Law & Order: SVU season 19 episode 4 review: The case of Mandy Fowler
Let’s start with where the case originated: Mandy was a popular teenage girl at her school with a decent social-media following. She was known for being cheery and positive until a part one night where, after smoking weed, she was humiliated as someone wrote in permanent marker all over her. Later in the episode, she discovered that she was also raped. This was a difficult case for the SVU team for a wide array of reasons. First, it was getting many young people to talk. Then, it was getting Mandy to actually testify after she tried at first to change everything about herself to avoid being cyberbullied. (She eventually changed her appearance back, but still didn’t want to go through with being in front of a jury.)
Eventually we learned that a young man named Andrew was responsible for the rape — he was a “friend” who clearly liked her far too much, and tried to proclaim after the fact that the rape was consensual because she “smiled.” One of the other kids involved was Max, who was responsible for drawing on Mandy’s body but was hesitant to testify.
In the end, the SVU squad managed to rely on Mandy’s age, and the ages of many of the other students, to resolve the case and get justice for her. Mandy not listening to orders actually proved to be a benefit to her, since she was able to get enough of a confession from Andrew for it to stick. Andrew eventually admitted to everything (his age proved to be a benefit in terms of his openness), and that led to a resolution in court. He confessed in open court to what he did as a part of a plea deal.
There was nothing that could be done to get Mandy her old life back, but this confession was a start.
Did Brooke Shields show up?
Surprisingly no, following the end of this past episode. However, we did get a scene between Benson and Rollins in which the former told her about Noah’s grandmother showing up at her house. That was made worse at the end of the episode when Benson received a notice suggesting that her fitness as a parent was being questioned.
CarterMatt Verdict
The first thing that we want to do here is to pour some praise onto Brighton Sharbino for her performance as Mandy in this episode — despite being a young actress, she was able to deliver an enormous range of emotions here. This episode sent a powerful message to young people about cyberbullying and also stopping sexual assault — and it did so through the always-powerful SVU lens. That scene at the end with Benson and Mandy speaking to young people was both striking and unfortunately true when it comes to how much young people have gone through in their lives.
What did you think about Law & Order: SVU season 19 episode 4?
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(Photo: NBC.)