The Collapse of The Tonight Show Equals MORE SVU!!!

I will be the first to admit (and I’m presumably not alone based on the various facebook groups created in support of the newest Tonight Show host) that I am completely enamored by this whole Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno issue currently going on with NBC. I check E!’s website on a daily basis. Prior to this week, I rarely checked updates on there, but I’ve become a regular. [Many of you are probably thinking that discussing this is leaving the realm of SVU and potentially opening the door to other discussions (not related) down the road, but this will impact our beloved show as SVU is one of the shows that would help fill the vacant time slots currently (and soon formerly) filled by Leno.]

For the sake of full disclosure, I am fully on the side of Conan O’Brien. I have always found Jay Leno to be 100% unfunny. While I was far too young to fully understand that situation (being all of 6 or 7 years old when this all happened), I recognize David Letterman as the “should have been” heir apparent to The Tonight Show throne. Jay Leno was a relatively unknown comedian who stole what was rightfully Letterman’s.

So, Letterman moved to CBS and his Late Show with David Letterman has become a safe haven for those of us who find the right kinds of things funny. Anything on Leno’s Tonight Show that people found funny (which I will admit does happen on occasion) are not moments which Leno himself created, rather, are moments he “facilitates” on his show. Leno has long been inadequate in his ability to produce interviews worthy of the guests that he often had booked on his show.

I can remember watching Johnny Carson’s last show as host, and I can remember at an early age not finding Jay Leno particularly funny. David Letterman had the early edge in the ratings until Leno landed the first post-hooker interview with Hugh Grant. That’s the interview that leapt Leno into the rankings lead, and NBC has seemingly ridden the coat tails for years regardless of the fact the Leno is obviously an inferior host when it comes to actually being able to direct guests in interviews (which has become even more obvious since The Jay Leno Show was created).

While my distaste for Jay Leno has been displayed, I will advance this discussion to the present…

Let’s hop into our DeLorean’s and travel back five years. Conan O’Brien signed a contract with NBC that guaranteed O’Brien The Tonight Show in 2009. Apparently, when 2009 rolled around, Jay Leno was not ready to retire and drive one of his dozens of collector cars into the sunset. This past summer, Conan took the reins of The Tonight Show and the NBC execs (along with Leno) created The Jay Leno Show which would be set to start in the fall (of 2009).

When The Jay Leno Show aired, it was awful. I’ve attempted to watch the show on a handful of occasions, and it has been unbearable. He’s not funny. He never was funny. Those who find him funny must suffer from some sort of mental disability. Meanwhile, Conan has produced a product equivalent to what put him on the map almost two decades ago.

There have been articles written since this whole debacle happened claiming that NBC executives pleaded for Conan to update his show to appease many traditional Tonight Show fans, and that he refused to accept their suggestions and continued with the product that got him to where he was, but whether that happened or not, only insiders can say. Suffice it to say, Conan still is his quirky self. Younger fans still are attracted to his style and his humor. We’ve grown up with his writing on Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons (regardless of whether we realized it or not) and of course his years hosting Late Night.

The actual details of what has unfolded between O’Brien, Leno, and the wigs at NBC can be found on any number of websites, so I don’t feel it necessary to repeat them all here. A stripped down account is that NBC called it quits on The Jay Leno Show because local affiliates were not happy with the ratings they were getting following the switch. NBC announced that they would not cancel Leno’s show, but instead, they would cut his show from a full hour to a half hour show, and move it to 10:35 CST. Consequently, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon would both be moved back a half an hour. Oh, and I guess Last Call with Carson Daily is still on, but honestly does anyone watch that show?


All I’ll say is that everything said this past week by all involved has been comedic gold. Letterman has been funny. Jimmy Kimmel has really put himself on the map (especially with his appearance on The Jay Leno Show to which the entire video can't be found on NBC's website). Conan has been great (including putting the show up for sale on craigslist and discussing possible porn titles if he accepts the industry's offer). He knows that he’s going down, so he’s decided to go down swinging. Leno is the only one who hasn’t really been doing much. He’s the butt of every joke, and he’s tried to get involved and be a good sport, but he has ended up looking even worthless than he ever has. Now, to be fair, I don’t think Leno started this whole thing. He’s become involved, but NBC execs started it, and Leno couldn’t just take the side of Conan.



While I am completely on Conan’s side with everything, I actually think Conan would benefit from a move. Were Conan to have accepted the time slot move, he would be even more attractive to the fans who fell in love with him on Late Night. Conan attracts younger age groups (which would include myself). People our age who watch late night programming regularly watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Speaking from personal experience, I don’t watch Conan as much because what I always enjoyed was his monologue, which happens to coincide with Colbert. If Conan were to move back a half hour to 11:00, I would watch him more, and I don’t think I am at all alone.

There are rumors that Conan and NBC have agreed to an “exit strategy” that could be announced as early Sunday, so we’ll see. One thing is for certain…Conan O’Brien is done as the host of The Tonight Show. His most likely landing spot will be FOX, a network which has never been able to secure a sizeable slice of the late night programming (the closest they ever got was with Arsenio Hall). If FOX were able to land Conan, they could make a huge statement in late night. If he decides to get out of late night, I would assume he would get back into writing like he did back in the day, but you’d have to think his preference is hosting a late night program.

Regardless of what happens, this next week should be fun to watch…

A New Law & Order Series?

Stuckey In The Middle With You

All right, I'm going to break from form a little bit here.

It could be said that I tend to focus on the guest stars, and there will be some talk here about a guest star. However, this episode needs to be written about.

It's not often that I am left trying to put my world back together after an episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," but the finale from Season 10, Zebras, fucked my ass up.

The episode kicks off with a father and daughter rollerblading* in Central Park. The dad running into a railing and going head-first into a bush, from which he comes out covered in blood despite showing no visible cuts. That blood is from a murdered woman, who has the word guilt scrawled across her forehead in blood.

*I know, I know, rollerblading is so 1994, but if you saw this guy's get-up, you would understand why someone would be on rollerblades in this day and age (no, it wasn't Chris Klein).

Within a few TV minutes, the crew at SVU has interviewed a Parks and Recreation supervisor who points them towards a schizophrenic young man who is either: a) Ben Hawkins's grandson*, or b) Zombie Bobby Kent from Bully. This dude is batshit crazy, and totally killed this innocent mother walking her strollered (yeah, I'm making up words here, but you know what I'm saying, right?) child through Central Park because she was an "operative" who wouldn't heed his command to "abort her mission."

*I mean it couldn't be Ben Hawkins, could it? Sure, he had some special biblically-tinged powers, but I doubt he was immortal. If he was in his early-20s in the Dust Bowl circa 1934, it is safe to assume (barring the aforementioned immortality possibility) that this would be his grandson. After all, with Sophie dragging a not-dead Brother Justin off at the end of "Carnivale," it doesn't seem like Ben Hawkins was going to have a chance to settle down and start a family for at least a few years, placing the birth of his first child no earlier than 1940 by conservative estimates. It would be a stretch to expect his great-grandson being born in 1979. Especially given their familial responsibilities.

While Detectives Benson and Stabler trick Ben Hawkins III into coming down to fill out a form, a search warrant is fetched. With the warrant in hand, Munch, Tutuola, and spastic CSU Tech Dale Stuckey recover the murder weapon from a boot in the suspect's closet. When the knife is brought back to the lab, everyone's favorite Forensics Tech, Ryan O'Halloran matches the blood on the knife to the victim. Just as Stabler thinks their case is made, Zombie Bobby Kent's lawyer makes her way into the lab, where she peruses the paperwork and finds that Stuckey logged the knife in on the same voucher number that the evidence collected at the murder scene was listed on, so the evidence won't be admissible due to the potentiality of contamination.

In court, the inappropriate fuck-up Dale Stuckey tries to impetuously argue that he didn't contaminate the evidence, to which Angela Bower scoffs and tells him to check himself before he wrecks himself.

As Munch and Fin follow the skating murderer, he slips them at Coney Island (was he trying to hook up with the Warriors?), and another body turns up, only this time there is a soda can with Ben III's bloody fingerprint on it at the scene. When Stabler and Fin follow a lead yielded by Munch reaching out to his paranoid ex-wife, they find Hawkins, but his lair is booby trapped with a homemade poisonous gas that almost kills them.


They finally get a call from his scared shitless lawyer, Julia Zimmer, who has an enraged murderer in her office ranting about betrayers and CIA mind control. As they are leaving the parking ramp with Zombie Bobby in the backseat, Zimmer is set to follow in her car. Unfortunately for her, that car is not going anywhere. It fills with the same gas from the lair, and Zimmer dies trapped in her car.

When CSU gets to the ramp, Elliot hands the perp off to a uni, and instructs him to

Take zombie boy off to the prison ward at Bellevue. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

So I guess we've got our answer as to his identity. Since he died in the swamps of Florida, I'm going to assume that voodoo was involved, a la Weekend at Bernies 2.


The thing is with Zombie Boy in custody, the revenge keeps coming. Angela Bower sits on a syringe filled with Potassium Chloride while being advised to stay in a hotel until everything has settled down. Luckily for Jonathan Bower, his mom will be all right. While Benson and Stabler are in the hospital, the results of the DNA test run from a mosquito retrieved from Zimmer's car that will presumably finger Zombie Boy are about to be completed, and Stabler heads off to the CSU Lab to meet up with O'Halloran.

At the CSU Lab, the DNA sequencing is almost done when there's a knock on the door. O'Halloran hollers for Elliot to come in, turns to the computer that has just made its match, and gets met with a knife through his sternum. With O'Halloran lying dead just out of view on the floor, Stabler walks in, asks for O'Halloran, finds that the DNA match wasn't who they thought at all, and gets clubbed over the head with a microscope.

Stabler wakes up to the red-eyed, pasty faced Stuckey staring him crazily in the eyes, who explains how he masterminded everything after the zombie's release to pin a murder on their original suspect in between casual carvings of Stabler's chest with the knife he used to kill O'Halloran. Just as Dale's about to stick the knife into Elliot's chest for good, Liv walks in and driving Stuckey off while Elliot tries to non-verbally implore her to stay away. As she approaches Elliot, who is duct taped to a chair, Stuckey slips in behind her and raises Elliot's gun toward them.

Having given up her weapon at Dale's command, Liv decides that the best thing for her to do would be to seduce that pasty little Canuck (who was clearly crushing hard on her) while playing up a disdain for Elliot punctuated by slapping the shit out of him. As she wears him down, he steps up to shoot Elliot, she gets him to kiss her while Stabler watches. With his back turned to Stabler, Liv gives him the signal, mid-smooch, and Stabler kicks Stuckey in the fucking taint.

Let me say it one more time.

Stabler kicks Stuckey in the fucking taint!

After the righteous taint kicking, Liv disarms Stuckey and gives him an upper-cut with her elbow right to the jaw. Shitbird is out cold, Liv tells Stabler she knew something was up when Stuckey said Elliot had gone out for sushi, and they look over the havoc that dipshit Dale Stuckey hath wrought.

Unfortunately, the death of Ryan O'Halloran could have been prevented if only he and Stabler hadn't been joking when they had the following exchange as it became clear that it was Stuckey's clerical error that was going to cost them the Zombie Boy Case:

O'Halloran: Stuckey. (shakes his head in disbelief)
[...]
Stabler: I'm gonna kill him.
O'Halloran: I'll dump the body.
Stabler: Before we add more toxic waste to the Gowanus Canal, I'm gonna try and save this case.

It's too bad they didn't off the little bastard when they had the chance.

Nonetheless, I don't think anyone watching this episode for the first time thought that it was going in this direction, although that could just as easily have been because no one could have believed that the tiny red-eyed halftard Dale Stuckey could have masterminded tying his own shoes, let alone a scheme to pin a quadruple homicide on a paranoid schizophrenic who was locked up while two of them took place.

The Shocker

“Sacrifice”

This episode aired probably about a month ago, but between the end of the school year, the holiday season (see out of town and entertaining visitors), there wasn’t much time to write this entry with the quality it deserves, so here goes…

“Sacrifice” guest starred Mark Paul Goseller as Wesley Janzen and Elizabeth Banks as Jana Janzen. It all starts when Wesley is assaulted and shot outside a bar that has a largely male clientele. At the hospital, they discover that he’s been shot by more than just a gun as three separate DNA specimens are found “in his person.” Stabler and Benson arrive at the hospital to question Wesley, only to find out that he has checked himself out of the hospital.

They go to his apartment and find him in a great deal of distress (since he was shot and left before proper attention could be paid to his wounds). He’s of little assistance initially, but with the agreement that the police won’t say anything to his family, he tells them that although he’s not gay, he participates in “gay-for-bang” porn videos for $1500 per “session”. Apparently his education from Bayside High didn’t open up the doors that other schools did because he has been doing gay porn.

To find out more about his situation, Stabler and Benson show up at Jana’s place of work where they discover SHE’S A PORN STAR TOO!!!* [Mind blown] Not only is Jana at work, but so is her daughter. Social Services is called in, and Wesley’s parents are called in to take temporary custody of the daughter. It turns out that his parents have never approved of his choice in life partner, and Wesley had run off to New York with Jana.

*Elizabeth Banks must have some predisposition to take roles where porn/sex is involved.

While at the porn studio, they meet her director, Cal Oman. Upon first arrival, Oman looks Benson up-and-down and says what all [presumably male] fans have thought for a long time…“You’d be a natural”. It turns out that both Wesley and Jana had been doing porn because their daughter suffers from Cystic Fibrosis and have all sorts of medical bills to pay. Wesley and Jana both disclose that Oman has been bullying them both because he wants Jana to be the next big star, and Wesley has been trying to get them to skip town and make an honest living. They deduce that it was Cal who shot Wesley for trying to take his “star” away from him.

There is only one eye witness to the initial shooting. At the beginning of the episode, Phil is homeless and sober, but by the time they bring him in for a second round of questioning, he’s relapsed and is uncooperative. That’s when Fin has easily the best line of the episode. He and Munch are questioning him, Phil’s freaking out, and Fin pounds on the desk and says “Phil!! Do you want to be a stupid dick or do you want to help us out?!”

The interrogation is interrupted when they get a call that Cal Oman was found shot to death in his office. Wesley is the primary suspect, and he admits to shooting Oman and pleads guilty, but that it was in self defense. Wesley’s prints were on the gun. He confessed to shooting him and pled guilty. Open and shut case.

TWIST!!!

The autopsy showed the exit wounds were in the front, so Oman was running away from the shooter. Jana had shot Oman who was going to send her to Las Vegas for a 24-Hour Sex Marathon and Oman was going to take almost all of the money earned. Jana had arranged for their daughter to go and live with Wesley’s estranged parents. Wesley thought he was providing for his family by admitting guilt and that his daughter would be able to stay with her mother.

They discover all this in time to catch Jana before she was left for Las Vegas where she would continue her honest living. So, Zack and Miri really do make porn, but they do it separately, and she's willing to let Wesley go to prison where he wasn't going to get paid $1500 per "session".

Ned's Got a Dirty Little Secret

Before eschewing his life in Niagara Falls for one seemingly set in a storybook, the atheist-comparative-religions-PhD-student-cum-pie-baker Ned had a dark, dark secret.

You see, in 2002--nearly two years before we picked up his life again in "Wonderfalls"--Ned, the pie maker with an ability to resurrect the dead with a touch of the finger, was serving a stint in Sing Sing. Shocking; trust me, I know.
In the third season episode Guilt, the team at SVU find themselves scrambling to piece together what should have been a slam dunk case after a sting at Grand Central Station goes awry and the victim that was going to testify attempts suicide after his grand jury testimony. As they look into past alleged victims of their perp, Roy Barnett, they visit Ned* in Ossining.

*He has clearly changed his name, seemingly and understandably, multiple times to try to leave his past behind him. At this point in his life, Ned is operating under the alias Benjamin Tucker. One assumes that this, in fact is the alias, as his name to his real family is Aaron Tyler. If one were exercising a rational train of thought here, it would be entirely reasonable to extrapolate that he explained away his time in the slammer (and accordingly time away from his family) by using an excuse like studying abroad.

Before delving too far into what Ned said while meeting with Detectives Stabler, Benson, and ADA Cabot, it should be noted that in this session it is established that he has a history of saying just about anything to reduce his sentence, so his statements herein should be held with a grain of salt:

"I started offending when I was 18. I had a lot of anger, and also I had a lot of self-hatred. You know, because of what Roy did to me, and because my parents were, um, distant.

[...]I read about that kid that overdosed. If you want, I can testify against Roy for molesting me.

[...]I want to a transfer to a psych facility for sex offenders. I don't belong in prison.

[...]I did some very terrible things, but I know they were wrong now. When I'm released, I know I'm not gonna put myself in those situations again. I'm just gonna stay away from temptation. No driving by schools. No going to malls. None of that.

[...]Roy knew never to keep records, but he had one weakness: videotapes. [Benson: Of what?] Him. With his victims. He used to send them to us.

It's a little jarring to find out that someone we thought we know had a dark past. Being in prison for being a serial child molester certainly qualifies as a dark past.

Now given that his victims were boys, it is important to note that Roy Barnett typically perpetrated against straight boys in their early teens. Many of them were members of youth sports teams that he coached who were lacking in father figures. He paved the way to getting in their pants by showing them tons of straight porn, breaking down their defenses by persuading them that he would show them how to become a man.

So, if we are to assume that Cabot granted "Benjamin" his wish, it may be possible that he was successfully reformed. His behavior after his release would seem to point towards that. Once he returns to his family in Niagara Falls (still within the State of New York, indicating that we're not just dealing with a convenient look-alike), he does find himself falling for Jaye's best friend, Mahandra. As the series comes to a close, they are still together.


When we encounter him again, we get a more complete picture of his background. Having left Niagara Falls*, Aaron Tyler is now Ned, and he is the proprietor of the Pie Hole and head baker of pies. It is here that we first discover his peculiar gift.

*Did Majandra and his family find out about his sex offender status despite the use of aliases?

You see, Benjamin/Aaron/Ned has had the ability to bring dead things back to life with the touch of his hand. There are some catches to this gift, though. Bringing a being back to life for more than 60 seconds means that the unexplained forces of the universe will balance that resurrection out with a death of someone nearby. He also is unable to ever touch the being that he brought back to life without taking that life back.

Given this gift/curse, his fragile psychological state at that volatile developmental stage would feasibly point towards a susceptibility to Roy's advances. There would also seem to be a karmic balance that is struck between his past indiscretions and his inability to come into contact with his true love, 'Chuck,' who he brought back to life after she was killed on a cruise ship.

All too often, we come across people from our past whose lives were much better before we pick back up with their life story when the Special Victims Unit comes across them. In this instance, we are at Ned's rock bottom. From here, his life takes a turn for the better. He seems to have righted his life. He has stayed away from those temptations as claimed (at least as best as we can tell). He is a glowing beacon in the thinning group of sexual offenders who do not recidivate.

In that, we can hold out a shred of hope for other perps. The odds are not in their favor, as recidivism rates are astronomically high, but perhaps there are exceptions.

So three cheers for Ned, the reformed pederast and accomplished pie man. Hip hop hooray! Hip hop hooray! Hip hop hooray!

Do Not Fuck With Jacqueline Bisset's Daughter, She Will End You.

In Season Five, the ladies and gents at SVU decided that they were going to pick up on another thread from the seminal '80s boarding-school/coincidental-banging-of-roommate's-mother-in-the-Windy-City flick Class that was already touched on briefly in the previous (and arguably equally seminal) Munch My Benson entry, Just What Were You Up To, Andrew McCarthy? Where the prior article dealt with Andrew McCarthy, this one will deal with the object of his affection in that film, one Ms. Jacqueline Bisset.

Now, as a refresher, Class documents Jacqueline Bisset's life in the early 1980s. She is the mother of Rob Lowe, the progenitor of the celebrity sex tape and speechwriter for Wild Thing Ricky Vaughn's dad when he was President. Rob Lowe was also Andrew McCarthy's roommate at a boarding school where John Cusack also coolly hid lit cigarettes in his mouth. Andrew McCarthy met Ms. Bisset without knowing who she was at a hotel in Chicago at which point he enjoyed a weekend he would never forget, only to discover when entering the Lowe manor* that the woman of that blissful weekend was the mother of his then roommate.

*Did she keep her maiden name?

In "Control" from the fifth season, it becomes evident that Bisset's daughter, Hilary Barclay, was held captive by a creepy old dude. All right, maybe that's over-simplifying...

When investigating a subway castration, Detectives Benson and Stabler key into the dickless Horace Gorman's apartment, which is filled with newspapers in five-foot high stacks and wedding albums of him and multiple women from the streets. Now it is these women who the new castrati abducted, kept in a dungeon that was formerly part of the Underground Railroad, broke, married, and raped repeatedly. And all along the way, he forced them to keep a diary while he kept one himself, documenting his dominance from both standpoints.

As the castration is delved into, Gorman goes off the grid only to be found dead by Olivia. Hilary becomes--*

*It should be noted here that whiskey and exhaustion took a firm grasp of me, and I fell asleep, laptop on lap here. It was now two days later (and about 23 hours of work later), and I was finally getting to pick back up, but fate intervened, so now it's a week later, but this sumbitch is gonna get finished whether it likes it or not.

--the primary suspect as the faux vampire (porphyria sufferer) who was their initial suspect fingers Hilary as the archangel who brought him Gorman's severed member. When they go to Jacqueline Bisset's apartment, she is there with her formerly estranged daughter. As Benson and Stabler are cuffing Hilary, Bisset steps forward and states that it is she that killed Gorman.

Now, we know that her son went to Duke for law before working for Rick Vaughn's dad in the White House and eventually mounting a congressional campaign, but we can safely assume that he wanted to not only distance himself from the potential controversy of his half-sister having been held captive and raped by a skeezy old dude who was then presumably killed by his mother but also that he was probably unqualified to mount a defense in a criminal case such as this. After all, his seven years at Gage Whitney Pace seem to have been spent trying to shelter corporations from litigation in the event of disastrous events such as oil spills, and the crossover from one area of the law to the other has to be pretty nominal, despite the fact that judging by the video below he's like a shark when that blood is in the water.


Given Lowe's absence, his mother and sister opt for the legal support of Lionel Granger--a curious decision to be sure as he seems to be aspiring to look like a used car salesman (or a Big Ten basketball coach), a segment of the populace that could hardly be deemed likeable. Given that you would want to appeal to the kind hearts of the jurors, Granger's selection would seem to stack that deck against you from the start. Regardless, here we find Granger mounting a defense, and it starts with pointing the finger at Olivia. Having had the reasonable doubt angle played and blame pointed in Olivia's direction, Novak has no choice but to put Benson on the stand. Wearing a sleek, form-fitting blue sweater under her jacket, Lionel proceeds to grill Olivia, pointing out her two previous kills on the job, while not managing to keep his slicked back hair in check.

After Granger plays the Olivia as a possible suspect card, Munch swoops in with an expert to save the day. Having enlisted a forensic metallurgist, they discover that the murder weapon has to have been a mid-Ninth Century Syrian knife because of the 99% pure gold, 1% rhodium composition of the metal that was found on the scraped sternum of Gorman--one that could easily be from the antique business that Bisset operates. The weapon is found under the sink in Bisset's business, and reasonable doubt is out the window.

As the noose tightens around Bisset's neck, her daughter steps up on the witness stand and confesses to having committed the crime. Judge Petrovsky will not grant a mistrial, and the case is dismissed. As Hilary sits in holding, Novak brings in a tape that Hilary's lawyer has provided, showing her on a time-stamped video ordering a latte.

It turns out that Jacqueline Bisset will come after you if you fuck with her daughter. Sure, her daughter castrated the old perv, but Bisset killed the fool.