Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV Series) Baby Killer (2000) User Reviews

Nothing but heartache

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 21 May 2015]

1 Police Plaza decides that SVU is the proper place for this school shooting to be handled. A black seven year old girl is shot to death in a schoolyard and the shooter is a 7 year old Hispanic kid.

There are no winners here only victims. This is one of the most heart wrenching episodes ever done in the history of the SVU show. It is made so by the performance of young Nicholas Marti Salgado as the bewildered 7 year old who is just old enough to legally be tried for this crime. The poor kid knows what he did was wrong, but the whole show is why he was shooting and that I will not reveal.

The New York County District Attorney's office doesn't look good on this either. Public relations seems to be dictating their approach a fact that Alexandra Cabot knows and doesn't like.

The crime is solved, but the end is a tragedy. Don't miss this one when its broadcast.

Good episode

[fbupdates1 · 8/10 · 7 July 2020]

Like most of the early episodes this one is good. But they couldn't come up with a name for the villain that didn't sound like the name of a knife?

Wrenches the gut

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 20 February 2020]

'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit', and the original 'Law and Order', often excelled in tackling difficult and complex subjects and when a character/the characters battle their conscience and face conflicted moral dilemmas and how to go about solving the case. It is more than just straight up procedural work, solving murder and forms of sexual abuse and courtroom scenes and is often unsettling to view because of the subjects it takes on.

"Baby Killer" is one such episode. One of the best episodes of Season 2 and one of the most touching and gut wrenching of not just this particular season but of the early seasons overall too. It is one of those that leaves one in tears, disturbed and angry, personally felt all those emotions by the time it ended on the unexpectedly shocking note it does. "Baby Killer" is a classic case of a 'Special Victims Unit' episode that doesn't make one hate the perpetrator and is shocked by how he was capable of what he did and why, despite that it doesn't look that way at first.

The subject matter is a difficult and controversial one, with the characters having to battle one of Season 2's biggest moral dilemmas. "Baby Killer" handled it with tact and sensitivity, with no real bias, complete with don't-see-it-coming twists. Being an episode where it was not too hard to see both sides. The outcome induces initial outrage and one on first watch may not find it realistic, but when thinking about it afterwards it is not too hard to understand why it turned out that way. It is one of the few episodes to not to have many characters to hate, apart from Cabot's jerk of a boss, and where there are no real villains at the end.

All the characters are well-written, Elias being the most interesting. It was great though to see Cabot being given respect and to see her have a heart after all, having been somewhat of a near-cold fish up to this point. This is especially apparent in a truly powerful and brilliantly acted courtoom scene, with Stephanie March giving some of her best acting of her earlier appearances as the character. The biggest standout in the acting department is Nicolas Salgado in one of the show's most note-worthy child performances, portraying a wide range of emotions that the viewer also feels.

It is well shot and edited once again and the music doesn't get too melodramatic, even in revelations and dramatic moments. The writing is intelligent and lump-to-the-throat-worthy, without being over-serious, soapy, sentimentalised or rambling.

Summing up, wonderful and both unsettling and extremely moving. 10/10

Heartbreaking & Disturbing

[labenji-12163 · 10/10 · 18 November 2020]

I won't go into too much detail, as the previous reviewers provide full synopsis of this episode. I just needed to share my personal feelings after watching this episode that was emotionally draining. I wanted to turn away and switch to another episode, but it was so well written, acted, and directed that you couldn't turn away from this social tragedy.

I hope no gun rights activists give a review denoting it as right-wing propaganda for gun control. But, because this episode calls into question the need for gun control, I found the central theme to be the decay of a society's moral fiber, that we can't see that no child should be caught up in adult politics and race relations.