I skipped ahead from 16 to 19 and it was really obvious how much the writing and plotting...changed...it became like Law and Order: Days of Our Lives with the lazy twists, and with the jump it was obvious that whoever used to dress up Barba as the fashion plate now does it to Carisi, Carisi in 19 x 3 "Contrapasso" is wearing this blue and white checkered shirt that looks similar to the one that Barba was wearing in 15x2 "Imprisoned Lives', I feel like I've seen that necktie on Barba. I think at that stage such colourful patterned clothes looked better on Carisi than Barba, but instead of just sticking Barba in the same greys and blues, they could have done dark green to match his eyes. Also, I just think Barba looks better clean-shaven while Carisi looks better with his DILF moustache, alas, there was just one episode where that combo existed. I wish Barba was there on Carisi's intro when he showed up with baked goods...
19 x 3 "Contrapasso" 30:34 Liv finds Barba at a bar...on his phone and clearly drinking water, they were really starving the poor bunny in the later seasons. Early seasons Barba can be found eating actual dinner at the bar. I remember plates of sushi with an amber coloured drink.
I do like him in dark blue, but I agree on the overall slide in the fashion department, though at least he has that sexy undercut they're failing at concealing from his "Chess" days. They really missed out on having a scene with non-perfect hair so we could all adore the fluff. S.o. ringing his bell at Too Early in the morning or sth so he has to open the door in all his scruffled glory.
They totally should have had Barba kidnapped early on, that would have mussed his hair, but the most physical thing that ever happened to him was first episode. Really, Criminal Minds and CSI was better at spreading out bad things happening to female and male main characters. Liv got kidnapped the most, but Amanda's been in a few hostage situations too, and with guys obsessed with her. The only hostage situation I remember Nick was in (I haven't seen the pre-Barba yet), was Nick trying to talk a psycho kid into letting a younger kid go in "Born Psycho". I think it actually makes more sense for the rapist in Criminal Hatred to attack Barba instead of his own female lawyer, from prior accounts it sounded like women were invisible to him or have 'cooties'.
I felt that Rafael's suits doesn't seem to fit him as well in the later seasons, in fitting and in shades -- he can look good in blues and grays, but I feel like they weren't trying to bring out his best feature anymore. Esparza was better dressed as Dave in A Murder At The End of the World (2023), better make-up -- or he just look great because they were living on a set with hot springs, that's great for skin, easing back pain -- and therefore better sleep.
Now that I think about it, blue brings out his green eyes too, especially now that he's a silver fox.
Raul Esparza SVU 25th anniversary party https://www.tvinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/raul-esparza-svu-season-25-red-carpet-1014x570.jpg
Looking really cute and fashionable: Raul Esparza in Shades and suited next to Broadway sign for Can't Help Lovin That Man 2017 https://www.pinterest.com/pin/ral-esparza--342203271677760567/
I would sell my firstborn for a good Rafael!whump episode, sigh. He's so good at looking scared shitless, it's really a shame they never had a script like that, esp cause I can see the squad getting protective of him. :( No one touches the class hamster!
What I love about Esparza is his shoe-phobia. I bet he's fucking barefoot in that suit...
Hannibal was the first thing I saw Esparza in and I pretty much slept on Chilton through my binge watch till he was tied to a chair looking terrified, then I adored him, and, having not read the books or watched the relevant films before hand, I hate how it ended so much.
David got battered at the end of A Murder At The End of the World but it as wasted, I can't believe they didn't include a short scene or background happening of his boyfriend / fuck buddy / friend or his platonic lady friend fussing over his injuries -- and at the beginning, I actually wonder if David was in a secret affair with the rich guy who didn't seem to be interested in his wife -- I guess he could have been sleeping with more than one guy. Got some bi- vibes from David.
I think I saw a feet post on Esparza on reddit once, he wasn't just barefeet for the couch interview or with the blue nail polish, there were other pictures, he has cute feet, he's really cute all over. I really wish we got to see Chilton in his pajamas and slippers, then his barefeet when the slippers come off when he gets kidnapped by Gideon or Hannibal or Tooth Fairy. The pen chewing thing is something film Chilton did, and the Red Dragon was kinda gay in the films (and book as well if the details were the same), see, I remember that while he killed the whole family, he was specifically there for the wife/mother, and ONLY the wife/mother was bitten with the dragon's teeth, biting is a sexual thing for Francis, it's the dragon sexually devouring the woman clothed in the sun, in flames, her beauty arousing then being consumed by his lust. Disfigurement / burning was how Francis destroyed or purified his sin of sexual desire, that one second he had his lips on Freddie Lounds / Frederick Chilton, that house where he had sex with Reba.
I always wonder what would Francis have done in the AUs where Will had shacked up with Frederick instead of Molly, where Will would not have set Frederick up as an abandoned pet but Frederick would have instead been 'the wife' that as Francis's sexual target. I think Francis Dolarhyde killed the woman first because he couldn't stand having a living woman look at him and judge him as his grandmother did, so he couldn't do anything sexual to them till they were fully dead. Frederick Graham however...don't have to be fully dead to not intimidate Francis...
I think the door is still open for there to be Barba whump, that he comes back as a victim, Richard Wheatley's body as never found, there is a very explicit fic on AO3 but they could just have it on Organized Crime and hint at the sexual aspects. There is Alex Munoz too, if his wife divorces him while he's in prison, or even if he doesn't go to prison after all because actual rapists don't even get jail term all the time on SVU...if Alex is out and about but his life is ruined, his political ambition ruined, and he blame Rafael, and especially if Alex is actually the one Rafael has a crush on (ZERO chemistry with Yelina).
Yeah, bunnboi has a real thing about being barefoot, just hates shoes, it's like an inside joke.
I so want an Alex-takes-revenge ep, it'd be awesome, esp cause for realz now, Raf was super def in love with Alex, he broke his heart more than his parents, probably. The betrayal in his voice when he talks to Alex is gut-wrenching.
I watched beat up David on a loop till Disney broke, and ur right, he should've at leasten gotten a hug. :(
With Alex Munoz, suppose that he and Rafael actually did have a secret sexual relationship they were used to hiding back then, Alex confronts Rafael again some time after October Surprise, maybe after he was no longer ADA, or it could have started earlier -- he actually rapes Rafael but Rafel doesn't report it, especially if it's somewhat dub-consensual like before -- except Alex does it again, worse each time, and the frequency increase after Rafael is no longer ADA, to the point where the injuries are impossible to hide once he starts meeting up with his old friends from the SVU squad again. He tries to shrug it off in a "not my yacht" kinda manner, imply that it was just kinky sex, but he looks terrified.
Near the end when Alex was saying just like the old times, he didn't just put his hand on Rafael's shoulder like a normal platonic friend, he had his hand on the junction of neck and shoulder, that's intimate, I think his thumb would have been at the base of Rafael's throat. I can so see Alex choking Rafael, and maybe even throwing Rafael's stunt in Twenty Five Acts at him, that nobody would believe Rafael didn't consent to Alex choking him after that...
I cant write rape, really, I kinda cant, though I read it fine, but I fucking love worried!squad finding out Raf's been in some private trouble, I could just write/read that same trope every day twice for the rest of eternity and not tire of it.
I get it, there are some I'll read but won't write or try to write either. What about domestic abuse though? Or dub-con? Like Alex come back and resume the abusive relationship he has with Rafael in highschool, and it's abusive but Rafael doesn't actually say no...
There is so much canon-based whump potential, Barba's migraines, how tired he increasingly look, how he went from constantly snacking to not... Early seasons we've seen Barba in his jogging outfit and yacht outft, and he went to plays...early seasons Barba demanded a lot of evidence from SVU before he'll prosecute a case -- but then he just started doing what Liv ask -- I'm guessing Barba's workload and stress hugely increase so he got less time for social life, outdoor air and eating. The migraine thing, I bet he gets neck-shoulders-back pain too, and feeling cold. So just imagine bunny curled up on Sonny's lap, Sonny's warm hands rubbing his neck.
I know! I totally agree! He drinks a lot, too, and he's looking tired all the time... You could've had a really good mental health ep about the dangers of burnout and write Rafa out of the show that way instead of the shitty way they did it. That way he still could've returned, too. *sigh*
Or they could have had that gang that had threatened Rafael in the elevator actually assault him, while he was prosecuting them on sex trafficking, this way how Rafa exit the show would actually be SVU related, it can tied into Law and Order: Organized Crime, and Peter Stone could have been introduced at the ADA who prosecuted Barba's attackers instead of the ADA who was attacking a fan favourite. That would be a better way to reintroduce Stabler without setting up Stabler vs Barba, making Liv chose Stabler over Barba, and instead of making Stabler look like a jerk who ghosted Liv For No Reason At All, make it so that his undercover work suddenly got so serious he couldn't contact anyone, not even his family -- and that his wife divorced him in the mean time.
ETA: I think the last good season was 16, the one that introduced Carisi and while Amaro was still there, it was still very grounded, Carisi was from Staten Island, Amaro and Barba bond over being Cubans from the Bronx -- Season 17 opened with Murder Wizards, they were clearly trying to ape Criminal Minds or even Hannibal, "National Manhunt" took them out of New York which was a major draw for why people watch Law and Order, and the court portion of the show, Barba's, start to be neglected. It felt lik Esparza was only still around because he was a fan favouite, but they didn't give good lines good clothes or even fed him...we didn't get any special Barba episodes like S15 October Surprise, or S16's Padre Sandunguero and December Solstice
If at this point Dick Wolf already knew he wanted to bring back Elliot Stabler in Organized Crime, he seriously effed up not making gangs the building arc for Season 17 instead of Murder Wizards and Celebs. Gangs deal with drugs and sex trafficking...drugs was Fin's old department, and they could have had Mike Dodds talk about transferring to Organized Crime at the end as that's a more natural pivot than to Terrorism...and that way his death would be even shocking to people who don't pay attention to Broadway news and thinks he's moving to OC. There could have been stories like, hospital call SVU because of overdosed underaged prostitutes, heck, have the John be the one call 911 and then be shocked and remorseful learning that the hooker was underage and trafficked, and they can talk about how human trafficking often happen in the open. Night club get shot up, female patron assaulted, and it turn out the night club was trying to keep out gang members that was selling roofies.
ETA2: Nick's 2nd baby mama, the one who was really sweet on him, she just took their son out of New York at the end of season 16 to get away from the gangs, so it's weird the gang storyline just dropped out of sight. Would have been a perfect background buildup to Barisi too (which they were too stick-in-the-mud to go with in spite of fan favourism, natural chemistry, and actors in agreement), Carisi starts driving Barba around, as Nick did once during October Surprise, it looked like it was just because they were working together, but Barba has been hiding threats and Carisi was empathic and intuitive enough to notice anyways.
We never did find out who that guy was working for, did we? That coulda been a really good angle, I agree. Raf was just such a whumpable character, look at him!
Skipping from early Barba to late Barba, it's really stark how grim the food situation got...early seasons the characters are always eating, it gives them something to do with their hands, and it shows how busy they are I guess, they are eating and talking about the case getting sandwiches from a food cart, from a bag delivered to the office. Well later season, the walking and talking in the street scene was coffee only (paper cups). 19x8 "Intent", had multiple bar scenes where NOBODY WAS EATING ANYTHING, it looked like the kinda bar where people go to eat instead of binge drinks, not so much as bar nuts. It was ridiculous. When Liv found Barba at a bar this time he was looking at documents, and nobody around him was eating. When Rollins and Carisi was at some countryside bar, they had bottles and empty glasses on the table, one man in the background was playing with his phone with a bottle and an empty glass in front of him -- they didn't even want to bottle filling the bottle with coloured water for most of the extras, though there was water in Amanda's bottle, and ONE tray with beer looking glasses.
The only scene with food in it that episode was Liv's kitchen when she was talking to Sheila about Noah, Shelia was slicing 2 green apples and Liv was making peanut butter sandiwches.
ETA; Also, that scene in "Intent" where Liv and Barba was at a bar, possibly Forlini's...the bar looks full, the seats were all filled with people who were just hanging out, most of them were just sitting there, maybe texting, the camera angles tend to use close up to avoid showing them or only showing their back where they are talking or gesturing, but obviously not eating or even drinking anything -- no wonder that bar ended up closing!
I think they got rid of in house catering? I watched some interview with Extras once and they talk about how much they get paid, and the perks, and usually there was in house catering to make sure people who have to be around the set all day don't go hungry -- this is or was industry norm since sometimes filming location are middle of nowhere, but sometime after Season 16 they got rid of that, there's a picture of the actors of Rollins, Carisi, and Barba's eating take-out from different place, I guess they have to go get their own lunch now or order their own ubereats.
Other people noticed that the cast was always eating in EARLY seasons, "Especially in his early seasons, Barba was also always eating. Like, there's scenes where he's eating a full plate of food when NO ONE else in the scene is."
https://old.reddit.com/r/SVU/comments/m8qs5z/always_eating/
I wonder which came first, them deciding to starve the bunny and stop dressing him up in pretty clothes, or him pulling away to other projects and them treating him worse out of spite? I just got the feeling that some higher-ups on SVU was butthurt that Esparza praised Hannibal more than SVU even though he got more scenes in SVU, but no contest, Hannibal has better writing, sets, and working environment. The way Barba was written was just spite that retconed past details like when Barba's father died. First Season 19 episode had Finn going to Cuba to arrest an old suspect across the borders, other than how outlandish that was, they didn't give the lines about Cuba to Barba like it would have in early seasons? When Nick Amaro was being written out we got a lot of episodes focusing on Nick, and then he got a happy ending with his wives in California. We barely saw Barba in Season 19 until the episode in the middle of the season where he was drummed out. I feel like the SVU higher-up did a lot to both minimalize and ruin Barba's character as much as they could get away with and it probably would have been worse if Raul Esparza wasn't friends with Mariska Hargitay.
Later SVU seasons were just so disrespectful, to characters, intelligence of the viewers, and if the catering rumours were true, to treatment of the cast as well, but Barba/Esparza got it worse because Esparza refused to rollover and/or higher-ups were annoyed with him or his character -- what made Barba's character such a fast favourite was that he's smart, he knows a LOT of legal details, like how the Violence Against Women Act can be interpreted in "Downloaded Child" so that they can go after one CEO for all the restitution the victim needed. I'm guessing the higher-ups find researching this to write Barba's character properly a pain to deal with, and they rather go with soap opera drama like Sheila Porter kidnapping Noah -- even though this arc is disrespectful to multiple characters again -- it makes Eli Porter and Noah's lawyer looks stupid, it made the family court judge look stupid, it insults the intelligence of the viewers too...and it would have been quite one thing if Eli Porter than changed her name, but she didn't. Really though, things were already starting to get bad by the time the William Lewis thing started, though the actual ripped from the headlines episode like 19x3 Intent continues to be good overall, except the Rollins Carisi bar fight which was ridiculous.
ETA: What I like and missed about early SVU is the realism, and that's not the same as grittiness, it was way more nuance like in "Lessons Learned", where there was teachers at a male highschool that were outright rapists, but also one that was gay, had a few consensual relationship with the older 17-18 year old students during those different times, none of those students he was actually involved with felt violated, it was somebody else that sent him an article bout coercive relationships, and the gay teacher explain and seem to understood that while his relationships were consensual, it might have opened the door for other teachers with worse intentions. There was the arc with Selena from "Girls Disappeared" on, someone who was a victim but is now a victimizer. From Season 16 on we started getting a lot of "murder wizards", not out of place for Hannibal but very jarriing in SVU. A lot of things like prior characterization and internal universe sense just get thrown out for easy drama. Oh, one of the reason I liked watching Law and Order is that it's filmed in New York, later season, there seem to be less sense of New York character than before.
I refuse to watch his last ADA ep, that just never happened. ;) I love him to bits and I'm sure his acting is outstanding, but I cant watch Barba written shit like that. I just watch some plays on yt with him instead then.
I decided to check out the rest of Season 19, and NO WONDER Esparza decided to jump ship, it was mostly Stupid Contrived Drama, and the ham-handed show direction ruined not only Barba's character but everyone else as well, there are still some odd well written episode like "Send in the Clowns" which felt like early SVU, and the Rollins one with "The Book of Esther" -- that was angst but I like the beginning where Rollins was getting a traumatized young woman to follow her with a candy bar "it works on Frannie", she soo would treat injured class hamster like she would Frannie! I'm picturing Rafa wedged under the kitchen sink her getting him out with a cookie.
Originally I was going to do my rewatch chronologically, but I decided to get Season 19 and 18 out of the way first...the best Barba episodes were when Amaro was still around...sadly I think the show direction as a whole actually did start to go for Super Drama when Barba was introduced, almost anybody other than Esparza wouldn't have been able to pull off the belt stunt, it was mostly with Barba's eyes that you can tell how badly the case got to him. Somewhere on the team there are good researchers that did stuck around even after Barba left so there are still good episode, but somebody above them decide that this character need to experience this contrived drama...almost right after Barba left, there was an episode where Carisi's niece claim to be raped, confess to lying about it, and then was raped for real... 19x15 In Loco Parentis...which have another character background retcon, I'm pretty sure that Carisi was the big brother during Barba's run, but in 19x15 he mention having older sisters instead, 19 x 15 show him with a big sister who has a teenage college age daughter (the math absolutely does not add up, Carisi is not that old), made more sense earlier when he had a younger sister who was about to have a baby, not just math but Carisi's personality and habits.
I heard that right before Stabler left, there were SVU viewers, even former Stabler fans, who stopped watching because his cop brutality plus family drama was getting too ridiculous, I guess there was a lot of ups and downs. Best over all seem to be Season 14 to 16, show over all and Barba episodes, that's when we got "October Surprise" "Downloaded Child", ""Padre Sandunguero", "Forgiving Rollins", "December Solstice", reality grounded episode that fleshed out characters, developed relationships, and made SVU New York seem like a realer place: Rollins and Barba with her practising testimony that explains why Rollins behave the way she does -- and it didn't come out of nowhere that episode, prior ones had her nervous about Atlanta. Amaro was both protective of Barba and trying to get him to be accountable in "October Suprirse", and then we see him tried the same with his own sister in "Padred Sandunguero", and the reveal that they have somewhat similar dads -- something retconned in "Undiscovered Country" which seem to parallel Barba's father with Stone's father in regards to the son's feeling, didn't get the "still curl into a fist" vibe and the dates are wrong, 7 years ago before Season 19 versus 14 years ago earlier.
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