"Law & Order" Battle Lines (TV Episode 2022) Poster

(TV Series)

(2022)

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7/10
Battle Lines
bobcobb3016 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
We know at this stage that the Law and Order franchise is going to be overly political, but at least at this point it did not go as far as it could have gone with this topic.

When you are dealing with abortions and legal issues around that it is going to be controversial, but after making it clear where the show stands on this issue, they quickly moved on and were able to just give us a good case out of it.

That is all we ask for. Maybe not a classic that older people will be rewatching multiple times on basic cable stations in the afternoon years from now, but still a solid episode of TV tonight.
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7/10
I don't care how it's not accurate
Linda-workerbee30 September 2022
It's entertaining. It never fails to keep my interest and yes it's sometimes predictable. I love as much as I did when it started. I like Jeffrey Donovan in this role and Mehcad Brooks. This formula works. I will continue to watch as long as it remains this way. The fact that it comes to a conclusion keeps me watching. No matter how unrealistic that is. I suppose closure whether i like the outcome or not.

The situation is believable. Typical politicians. Cops are sometimes better than we know they and sometimes they are worse. Yes they mention current media personalities but it's not incorrect. Like I said, I'll keep watching.
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7/10
Buttons
safenoe10 January 2024
Warning: Spoilers
If anything, I think Battle Lines, the title of this episode, could also be called Hot Button Lines, because there were so many that had to be pressed (or pushed) as soon as possible as the script traversed from one dot to the next. No problems with such hot button issues, but it kind of distracted from the bigger picture and the plot and the narrative.

The idea of a governor of a big southern state getting his comeuppance would have turned off some viewers from that big southern state that's for sure, but so it is.

Connie Shi played Detective Violet Yee, and hopefully she'll make more appearances.
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10/10
Art Imitates Life
Chanel_and_gucci1221 October 2022
I am in awe. Literally just finished the episode and I rushed over here to give my thoughts. I also, having been on here for awhile, could already smell the other reviews for an episode like this.

I could drone on and on about how television and movies have always reflected what's going on in society. But i'm not. I'm going to thank the writers and producers. Thank them for writing and producing an episode like this, a story like this. There are real life consequences to the moral playground that the government has become and, unfortunately, you start playing with lives when you make decisions based on feelings and emotions like that.

The importance of the volunteer worker? There are real life people doing that. Right now. And a simple Google search will show that multiple have been threatened and, yes, even killed. So if you're marking off points for inaccuracy, you're either blind to the point of the show or blind to the world around you. Not a single bit was inaccurate. Except maybe in real life, the governor might've been able to buy his son's path out of trouble.

But the message. The message is so important. Lives are going to end but it's not the lives pro-lifers are worried about. It's the lives of the people with uteruses, the lives of the activists trying to help and protect them. This episode shows that. It tears the rose colored glasses off your face and forces you to confront the reality of what's going on.

All in all, the writers did an incredible job - showing the pain of growing up in a conservative family in a conservative state and needing to color outside their lines, showing everyone the kind of people that will stop at anything to help those struggling since Roe was overturned, highlighting the dangers and struggles that the people within the system face when they try to push back against the hatred filling our world.

As a Texan woman who is drowning in our REAL governor's REAL policies and laws that are affecting REAL women, I absolutely adored this episode. No notes, no critiques.

I implore those that were bothered by the message - please ask yourself why. Women and others with uteruses are in real danger. Why does a show bringing light to real issues bother you so much? And I ask you to think of the real people that are going through real, horrible things. Right now. And then, thank the writers.
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8/10
Powerhouse episode but why legitimize Fox News & demonize New York?
zacdawac1 October 2022
This was a potent and powerful show that touched on essential political and social issues. For the most part, it was on target. I thought the first season of this revival was kind of weak and I was ready to write it off. With the departure of the eternally annoying Detective Bernard, and with this episode, I'm ready to give the series another chance.

Yes, I thought that Detective Bernard was one of the most grating characters in the huge Law and Order universe. Of the many detectives they could have brought back for the resurrection, he would have been my last choice. I'm not sure whose decision it was to write him out but it was a wise one.

Shifting my focus back to this particular episode, yes they essentially painted Fox News and Hannity as the right wing propaganda garbage they are. At the same time, by having the characters talk about watching Fox and Hannity, they were legitimizing them. Most intelligent, educated people I know, especially fellow New Yorkers, would never turn on Fox News for any reason. Maybe they had to, in order to thoroughly investigate their case. I'll give them slack for this one but the next time someone mentions watching Fox, I might once again reevaluate my opinion of this show.

Finally, this is my sacred city, New York. It's not Wisconsin or Kentucky. You wouldn't see that many right wing activists, especially violent ones, protesting outside the court building. I don't want to say what the protests were about because I don't want to give the story away. I'll only point out that, when the ku klux klan was granted permission to hold a rally in New York, essentially on the same spot as the final scene of this episode, six klansmen showed up and something in the neighborhood of a million people came out to protest their presence. I was there. The klansmen were confined to a tiny stage. The anti-klan people stretched at least a couple of square miles.

Yes, there might have been ten people out protesting for the right but there is no possibility that there would have been a 50-50 split, as the scene seemed to indicate. Fox News loves to demonize New York, in spite of the facts that they're based here and that their heroes, Trump and Giuliani, both spent much of their lives trying to be kings of the city. Talking about watching Hannity as if it's the normal thing to do, along with the right wing extremist protesters, almost feeds Fox's rants.

Again though, for the most part, this was right on target. However, there are ways of showing the flip side without legitimizing it.
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2/10
So predictable and trying so hard to be relevant
laurenllandreth4 October 2022
Man, I miss when shows were entertaining. I'm a loyal, long time L & O fan but this season is challenging that.

This episode wreaked of desperation to see how many hot button roofs they can fit into 25 minutes. It's embarrassingly cliche.

And because the show is so blatant with its agenda, I predicted this entire plot within 6-7 minutes.

If you love watching sensationalized news, this show is for you! If you don't need or desire to have to think about constant current events while trying to watch a tv show, you should pass on this, that is unless you're an impressionable teenager who can be molded by actors.
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3/10
Another SVU Script Hand-Me-Down
bkkaz30 September 2022
Is it possible anymore for the Law and Order franchise not to do an episode that has some angle to sex crimes? I mean, I get it, the well has run dry, so they're just recycling stuff. I'm assuming Law and Order must have lost much of its male audience, too, because no matter which show you're watching, there's going to be a sex crime angle, abortion, gender, patriarchal verbal abuse, "slooot shaming," etc.

No, these topics are not restricted only to women, but if you watch Law and Order, you'd think good ol' fashioned murder doesn't happen anymore. Plus you can see in the advertising between the snippets of programming that the meat-and-potatoes guy with more than half a brain who might have cheered on Michael Moriarty and Sam Waterston has been replaced by people who shop ecstatically for lamps at Target and say, "Charge it, charge it, charge it!" with whatever credit cards are being pushed.

This episode has a bit more energy than some. I mean, it seems like Sam Waterson got a good night's sleep and his Geritol, for starters. "Derp" Donovan derp derpy derp derps with the new giant they hired (just imagine how easy a target such a hulking guy is for some street gangster with a 9 mm and you can see the incongruity).

Some kind of murder goes on -- someone is pushed off a bridge -- but really, you'll lose sight of the actual crime because of all the pontification about abortion and victim blaming. If there's any suspense in this episode, it mostly gets lost because you have to listen to speeches about the social issues involved. Here's a test: When the episode is over, write down what you recall about the arguments over abortion. Then, write down the names of three guest characters. Which list did you find easier to create?

There's more of that SVU-style super sensitivity going on. Are the ADA's crack legal minds going after the accused with gusto? No, they're extra-careful and even apologetic if anything they say might in any way be interpreted as adversarial (even though they have by definition an adversarial relationship with the accused) and even the defense attorney follows suit. I'm sure it's meant to be all warm and fuzzy, but in what fantasy world does Law and Order now exist?

Remember, when the show debuted more than 30 years ago, the concept was to do a procedural; that is, a show that mimicked reality, without the forced melodrama of other shows, so that it seemed more like a documentary. Boy, we've a long way from there. Now the show seems to take place in an alternate universe where the cops and prosecutors are not just Boy and Girl Scouts, they're the sort of Boy and Girl Scouts you only meet in the handbook.

And at the same time, the show very, very carefully dodges the reality of police corruption and brutality, not to mention the baked in racism. The same goes for the District Attorney. While all parties involved nauseatingly wax on about their crusades for the downtrodden, the lack of diversity is hopelessly lost. (This is a show that defines diversity 1950s style, which is whites in all the top positions and a few black and brown people here and there so they're not called out for their racism.)
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1/10
They've already lost their way
spikeluvr4 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Law and Order always covered plenty of "ripped from the headlines" topics but they didn't make them character driven political hit jobs. They were procedurally driven and Jack McCoy usually pulled a rabbit out of his hat by the end. The detectives asking the governor for an alibi is ludicrous when they already have eyewitnesses and the description doesn't fit the governor. Then they arrest the brother because he fits the description of a "young white male wearing a baseball cap". Are they serious? If they want to be really current, how about showing the DA not allowing them to arrest most people and releasing the rest ROR? The lieutenant being angry that the governor thinks New York is crime ridden and it turns out he was right is laughable. The last straw was them making the brother the killer. How did they even get a search warrant based on that vague suspect description? New York is a crime ridden cesspool these days where people are routinely pushed on to subway tracks and into the street by random strangers. Most of which are committed by people other than "young white males wearing baseball caps". This isn't "ripped from the headlines". This is ripped from a Democrat campaign ad. Liberal viewers will love this episode. Longtime Law and Order fans see it as a shadow of the quality it used to have.
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2/10
Another Cartoonish Law and Order Reboot Episode
olivia-5088510 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Law and Order used to be a good show. It always had a pro-liberal, anti-business bent, but Dick Wolf restrained those tendencies sufficiently to allow me to enjoy what used to be, in my opinion, America's best police procedural programming.

As the long original run continued, though, the show got increasingly didactic and moralistic in its liberal teachings. However, there were enough story lines, like the Governor Shalvoy episodes, to moderate the leftist preaching.

The reboot, however, is watchable only to see how low Mr. Wolf is willing to pander to liberal "values." Like another reviewer of this episode, I deduced the course and ending of the plot before the first commercial break - just needed to see the Texas Governor, his teenaged daughter, and her boyfriend to know how it would play out. Mr. Wolf, if you read or have someone tell you about these reviews, please do a course correction now! Seriously, look at your earlier work and then rewatch this episode, the storyboard and script for which seem to have been written by a overly-dramatic teenaged pro-choice activist.
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1/10
Expected from SVU
PartialMovieViewer20 November 2022
Warning: Spoilers
So are they still letting criminals walk through a revolving door in New York? Why are there so many police in this show - I thought defund the police was the way of NYC. Hopefully this new crowd of politicians can help make the city safer - maybe not. Who knows. Anyways most acting, production and plot-layout all seems good. I wish the writers could write a solid script without dragging that obvious political anchor, they have chained around their neck into every stinking story. A witness identifies a white guy (phew - at least the criminal wasn't another race or female) as the perpetrator. The detectives tell a uniformed policeman (the ones who are being defunded) to find a white guy with a ball cap. So the police officer questions a black individual. Whoa!!! The black detective jumps down the uniform's throat for being racist (implied). So never ask potential witness who are not white is the only way to do police work? As far as the abortion issue goes, would one expect anything else? News-flash, there's plenty of bad actors on either side of the spectrum - sadly the blinders in place and ignorance once again rules the keyboards.
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3/10
Truthless and Uninformative
buddybradley-2266513 December 2022
The Texans are portrayed as simple cartoon characters. Panders to liberals who need to see themselves as sophisticated sources of truth and all others as subnormal. They would be so much better off taking stories from truth instead of phony stories configured to scratch somebody's political need. This story just contributes to the high level of devisiveness we already have. The episode just revels in it's own bigotry. Hoping for better. And now I'm out. 600 characters is way too long for a review of this show. The entire story could be told in a few hundred. How many words can you use to review an episode where none of the characters seem like real people.
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