Law & Order (TV Series) Sects (2005) User Reviews

Creepy Cult Den Mother

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 7 February 2013]

This Law And Order episodes finds Dennis Farina and Jesse Martin responding to a brutal stabbing in which any one of the wounds would have been fatal. But after that her throat was slit. Some real rage was involved here. After that though the perpetrator was found clinging to life after a suicide attempt.

The perpetrator is young Austin Lysy who pleads guilty to manslaughter, but wow does this kid have extenuating circumstances. He's an escapee of a cult in which sex with very minor children is encouraged and almost mandatory. The woman he killed had sex with him when he was six. And the woman in charge of the cult is Lysy's mother Deborah Hedwall.

Watch this episode I guarantee she will creep you out as few other perpetrators on Law And Order ever did. What's so creepy about her is outward upper middle class respectability. Her actions and appearance don't compute and this worries Sam Waterston and Annie Parisse.

Also David Thornton who made many appearances on SVU makes his one and only appearance on Law And Order prime as Hedwall's attorney. Thornton seems to have taken out a patent on playing smarmy, shyster, defense lawyers. It's almost fitting that he be defending Hedwall. He doesn't do it for love though as his designer suits will attest and the cult is well financed.

This is one perpetrator for whom jail is too good.

Sin

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 28 July 2022]

The idea for the story did fascinate and had the potential of making for an unsettling episode. Will agree though that it did also sound as if 'Law and Order' was running out of ideas, with religion being something re-visited quite a lot in not just the original but also the whole franchise with very varied success. There was the worry of seeing how the subject would be executed. On first watch, "Sects" was very good with lots to recommend though didn't blow my socks off.

"Sects" is another episode of 'Law and Order' that was liked very much on first watch and also liked very much every bit as much on rewatch. Perhaps even better, as it came over this time as more unsettling and the perpetrator burned in the memory even stronger than the first time. The subject intrigued but could have gone either way in story execution, and "Sects" handles the subject unyieldingly but also in enough good taste.

It is at its weakest in the first quarter, which compared to the rest of the episode was on the bland side. Nothing new really and the pacing doesn't immediately come to life too.

Photography while very close up doesn't come over as too static or filmed play-like, while the production values are typically solid and have subtle atmosphere while not being drab and keeping things simple. When the music is used it is haunting and has a melancholic edge that is not overdone. The episode is sympathetically yet uncompromisingly directed and all the performances are very good, Deborah Hedwall's unforgettably chilling performance standing out and David Thornton does smarmy so well.

Writing is thought provoking and suitably gritty, while also not taking itself too seriously. The story could have been too bizarre, heavy handed and sleazy in the wrong hands, but actually turned out to be quite disturbing and actually did freak me out at points. Especially with the perpetrator, scary at how there are people that look so respectable and seem respected yet actually are capable of the sort of inhumanity that is shown here. The legal scenes are riveting, especially when things become twistier.

Overall, very good. 8/10.

Every great spiritual and religious leader throughout history has been mocked, scorned, persecuted

[Mrpalli77 · 7/10 · 20 December 2017]

A young couple on their first date heard a gunshot while taking a stroll. A man shot himself on a bench, trying to commit suicide. He had just stabbed to death a woman nearby. The perp managed to survive and detectives started to investigate: he escaped from a cult placed in Mexico in order to start a new life with new identity in NY city; he worked in a travel agency and he had just got married. The woman he killed was a member of the commune with whom he have had sex since childhood: the cult, ran by his mother, is called "Children of the Devine" and she appointed him as her descendant. The classic commune whose teachings involve incestuous sex and drugs. McCoy, with all his efforts, wants to convict the mother, something nobody abroad (the cult has more than 10 thousands members worldwide) managed to do.

The defendant is a real piece of work. She compared herself to the most important religious leader who made the history, including St.Francis. Anyway, I don't remember the monk had ever forced children to have sex each other.

Episode retelling of Ricky Rodriguez murder-suicide from the COG cult

[vixgirlie · 6/10 · 11 August 2016]

I think the disclaimer they put at the end of this episode saying that the characters and events are fictional should be taken off as this episode is eerily similar to the murder-suicide of Ricky Rodriguez. You can google his name for details.

The cult 'mother' (called Shelby in the episode) is a representation of Karen Zerby (who was referred to as "Mama" in the COG) and although she was never actually on the stand, members of the cult were and what they said was almost word for word what Mrs. Shelby says in her final testimony.

What Richard "Daniel" (Ricky, whose nickname was "David" in the cult)talks about; adults forcing children to have sex with them and each other while drugged, actually happened in the cult although it was normally alcohol used rather than Quaaludes.

Do the research and watch the episode to see if you don't come to the same conclusion I did.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

(Seeing as Karen Zerby's actual whereabouts are unknown and most likely will never be brought to trial, I have to admit a feeling of satisfaction seeing the verdict being read. If only life depicted art in this instance.)

A good episode of a show seriously spinning its wheels

[jbirks106 · 7/10 · 19 May 2017]

This is a compelling story with excellent guest actors. Merritt Wever is always a treat, and I found Annie Parisse's acting superior to Elisabeth Rohm's. The details of the case are extremely sordid, to the point where writers seemed to be competing for how much they could get away with from NBC. While this seems a prescription for cheap sensationalism (a disease the show occasionally succumbs to) it doesn't happen here because the performances are so convincing.

But it's at about this point that I realized L&O had run out of ideas. How many episodes have been devoted to religious fanaticism? How many (especially after 9/11) would rehash the terrorism/Iraq trope? How many would explore corruption among corporate executives? Drug companies? The entertainment industry? Politicians? Police? Not to mention race, the Mafia and the Holocaust...

I realize this was the 15th season and there's only so many scenarios that lent themselves to 44-minute teleplay treatment. Still, I hearken back to the early years, when more-or-less ordinary street killings provided a lot of the material. It seemed more realistic and organic than the later episodes.

John Madden once said that an NFL coach's tenure maxes out at 10 years. At that point every player, coach and reporter has heard every pep talk so many times it no longer registers. This is how I felt watching this episode, and most every episode thereafter.