Carisi’s Breakdown On Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 9 Was Epic, But Please Tell Us That’s Not The End Of His Story

Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0

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This can’t be the end of Carisi’s problems, can it? 

Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 9 depicted his PTSD almost perfectly until the end.

After one pep talk from Benson, Carisi seemed to snap out of it, but that’s not realistic. Is another breakdown coming?

Carisi’s Breakdown Has Been A Long Time Coming

I wasn’t a fan of the Carisi hostage situation on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 8 because it seemed so damn unnecessary.

Carisi was already headed toward trouble, with his vicarious trauma after years of working for SVU as a cop and then a prosecutor causing him to panic about keeping his girls safe. 

He could have had PTSD without the sensationalistic storyline about his hostage situation.

But if we had to have that story, at least the aftermath was nearly perfect.

In one of the most effective scenes on Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 9, Carisi tried to overcome his fears on his own by going to the deli where it happened, only to be triggered so badly he left without buying anything — and that was only the beginning.

He couldn’t focus in the squad room, didn’t want to deal with this new case, and had a lot of anger over one of the robbers making a plea deal that was getting in his way.

I’m not sure what set him off in the courtroom, but it was clear he was triggered even before he got lost in flashbacks of trying to save Ali’s life.

He eventually decided to rest the case, and it looked like he might have thrown it away. If nothing else, the jury probably thought this DA was out of it, which could have been a huge problem had Carisi not recovered enough to force Harris into a plea deal.

Benson Gave Her Usual Supportive Speech On Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 9, But It Shouldn’t Have Been Enough

I love Benson’s pep talks for survivors, but it shouldn’t have been enough to snap Carisi out of his PTSD-related fog.

Benson: So all those years of night school… you were a detective, and then you became a prosecutor… you’re going to let a manipulator like Harris Vernon take it all away from you?

Carisi: What do you want from me, Liv?

Benson: I want you to wake up. Come back.

Law & Order: SVU is usually pretty good when it comes to depicting mental health issues realistically, but this time it might have been so eager to get Carisi motivated to do his job that it lost the plot a bit.

Benson meant well, but telling someone who is dealing with PTSD to “wake up” is the worst possible advice.

You can’t just switch off trauma responses, and Benson should know that better than anyone. She wasn’t able to do it with a snap of her fingers after her kidnapping, so why should Carisi be able to?

It would have made sense for her to tell Carisi again that he needed therapy, considering that now his job was on the line and his boss thought he should be off the case. 

I thought that’s what Benson was going for when she said that Carisi’s anger was a feeling, but then she went too far when she pushed him to come back to himself, which he couldn’t do without professional help.

(As an aside, I have a hard time imagining Law & Order’s Nicholas Baxter questioning whether Carisi should stay on this case. I missed McCoy even though the exchange was off-screen!)

Weirdly, Benson’s speech worked better than it should have. Carisi was back to being an aggressive DA who was willing to fight hard for justice. He managed to back both Tommy Gallagher and Harris Vernon into a corner so they took deals, closed the case, and then hung out with Rollins. 

He didn’t even seem worried about the girls being on the other side of the pizzeria playing with the claw machine at the end of Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 9.

I call BS on that. 

Carisi might be able to do that short-term, but the anxiety is going to come flooding back after a while if he doesn’t do something about the flashbacks besides hold Rollins’ hand and tell her he’s sure everything will be okay.

Rollins’ Guest Appearance Didn’t Live Up To The Hype

Although Law & Order; SVU Season 26 Episode 9 was hyped as a Rollisi episode, Rollins had a tiny part.

Surprisingly, Carisi called her in to find out whether Katharine wrote those messages rather than Benson reaching out to her because of Carisi’s struggles.

Rollins didn’t have any personal conversations with Benson or anyone else this time, either. She showed up, promised to investigate, discovered the messages from “Katharine” were fake, and had a short scene where she and Carisi ate pizza together.

This guest appearance was more like a cameo. Her part of the investigation wasn’t even done on-screen!

I’m always thrilled to get Rollins in any form, but this was silly. 

She was a major part of SVU for so many years, and I hate that now she has these appearances where she barely has any lines. 

I feel doubly bad for Rollisi fanatics because they were promised an episode centering around them, and the Rollisi part was minimal.

A Bizarre Case With No Real Motive… But Did Harris Need One?

I pegged Harris as the bad guy early on. It seemed like the only logical conclusion.

However, I was distracted throughout Law & Order: SVU Season 25 Episode, trying to understand why he decided to trick people into raping his wife.

It didn’t make sense. Rapists usually want some sort of power over their victims, but as far as I could tell, Harris’ only motive was that he got off on doing this crap to his wife.

Maybe that’s enough of a motive. Sadly, in this world, there are more than enough sleazy men who see their wives’ bodies as their property.

Still, it was never really explained why he did this beyond being a sleazeball, and I found that unsatisfying. I wanted to know more about why he did this crap.

The men involved thought that Katharine wanted it, but they should have known a drugged person couldn’t consent, especially if they didn’t get her permission before Harris drugged her.

Still, Carisi was right that Harris was the mastermind, so it was fitting that he got double the sentence that Tommy Gallagher did.

Random Thoughts About Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 9

• Who puts a flash drive marked WHORE from an anonymous source into their computer without checking for viruses?
• At first, I thought someone made a deepfake of Katharine and Tommy. That might have been an interesting direction to go in!
• Although it was a different actor, Harris looked enough like This Is Us’ Griffin Dunne to be distracting.

Over to you, SVU fanatics! What did you think of Law & Order: SVU Season 26 Episode 9?

Vote in our poll to rank the episode, and then hit the comments with your thoughts.

Law & Order: SVU airs on NBC on Thursdays at 9/8c and on Peacock on Fridays.

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