By Geno McGahee
There is not enough auto-erotic asphyxiation awareness. I don’t even think that there is a ribbon for it. Whatever the case, this topic is a great part of LAW & ORDER SVU’S “Ridicule” episode and they did one heck of a job with it. I’m sure those that have seen this episode have thought twice about choking themselves while they masturbate.
Andrew (Andrew Heckler) arrives home and finds his wife, Sydney, dead, with ropes around her neck, tied to the ceiling fan. When Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and Benson (Mariska Hargitay) discover the body, they begin to discuss auto-erotic asphyxiation, which is the trademark of this show. They continue to educate the viewers on sexual stuff that they may not be aware of and I applaud them for that, and now I know how my uncle really died. He auto-erotic asphyxiated before it was cool.
The detectives treat the case like a homicide despite the coroner stating that it isn’t. They interview her friends, starting with a lawyer, Pam Adler (Paige Turco). I like Paige Turco. She was awesome in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. Thankfully, none of the turtles choked themselves to death while masturbating. If that was the secret of the ooze, I’d stop being a TMNT fan.
Adler is a complete bitch and tells Stabler “what you know about the law, I can fit in the palm of my hand.” I’m surprised he let that go. Stabler has that temper and you’d think that he would tell her off, but he bites his tongue. He may have been worried about her job and how she could use it to screw him out of his job. His job is always on the line and if Adler called his boss and put in a complaint, he could be out on his ass, working at Wal-Mart.
Munch (Richard Belzer) and Tutuola (Ice T) interview the deceased’s other friend, Amelia Chase (Diane Neil), a day trader, and she isn’t very nice either. Neil would go onto become a big player in the show as a prosecutor, Casey Novak. You see this a lot in television…actors and actresses returning in different roles. Two shows I watch with regularity, THE INCREDIBLE HULK and THREE’S COMPANY kept recycling talent and we see it here with LAW & ORDER and I can’t blame them. Neil is really good in both roles that she’s done for this series.
As the detectives dig, a rape case emerges concerning Sydney, Adler and Chase. There was a male stripper, Peter (Pete Starrett), that accused the trio of raping him at a bachelorette’s party, but it wasn’t taken too seriously, especially by Stabler. From the minute that Stabler meets Peter, he is dismissive and even makes the point to prosecutor Cabot (Stephanie March) that “if he’s aroused, he consented.” It doesn’t go over well with anyone, but this is Stabler and you have to respect him. When he thinks about a dude being raped, he’s thinking corn-hole…not a foursome with attractive ladies. He was probably wishing it was him and was wondering why this dude was complaining, but it was still rape. Stabler needed to put his fantasies to the side and do his damn job.
Is it me, or is it strange for a male stripper to work at an animal shelter? I think it’s me. Yeah it’s me. Animal shelters don’t have sheep and not many gerbils. I’m getting worse than Stabler with my assumptions.
Cabot is pissed that the rape was so quickly dismissed by the cops and brings the case against the two remaining alleged rapists, Adler and Chase, but it’s an uphill battle. It looks like Peter is going to lose until some new evidence arises and Cabot is able to pit Adler and Chase against each other, leading to a couple more revelations.
LAW & ORDER SVU: RIDICULE is a very good episode, but there was one very disturbing thing that they should have caught before releasing this. When the lawyers are having a conversation at the steps of the courthouse, there’s an extra that is climbing the stairs. His pants are too fucking tight and climbing up his ass and my TV is 60 inches and his fat ass is directly in the middle of the screen. If they re-release this season with that ass blurred out, I’ll buy it so I don’t have to see that monster ass again. Maybe they were going for the big booty loving demographic and if that’s the case, they hit it and hit it hard.
I highly recommend this episode. It was great and paced very well with a lot of great performances. You also learn a lot about auto-erotic asphyxiation, which is a bonus because knowledge is power.
