Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Season 4 Episode 2

Deception

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1
8.7
out of 10
User Rating
106 votes
5

EPISODE REVIEWS
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Episode Summary

EDIT
A family portrait painted by a kindergartner leads the detectives to investigate her mother for child sexual abuse of her teenage stepson. When the boy's father is found murdered, the focus of the investigation shifts to the boy -- and his stepmother goes to great lengths to protect him and prevent the detectives from learning the truth.moreless
SUBMIT REVIEW
  • Some stuff who I didn't like about this episode

    3.0
    For example. Can people in authority really attack a journalist to get them to say what they know about something?! They certainly could in in this episode. If I was that journalist, I wouldn't have said anything, when these people trying to force me to talk. They where abusing their power.
  • There's nothing worse than a mediocre episode...

    7.0
    Okay perhaps a downright bad episode is worse but mediocre ones always get to me because they have so much potential. This episode certainly had a couple of clever twists (particularly the brilliant move to abuse spousal privilage) and couple of good lines, but overall it was just well boring and predicatable. I also didn't particularly care for the guest star whose name I can't remember at the moment. She didn't have the sex appeal to pull off the role. This is another episode that shows just how sleazy Trevor Langdon can be and the fact that Alex went on a date with him AFTER this episode just makes me wonder what exactly the writer's were smoking when they decided to do that. But, anyway, as much as I think this was a mediocre episode of this show, it only goes to prove that even the mediocre episodes of this show are better than the "best" episodes of most other shows.moreless
  • An interesting episode...

    4.0
    When a family portrait painted by a kindergartner leads the detectives to investigate her mother for child sexual abuse of her teenage stepson. This episode was extremely interesting in that the mother was an actor. And this pointed towards a sexual relation. Stabler and Benson are at the scene. Normally I would right a long review, but this interview hardly entertained me. Aside from the entertaining story between Kyle and his mother. To tell you the truth, the fact that the son was abused, it seemed that it was most likely. This episode was sick, and wrong. I didn't like this episode at all..moreless
  • Not the best episode of SVU ever made, but fair. I believe that even the fairly average episodes, such as this, are better than most of the junk on TV, even as a rerun.moreless

    6.9
    This was actually one of the first episodes of SVU I ever watched, but I don’t think it dazzled me or anything. Not many twists and turns except for the whole marriage thing, which I think was very well executed and packed enough of a punch to make the episode interesting. Other than that, the themes it explored seem fairly ordinary when you’ve watched as many episodes of SVU as the average loyal fan has, and there are other episodes which have dealt with the material better. I think the idea of investigating the family based on a picture which the little girl drew is an interesting approach, and it’s a pity that she gave up the whole story so easily because I would’ve liked to have seen the detectives trying to find out what’s going on in the Fuller household for a little longer. It seemed a bit easy, but I suppose there wasn’t time if they were going to tell the rest of the story. The performances were good; Sherilyn Fenn did a good job as Gloria, she didn’t ham it up too much, and had some generally creepy predator moments. It’s always a pleasure to see Peter Hermann reprising his role as Trevor Langan, even if he didn’t have terribly much to do here.moreless
  • Law and Order Special Victims Unit!

    8.5
    Detectives Benson and Stabler are called in to investigate a possible case of child abuse after five year old Chloe draws a picture of her family, in which she is crying. Benson is able to find out from Chloe that she is sad because her mother loves her step brother more than she loves her, because she noticed them spending time alone together. They find that Chloe's mother, Gloria Stanfield is having a sexual relationship with Kyle, her step son. When Mr. Fuller, Kyle's father and Gloria's husband is found murdered, the Detectives point the finger at Kyle. After a little investigation they find that Gloria may have had a hand in her husbands murder after all.



    This was a good episode. It was a little twisted that Gloria was sleeping with her step son, who she later married in order to keep him from testifying against her. She is a really twisted woman, she would do whatever she could as long as she knew that she was going to come out on top. I was glad that the Detectives were able to gather enough evidence to arrest her by the end of the episode, because I really didn't want to see her get away with it.moreless
Dann Florek

Dann Florek

Capt. Donald Cragen

Richard Belzer

Richard Belzer

Det. John Munch

Mariska Hargitay

Mariska Hargitay

Det. Olivia Benson

Christopher Meloni

Christopher Meloni

Det. Elliot Stabler

Ice-T

Ice-T

Det. Odafin 'Fin' Tutuola

Stephanie March

Stephanie March

ADA Alexandra Cabot

Sherilyn Fenn

Sherilyn Fenn

Gloria Stanfield

Guest Star

Frank Grillo

Frank Grillo

Frank Barbarosa

Guest Star

Jonathan Bennett

Jonathan Bennett

Kyle Fuller

Guest Star

Peter Hermann

Peter Hermann

Trevor Langan

Recurring Role

Jill Marie Lawrence

Jill Marie Lawrence

Cleo Conrad

Recurring Role

Harvey Atkin

Harvey Atkin

Judge Alan Ridenour

Recurring Role

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