Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 17 Review: ‘Accomplice Liability’

Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 17 ‘Accomplice Liability’ attempts to give closure to ADA Carisi after his experience being held hostage in his local deli. Unlike the previous episode, which was also a followup to something that occurred earlier this season, this hour’s existence at least makes sense on paper. A main character experienced a major trauma. Now, it’s time to put the only living perp on trial and use that as some sort of mechanism for healing. Simple, easy story to tell and get viewers invested in, right? Wrong.

If you take out everything but the courtroom scenes, Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 17 is watchable enough. Ellie from Degrassi Stacey Farber does some excellent work as the ADA prosecuting Deonte Moseley’s case, and Peter Scanavino delivers on some great moments, as well. But the other strong performance here — that of Paige Herschell as Tess Milburn — is the result of some truly ill-conceived storytelling. At times, we’d even say that storytelling crosses from merely bad to actually offensive.

In the first place, Carisi interrupting Ellie from Degrassi‘s Rourke’s meal to give her unsolicited advice, which turns out to just be him playing Captain Obvious, comes right out of The Misogynist’s How to Mansplain Playbook™. Rourke is, rightly, annoyed AF with this. But ok. Sure. Obviously, this case is important to Carisi, and not being able to do his job has to make him feel powerless all over again. So, we understand his desire to do something, anything, in the way of contributing to the trial (other than as a victim). It’s just his way of taking back some semblance of control. Poorly done on the character’s (and the series’ part), but forgivable if only because this guy is clearly not the best version of himself right now.

What we absolutely will not forgive, however, is the way ‘Accomplice Liability’ treats the rape victim. Olivia Benson should know better. Full stop. First of all, she should know better than to bring Rollins along when she talks to Tess. This is the wife of a witness. Not just a witness, no, but as Liv tells Carisi in one of the biggest “no sh—, Sherlock” moments of the hour, Amanda’s husband is also one of the victims. Olivia’s personal investment here already represents a giant conflict of interest, but running around town with her gal pal takes all charitable interpretations of what she’s doing here and sets them on fire.

Furthermore — and this is the absolute worst — it is painfully, glaringly clear that Tess is not well. When we first meet her, she’s in the middle of an overdose. She barely survives that, seizure and all. Later, when nobody can find her at the time Rourke is supposed to be calling her as a witness, she is a wreck. Anyone with any ounce of compassion for her would not then badger her into testifying on charges that, we’ve been told from the start, will not stick. In fact, after she relives all that trauma on the stand for Carisi’s benefit, Deonte is found guilty on all charges except the rape that he did nothing to prevent. As predicted!

But hey! The BensonBot wants you to know that Tess “made the decision. To move on.” Sure, sure. She just decided. Everything’s fine now! What are we even doing here? There are seriously no words for this gross misunderstanding of the long process of overcoming trauma and obvious substance abuse issues. But whatever gets you a good “inspirational” line for the bot, no matter how harmful the message is, right?

MORE: Read our Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8 review to see what we thought of the first chapter in this story.

More on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 17

• Now, why does grown up Ellie from Degrassi look like she could be related to grown up Alicia Sacramone? Anyone else see it? Or am I losing it more than usual.
• “I can’t just be worried about Tess? What if she’s in trouble? Or worse?” You could just be worried about Tess, but that’s not what’s going on here. And yeah. She is in trouble. And worse.
• “You’re surprised a lawyer lied to you during a hostage standoff?!”
• “I’m a preschool teacher, not a drug expert? But she seemed to be self-medicating.” Damnit, Jim. I’m a preschool teacher, not a drug expert!
• “He’s going to be worried about both those girls until they’re married with kids.” What in the RWNJ. What, so they’ll magically heal by getting married and popping out babies? Or is it just as long as they have big, strong men taking care of them, they’ll be fine? Wild idea: What if they don’t want marriage and/or kids? What then.
• “We don’t want to make things worse, but…we DO need to talk to her.” Hm. Nope. You obviously don’t care if you make things worse or not.
• “We can’t chain her to the bed, right?” WTF kind of thing to ask about a rape victim???
• “I was there at the deli. I’ll never forget that scream.”
• Ok but if you want to make sure she detoxes, have someone who actually cares about her get her into treatment. You don’t just grab a hotel room, put your detective outside of it, and expect magic to happen. What are we doing here???
• “I do want her clean for her own health.” Sure, Jan.
• Why are they being weird and watching as the hospital staff tries to save this girl?
• …oh. Right. To showcase man pain.
• “She’s young. Strong heart. We’ve got that in our favor.” Because “young, strong heart” folks have never died of an overdose.
• “If you have any professional respect for me at all as a prosecutor, please stay away from the courthouse until I need you for prep.” She said it nicer than I would’ve.
• “You know, pain like that? It only gets worse unless you do something about it.” The something she does should be therapy, not dragging all her pain up for someone else’s benefit.
• “The guy you’re really mad at is dead.” Yes, yes. She’s just mad at the guy.
• “…if the three of you stick together, like you did in that deli, maybe all three of you can take your power back.” Dear Lord, what is human dialogue?
• You’ve never seen “genuine fear” from Carisi? Ever? Even when he was a cop? Sure, BensonBot.
• “…he’s not going to be free until you win this case.” I absolutely want to put my fist through a wall. Literally, putting a girl who obviously needs help through all this, and putting all this pressure on this ADA, for the sake of freeing a man.
• Men would literally rather exploit a rape victim and mansplain how to prosecute a case to a colleague than go to therapy, huh.
• Absolutely love when Ellie from Degrassi ADA Rourke preps Carisi and goes at him like she’s the defense.
• “Race card.” Deplorable phrase.
• “…you’re a victim, too, in all this.” Yes, yes. We needed Liv to tell us that.
• Testifying should not be a way of thanking Carisi’s wife and friend. It should be something Tess chooses to do for herself. WTAF, Liv?
• Tess can’t face that guy in court, to the point where she immediately goes looking for a fix after nearly dying, and y’all are like “we’re going to get you the help you need, but there’s a lot of people that need to hear every word you have to say.” Like, what? “We’re goingn to get you the help you need.” Period. End of sentence. That is the way anyone who cared, whatsoever, would do things.
• “Are you always that hot-headed, Mr. Carisi?”
• Ok but despite obviously being the wrong thing to do, Scanavino’s delivery on the whole “wipe that smile off your face” blow-up was kinda fantastic.
• “What the H— was that?” Me at this episode.
• Wait. No. Just kidding. Me at this season.
• “There is no we. You’re acting like we’re partners, and we’re not.” Get him.
• She is. Mad.
• Can we keep her? Maybe bring Craig from Degrassi, Brian from Suits, Jake Epstein along with her? (Just not Jimmy Brooks.)
• “The only thing that matters to Deonte Moseley is Deonte Moseley.” The character came across as way more nuanced than this for most of the actual hostage situation but ok.
• Also: What if we just, like, didn’t go for gratuitous trauma with Tess and spent more time hunting down this other witness or whatever? IDK.
• “What, like partners?” Hi. Yes. BRING BACK ELLIE FROM DEGRASSI.
• “She seems like she’s gonna be ok.” Just overnight! Testifying magically fixes you.
• ????
• No, really. I can’t with “made the decision. To move on.” No words. None.

Agree? Disagree? What did you think of Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 17. Leave us a comment!

Law & Order: SVU airs Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC.