TMC
06-28-2022, 09:02 PM
https://www.looper.com/909654/the-best-courtroom-scene-in-law-order-svu-season-6/
Novak makes a classic, Sam Waterston-as-Jack McCoy reach when she convenes a Grand Jury in an effort to charge the U.S. Army with sexual assault and murder, since she doesn't believe the affected former soldiers should be held criminally liable for their actions. It's the kind of heroic if naive windmill tilt that audiences adore in a TV attorney, and one Neal manages with gutting emotional realism.
Novak is unrelenting in her questioning of the head of the pharmaceutical company, an Army Colonel, and an Army doctor who, despite acting as an anonymous whistle blower, denies Quinium's danger while under oath. The determined D.A. refuses to be worn down by the three hostile witnesses' obfuscations and half-truths, but it's to no avail — in the end, the Grand Jury finds that neither the drug company nor the U.S. Army can be held criminally liable for anything.
While disheartening, the true-to-life futility of the trial (via ABC News) is part of what makes the courtroom scene so brilliant. "Goliath" refuses to give us a rosy, unrealistic portrayal of either the effectiveness of our justice system or the mechanics of our society. When Novak asks the doctor why he turned on her, since she could have protected him if he let the truth come out, he says sympathetically, "Ms. Novak you are very young — and that is not the way the world works." Thus, the entire episode, and its courtroom scene in particular, speak to an uncomfortable truth.
Novak makes a classic, Sam Waterston-as-Jack McCoy reach when she convenes a Grand Jury in an effort to charge the U.S. Army with sexual assault and murder, since she doesn't believe the affected former soldiers should be held criminally liable for their actions. It's the kind of heroic if naive windmill tilt that audiences adore in a TV attorney, and one Neal manages with gutting emotional realism.
Novak is unrelenting in her questioning of the head of the pharmaceutical company, an Army Colonel, and an Army doctor who, despite acting as an anonymous whistle blower, denies Quinium's danger while under oath. The determined D.A. refuses to be worn down by the three hostile witnesses' obfuscations and half-truths, but it's to no avail — in the end, the Grand Jury finds that neither the drug company nor the U.S. Army can be held criminally liable for anything.
While disheartening, the true-to-life futility of the trial (via ABC News) is part of what makes the courtroom scene so brilliant. "Goliath" refuses to give us a rosy, unrealistic portrayal of either the effectiveness of our justice system or the mechanics of our society. When Novak asks the doctor why he turned on her, since she could have protected him if he let the truth come out, he says sympathetically, "Ms. Novak you are very young — and that is not the way the world works." Thus, the entire episode, and its courtroom scene in particular, speak to an uncomfortable truth.