More praise for SVU

The new series of SVU on Hallmark has been spectacular.

In the first episode, Elliot went undercover to befriend a rapist, in the hope that he would work his way into his confidence and become his new partner. Elliot described his cover-story crime of abusing his step daughter and the pair go looking for girls in a van, raising the question of whether they are in fact encouraging this man to rape again. When Elliot reveals himself to be a cop, the rapist tells him that he thought there was some truth in the things he was saying when he was undercover and those urges won't fake. And everyone is left wondering if he might be right. This was dark.

In the next episode, Olivia rescues a young pregnant woman from killing herself and then takes to court the successful scientist who it is claimed raped her. Slowly, they uncover a web of lies, including that the young woman had been drugging a series of rich men and extracting their sperm! It was possibly a bit far fetched but the young woman was a convincing sociopath and I was gripped.

Then an episode where the son of Elliot's former partner is arrested for beating up his female friend. It turns out the boy is on steriods, but it is the father who is pushing him too hard. Elliot loses it complete and beats up his former partner. All sorts of inner demons are revealed and things spiral out of control between the father and son.

Another really dark episode. There is phone call from a nine year old girl who claims to be locked in a room and hasn't eaten for days. Olivia talks to her and desparately tries to get to confide in her so that they can track down her whereabouts. The trace on the mobile phone throws up some confusing, conflicting information and the rest of the team have their doubts about the authenticity of the call. There was a great scene with Munch talking into a voice distorter, pretending to be a child. Olivia remains convinced though. This episode was so tense, I'm sure I'm going to get an ulcer.