of rape in a college setting. Some of these aspects are important as they show the gray area caused by “he said/ she said” and the part alcohol plays in how colleges try to hide their rape statistics. Even though this part brings up very good points it doesn’t do a very good job explaining why Mills is a loser and why he should be incarcerated. Even though Sgt. Munch and Det. Tutuola bring up some objections, the show then brings us to showing Det. Stabler believing Mills is guilty just based on the interviews. The part about rape is over when Mills is forced to be let free by ADA Paxton because the case is a gray zone and is not black and white.
The abortion part of the episode is where it falls apart. After Mills is forced to let go another student called Felicia assaults him and calls him a murderer Mills is arrested again when he fights back. Felicia calls Mills a killer because she believes that he caused the miscarriage of his girlfriend’s, Karle Vincent baby. The problem with this section of the episode is that it goes off on a tangent and is about something that really isn’t a big problem at colleges and the show then forgets all about he points they brought up during the first part of the episode.
The abortion part is not only very irrelevant but takes away from what the episode could have been. The episode could have focused on the varying parts of college and date rape. The episode could have touched on so much more as it could focus on the responsibility of all parties in sexual consent, to what really is rape to how it can be prevented. This episode of “Law & Order” could have done a lot on showing the problem of rapes on college campuses but ruined it when they introduced a plot point that completely came out of the blue and one that does not relate to college students. .