User Reviews

I thought this episode was okay, thus my 7-star score, but mostly I just want to clear up something that sagittarius-5 said in their review:

"While Duff's character didn't ALSO vaccinate her daughter! So she's the reason she died, not some other mother!!"

In fact, it was stated a few times in the episode that the measles vaccine is only given to children 12 months old or older, and Ashlee Walker's (Hillary Duff) daughter was younger than that and therefore could not have been immunized.

This episode was based on the Casey/Caylee Anthony case, up until the part where we find out the dead child had measles. Casey Anthony didn't tell her parents where her daughter was for 31 days, before her mother called 911 saying Casey's car smelled like decomp. Casey then lied to the police about her job, told them a nanny had kidnapped her kid, then ultimately said she hadn't seen Caylee in weeks. After the child's remains were found, Casey was charged and put on trial and guess what?

She was acquitted and the death was ruled accidental (the insinuation being the kid fell in a pool and drowned, and the remains were buried by someone/the family). So no - it's not a stretch to imagine someone walking away free from that.

The rest of the episode is actually a very good example of how cultural issues change over time. In this episode, the anti-vaxxer is put on trial and found not guilty. You'll notice that pre-motherhood Olivia sides with the idea of choosing if to vaccinate.

Several seasons down the road, this same topic is revisited with teenagers at a high school. In that episode, Liv has recently adopted Noah and basically threatens to murder the anti-vaxx mom if Noah gets sick. The mom is put on trial in that episode, and found guilty.

I love with SVU is ahead of the curve, and we get to see them revisit issues that have changed as the decades change. They have done similar storylines with male sexual assaults victims as well. This episode is well done, and well-casted.

I started watching this episode thinking it would follow the tragic story of Caylee Anthony, then it took a turn into the importance of vaccinating ones children. Vaccines have saved millions of lives, and (together with penicillin) the most important reason why children in third world countries live longer.

Vaccines are safe, and once you have seen a child suffering the horrible side effects from measles, you will fully appreciate vaccines.

Vaccines contains dead and weakened bacterias or viruses, and it helps your own immune system work up immunity towards the illness, instead of having to get that immunity by suffering through the illness.

This story takes crazy turns but what's ironic is Benson defends the mom who wouldn't vaccinate but years later when her own son gets measles she feels differently of course.

The character Duff is playing actually got off scot free after lying to the police, sending them out on a wild goose chase, stealing a credit card and blaming the owner of stealing her kid, not reporting her child dead and then burying her and all she gets is a slap on the wrist while they charge the other mother who didn't vaccinate her child with murder!? While Duff's character didn't ALSO vaccinate her daughter! So she's the reason she did, not some other mother!! What the fu**!?? I'm stunned by this bull I think anti vaxxers are the most ignorant idiots this world has and in my opinion parents shouldn't be able to chose whether or not their child gets these vaccines since those morons are the reason we still have these diseases but this episode just pissed me off.

I'm a loyal SVU viewer, but sometimes Wolf just packs too much material into an episode. This is one of those occasions. If you haven't seen it I'm not going to give any more spoilers, except that it starts with a murdered child, and ends with civil suits involving vaccines. And it travels through a few strange turns before getting there in a mere 45 minutes. And honestly, I don't really feel like spending any more time on this one either. I love story twists here and there too, but the killing itself plus the ensuing trial would have sufficed in this case (the way most SVU episodes go). This way, a little more time also could've been spent to flesh out the story. After 17 years of SVU and all the other L & O shows, I know story ideas are getting slimmer every year, why cram elements from a totally different subject matter into the same episode?

This is one of my many controversial episodes of the show and the writers most certainly don't know how to handle such a circumstance.

There is no way in the world they would link the one mother's child with the death of another child's death like that.

What really upsets me are the characters in this. From the bickering grandma, constantly nagging her husband to do something to her and her daughter wear phony T shirts in court to finally the nagged husband taking his life at the end.

Total cheap grandstand that is suppose to make up feel sad when it just made me feel mad. This episode could've been choreographed much better but instead they made it sloppy.

I think the other review was written by a paid spokesperson for pharmaceutical companies. I don't want to take sides in that issue. This series is excellent when it stays near its own territory, but this one solves the case early in the show.

The crime is a missing girl, and a child mother of a child mother suspects her daughter of killing her fatherless baby. We immediately hate both of them, which, I think, was supposed to happen.

But the young, irresponsible mother has conveniently buried her child on the site of an old service station, where he goes to get high with her friends. Out of all New York, our SVU team, showing their best CSI abilities, find that site and with cadaver dogs, find the missing daughter. Viola -- case resolved! But it isn't, quite. You see, the real criminal in this story is a mother who had not vaccinated her child for MMR. He is, after all, four, and not in school. He contracted the measles from some kid visiting from the Dominican Republic, and spread it in the local park before recovering himself.

The little girl died of complications from measles. Her mommy didn't like her crying, and spanked her till she shut up, and the next morning, was dead. So, she stole a credit card from the person she claimed was her "baby sitter," bought a shovel, and buried the child in the aforementioned gasoline station lot, then gifted the shovel to her father (hey, there was a man in this, after all), to tend his petunias.

She lied about the baby sitter, she lied about the shovel, she lied about the credit card, she lied about not knowing where her baby was, she lied about all her shenanigans, she spanked her daughter until she was dying, and then lied about that.

As her punishment, she got some tax-funded rehab, and then her lawyer slaps a civil suit on the four-year-old's mom, and sues the city for a hundred million dollars, and mom and grand-mom's eyes both light up at that. You can just feel the "Nancy Grace" in the air.

If you missed the banner, this is your last chance to know: I have spoilers in this review. But you probably don't want to lose 48 minutes of your life watching this anyway, so I can save you the time.

For the rest of the show, we try the "no vaccination" mom for murder, and I guess, are supposed to be disappointed when the jury returns a "not guilty verdict," but don't worry; there is still that modern form of double jeopardy: the civil trial. I mean, if it worked against OJ, why not try it here? As a father who vaccinated all his children, I can assure you that I am not a "conspiracy theorist," but this show is about the evil of parents making medical decisions for their children, instead of blindly accepting the mandates of a medical profession/government alliance whose hands are deep into the pockets of multi-billion pharmaceutical interests, and this show was written so you would know who you are, and that we will eventually get you.

SVU is a great show, but they often have to film a stinker like this to satisfy the people who pull the real strings.