Virginia Madsen in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, not my kind of thing at all. Like CSI: Miami before it, I’ve zero interest in this kind of Police Procedural show. Only one thing would get me to voluntarily watch it, Virginia Madsen.

Thankfully, it’s not as though I’ve never seen this one as it’s one my better halves favourite shows. And, there’s a LOT of it. Law and Order: Special Victims Unit has been around for years, in fact at the time of writing it’s the fourth longest running US show, ever.

Well, I say thankfully – Law and Order SVU deals with the worst of the worst sex based cases it can possibly get away with on TV, I’m sure. I mean, don’t get me wrong – I’m no prude and can fully enjoy and appreciate the worst of the horror films out there. But, something about the subject matter of this TV show doesn’t sit right with me and I’d rather not spend an hour or so a week watching it and calling it ‘entertainment’.
But. Having said that, it does do its storytelling with a great deal of tact and empathy, it deals with some harsh subjects sometimes and like it or not, this is the world we live in. And, if my Wife likes it then it must be doing something right as she’s as tough an audience as it gets.

It’s a long running show, I’m not even going to try and explain the stories and threads that do run though the thing as I’d most likely spend a lot (a LOT) of time talking about the things you don’t care about. And I’d do it badly as I’m not a fan of the show.

So, onto the main event.
Virginia Madsen appears in the 6th Episode of the 17th Season in an episode called “Maternal Instincts”. She plays the role of Beth Anne Rollins, the mother of one of the series regular characters, Amanda Rollins. The role would only be filled once for the screen but receive off screen mentions in later episodes, which is a bit of a rip off if you ask me.

In the episode, we see Beth arrive to throw a baby shower for Amanda – BUT – By sheer coincidence and bad luck, it’s also the time when one of the suspects of the case the team are working on turns out to be Amanda’s sister, Kim who has been MIA for a while from Amanda’s life.

Amanda sees her sister on CCTV footage but hides it from everyone else. She soon realises that it’s awfully funny that her sister and her Mother are back in town, and well… You can do the math from there.

Virginia Madsen’s role here isn’t going to knock anyone off their socks. She’s always impressive but this is a role we’ve seen her play many times before and no doubt she could do it in her sleep. I guess there is only so much you can do with a guest role in a long running established thing like this.
By the 17th Season of the show I guess you should already know if you’re a fan or not. It’s hard for me to recommend this other than “if you like this kind of thing then this is one of the best you can hope for”.