Turn Me on Take Me Private

This episode perfectly depicts perversion on both sides of webcam performances and the perverts who watch them. The defendant played by Alex Brightman plays the perfect pervert. The courtroom drama plays out all the aspects of the industry and individuals involved. The SVU squad room banter illustrates all of the points of view of webcams and their place in current society but really ends up showing how damaging it is and how much harm it does. As with most SVU episodes the bad guy shows his true colors and pieces of lives are left to be picked up off the courtroom floor. You can't help watching this episode and feel the creepiness of it all. I feel like the main characters walk through their roles but all provide competent performances.

'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' "Turn Me On Take Me Private" (2021)

Opening thoughts: "Turn Me On Take Me Private" has a very gutsy topic, 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit' and the entire 'Law and Order' franchise were no strangers to challenging and controversial subjects but not many at this point had topics that took a lot of guts to tackle at this time. Have said many times about having a lot of admiration for how 'Special Victims Unit' approached the subjects it tackled, back in times where it would have been easy to shy away in fear of offending but that's actually not the case a lot of the time.

Season 22's previous episode "Sightless in a Savage Land" saw a big improvement in quality compared to the season's first three episodes. While not as good, "Turn Me On Take Me Private" continues the improvement, in a quite good but not great episode. It may not be one of the best episodes of Season 22, but it is a long way from being one of the worst as well. Personally put it somewhere in the middle when it comes to ranking a season that didn't amaze me all that much despite having moments of excellence.

Good things: A lot is good about "Turn Me On Take Me Private". Most of the production values are slick and gritty, personally did like how the legal scenes were shot (not so much the policing ones which will be elaborated upon later). The music didn't come over as too melodramatic or like it was emphasizing the emotion too much. The direction is sympathetic while still giving momentum.

It is a very well-acted episode mostly, Peter Scanavino was a major standout this season consistently (even when Carisi was not written well, which he occasionally wasn't) and he delivers here. The best performance comes from a wonderfully unsettling Alex Brightman. "Turn Me On Take Me Private" is another admirable tackling of a tough and relevant subject, it's scary territory portrayed uncompromisingly so it did unsettle me a lot. I did appreciate that it was a lot less heavy handed than the season's first two episodes, the dialogue being taut and thought probing.

Bad things: However, there are faults. The camera work is unnecessarily unsteady to the point of inducing nausea in the policing scenes. Tamin is too pushy and doesn't have much personality, some say she was out of line (and technically speaking she was) but it is actually not much different from other out-of-line things the older regulars did in the earlier seasons and theirs were far worse (i.e. Stabler in Seasons 10-12).

Jamie Gray Hyder is still very flat playing her. The verdict also didn't make sense to me, not right that the sentence for attempted rape was the same one for another episode for an actual rape, so treating the two like the same thing but while still bad it is not on the same level as the other case.

Closing thoughts: Overall, quite good but not great.

7/10.

Episode was decent, 6/10, even though as for the last few years too politically correct and preachy, the ending was awful an easy way out to have the ''bad guy'' lose and the poor victim ''win'' whereas it's not as black and white as svu always tries to preach...

The guys using those cam girls thinking believing those girls are their friends are so pathetic, if they didn't pay them those girls would not even look at them.

Just as for those cam girls/call girls/prostitutes saying '' they are my friends we are a community blablabla '' are so dishonest and hypocrite, wouldn't the guys pay them they wouldn't even look at them, even less talk to them lol.

Svu deals with more intense and deeper topics starting from season 20, intensifying 21 and still continuing. The events are not only black or white, but dark gray. That's why the events are always difficult dilemmas and purgatory.

Because svu has also matured.. deeper, more responsible.. This maturity is expected from a series on universal rights and human rights.

For reference in this story, you can watch season 3 episode 7 played Elisabeth Banks.

Other the best references of this section 16x5 Pornstar's Requiem.

This episode really kept my attention throughout. Just because you are dumb enough to think empty "I love you"'s are real doesn't mean you can rape someone and claim they lead you on.