Two Ladies & Their TVs

We love our shows so much we created a blog for it.

L&O: SVU "Pure"

Both "Lost" and "L&O" were repeats tonight, so here's the review for last night's SVU. (Very sleepy and busy yesterday to be punctual about the review.)

So I made fun of Martin Short before even seeing the episode, but can I say something? His character grew on me and got so increasingly creepy  that I got pretty uncomfortable watching him. Martin Short + psychic + getting in people's way at the precinct = some weird comic relief, which sort of got annoying. Until you figure out that he's the perp, and that he had a partner working with him the whole time!

Lemme just jump around for now and say that Mary Mara, who played the Carlene character, was also very good. She was so perfectly dumb and insecure yet freakily psycho and brainwashed all at the same time that I felt uncomfortable watching her confession, too. I'd want to slap her so badly, but then realize she's got some MAJOR issues if she thought killing people for Sebastian/Henry (including carving a fetus out of its mother's womb, no less) would somehow get him to love her.

And there was Sebastian/Henry, so ready to manipulate her because of her obsession with him, who started the whole thing. Wanting to have sex with virgins - strike that, rape virgins - because he likes seeing the expressions on their face? And the satisfaction he got from watching everyone in the precinct  stressing out over the victim? That he refused to have sex with Carlene because she was "damaged goods"? When  he mentioned the word "soupçon" - how he liked to have sex with virgins because their faces "always show a soupçon of pain" - rather than sounding pretentious, which it did, it also sounded so utterly creepy to me. Put psycho + the easily manipulated together and you have a match made in heaven/hell.

In conclusion (am I writing a school report?), Martin Short did a heckuva lot better than I expected him to do, and I was disgustingly/pleasantly surprised.

Rating: 8 out of 10. 9 out 10 for Martin Short's performance alone.

Posted by: merserene at 22:12 | link | comments (1)
it s all drama

Comments:

#1  11 March 2005 - 11:13

 

Thanks for getting to this. I was doing artwork, then I wasn't able to get onto the internet from yesterday morning til now.

Martin Short was terrific, wasn't he? I was really surprised (and yeah, I made fun, too), but in retrospect I shouldn't have been-- someone who's come up with as many characters as he has is bound to be a good actor, too. What really surprised me was that I was able to put "Martin Short" out of my head and focus on the character. Slimy, despicable.. but not til the end. That was what was good about it, too.

I ended up paying more attention to Ice-T than I usually do, especially his reactions to Elliot and Cragen. Loved his reactions when Stabler went charging into the Ballantines' apartment.

You've covered everything I would have said, so I'll just list my favorite lines of the episode:

Elliot: "*The* Sebastian Ballantine?"
Sebastian: "Yes. You've heard of me?"
Elliot: "No!"

That got a big laugh from us-- the delivery was priceless.

athenawj

Comments: