Review: Law and Order SVU: Stranger (2009, US)
This was last week’s “new” episode for UK viewers from series 10, though it’s a rerun to North America but is still good to watch after all the twists and turns have been revealed.
A woman shows up at the door of the family of a missing teenage girl, sporting the same tatoo and claiming to be their missing daughter having escaped after four years away in captivity. When holes begin to appear in her story this is just the first in a series of wrong-footing plot twists spread throughout the hunt for the kidnapper and other crimes emerge as the detectives uncover the truth.
The writing by Dawn DeNoon is taut and the episode edited to breakneck pace. The guest actors also strengthen the regular cast. The show also strays onto the territory of departed sister show Criminal Intent once it’s clear that there’s more than one criminal to catch. Hopefully the rest of the series keeps up the standard of this episode and an earlier one from series, 10, “Confesssion”, which were tightly written and present moral dilemnas without easy sugarcoating or any kind of happy ending for the original case.
– CBG
