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Which Law & Order: SVU character is better: Olivia Benson or Elliot Stabler? Liza Treyger and Kara Klenk, hosts of That’s Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, are on the case. Liza says Benson has better communication, better vibes, better patience, and the better wardrobe. Kara counters that Stabler is so dedicated to the job that he neglects all other people and things in his life, from his family to his clothing. This case will not be presented to a jury; it’s up to Ronald Young Jr. alone to render a verdict and determine whether Benson or Stabler should win this one. Case closed!

Follow Liza @glittercheese on Instagram and Kara @karaklenk on Instagram. Their podcast is @thatsmesseduppod on Instagram.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Liza Treyger, Ronald young Jr., Kara Klenk, David Duchovny, Speaker 1

David Duchovny  01:11

The criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous in New York City and specifically on NBC in the Dick Wolf universe, there are two cops that have been investigating these vicious felonies for a combined total of over 30 seasons of television. I’m talking, of course, about Law and Order SVU detectives, Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson. Stabler, portrayed by Christopher Maloney, is the hard nosed hot head who wants to break all the criminals with brute force, which repeatedly gets him into trouble with his superiors. Then there’s the soft touch of Olivia Benson, played by Mariska Hargitay, who is gentle with victims and knows exactly how to outsmart offenders looking to get away with their often unspeakable crimes. But which dedicated detective is better? Olivia Benson or Elliot Stabler? We decide once and for all, right here and right now on, Pop Culture Debate Club.

 

Speaker 1  02:22

Welcome back to PCDC. I’m your host, Ronald Young Jr, let’s meet our panelists for the day, representing Olivia Benson, is an actor and comedian whose Netflix special night owl is streaming now. She co hosts the Law and Order SVU podcast That’s Messed up, hello and welcome, Liza Treyger.

 

Liza Treyger  02:41

Yay, thank you. An honor. I’ve been training for this my whole life, so I am thrilled to be here.

 

Speaker 1  02:49

Also joining us, representing Elliot Stabler is a stand up comic, writer and actor and host of the advice podcast. Who’s the bitch. She is also the co host of That’s Messed up. Let’s welcome Kara Klenk.

 

Kara Klenk  03:01

Thank you so much. Excited to be here defending my man.

 

Ronald young Jr.  03:04

I love it, so how did y’all meet?

 

Liza Treyger  03:09

In the green room of UCB east, New York, RIP, Kara was running a show, but we had known about, you know about each other? Comedy is we all kind of know each other, but I had moved to New York, and then within six months, Kara moved to LA, but we bonded over SVU the first moment we met in that green room. And when Kara had the idea for this podcast, you know about recapping the episodes true crime, like interviewing people from the show, she thought of me, yeah.

 

Kara Klenk  03:43

I love it, and the rest is her story.

 

Liza Treyger  03:45

Yeah, she was like, would you want to do this? And I said, absolutely.

 

Ronald young Jr.  03:49

Well, with all that in mind, Are y’all ready to fight.

 

Kara Klenk  03:51

Yeah, let’s fight it out. This argument is going to be crazy.

 

Ronald young Jr.  03:58

All right, Liza, we’ll start with you present your case. Why Olivia Benson is better than Elliot Stabler?

 

Liza Treyger  04:06

Well, I would say the whole point of Special Victims Unit is the victims and taking care of them. And I think Benson has a better talent in talking to people. I think Stabler sometimes, you know, will shove them around or play tricks or do weird things. And so I think, like, the core of the show is Benson being able to be like very with the victims. She goes above and beyond in for the people she loves, very patient, and she dresses incredible, I would say the messy buns, the hairdos, like no like the fact the fact that she can do a pixie cut and look sexy. Not that pixie cuts aren’t hot. Listen, I’m just saying not everyone could pull off a pixie cut, and that bitch really does it. I also think she. Better at communicating and like and following the no, they both break the law all the time. Yeah, I think. Communication vibe patience, wardrobe, done.

 

Ronald young Jr.  05:14

Okay, communication, vibe, patience, wardrobe, I love it. Kara, opening argument, stable is better than Benson.

 

Kara Klenk  05:22

So Elliot Stabler, I’m just gonna go out there and say he’s better. Okay, he’s better than Olivia Benson, because he is so dedicated. The man has five children. Does he fucking ever spend a moment of time with them? No, because he’s dedicated to his job and he’s dedicated to the victims. Does he go to therapy that he so desperately needs? No, because he’s using that time to solve cases and get SVU that 99% closure rate that they like to brag about. Okay, he is out there. Look, Olivia wears great clothes. Does stable or have time to go out and get clothes? No, he’s thrown on a jean jacket with a wolf fleece lining, and that’s what he’s wearing on his casual days off, or he’s wearing some kind of weird slack that accentuates his massive ass. And if the ass is not the third character on the show, you tell me who is. I think that Stabler is giving up everything, giving up being being a person that you can communicate with, just so he can solve these cases. And you know what? Sometimes you want a woman to sit down with you and tell you that you did everything you had to do, you survived your you, you know, and and hold your hand. But sometimes you want some guy to throw your rapist up against a filing cabinet and talk to him so close you think they’re gonna kiss. And that’s why you want Stabler.

 

Ronald young Jr.  06:45

Okay, I love it. Let’s get into it. Let’s talk a little bit about methods. Lisa, you talked a little bit about Benson being more victim focused and better at communication and vibes. Why do you think that it makes her a better detective in this, in this particular role.

 

Liza Treyger  07:04

Well, she makes people feel like more comfortable to disclose when you have like an angry man with unruly eyebrows staring at you above a hospital bed, you might not be as inclined to agree to a rape kit, you know what I mean. But when you have Benson there being like, baby girl, I got you. You’re just, you know, you just feel safer. I think she makes people feel safer because it’s also, you know, after you get attacked, you don’t want to be instantly horned up by a Stabler either. You know, that’s like a lot of confusion of emotions. So that’s like a negative to him coming in with his muscles and tats. And I think also why it’s important is for the case integrity in and of itself. Like, the more you break the rules and bully people and do creepy shit like Stabler does, you can the case might be thrown out, or, like the evidence, or you can’t, like, hold someone so, you know, Ben said like, there’s people that are like, if Benson’s not in the courtroom, I cannot testify. Like, I need her there to have the strength to, like, put my guy away. No one’s ever begging for Stabler to arrive. You know what? I mean, he’s there causing a scene, of course. You know, improvising. But no one’s ever like, can I make it through without this man, they’re fine.

 

Ronald young Jr.  08:23

Kara, is that the case? Do you think that there’s any use for the type of intensity that Stabler brings to a case that Benson is perhaps not bringing because she’s too caring.

 

Kara Klenk  08:32

Listen, when one guy.

 

Liza Treyger  08:35

Karen doesn’t mean not fierce. And I’d like to step in and say that she is very fierce with her caring.

 

Kara Klenk  08:42

That’s true as well. But I will say you cannot say that Elliott Stabler is not there for victims. When the boy from One Tree Hill found out, that his father had a second family, and that he as a teen, was accidentally having sex with his sister, who he impregnated, who has now been murdered, as well as his dad, and he has nobody left in his life, except for the half brother he never knew about. Who is he hugging? Elliot Stabler. Elliot Stabler makes the young boys and men feel comfortable, and we can’t forget that they are victims too. I hate myself. We cannot forget that they are victims too. And also, I will say that while Olivia has probably a better rapport overall with victims Elliot, a lot of times they gotta pull her out of the room with these men, because, guess what, whether we like it or not, this fucking world is filled with incels and misogynists, and they wanna talk to the guy in the room, and Stabler makes them feel like they’re his pal until he gets a confession out of them. And we need that side as well.

 

Liza Treyger  09:45

We do need him. But no one ever thought he would be, you know, Captain, right? No one ever looked at stable and was like, I can’t wait till this man’s in charge of the unit. Nobody ever and. You know, every team needs a little muscle, but no one has ever looked at him and gone. Let’s give this guy a promotion. And you know what’s funny, to punish Stabler? What they do is they bring a man that has his personality traits from a different borough to punish him. Like, that’s how they punish him. They go, you want to know what it’s like to work with you, work with another version of you, and then he’s like, ah, like punishment is to have to be with that man. Like, that’s what’s crazy.

 

Kara Klenk  10:27

But he learns, every time they bring in a mirror, he learns, he learns a little bit from that mirror person. He does, yeah, he’s not incapable of change. That’s a good thing.

 

Liza Treyger  10:37

And you know what? This has nothing to do with any question you ask. But we both probably agree on this, but like, Benson fucking saved his wife’s life and helped deliver that baby, and they didn’t name the baby after her, like they named him after Elliot, like he’s just such a chauvinist.

 

Kara Klenk  10:52

I do not have an argument to that, yeah.

 

Ronald young Jr.  10:55

Well, what were they gonna name the baby? Oliver, oh […] eah, it was right there. No, you’re right.

 

Kara Klenk  11:05

That’s a cute little name, Benny. Little Benny Stabler.

 

Ronald young Jr.  11:10

We’ll be back with more Pop Culture Debate Club after this break.

 

Ronald young Jr.  11:17

So when it comes to the corruption in the SVU. I feel like that’s something that I’ve noticed is like, especially if you watch this over a period of time, and you understand anything about propaganda, which this show absolutely is, that is not up for debate. But when you watch that, when you watch these and watch the interactions, they’re both corrupt in different ways. So we’ll start with you, Liza, how would you say that Vincent is a corrupt cop?

 

Liza Treyger  12:41

Well, I also do want to say what I think SVU does do, well, that maybe the others don’t, is they show the corruption and how SV, these detectives are different, you know, like, usually when they come to the scene, the other cops are like, Ah, this hooker is not a human. Get her out of here. You know, like they kind of teach other cops so they are, like the special fantasy of what we wish detectives were. I think the biggest issues that Benson has in terms of being corrupt is getting DNAs tested that shouldn’t be tested, like lying, like putting other people’s jobs at risk for her personal gain that had to do with her brother and stuff. I think that’s the biggest thing she did, corrupt vibes. She’s also, she’s having sex with IAB, you know, there’s some sex. She’s having sex. She also, I think, with newspapers sometimes, like force, like they don’t wait for warrants, like they’ll lie, like they’ll manipulate. They’ll be like, oh, we’ll come back here with the IRS, like they’ll threaten people they don’t really like let people say no or not give info. They don’t wait for warrants. They kind of push through to do stuff when they need it, and they also use the system for personal gain often as well, trying to think if I’m forgetting it, and she covers for people. So when her detectives are gambling in underground gambling rings, she lets them back to work, and when they kill unarmed teenagers, she goes, this isn’t fair, but so that’s weird too. They’ll like protect their own even when they kill teens.

 

Ronald young Jr.  14:30

Kara, talk to me about stablers corruption.

 

Kara Klenk  14:33

Listen, I would say one of the, one of the, you know, the third star of the show, stablers asked one of his greatest moments is when Elliot Stabler is fully just pushing a perps head underwater on a dock, and Stabler is in a bit of a wide, standing, split, almost squat, pushing a man’s head underwater like he has almost killed several suspects. And that’s not due process. So. Stabler corruption is deep, I would, I will say Olivia. Olivia calls the press more, probably like she calls the she’ll call like the press, but to even though the higher ups would say, how did this get out, you know? But he is more, yeah, I think just physical intimidation and going in when he’s not supposed to, like, not waiting for a warrant. Obviously, anything that has to do with a child that also could possibly resemble his own children, just makes him go fucking off his meds, and not that he’s on any, but, like, he just goes, you know, really violent against people when.

 

Liza Treyger  15:39

He has so popular too. He’ll ruin confidentiality.

 

Kara Klenk  15:43

Oh yeah, nurse, yeah, oh yeah. Like his wife told him something that a school nurse told him her, and he just went with it. He’s like, he will, really, he will violate people’s trust. I think just to get the bad guy, he’ll kind of do anything. But I wouldn’t say that Stabler is also really ever out for anything for himself. I don’t think he’s ever trying to get, excuse me, no, he’s not trying to do you i He does sugar himself. Oh, cover up.

 

Liza Treyger  16:15

Why don’t you talk about that one?

 

Kara Klenk  16:16

Yes, he covered up his own daughter’s DUI because he thinks his kid, you know, he calls in favors for his own kids and shit. He also, I think, though he has helped uncover shit in the Catholic Church, has been hesitant to do so because he’s a Catholic and he’s, you know, doesn’t want to go against his church and his own priests in his in his church, but he, I was only saying that I don’t think he tries to be and I don’t think Olivia does either. But I don’t think in terms of corruption, they’re ever trying to get, like, promotions. They’re not trying to move their way up. They’re never trying to get glory. Like they don’t really care if they’re gonna be in the newspaper or get the press conference or any of that, you know. Yeah, they do offer justice at the end of the day. They also a thing they do. I don’t know how corrupt it is, but they use their friendships with the ADAs to push the ADAs to do things that are shady sometimes too, like, they’ll go to the ADAs and be like, you gotta do something like and the ADAs will sometimes have to put their fucking necks on the line, like Cabot and Novak and stuff. So, you know, he’s not perfect.

 

Ronald young Jr.  17:20

Put yourself in the shoes of a perpetrator. You’re in the you are a perpetrator. And let’s just say, for all, we know for a fact that you are absolutely innocent. You did not do this crime. However, you are a person of interest, and you are in the actual interrogation room. The door opens and the person that y’all are defending walks in. How is this conversation gonna go? If they think that you did it?

 

Liza Treyger  17:41

Lawyer, and you keep your mouth fucking shut. It might be cop Gander, but we learned a lot, and what we learn is you keep your mouth shut, you don’t drink a little soda, you don’t play any games, and you sit in silence. But if any of them wanted to bend me over the table, they could like, I would be fine. I would impress charges.

 

Kara Klenk  18:01

Wait, I will say if Stabler comes in and I’m trying to convince him that I’m innocent, right? That’s what you’re saying, Yes, with him, I think you just got to go all facts. You can’t hide anything. You get like, there’s all these times where, where people of interest are like, trying for like, a family secret to not get out, or they’re just, like, skirting around this one issue that they don’t want to say, I think if you want stable to help you, you got to straight shoot him, because he can sense bullshit, and you just got to go, here’s the deal. Here’s why. I couldn’t have done this. Also, I have no motive, like you got to give him, you got to lay out your case for him, because otherwise he loves to get I, you know, I am here to defend him, but he loves to get a narrative in his head and then not change it. So you have to really lay out all the blueprint again, all the details to shatter that narrative. Otherwise it’s it could be difficult.

 

Ronald young Jr.  18:51

And Liza, you’re just flat out not talking.

 

Liza Treyger  18:53

I just want to make sure everyone listening knows to never speaks to the cops. They can lie to you legally.

 

Ronald young Jr.  19:00

I second that. Let’s think about let’s think about you as a victim. Liza, we’ll start with you. Why is Benson? If you’re a victim, why do you think that victim, she’s going to get your crime solved?

 

Liza Treyger  19:12

She doesn’t give up. She doesn’t give up. No distractions. There’s not, you know he she doesn’t have a wife being like, Hey, where are you? She doesn’t have children going come to my Catholic school recital. She’s full time, full time. She’s got nothing going on. And her one kid, you know, he’s pretty independent. He’s at ballet, he so I think it’s like, full focus, full focus. She doesn’t give up. And she’s a product of rape, you know, like, that is her origin story. So it’s like she is, it’s like not a therapy, but to her, it’s her life, like she sees herself in all of the victims, because she is so tied to, like, sexual assault, I guess in that way, also as a woman, she just has to prove herself so much more, like she’s had. To work harder. She’s had to endure so much more to get to this position. So she’s just going to be better at her job. Women are just better at their jobs because they had to work harder, attention to detail and direction and stuff like that. So I think that’s why she won’t stop no distractions. Sees herself and everyone committed.

 

Ronald young Jr.  20:25

Kara, what about Stabler?

 

Kara Klenk  20:26

Why do I think Elliot Stabler is the best to get justice for a victim? Honestly, three words for you. Straight white man, okay, he is not getting in trouble. He has killed multiple people with multiple perps. He’s killed and without due process. And is he off the force? No, he’s not off the force. He’s actually thriving. He was sent to Rome eventually, and became and worked with the NYPD in Rome, and then he came back, and now he’s doing organized crime. He’s helping take down huge, you know, cyber attack people, you know what I’m saying, cyber criminals. So what I’m saying is Stabler will bend the fucking rules to get you justice and have no repercussions. And because of that, I think he is able to go the distance. Because first of all, yes, he has kids and a wife. Does he pay attention to them? He does not. So I don’t really think that that’s any kind of distraction for him, but he also will literally risk his job every time, because as a straight white man, he knows he’s not gonna lose it, and that’s the kind of confidence that you just can’t you just can’t buy that. It’s just there. He was born with it.

 

Liza Treyger  21:34

I would like to say something about both of them. I know that’s not really like part of a debate club, but they both are willing to go fully undercover.

 

Kara Klenk  21:44

Yes, fully.

 

Liza Treyger  21:45

They will put their their lives at risk time and time again. Not undercover too, but they will infiltrate. They’ll infiltrate pedophile support groups, eco terrorists. They’re in there.

 

Kara Klenk  21:59

Adoption scammers, wildlife, people that are people that are shipping wildlife illegally to the US.

 

Liza Treyger  22:06

And they both have, like, gone undercover into the prison system to be prisoners, and, yeah, have both had, you know, varying results.

 

Ronald young Jr.  22:16

No, that’s true.

 

Kara Klenk  22:17

Dramatic results.

 

Ronald young Jr.  22:18

Let’s think about them about like, imagine they’re asked personally, who do you think that either of these people would say is the best cop in their unit? Kara, we’ll start with you. Who do you think Stabler would say is the best cop in his unit? And you can use any detective who has been on SVU?

 

Kara Klenk  22:36

And he’s not saying him, and he’s not saying himself, right?

 

Ronald young Jr.  22:39

Other than himself, yes.

 

Kara Klenk  22:40

I think he would say Benson. I mean, he they literally said they would give each other a kidney. I think that they are very close, and I think that they know what each other’s strengths and weaknesses are. And I think he would definitely, I mean, Stabler only ever worked with Finn Munch, Cassidy and, you know, Jeffries for one season. So I think he would definitely say Benson.

 

Ronald young Jr.  23:04

Lisa, what about you? What would Benson say?

 

Liza Treyger  23:07

You know, it’s interesting. I think she would also say Stabler. They love each other and they are, they are a really good team. So I think she also would say him, if she wasn’t, I think she would say these, like women cops that have come in from the FBI to help her, but they’ve all ended up becoming criminals themselves.

 

Kara Klenk  23:26

So I that’s every time they give Olivia a role model, the person ends up being a criminal themselves.

 

Liza Treyger  23:32

Yeah, no, they would say each other. That’s that. It is what it is that is the truth. They both respect each other above and beyond, and they’ve yeah.

 

Ronald young Jr.  23:43

Considering that, I noticed there’s no love for fitted much, but.

 

Liza Treyger  23:48

Excuse me. Are you out of your mind?

 

Ronald young Jr.  23:51

I better be personal. Love these two.

 

Liza Treyger  23:54

Are you out of your mind?

 

Ronald young Jr.  23:57

Let’s talk about parenting. They’re probably both negligent parents and that they are working all the time, but of their negligence, who would you say? Is a bet. Why would you say that your, uh, your detective is a better parent and Kara, we can start with you.

 

Liza Treyger  24:12

She can’t I.

 

Liza Treyger  24:14

She’s stressed about this.

 

Kara Klenk  24:16

I’m stressed about this. Well, listen, as a numbers game, he has five kids. Benson has one. She had her children later in life when he and he, you know, was a younger parent and was working all the time, and but I do think he will do anything for his kids, and he including cover up their crimes. And he is learning and growing as a parent like he had. There was a situation once where his daughter wasn’t eating it was like sort of a teen eating disorder situation. And I don’t know why I brought this up, because I actually think he handled it the wrong way, but I well. A he’s learning, he’s growing and learning. And I think he, like he does, in a lot of ways, let his wife wear the pants in the family because she has to, because he’s not around. And like, he lets his wife, like, sort of tell him when he’s wrong all the time about his parenting. And I appreciate that, that he doesn’t think he’s right, and he knows he’s a flawed parent. But I am. Everybody has their strengths. I argued why he’s the best detective, and I don’t think I can argue why he is the best parent. I don’t know that I can do that sorry.

 

Liza Treyger  25:31

Thank you for being honest. Well, I also I’m sorry, but I do have to you know you said no love for Finn and munch and all of that. And we personally love that they would never say Finn and munch are better detectives than the two of them. There’s just no way, even though they do really great police work, and Benson supported Finn through, like, promotions and taking the sergeant’s exam and everything like that.

 

Kara Klenk  25:54

But, yeah, I mean, they’re like a family, but you kind of always have a sibling that you sort of are a little bit closer to than the others, you know, like and it’s for Benson and Stabler. It’s them. And I know people hate to hear that, because they want to see them fuck but we’re not really in that camp.

 

Liza Treyger  26:08

So as you want to say, they they love their team, they respect they want, but yeah, they would never pick fun and Finn and munch fudge. We’ve never combined them fudge.

 

Kara Klenk  26:19

That’s a fan picture no one’s ever worked on.

 

Liza Treyger  26:21

But Benson is an amazing parent. I mean, she wanted to be a parent so bad, you know, and she goes above and beyond for this child after and he’s annoying, like, this is the thing. This is not a good kid, and she loves him.

 

Ronald young Jr.  26:39

This is probably more of a meta question. But do you think that it’s possible that they show Olivia more with her child, which makes it looks like she’s a better parent than Stabler? Or do you think she’s actually a better parent?

 

Liza Treyger  26:51

No, because they actually never had children at the same time. So like the earlier seasons, you see stablers Kid, and stable is no longer there. You know, after season 12, and she didn’t get Noah till at season 15 or 16.

 

Kara Klenk  27:04

Yeah, and also, they’ve been focusing a little bit more on her life in the more recent seasons, like the teens and the 20 seasons, because she is, like, carrying the show, you know, yeah. So that’s why Noah gets some attention. But I would say it’s like a similar amount of attention. Occasionally, there’s like, an episode fully dedicated to Noah, like him going missing. Occasionally, there’s an episode like, where he gets a bruise, he has a fever, he gets the measles. And then, like, stablers, kids like, had an episode where Dickie hates his guts. And there’s one where his daughter has bipolar disorder, which is the same thing that his mother suffers from. So, you know, another thing for my king bringing mental health awareness to the forefront.

 

Liza Treyger  27:48

But with her adopting Noah, that was a storyline, but had to do with so many of the crimes like it intersected, like human trafficking. I don’t know if you know how, like, Benson’s child was like, yeah. Like, yeah. So it also to do with the courts and Family Court. There was just, like, so much that had to do with the criminal justice system, with her. Do you say acquiring a child? I don’t know, adopting.

 

Ronald young Jr.  28:15

I think acquiring.

 

Liza Treyger  28:17

Oh, it is okay. It seemed like weird, but yeah, so that’s it was definitely more focused episodes on the child for sure.

 

Ronald young Jr.  28:29

We’ll be back with more PCDC after this break.

 

Ronald young Jr.  28:39

Okay, I think I’m just about ready to make my ruling. But before we do that, let’s get to our our closing. Arguments, Liza, we’ll start with you. Closing arguments. Benson is better than Stabler.

 

Liza Treyger  30:04

I mean, all we really said that Stabler might have is like a juicy booty over her, you know, and like muscles, but at the end of the day, Mariska is just as hot, if not hotter, and more sexual than saber. You know what? I mean, like we’re talking about one of the most beautiful women in the world that is solving crimes with grace, elegance, communication in all the right ways. And without her, Stabler would be Donkey Kong. You know what I mean, like she is the only one keeping him tethered to humanity. And without her, I think he would have been sent off the squad a long ass time ago, just doing private security. That’s what I think. I think she keeps him in line, and she obviously has proven that she can work without him, succeed, thrive, be the captain of the whole fucking unit. He would not have a career without her, but she could have a career without him, because he cannot control himself, and he refuses to do therapy, refuses, with all the trauma that’s that’s actually the crux. This motherfucker has no, like no commitment to personal or self growth in any way. And Benson is constantly working on herself and not to make it a gender dynamic again, but, yeah, you know, to stable her. It’s the everyone else’s problem with Benson. She’s like, how do I how do I get past my trauma? How do I get past this? I didn’t do this right at work. How do I grow? She’s constantly growing, changing. Motherfucker hasn’t been to therapy. What is he 60? That’s crazy. So that’s how I feel.

 

Ronald young Jr.  31:39

Kara, closing argument, Stabler is better than Benson.

 

Kara Klenk  31:42

Stabler is better than Benson because, listen, just because he is not going to become the captain of the squad, he knows his strengths. He went on to that squad, and he gave it 12 years of his life, and he closed a bunch of cases, and he helped a ton of victims. Then he moved on to do, like I said, some work abroad, and now he’s back, and he’s fucking taking down these huge rings of people like the commitment to that. He has to go undercover for longer. He has to do really intense shit. He’s been saving sex trafficking people. He’s doing work on a broader scale. So I don’t think that. I’m not that doesn’t belittle what Olivia does, victim to victim, and she fights for victims very well, but he is taking down these massive powerhouse criminal enterprises, and he’s basically he’s got a great little team, but they need Him like He they cannot survive. They cannot do it without him, because he is in their ground floor, embedding himself with like the Armenian mafia, embedding himself with these fucking hackers and shit like he is giving his life to take down hugely dangerous systems. And I think that look, if he, if he took the time to do the therapy, he might realize that these that the system is broken, and that these kind of jobs are, you know, can be thankless, and he just doesn’t have time for it. So he’s just gonna keep put his head down and keep going undercover as an arms salesman. And that is my argument for my Stabler.

 

Liza Treyger  33:19

I know it’s supposed to be uninterrupted, but you know, like his commitment to organized crime has fucked over victims and Benson, you know, like they shared crimes in the in the in the recent past, and he screwed her over. He lied to her, but it all ended up working out. No, the one who ended up in a wheelchair, I think she ended up in a wheelchair.

 

Kara Klenk  33:37

Wait, which I’m sorry I’m blanking out on this one, Your Honor, shared with me in discovery. This doesn’t count.

 

Ronald young Jr.  33:45

I don’t know. None of that evidence is [..] Are you all ready for my ruling?

 

Liza Treyger  33:53

We’re ready.

 

Ronald young Jr.  33:54

So, I think that when you think about law and order, I remember watching it as a young person and really enjoying the show. I mean, original recipe enjoying the show. When SVU comes out, I remember they slightly change a little bit. The theme is different, but still really enjoyed the show. If you start from the beginning and go till now, it’s an entirely different show than what it started with. I mean, you can go something as simple as they used to show the whole squad room, like do wide shots of the squad room, and people would be walking around talking to each other, that type of thing they didn’t do, shuts tight shots of their face they did, like, mid range or further back. You could see everyone in a shot, whereas nowadays it’s like, ultra tight on the face. It’s all face acting over and over again, like heads are enormous on screen all the time. And it’s just a testament to how it went from a squad solving crimes to talking really about individual detectives, so much so that now it’s hyper focused on Olivia Benson, in a way that it was not in the very beginning. It really was more about the dynamic of all of them and them being a team and all that. So the show has changed a lot, but also we’ve changed a lot in the years that we. Been watching the show. I remember I used to watch the show and always think IAB would come in and I’d be like, oh, here comes IAB. They’re the bad guys. And the show had conditioned us to think, I want to be clear what I’m saying. Yeah, the show conditioned us to think that the actual watch dog organization that keeps the cops in line were the bad guys. We saw how we’re convinced of that, which something that blows my mind with I watch the show now I don’t think that at all. Actually, in lots of cases, when I watch SVU, I can’t watch it the way I used to, because when I watch it, I’m actively rooting against the cops. I am actively rooting for them to fail no matter what they’re doing. I’m like, no, he probably didn’t do it. You probably railroaded him, and that’s just from my interactions with cops over the last 10 to 15 years. It’s just really, really changed. So really, what it boils down to is watching the show, watching this absolutely corrupt department. And Lisa, you did point out that they do point out that these cops are better than these cops, but I remember when you said that I was like, but not by much, though. You know what I mean, they’re still like, if you watch it just objective is like, whoa, you can’t do that. That’s illegal. Whoa, you can’t do that. That’s illegal. Over and over again. However, I think that this show posits that Stabler is violent and offensive and has no business, no business being on anyone’s force, like, over and over again. It’s the close talking, the shoving people in the face, the lying, constantly railroading. There’s several instances in which they’ve railroaded folks into either a confession or something false and which then had to be recanted, and they barely apologize to the victim. That doesn’t typically. Stabler is the tip of the spear, but Benson is not off the hook. Benson has sweet talked a lot of people into doing things they have no absolute, absolutely no business doing, and even doing the little whisper thing when she’s talking to the victims for whatever reason and the perpetrator is still getting away with the crime. And she does that really, really, y’all know what voice I’m talking about. She’s like, hey, are you feeling bad? Like she does that a lot, which is really pulls all the heartstrings. It really works. But when it comes down to it, in terms of cop shows, in terms of turning on a cop show and watching it, if I’m going to watch one of these two people, one of these people makes me less angry, still angry, but less angry than the other. And that is, in fact, Olivia Benson, who I think is a better cop than Elliot Stabler. I called him, actually unstable.

 

Kara Klenk  37:24

Yes, we used to have a game in our live shows called unstable yeah.

 

Ronald young Jr.  37:30

It’s like that. Not okay so unfortunately, Kara, you lose this one.

 

Kara Klenk  37:34

But I have to say, I think you need to recuse yourself as judge. You need to recuse yourself as judge. You came into this with preconceived notions of your own, your own opinions of watching SVU for a long time. I was told I was talking to somebody who had never seen the show before, and I was going to be able to give a clean argument.

 

Ronald young Jr.  37:52

Well, Kara, don’t you have to recuse yourself as as lawyer, because you don’t even like Stabler. You like bits and more. Is that correct?

 

Kara Klenk  37:59

You asked me to come on this show, and somebody had to take Stabler.

 

Ronald young Jr.  38:03

Well, somebody had to judge.

 

Liza Treyger  38:07

Stabler before I responded to the text, I knew you would never take Stabler. I could do anything.

 

Kara Klenk  38:15

I will say honestly now that the ruling has been made, and this is kind of like wrapping up. There’s no way the show would still be on if she was the one that left in season 12 and he was the one that stayed.

 

Ronald young Jr.  38:25

I don’t know.

 

Kara Klenk  38:25

I think, like she’s the one that carried that show to season 26.

 

Ronald young Jr.  38:29

It was, that was the only possibility of them splitting up. Because when they were we were like, all stables gone. We’re like, Oh, she is Mariska still there. Because I’m like, if she’s not there, then the show doesn’t make sense. And when you saw they reconfigured, yeah, like.

 

Kara Klenk  38:42

Some people stopped watching after he left, which I think is a shame, because, I mean, it did change a lot. But, like, there’s a lot of great episodes and seasons where, you know, it’s cool that they let a woman lead this show, the longest running live action show on television.

 

Ronald young Jr.  38:58

Thank you both for being here. This is a lot of fun.

 

Kara Klenk  38:59

Thank you for having us.

 

Ronald young Jr.  39:05

Thanks again to Liza Treyger and Kara Klenk, and thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Debate Club if you haven’t yet, now is a great time to subscribe to Lemonada Premium. You’ll get bonus content like Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight from our Nolan versus Spielberg episode, discussing Rosie’s true feelings about Christopher Nolan, just hit the subscribe button on Apple podcasts, or for all other podcast apps, head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe. That’s lemonadapremium.com.

 

CREDITS  39:33

Pop Culture Debate Club is a production of Lemonada and the BBC.   It’s produced by Jamela Zarha Williams, Kryssy Pease,  Dani Matias and me, Ronald young Jr. Our mix is by Noah Smith. Rachel Neel is VP of new content. Our Senior Vice President of weekly content  and production is Steve Nelson. Commissioning editor for the BBC is Rhian Roberts. Executive Producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer.   Follow Pop Culture Debate Club, wherever you get your podcasts.