"LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT"
"SOLITARY"

10/07/2009 (09:00PM - 10:00PM) (Wednesday) : WHEN A YOUNG WOMAN GOES MISSING, HER EX-CONVICT NEIGHBOR, CALLUM DONOVAN (GUEST STAR STEPHEN REA) BECOMES THE PRIMARY SUSPECT AND DETECTIVE ELLIOT STABLER (CHRIS MELONI) FINDS HIMSELF IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.

http://nbcumv.com/release_detail.nbc/enter...timeschedu.html

When Lily Milton (guest star Deborah Ann Woll) is reported missing, her boyfriend, Parker Hubbard (guest star Bobby Campo), points Detectives Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni) in the direction of Callum Donovan (guest star Stephen Rea), Lily's downstairs neighbor and convicted bank robber who spent nineteen years in solitary confinement. During the investigation into Donovan's alibi, Lily is found alive, adding a surprising twist to the case and exposing more of Donovan's dark past. Also starring: Richard Belzer (Detective John Munch), Dann Florek (Captain Donald Cragen), Ice-T (Detective Odafin Tutuola), Tamara Tunie (Dr. Melinda Warner), and B.D. Wong (Dr. George Huang).

Wonder what Elliot did wrong this time around?

I am not liking that other detective...or this new ADA

It was an ok episodes, I was expecting something better.

SOLITARY hasn't aired yet. It was SUGAR that aired last night. Here is a preview of SOLITARY from NBC.

http://www.nbc.com/Law_and_Order_Special_V...litary/1162296/

Thanks for the link babe. Are you kidding me? Another old Elliot case coming back from the dead? Can the writers dig deep into their cerebral and find some form of creativity I know has to be there somewhere? So far this season blows.

I agree...defiantly not their best work...acting or writing..

SVUlovesME,

Ryan wasn’t mentioned in this episode according to a friend who have seen ‘Solitary’ from the Canadian TV feed from last night at 10pm. She also told me Elliot had been thru hell.

Well at least Neal Baer has listened to the fans or figured it out for himself as now the ENTIRE cast is in the opening picture and not just Olivia and Elliot. I am glad to see THAT change....now let's see how the rest of the episode goes. I am a little nervous it will blow.....

Okay this episode is going really well!

I actually laughed out loud when Elliot slammed the door in Paxton's face!!! Then I was like "awww yeah!" when he called Paxton out on who she really was and what was going on inside her. He broke her which is nice two episodes before she leaves. Never thought we'd see Sonya Paxton break down, apologize, and then ask for Stabler's help on ANYTHING! And yeah....I think she has a major crush on him!!! haha EEEEEW!

Wow, interesting episode. I actually feel bad for the guy...poor man.

Not a bad episode entirely. Thought it was kind of all over the place between the beginning with that fake story and then the rest of the eppy with elliot as the "victim". Elliot in the hole made my skin crawl. I was having anxiety just watching him in there! It was a good episode, better than the last 2 we have seen thus far.

It wass a good episode, Elliot is crazy.

I'd be perfectly happy if this eppy never aired again! EVER!

I swear, Neal has such a boner for schlock sometimes. And El apologizing for doing his job is going to be every other eppy now?

El in solitary confinement was beyond ridiculous for at least 2 reason. 1. Why go bonkers when you are just in there experimenting and know when you are getting out; 2 and more important, is Elliot the best person to be a case study for such an experiment? He's completely wired as it is.

I can't think of anything good about this eppy! Oh, wait, Chris, Mariska, Ice, Richard and Dan were in it. That's about it! And as much as I love Miss Lahti, Paxton must go and now! I don't care if 3 weeks from now her attitude is explained. She has gotten on my very last nerve, and I should have said something sooner.

I'm depressed...

Neal, you better not screw me over in the coming weeks! You owe me big!


ANDREA

Not so bad. I thought it was a good episode. Tense. I love seeing Elliot in casual clothes, I miss him wearing jeans. I too felt sorry for Donovan, when the guilty verdict was read. Elliot in the solitary confinement was hot bare chest, legs, wearing those gray shorts ooo-la-la, all scruffy yummy. However the cockroach part...yuck. I hate cockroaches. I'm scared to death of them! If it had been ants then okay but cockroachs *shivers*
Hmm if Elliot wanted torture, why not stay with Paxton at her place? Haha

There is one thing that did piss me off about the episode was that when Elliot was in the hospital there wasn't any word about Kathy, not even a "we've notified Kathy..." kinda thing. I knew she wasn't going to be in the episode at least but still, some acknowledgement would have been nice.

Olivia did mention about her working undercover at the prison, wishing that she did wind up in the hole (although I'm sure she wouldn't have wanted Lowell to escort her there!).

I think that's it for now. I'm sure more will come to mind eventually soon and will rewatch the episode again (as it's on my DVR) and I'll spot new things to deal with.

Next week's preview looks good. Looks like Olivia visits her mom's grave.

I'm sure the big own up will be on October 28th (Spooked's airdate)

Hi, so was it just my TV or did Cragen's voice sound funny when he, the ADA, and Stabler were outside the Interrogation room? It was in the first 15 minutes, since it's only been on for that long.

I did like this episode a lot more then last weeks. It had some good drama. When Elliot went flying off the ledge I kept thinking, "Why didn't he bring someone with him and what possessed him to go on the roof to apologize to a guy he all but harassed? What was he expecting? 'Thanks for apologizing' they shake hands then everyone goes home with smiles on their faces?" To me that was just...stupid.

I was also a bit unsure as to what he was trying to prove by going to solitary confinement for 3 days. I understand his intentions, he was trying to see whether or not there was some truth behind the crap Munch was spewing and the justification for the perps reaction. But in what world would 3 days seriously drive anyone as crazy as Elliot was making it out to be? A few months maybe but 3 days? Not sure that was too believable.

I liked the fact that Liv worked with Fin for a bit. That was something I haven't seen in a while.

Although I thought the acting was all superb last night...the part of the story with Elliot going to 'the hole' was ridiculous!
Any father of a toddler who volunteers himself to go be locked up alone for 36 hours isn't in 'SOLITARY'...IT'S A VACATION!!

There was no logistical reason for him to do it....but I kept wishing there had been (like when Goren went in to solitary in the psych ward on LOCI,) because I really did think Chris did a great job on the acting part. But really...to get THAT freaked out, when you KNEW you were getting out...completely NOT the same as what happened to the inmate he had locked up.

Also high on the ridiculous scale...Elliot Stabler (and the rest of the NYPD detectives) are NOT super hereos. They cannot fly. They DO feel pain. Their bones will break, they bleed. Why they had Elliot up and around without a scratch (I'd have settled for a wince once in awhile when he turned his head!) after that fall, I do not get. Reminded me so much of Olivia's car accident in "Paternity." A little realism would go a long way, writers....

I DID like Olivia's small mention of Sealview. It's the first time she's mentioned it in any way in front of the squad. I think that was very interesting...

Again...thought the acting was great...but the elements of the story were just a little too farfetched for me...I'd give it a "C."

-- The episode left me speechless, I liked it.


-- Where is Huang? Isn't his job to interview someone like Donovan?


-- I thought the new ada was a lot of fun to watch, especially being avoided by Elliot.


-- The undercover experience was mentioned, but not about Olivia's attack. Her actions seem to be normal as if nothing happened to her. I guess she has dealt with it and moved on. But who knows? In a future episodes, she'll reveal it to Elliot.


-- Slamming the door on Paxton's face was my favorite.


-- I loved the way Olivia shushed Elliot and made him stay like he was a five year old.


-- Petrovsky. How I missed her!


-- True. Elliot should be accompanied by a fellow cop when he visits a perp to apologize (or not). At least, stay 5 inches away from Donovan. He was TOO close.


-- Poor Elliot. He had been through hell from falling off the roof to confine in a cell for three days. I'd go nuts if I stayed for ONE day with absolute silence. I don't know if he was Elliot Stabler, or Chris Keller from OZ, when he was doing the push-ups. He should be nominated for this.


-- The gravesite that was shown on the preview, got me curious. I wonder if that's Serena's? I can't wait for next week!

I did not hate it, but a few points really bother me about this episode...

What the hell is wrong with Elliot? Why are you putting yourself in the hole for? If you have 3 days free don't you think you should go how and spend time with your family and recoop from yet another line of duty injury?? Don't you have enough on your plate with a toddler, 2 teenagers and a bi-polar kid? . I swear if I were Kathy I would leave him again, seriously. You have a 2 year old at home and you chose to play with a roach. I also thought it was really funny there was only ONE roach.

And for what? The man committed a crime he should be in prison. I can't imagine with it is like to be in solitary for 19 years but that is why I don't commit crimes. .it is not like the other senerio where the convicted man was innocent. And why was it assumed he would automatically be put back there and not in general pop?

And seriously, can we get some bruises at least with that fall? Honeslty I think it would have been better to push Olivia, FIn or Munch off, mix it up, share the love.

IS the Wolf Baer tired of sex crimes? It is eppy 3 and theis is the second one with no sex crime. WTF????

However, I am really beginning to like this Paxton lady...she is a little off but very entertaining....I'm going to miss that crazy bitch when she is gone.


whatever...next

LMAO! The scene was so freaking ridiculous that I had to turn the channel. I could not take it! And I too hope Kathy leaves!


ANDREA

Actually 3 days or 72 hours is the precise amount of time for a person who is kept confined somewhere to change. It happens in hostage situations or kidnap situations, all a person needs is 3 days of being controlled physically, mentally, emotionally and/or psychologically by someone else in order for them to change into a completely different person and if not set free immediately after that they become more under the control of whoever it is or whatever it is that is controlling them. This is why Stockholm syndrome is so prevalent among those who are forced into captivity such as Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Duggard and Patty Hearst. All of these women identified with their abductors because a person can essentially be "reprogrammed" just 3 days of being subjected to things that WOULD reprogram them such as solitary like Elliot did, or being kept without food or water or very little of each, being tortured, or abused psyhcologically or physically or sexually. So it is not so hard to believe that after 3 days of being in solitary Elliot would appear to have changed. His only real hope was that he knew it would all be over in 3 days, but we still saw a change in his behavior. Humans need contact of some sort with the outside world. Elliot had none. No one talked to him when they gave him his food tray, no one came to visit him or checked on him. He played with a cockroach because he was THAT starved for some form of contact. So it is very believable that after 3 days Elliot would be a completely changed man.

Wow everyone is so hard on Elliot for choosing to put himself in the shoes of another person. Yes, he has kids and a wife he should be home with, but we all know that Elliot's job has come first in a lot of areas and in a lot of cases. Unfortunately, being married to a cop one has to be willing and able to put up with that, so I think Kathy is used to it by now and was probably okay with it. She supports Elliot in his crusades even if she doesnt like them or agree with them. She loves him and would probably follow him to the ends of the earth if she had to. The reason Elliot did what he did was because he didnt believe Donovan or Munch about a person changing after being in solitary confinement for an extended period of time. Elliot had no idea what it felt like to be without human contact for a day let alone 19 years. Even Liv didnt get it and we know this because she said she would LIKED to have been in solitary when she went undercover because at least then she would have some privacy. Elliot had to know. Donovan pushed him off that roof because he was afraid he would have to go back to solitary and after 19 years of it I am surprised he survived it and not only that am surprised he was able to get a job and be around people again. But the body is resilient and can be programmed any which way it is forced to be programmed. But Elliot just had to know. He forgave Donovan for what he had done to him, and afterwards he felt compassion for him. It was a good move on Elliot's part, he has never put himself in the shoes of a perp before, and especially not a perp who tried to kill him. I commend Elliot for doing what he did because it is easy to judge someone and punish them in one way or another for one thing or another, but to really understand where someone is coming from until you walk a mile in their shoes.

ala1975 Posted Oct 8 2009, 12:19 AM
Hi, so was it just my TV or did Cragen's voice sound funny when he, the ADA, and Stabler were outside the Interrogation room? It was in the first 15 minutes, since it's only been on for that long.

There was a problem with Cragen's voice in that scene.
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MunchzHunch Posted Oct 8 2009, 04:53 PM
"Actually 3 days or 72 hours is the precise amount of time for a person who is kept confined somewhere to change. It happens in hostage situations or kidnap situations, all a person needs is 3 days of being controlled physically, mentally, emotionally and/or psychologically by someone else in order for them to change into a completely different person and if not set free immediately after that they become more under the control of whoever it is or whatever it is that is controlling them. This is why Stockholm syndrome is so prevalent among those who are forced into captivity such as Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Duggard and Patty Hearst. All of these women identified with their abductors because a person can essentially be "reprogrammed" just 3 days of being subjected to things that WOULD reprogram them such as solitary like Elliot did, or being kept without food or water or very little of each, being tortured, or abused psyhcologically or physically or sexually. So it is not so hard to believe that after 3 days of being in solitary Elliot would appear to have changed. His only real hope was that he knew it would all be over in 3 days, but we still saw a change in his behavior. Humans need contact of some sort with the outside world. Elliot had none. No one talked to him when they gave him his food tray, no one came to visit him or checked on him. He played with a cockroach because he was THAT starved for some form of contact. So it is very believable that after 3 days Elliot would be a completely changed man"

Right direction but wrong path. Stockholm syndrome is caused by interaction with people, not be being in solitary confinement alone. It is the combination of isolation and threats of death alternated with acts of kindness. Solitary confinement is more like sensory deprivation. The brain needs the stimulus of human contact. There were experiments in the 1960s that measured brain waves before and after a week in solitary confinement where the EEG showed slowing of the brain waves in the subjects.
When considering whether the effects of a the 3 day confinement on Elliot make any sense, remember that in the real world prisoners are not left alone for that long. Solitary is supposed to be 23 hours a day, not 24.

I did not like this episode at all, expected better. This was not a good script and not well written. What was it suppose to do make you feel sorry for criminals in solitary confinement?? It did not make me feel sympathetic at all, criminals are put there because they did something bad. They put themselves in that situation.

IMAP Posted Today, 07:06 PM
I did not like this episode at all, expected better. This was not a good script and not well written. What was it suppose to do make you feel sorry for criminals in solitary confinement?? It did not make me feel sympathetic at all, criminals are put there because they did something bad. They put themselves in that situation.

Assuming the people in prison did the crime for which they are imprisoned, sending them to jail is what the criminal justice system does. But sending them to solitary confinement is decided by prison officials who have great latitude in the actions they take. And it isn't always the case that the prisoners have done something wrong in prison. Simply being suspected of being dangerous is enough.
Being in solitary confinement for long periods of time is injurious to a person's physical and mental health. Just someone has broken the law doesn't mean we should treat them like they are less than animals we are planning to eat. It doesn't say anything good about us.
But most importantly, you need to realize that solitary confinement as a practice is counterproductive. It hasn't stopped or even slowed gang activity in American prisons. Munch mentioned the British study that caused them to stop the practice accept for short periods or because of the need for protective custody. Warehousing prisoners in solitary confinement isn't an answer.

Unless something else better comes along, this should be Christopher Meloni's Emmy nomination episode. Largely without words, he managed to convey the breakdown in Elliot's mind without going overboard. That part of the storyline could have been improved but it's still the best work on SVU by a regular cast member since Season 7.
But there were problems with the rest of the episode. Many of them have to do with the absence of Agent Huang. He really needed to be in this episode.
The lead-in with Parker going his apartment was too long and didn't build any suspense. It would have been better if the show started with him entering the apartment and then finding Lily gone.
Once again, there was no evidence of a sex crime. So who called in SVU and why?
Once again, the police jump to conclusions without evidence. And who is their target? An ex-con who lives in the building. He is yet another of Elliot's old cases. But he was a bank robber, not a rapist or a kidnapper. They are sufficiently different crimes that believing he jumped from one to the other required an explanation. Huang is not there to focus the detectives.
Donovan was remarkably well-adjusted for a man who spent all other time in solitary confinement. He had no trouble making eye contact with people, especially Elliot. He confronts Elliot without any real anger. He doesn't shy away from people. He goes to a bar and talks to an old girlfriend like nothing happened. While everyone is different, that doesn't match the accounts of people who were held in solitary for long periods of time.
Once again the writers have screwed up Elliot's timeline. They have never been able to keep the number of years he 's been in the NYPD straight. But in Authority, Elliot said he had been a detective for 16 years. That would make him start as a detective in 1991-2. That date fits with the dates on the boxes in Rage. Making him a detective in 1989 is simply too early.
There is no age requirement to become a detective beyond the requirement to be 21 to become a police officer. There is no test to take as there is for Sergent, etc. The appointment is discretionary. But you need to be past the probationary period. And you should have served at least 18 months in a unit considered by the NYPD to be investigatory.
Since Elliot and Donovan have history, Elliot would be the wrong person to have interview Donovan. It's not much history but why risk having things go wrong. Cragen knows better than that.
Donovan was in solitary for 19 years and he smokes? How did he get the cigarettes? That would have required contact with somebody.
Hearsay rears its head. Parker testifying to what Lily told him was be hearsay but it may or may be inadmissible. It would depend on what it was being used to prove.
The search of Donovan's workplace is questionable. Given his boss was not happy about work not being done, I doubt it was done with just his permission. There would have to be a search warrant to comply him to allow them to search. But there is no basis for probable cause for the search. There is nothing to show Donovan had anything to do with Lily's disappearance.
The doctor says Lily is suffering from hypothermia and needs her temperature brought up. But he is no sooner in with her than he comes back out and says she'll be fine. I want a doctor who can ix things that fast.
Since when do the detectives allow the victim's boyfriend to come in with them to get the victim's statement? Elliot managed to keep him from saying too much, but he should have thrown him out of the room as soon as he knew Parker was there.
MUNCH IS BACK!!!
We've seen the detectives working the tip lines many times in the past. Why wouldn't they check out Tracey's story? You don't ignore leads because they don't fit in with your theory of the case. Munch is a better detective than that.
Nobody at a cab company remembers picking up a girl in the vicinity of the crime with badly bleeding head who doesn't want to go to a hospital? They made a big deal last year about tip lines being anonymous. Even an illegal alien cabbie could call and give information.
Elliot going that night to apologize to Donovan instead of helping to book Lily doesn't make much sense. But it's the timing, not the act. Elliot just had one of his old cases turn up having an innocent man sent to jail. Going to tell Donovan he was wrong does fit Elliot's sense of fair play. And somebody does need to tell he's no longer a suspect.
Kathy should have been at the hospital or that least have it be mentioned she had been called.
Elliot falls off the roof, is unconscious for some unknown amount of time, and needs tests to check him. He walks out of the hospital and goes back to work immediately. Where is Cragen who should have sent him home?
Paxton's remark to Olivia about not hurting the prisoner makes me wonder how much about Olivia's past bad behavior Paxton has heard about.
Yet another mother with Alzheimer's. Fin's pulling Donovan away from her was unnecessarily rough and out of character. Since when are Fin and Elliot buddies again? And Olivia's attitude was rather nasty as well. If she was really concerned about the old lady, why talk to him like that in her room?
Olivia drew her gun too soon, although this time she used both hands. If you aren't going to fire, don't pull out the gun.
As the victim of Donovan's assault, Elliot should not have been allows anywhere near him. That is beyond absurd. As is the shouting match between Elliot and Paxton. Both of them were completely unprofessional. Again where is Cragen and why isn't he keeping a tighter rein on his squad?
I have problems with Paxton charging Donovan with attempted murder in the first degree. In pertinent part the law defining murder one reads:

§ 125.27 Murder in the first degree.
A person is guilty of murder in the first degree when:
1. With intent to cause the death of another person, he causes the
death of such person or of a third person; and
(a) Either:
(i) the intended victim was a police officer as defined in subdivision
34 of section 1.20 of the criminal procedure law who was at the time of
the killing engaged in the course of performing his official duties, and
the defendant knew or reasonably should have known that the intended
victim was a police officer; or
Did Donovan intend to kill to kill Elliot when he pushed him? Or was he just trying to get away from a cop who had been harassing him?
The other question that needed to be asked was whether Elliot was on the roof performing official duties or was he there on his own. If Elliot went because he wanted to tell Donovan he was sorry for his own actions, it would take it out of first degree murder.
Insanity defenses, including EED, are rarely winners. But here there were no shrinks involved. They don't talk to Donovan before the trial or testify during it. If you are going to put on an insanity defense, you need someone to say the defendant was insane at the time of the attack.
Where was Huang while this was going on? As much I adore Munch, Huang should have been in the squad room talking about the psychological effects of solitary confinement. Munch should have been agreeing with him and adding things on his own. Huang should have the source as a shrink, someone who has already taken a stand against torture and as the person who should have sent up Elliot's experiment with solitary confinement.
Olivia's statement about her experience at Sealview was flip. If you believe that she learned anything from her treatment for PTSD, she shouldn't have made that statement. But if you think she is still in denial over what happened, brushing off the possibility of being affected makes sense. Either way it puts Olivia in an ugly light.
Donovan's attorney doesn't object to the blue wall in the courtroom. Such a blatant intimidation tactic should have been ordered to stop by the judge with or without the attorney's objection.
Elliot wanting to find out whether Donovan's experience changed him was in keeping with his character. He just found out that he had helped send an innocent man to jail a short while before. He doesn't want to do that again.
But there is another reason for Elliot to consider Donovan's claim as plausible that wasn't played up. We was told Elliot grew up in a house full of siblings. Then he got married and had a kid. Then he went into the Marines. Then he came home to a house with one, then two, then four kids and his wife. So Elliot had never been alone until Kathy left and took the kids. Several times during the separation Elliot didn't want to go home because nobody was there. It certainly affected his behavior. He would be disposed to believing being alone could change your behavior.
No matter how big favor Elliot was owed, nobody would let him go into a prison's solitary cell for three days. That's just not believable. A better solution would have been Huang having a colleague studying the effects of solitary confinement who agrees to let Elliot come into his study as a subject. Elliot would have the same experience but in a more believable setting.
Paxton was right not to allow Elliot to drop the charges. It wasn't up to him. If he wanted to help Donovan, he should have asked her to make a deal before the verdict came back. He could have pressured her into it by telling he was going to the defense attorney to testify on Donovan's side. Better to get a smaller win than a loss. Elliot's other choice would have been to testify at the sentencing hearing. A statement from him would have gone a long way to minimizing the sentence.
How would Olivia know where Elliot chooses to drink? The only time they had a drink together was in Closet at her watering hole. Cragen is the one who knew where to find Elliot drinking in Shaken.
Paxton suddenly being nice to Elliot is worrisome. We don't need another female coworker getting an unrequited crush on Elliot.
As the prison guard took Donovan to the infirmary, he walked ahead of his prisoner who wasn't cuffed. The man had just been convicted of the attempted murder of a cop. Some precautions should have been taken.
The episode shouldn't have ended with the prison scenes. Elliot needed to take this experience home. It would have added to the budget but given better character development. Several weeks later, Elliot wakes up from a nightmare about solitary “Don't leave me alone!” and reached for Kathy who comforts him. Or Elliot goes home to a house full of noisy kids and volunteers to change Eli, taking his time to touch his son as he changes the diaper. It drives home the importance of human contact which was missing from the episode on a personal level.

There was good stuff in this episode but mostly due to Christopher Meloni's performance. It seems that was the starting point of the episode and the rest was written to get to there.

HOLY FREAKIN ANALYSIS!

Agreed.

Since Confession. Fin understood why Elliot went over to beat the crap out of Jake Berlin for posting his daughter's picture on a pedophile lookie site. Fin said if it was his kid, he would have done a lot more worst then what Elliot had done. They bonded back again as fathers.

I will not cut Elliot any slack here because this man simply deos NOT have tme for such experiments. He has a family, and he is kept away from them plenty without volunteering for such madness. The experiment only served to mess with Elliot's head in future arrests and trials, and it was not El's stand to take. This was not an undercover assignment! It was quite stupid, meaningless and forgettable!.


ANDREA

From the little I saw, let's just say that I hope he is given more material during the season to become eligible for an award. The absurdity alone should exclude Chris, and then there was simply nothing amazing. Perhaps my judgement was clouded by the schlock written by Neal.


ANDREA

I agree. I don't understand. I mean, maybe Kathy is more understanding, but we don't know that...I mean that is one of the reasons they "seperated" or whatever it was. He was never home, and now its starting to happen again. Oh well lol

This is just another example solidifying HOME is the last place El wants to be.


ANDREA

I'm sure Kathy was aware what Elliot had planned to do to go into Solitary confinement to see what Donovan was talking about. The only people who can really know the answer to this is Amanda Green (who wrote the episode), Jim Stewart (who edited the episode), or even Neal Baer. You can ask Neal on twitter (I don't have twitter so I can't do the deed); as far as I know Amanda or Jim don't have twitter. They might have Facebook but I did a search on them several weeks ago and there's a lot of Amanda Greens and Jim Stewarts on there so I wouldn't be able to know who's who lol. Too bad can't get the sides lately either.

I don't see what is the huge deal about what Elliot did. I mean yeah he should be home with his wife and kid, but Kathy must not have a problem with it. He was just locking himself in a tiny room for three days. It's not like he voluntarily went undercover working for a Drug Cartel for weeks/months just to see what it was like to be in the suspect's shoes therefore he would be putting his life at risk. Plus I think since Kathy knew where he would be, what he would be doing, and that he was safe, it was probably alright with her this time.The whole thing makes sense to me. The guy freaked out and tried to kill Elliot when he thought he was going back to jail. What Elliot did was compose a 3 day project because in his gut, he believed that the man was driven to do what he did because of that little room. Does it give him an excuse to push Elliot off the roof? Of course not. In Sociology, Sociologists do this type of research where instead of handing out surveys to people and recording the data, they do and put themselves in the persons shoes for a certain amount of time. Elliot is no Sociologist obviously, but I think he felt it was his responsibility to lock himself in solitary confinement because he was the one who put him there.

And for whoever said that they it was over the top for Elliot to crazy like that when he was released, I humbly disagree. You are in a tiny frickin room with access to nothing. It's just you, a bed, a toilet, and four walls. You don't even get told what time it is when you ask. Now we all know that Elliot has a bad temper all by himself so that had to make him go a little coo-coo.

On another note, I'd like to say it is nice and enjoyable to be able to have a discussion with other fans about the show. Can't wait to discuss tonight's episode :-)