Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14 asks, as Donna Lynne Champlin put it during our interview, “what happens when your victim doesn’t act like a normal victim? You know, what what do you do when when…they don’t scream, or they don’t call 9-1-1, or they don’t seem traumatized right after…what do you do? And then, afterwards, when you tell them, ‘no, don’t do that thing that I know you want to do,’ they go do it?” One of those things Champlin’s character, Megan, wanted to do — and, in fact, did — is punch her rapist in the face. (For what it’s worth, if punching a rapist is wrong, we really don’t want to be right. Like, ever.)
That chance for the survivor to hit back came up pretty early on in our interview with Champlin. “I’m excited for women who look like me…to see themselves in a position where, you know, the victim gets to punch the guy right in the face — like literally punch him in the face. And then, when she’s asked why, she says, ‘because that was the best part.'” When we mentioned a lot of viewers would probably enjoy seeing that play out and (hopefully?) even make gifs, the actress totally got it. “That’s my favorite line in the script — ‘that was the best part,'” she said.
Even better? Champlin got to throw the punch. “We had a wonderful fight coordinator, and both I and [Christian Mallen] the guy who played the rapist, we both had stunt doubles.” While she admitted to being “ready to do it,” yet “so grateful” not to have to film Megan’s assault — which we experienced during flashbacks while Megan was testifying — she was very much like, “please let us do it. Please let me do it… I really want to do this….I’m from the theater. I know stage combat — I’m certified in stage combat. I’m very comfortable throwing a punch. I know what I’m doing.” Mallen also had that theatre background, so “we were both like, ‘yeah, no, we’ve done much crazier sh**t — eight times a week.” In the end, “they let us…and I was so…God, it was satisfying.”
But that was purely as an actor in a role, not because of her scene partner. “And of course, the guy who’s playing the guy who attacked me was just the sweetest. I mean, just couldn’t have been nicer. Just the funniest, nicest dude. In fact…I don’t think he’d be mad if I if I told this story. When he found out — you know, they made him the offer, and then he found out it was me playing the victim. And I played a part called Paula Proctor on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend for four years. That character was just beloved…And he said, ‘I really hesitated when they told me who the victim was, because I did not want to be the guy who sexually assaulted…Paula Proctor, everyone’s favorite best friend.'” As Champlin put it, “so, yeah, he took one for the team.”
MORE: Check out the first part of our Donna Lynne Champlin interview to see why she thought playing Megan was “incredibly freeing.”
On how Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14 explores displacement
So, sure. Megan may tell Captain Benson she won’t go looking for her rapist, only to…actually go looking for him. But she does text the police when she finds him, and they do manage to come arrest him. So, “she’s not entirely wrong. She’s not entirely insane. She’s totally functional — she’s just outside the boundaries of normal.” Right up until she “hauls off and punches him in the face,” of course, “and when somebody asks her why she did it, she was like, ‘that was the best part. Like how? Why is everyone? Why is everyone looking at me like I’m the crazy one? How can you — how can you even ask me why I punched him in the face?'”
Makes perfect sense to us. “But! Normally, a victim does what they’re told and doesn’t go down to the bar where the guy is and then keep him there” until the police arrive. Instead, “they usually go, ‘oh, ok. I’ll go to my hotel and wait for you to call me.”
Part of what makes Megan act a little bit outside the norm actually comes up in the same conversation with Liv where she promises she won’t go to the bar. Olivia mentions displacement, telling Megan (in Champlin’s words) basically, “you are hyper-controlling this assault [investigation] because you feel like that’s something you can do, whereas the other thing, you’re helpless and you really can’t do anything about it. So, you’re taking all of that energy from the diagnosis, and you’re throwing it into this assault.” And that’s what results in her “acting out of the realm of normal here.” But “at that moment, Megan’s not really at a place to hear it.”
So, through Megan’s actions, “this episode in a really, really intelligent way looks at all the facets of [displacement] and…how it can work for you, and how it can work against you.” For someone like Megan trying to get justice after a violent assault, the unexpected behavior is able to “trickle down into the defense,” to the point where an attacker’s defense attorney winds up being able to twist her actions and make accusations of “you’re a violent person, you punch people out.” So, as we see, it’s all about “the mirror ball effect of what displacement is and how it can really make it difficult for you to protect the victim from themselves.”
Additionally, in trying to only deal with the rape, Megan further delays telling her husband about her MS diagnosis — and that causes its own set of problems. “I mean, I’m told numerous times to tell my husband, and I’m just like, ‘I can’t. I’m not. I can’t. I’m dealing with…I don’t have the bandwidth.” She thinks she can tell him on her own time. “And so, the problem is, of course, the defense does bring it up, which is a huge betrayal.” As we see during the hour, “she’s…on the stand, and it’s like, not only…is the reveal of the diagnosis a betrayal, but also her husband’s sitting right there. And he’s like, ‘oh my God, if she didn’t tell me about the diagnosis, what else is she not telling me about?'”
“I mean, as an actor, it was tremendous fun to navigate that. But of course…as a character, it’s — I mean, she just gets buried. She just gets buried in all these dominoes that just fall all at once.”
Donna Lynne Champlin’s final word on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14
“So, it was just…it was like juggling with chainsaws — poor Megan.” One of the chainsaws is what happens with her husband temporarily having doubts about whether or not he can trust her. “The other one is the assault, [and] the other one is the diagnosis…and all of a sudden, she’s just, like, juggling these chainsaws. And she doesn’t even know how she got there. She’s a middle-aged woman from Iowa,” and she’s just wondering “like, how the hell did all this happen?”
But that idea of someone being so painfully average, only to have everything suddenly spin out of control like it does for Megan in Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14, is important for Champlin. Or, rather, it’s something she told us she hopes resonates with viewers. “I hope that if there’s other women out there…who are living normal lives, who look like normal people, who find themselves…in the absolute sh— of, you know, this happening, and that happening, and this happening, and that happening…I’d like for them to see Megan have a win. Which she does when…the guy is convicted.” Things also work out well with Megan’s marriage, thankfully, and “ultimately…she pulls herself together. But I’m excited for, you know, the middle America, middle-aged ladies to be like, ‘yeah, punch him in the face.'”
Asked for any final thoughts she wanted to make sure we shared with our readers, Champlin referred back to the scene where Captain Benson is with Megan in the hospital after her rape. Liv asks if she noticed anyone suspicious looking at her. “And my line is like, ‘I’m a middle-aged woman from Iowa. Really?’ But…she’s not, it’s not like, you know, ‘I’m so ugly. It’s just…that’s — this is reality. ‘Well, no. No one’s — no one’s looking at me. No one looks at me.’ So, I kind of feel like this is one for the invisible ladies out there…we get to a certain age, and you feel like you’re not seen anymore. You’re not heard anymore. Nobody’s listening to you anymore.”
Even though this was “a hard episode,” and Megan juggles all those chainsaws, “in the end, she’s victorious and she doesn’t give up. She really wants to, but she doesn’t. So, you know, just…I just feel like it’s one for the, for the invisible ladies out there.”
We had a great time talking to Donna Lynne Champlin about those “invisible ladies” (and, you know, rooting for more fighting back). If you missed her in Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 14, you can stream the episode on Peacock beginning Friday, February 28. New episodes of SVU stream Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC.
