Law & Order: SVU Season 27 Episode 5 Review: ‘Feed The Craving’

Law & Order: SVU Season 27 Episode 5 is the disappointing end to this season’s four-episode streak of solid storytelling. The entire concept for this hour was a recipe for almost certain disaster. The plot centers around someone who turns out not to be a victim, but a serial liar and predator. Sometimes, that can work well…but the second you start talking about multiple doulas not being able to spot a fake pregnancy, with fatphobia as a possible excuse for why it fooled them and our squad, any hope of success starts to disappear. Then, you include the lie about an assault on top of that, and, uh…no. Just no. It all starts to feel completely insane, implausible, and potentially harmful really quickly.

‘Feed The Craving’ didn’t completely starve us of watchable content, though. Danielle MacDonald is convincing as an actual victim there at the beginning, to the point where I wasn’t sure what happened at that hospital — baby theft? PTSD around child loss? Kidney stones??? — but I just knew the Natalie character had really been through something. The scene where Olivia puts on an act, impersonating her own usual super empathy until the very moment where she’s caught Natalie in enough lies, is brilliant. (If, of course, you ignore the “what’s going on here” reaction to the episode of a whole.) Mariska Hargitay, unsurprisingly, nails both the sugary sweet Captain Benson, the way she sets that trap, and the quick-burning anger once that spark is lit.

But otherwise? Let’s just hope this is Season 27’s bottom and move on.

MORE: The SVU Season 27 premiere also had us questioning what just happened…but in the right way.

More Law & Order: SVU Season 27 Episode 5 reactions

• “Do you like romcoms?” Just going to pretend this is a hint that Hargitay and that one friend of hers will do one as Benson and that one friend of hers…
• “She’s baaaack.” Yes, Rollins is back…but I’m still wondering why Tynan really suggested this.
• “She was a rat.” I will actually reach through the TV and kill this man.
• But also: What was the point? We already know, and have known for a long time, that Captain Curry is former IAB. She has still, in fact, been an excellent addition to this team.
• Oh, ok. Going through my notes, I realize we also have Natalie lying about having medical conditions that, if ignored and/or written off as lies when actual pregnant people have them, will kill them. At a time when, sometimes, the only way you can get abortion care is if it’s of the immediately life-saving type, choices have been made. Sure, this particular liar isn’t even pregnant to begin with, but…still.
• I guess Griff is such an integral part of the team, Benson even forgets he’s not there now? Or is it that she cares so little about her possibly-sketchy new detective, she does not care if he’s there or not.
• “Sucks to suck.” …doesn’t it, though.
• Ok, a positive: The editing. That transition from slamming the doors on the ambulance to Olivia busting through the doors at the hospital works.
• The delivery on the completely out of it “I felt it” lines is so convincing.
• …and yet.
• Ok, so it does turn out that Natalie’s lying, but the way Olivia treats her at the beginning of the episode is disturbing. Let’s say she was actually a victim. Liv trying to stutter her way through explaining how she might actually be imagining things, while also not leaving her alone when she asks more than once, could have triggered someone who was actually traumatized. And Olivia Benson knows that.
• Is this…is LivGPT back?
• “You are such a good person. Thank you.” Oh. She said that to the other lady at the beginning, huh.
• “They’re not medical professionals. And at 20 weeks, given Natalie’s build, I mean even we bought it.” I’m going to ask this as nicely as possible. What, and I mean this sincerely, the actual and entire F— are we doing here?
• Is…is Rollins mentioning her sister the only personal stuff we get in this episode? Ugh.
• Chelsea M. Davis was good as Lilly. I just wish the episode was more focused around, like, her? The other victims? Something?
• Tag yourself: I’m Liv’s facial expression as she listens to this story.
• “Imagine hearing a story like this. Except switch the sexes. Your friend tells you that a man did this to her? What are you going to tell her?” Exactly.
• But also…interesting word choice instead of just saying gender.
• Personally prefer Tim Daggett’s Gymnastics 101 (“fly high, and stick the landing”) to Sex Offenders 101.
• No, wait. I take my previous tag back. Tag yourself: I’m Carisi’s reaction to all of it.
• “Liv’s got a way of getting people to open up, even the guilty ones. Your superpower is empathy. This time? Use it as a weapon.” We been knew that was her superpower.
• There’s just…a lot of telling us all the too many things when we can clearly see them at this point.
• Great job with all these micro expressions from MacDonald when Olivia tells Natalie they have the rapist. And as the scene continues, she just fails a little harder at pretending to be innocent and oh so appreciative of Benson’s kindness. Well done.
• I also enjoy the camera work, right around the point when Liv asks “were you ever really raped.”
• But, like…what if they’d been wrong about that part? What if all of this started because of a past rape? That was also a possibility (missed opportunity for the story, maybe???), but no one seems to consider it.
• Hargitay’s voice going deeper the instant Liv starts to cut the act and show her cards. Perfect.
• Of course she’s angriest on “you’re not a victim, Natalie. You’re an abuser.”
• Lindsay Mendez is having a moment. Elsbeth‘s Officer Hackett and SVU‘s Attorney Vargas on the same night! She gets to be the Law and the Order! (…and Bryan Goluboff, of both Organized Crime and SVU, wrote her Elsbeth episode.)
• Not to mention, can we talk about how Mendez makes an entrance when her character goes to Carisi’s office? Amazing.
• “Oh, I’m happy to remind you.”
• “I just wanted to feel like somebody cared about me.” And I just wish we’d maybe seen a little bit of Natalie’s villain origin story because this line could’ve been a killer and made this episode more interesting.
• “It’s better than nothing.” Is it, though?
• “For what it’s worth, Captain Benson, I think you’re an amazing police officer.” “Yeah, I am. I’ll see you soon.” The breath and the way she leans in for that, though.
• “Congrats on, uh, not murdering her with your bare hands. I think you showed great restraint.” True.
• That was an episode of television that happened!

Agree? Disagree? What did you think of Law & Order: SVU Season 27 Episode 5 ‘Feed The Craving’? Leave us a comment!

New episodes of Law & Order: SVU air Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC.