L&O season 2: Episode 9
May. 14th, 2026 07:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyOkay, I don't know how to feel about this one. On the one hand, I can't help but feel that this shouldn't be made. This isn't entertainment and it certainly shouldn't be for copaganda. On the other hand, I thought they did a shockingly good job of it.
It's about Bruce McArthur, a serial killer who preyed for years on middle-aged, poor, brown gay men in the Village, while the cops turned a blind eye. If you don't want to read about that, who could blame you?
We open at a newcomers meetup at a church, and as soon as we get a middle aged white guy, Len, acting unusually friendly to a queer young Nigerian man, I basically figured out where this episode was going. We cut to some other stuff that's important later, then a scene at a drag show at Crews & Tangos, where everyone is basically acting creepy towards the young guy, whose dad bursts in and threatens Len. Later on, some early morning joggers find Len's body on a trail in Rosedale.
This is important because the show quickly affirms that gay men, all of whom are bears, BIPOC, and have few social connections, have been disappearing from the Village for years, and if Len had been found there instead of in a rich neighbourhood, no one would have cared. The bartender at Crews & Tangos has been putting up signs, but the local officer, Webb, dismisses her theory that there's a serial killer. Webb looks good for it after threatening the owner of one of the bathhouses and forcing him to destroy evidence, and it turns out that he has a history of violence against the queer community. But he alibis out in the dumbest possible way (left his body camera on, which is bizarre because I don't think TPS wears them, let alone keeps them on ever).
It ends up that Len was the serial killer, and it was the bartender, who was basically family to one of the victims, who killed him, deliberately staging the murder to draw in actual detectives. She's arrested after a quite good speech. Graff and Bateman express the feeling that justice in this case was not done.
I'm not directly affected by the real life story, but I know people who are. There is a reason we don't let uniformed cops march in the Pride Parade even though every year straight people insist that they should be allowed to march. The actual story is much worse, and the violent homophobia of TPS is really toned down in this episode, balanced by the fact that our leads are sympathetic. In real life, a murderer killed eight people, everyone knew it was a serial killer, and the cops mocked and ignored the community that tried to bring it to their attention. They did not care because the victims were poor, brown, and queer. There were no consequences for the cops. So really, this should not be an episode of a TV show that's main purpose is to show the city as more violent and dangerous than it actually is so that we vote for less money for social services and more money for cops.
That said, they do actually show the systemic police corruption and homophobia and classism and racism, so maybe something can be said for getting a message through to the Toronto SUN crowd. I don't know.
Plot: **** (It was inarguably well-written for a Law & Order episode.)
Characters: ** (The secondary characters were good, we learn nothing about the leads except that Bateman is a Bowie fan, which like, who isn't?)
Toronto: **** (This is as Toronto as you get. Crews & Tangos is a real bar, it's almost entirely shot in the Village in a way that you can recognize landmarks, and the cops suck nearly as much as the real TPS. Daniel McIvor is also credited in this but I didn't see him.)
Murder rate: It's unclear as to how many of Len's victims were murdered within the year, so I will conservatively put this season's death toll at 10, or 143% of the actual murder rate.
It's about Bruce McArthur, a serial killer who preyed for years on middle-aged, poor, brown gay men in the Village, while the cops turned a blind eye. If you don't want to read about that, who could blame you?
We open at a newcomers meetup at a church, and as soon as we get a middle aged white guy, Len, acting unusually friendly to a queer young Nigerian man, I basically figured out where this episode was going. We cut to some other stuff that's important later, then a scene at a drag show at Crews & Tangos, where everyone is basically acting creepy towards the young guy, whose dad bursts in and threatens Len. Later on, some early morning joggers find Len's body on a trail in Rosedale.
This is important because the show quickly affirms that gay men, all of whom are bears, BIPOC, and have few social connections, have been disappearing from the Village for years, and if Len had been found there instead of in a rich neighbourhood, no one would have cared. The bartender at Crews & Tangos has been putting up signs, but the local officer, Webb, dismisses her theory that there's a serial killer. Webb looks good for it after threatening the owner of one of the bathhouses and forcing him to destroy evidence, and it turns out that he has a history of violence against the queer community. But he alibis out in the dumbest possible way (left his body camera on, which is bizarre because I don't think TPS wears them, let alone keeps them on ever).
It ends up that Len was the serial killer, and it was the bartender, who was basically family to one of the victims, who killed him, deliberately staging the murder to draw in actual detectives. She's arrested after a quite good speech. Graff and Bateman express the feeling that justice in this case was not done.
I'm not directly affected by the real life story, but I know people who are. There is a reason we don't let uniformed cops march in the Pride Parade even though every year straight people insist that they should be allowed to march. The actual story is much worse, and the violent homophobia of TPS is really toned down in this episode, balanced by the fact that our leads are sympathetic. In real life, a murderer killed eight people, everyone knew it was a serial killer, and the cops mocked and ignored the community that tried to bring it to their attention. They did not care because the victims were poor, brown, and queer. There were no consequences for the cops. So really, this should not be an episode of a TV show that's main purpose is to show the city as more violent and dangerous than it actually is so that we vote for less money for social services and more money for cops.
That said, they do actually show the systemic police corruption and homophobia and classism and racism, so maybe something can be said for getting a message through to the Toronto SUN crowd. I don't know.
Plot: **** (It was inarguably well-written for a Law & Order episode.)
Characters: ** (The secondary characters were good, we learn nothing about the leads except that Bateman is a Bowie fan, which like, who isn't?)
Toronto: **** (This is as Toronto as you get. Crews & Tangos is a real bar, it's almost entirely shot in the Village in a way that you can recognize landmarks, and the cops suck nearly as much as the real TPS. Daniel McIvor is also credited in this but I didn't see him.)
Murder rate: It's unclear as to how many of Len's victims were murdered within the year, so I will conservatively put this season's death toll at 10, or 143% of the actual murder rate.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 12:35 am (UTC)*hugs*
I would not have expected to see that story on Law & Order.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 03:54 am (UTC)Today, a relative/friend back home in Appalachia was telling me that a story in the local news about two young men murdering another man was highly glossing over the truth, that being: the murdered middle-aged brown man was both gay and involved in drugs, with a history of hooking up with young wyte guys on Grindr; the murderers were one of his hookups and that fellow's friend, and the killing was very brutal. This brought up a whole conversation on being queer in rural America, unsafe hookups, mental illness, loneliness, etc. and also led me to recall a similar murder of a rave promoter in Greensboro NC in the late 90s, that had a big cultural impact on the rave scene.
Anyway. Lotta sads for my fellow queers. Things are still not okay.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 11:15 am (UTC)Can confirm btw that Toronto cops do have body cams and often have them turned on. Sometimes they will make a big show of turning them off to try to establish trust. Maybe not at demo policing though.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 11:21 am (UTC)I tried to spot your friend but I don't think it was anyone I know.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-15 11:41 am (UTC)Have a good trip!