Law & Order (TV Series) Loco Parentis (2000) User Reviews

Kids are the same. Just the technology's different

[Mrpalli77 · 9/10 · 30 April 2018]

A sixteen years old boy was found inside a plastic bag in a dumpster by two garbage men, killed by a karate gear. The place was a little far away from where the guy lived. His mother showed up at the crime scene very soon and this made detectives a little suspicious, because they thought she could have harassed her own child. Anyway, he used to sell candies to raise some money, some fellow pupils bullied him, considering him a nerd (he even tried to grow up his strength by practising bodybuilding to protect himself). Fingerprints in cigarette butts were enough to arrest a peer (Jacob Pitts), addicted to violent video games and porn movies. Detectives realized he used a strange weapon not so easy to found in performing the murder, maybe his father helped him in all this; everything against his mother's will.

Bad parenting? Is he really innocent or guilt? Audience have to figure out who is the real murderer. Briscoe was put in a bad position at trial, compelled to confess about his daughter's addiction.

Sins of father and son

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 10 November 2021]

'Law and Order' was a brilliant show in its prime and overall is actually my favourite of the 'Law and Order' franchise and out of it, 'Special Victims Unit' (the longest running) and 'Criminal Intent'. Despite not feeling the same post-Briscoe. Season 10 was a solid season on the whole, with many great episodes and only about two or three disappointments. On first watch, "Loco Parentis" struck me as a very good episode if not quite a great one.

On subsequent rewatches, "Loco Parentis" still comes over as very good, though falling slightly short of being great. Despite many aspects of it being incredibly well executed. It has yet another tough and quite controversial subject matter (something that was the case with a vast majority of the show and of the franchise and one of the main appeals) and handles it very well and admirably. There are better episodes of Season 10 and of 'Law and Order', but it is hard to not appreciate "Loco Parentis".

Sure there is not an awful lot that is unique about the first portion of the case.

Do agree to some extent that the ending was unsatisfying and felt like the writers ran out of gas, instead taking the convenient way out with a hastily resolved and anti-climactic solution that didn't really address the episode's argument.

A shame because the good, even great, things are many. It does look good, with the usual slickness and subtle grit. Really liked too that the photography was simple and close up but doing so without being claustrophobic. The music has presence when used, and luckily it isn't constant, and when it is used it doesn't feel over-scored. The direction allows the drama to breathe while still giving it momentum as well.

Furthermore, the script is typically tight and intelligent with an uncompromising grit and lump to the throat emotion. There is a lot to take in dialogue-wise, but it doesn't feel too much. The story grabs the attention with a riveting and emotional impactful second half, the depraved indifference dilemma handled thoughtfully without heavy-handedness or judgement despite rooting for a higher charge. The basement room is the stuff of nightmares as well. The acting is very good, with chilling Robert Clohessy as a truly despicable character standing out.

Concluding, very good. 8/10.

"Bad Parenting In The First Degree"

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 6 September 2011]

This episode of Law And Order has Sam Waterston and Angie Harmon trying to convict young Jacob Pitts of murdering one of his classmates. Young Pitts has been encouraged in the use of martial arts weaponry by his capital letter Alpha male father Robert Clohessy. The weapon that Pitts uses on the victim is a ninja style sickle like weapon called a comma. Not the usual kind of thing that juveniles possess, but Pitts is encouraged in that by Clohessy.

In fact Clohessy has a policy of teaching his kid to do the first strike. If you don't want to be bullied, than you be the bully.

As Jack McCoy before he became DA himself, Waterston was always willing to try and stretch the law to accommodate certain situations. But what's unusual in this episode is that DA Steven Hill is the one who suggests indicting the father as well as the kid to get around some roadblocks that defense attorney Ned Eisenberg has thrown up. It might get overturned and it could set a bad precedent, but if anyone ever earned this kind of treatment it's Clohessy.

Who really dominates this episode is Clohessy with his portrayal of an egomaniacal Alpha male blowhard who can't fathom that it's his own bad parenting that has put his son in this jackpot. Check this one out.

"The sins of the son ARE visited upon the father"

[rbkjr · 9/10 · 11 May 2018]

The last line of the episode sums it all up...when Abbie Carmichael, Jack McCoy's Assistant D.A., says that "the Mother sacrificed the Father, to save the Son." The father was charged with a case of second-degree manslaughter (depraved indifference), by allowing his son to commit violent acts against his school mate who was continually bullied...until he took it too far one day, & killed him with a weapon (used in martial arts), known as a "kama", which is a traditional Japanese farming implement similar to a sickle. When the mother stood up in court, claiming that the husband was responsible for the son's crimes, & went against their own Defense Attorney's argument for saving the Father from being charged, the whole case changed for the Prosecution...and being able to sit down & work out a plea deal agreement with the defendants. In most cases, they say that "the sins of the father, should not be visited upon the son"...however, in this case, it turns out to be just the opposite. The father's inability or unwillingness to step in & see what the son was doing to the other boy, who was being bullied & eventually killed...was too serious an issue to allow the Father NOT to be held responsible...especially, when he encouraged it all to begin with!

Too Much Testosterone.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 12 January 2013]

A school bully is identified as the murderer of another student. Briscoe and Green find the boy's father uncooperative and angry, but they discover a room in the basement in which the kid has been practicing with a strange-looking sickle-shaped weapon on a dummy. The dark room is cluttered with killer video games and other apparatus and generally looks like Buffalo Bill's basement in "The Silence of the Lambs." The angry father turns out to have encouraged the acquisition of all this junk and even bought the illegal sickle, the murder weapon, through a contact in another state.

Usually, McCoy wants to press the maximum in charges and Adam Schiff usually shrugs and advises him to "make a deal." This time, the roles change and Schiff insists, to McCoy's consternation, that the father be charged with murder because of depraved indifference. McCoy's and Carmichael's faces sink at the prospect.

It's an interesting question. To what extent are parents responsible for the behavior of their children. Forty years ago there was a movement afoot to charge the parents if their kids committed an illegal act. But that was back in the 60s when urban streets were hardly more than game preserves for delinquents of various stripes.

The question is interesting but, as is so often the case, the episode cops out. It develops that the father was not only an irresponsible parent -- the original question -- but that he was complicit in the murder itself in that he helped dump the body. The ending is a cop out because the interesting issue is now moot.

I'm taking a point off this rating as a punishment for cowardice in the second degree.