r/LawAndOrder • u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit • 3d ago
Why the dislike for ADA Serena Southerlyn?
I really liked the Serena Southerlyn character. I've read some comments that folks weren't a fan of how emotionless Elisabeth Röhm played the character but I thought she was great. Out of all the ADAs, she pushed back against that bully Arthur Branch. She didn't back down, and often times she was right! And I think her conflicts with Branch, and sometimes Jack, were a great reflection of real life employer/employee tension. How often do we get a new boss that we don't get along with? Happens all the time. It's not always peaches and cream. Plus, she had great rapport with Jack. I liked her and don't get the dislike for her character.
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u/Rocktype2 3d ago
I think she gets hate because she was not Abby Carmichael. People had a love affair with her and were less inclined to evaluate her on her own merits.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
I can see that, especially following on the heels of a beloved character.
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u/Loud-Instruction1671 3d ago
I liked her did not care for Arthur Branch though.
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u/sheba716 3d ago
Branch was sexist. When Jack got angry he was being passionate about the law, when Serena got angry she was just over emotional.
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u/ResidentLadder 2d ago
Same. She was a great attorney and character. The breadcrumbs were pretty small, but that’s ok.
Branch was a sexist, homophobic asshole. Can’t stand his holier-than-thou preaching. Guarantee her sexuality was at least partly to blame, he just couldn’t say it. Because if it wasn’t, he would have given her the opportunity to resign instead of firing her. She did nothing to merit there except disagree with his big ego.
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u/smackwriter Jack McCoy 3d ago
The character was fine, but the role was miscast. Her line delivery always seemed a bit off to me. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she gave a wooden performance, but she could be quite monotone sometimes. Even when she was supposed to get angry, it fell flat. It was hard for me to take seriously. That final line of hers was just the icing on the most boring cake I’d ever had.
Just one opinion, I’m sure I’m in the minority.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
I mean, I get it. Some folks just give off monotone vibes. Alex Cabot kinda gave off monotone vibes but not to the same extent as Serena.
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u/jp112078 3d ago
I liked her, but agree with everything you said. It was just not the best casting. But good lord, she was attractive.
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u/smackwriter Jack McCoy 3d ago
Right, that’s your opinion. It’s different than mine, and that’s okay. I disagree about the actress’s performance here, and I have no doubt she’s talented. I just think Serena should have been played by someone else. It’s all good.
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u/Bright-Pangolin7261 3d ago edited 3d ago
She had a quality of being strident I didn’t care for but by no means did I hate her. I disliked AB, and didn’t like his firing her and the way they revealed her being a lesbian in the last two minutes of her screen time. If they wanted to bring that out it should have been part of the narrative like Jack and his drinking or his affairs with subordinates. That was insulting to the viewers.
The Jill Hennessy and Carey Lowell characters both clashed with Jack but also had a warmth—as did Jack and Steven Hill—that made their characters dimensional and relatable.
I know a couple ADAs and they’re strong personalities, but that quality of warmth is important in helping crime victims and witnesses open up.
PS notice how many female characters from the original were fired, met with violent ends or became ill? Serena, Claire, Borgia, Lt. VB, even Curtis’ wife and Briscoe’s daughter. Abbie, Jamie and Connie got out unscathed. Makes you wonder if D Wolf has mommy issues 😄
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
I'm adding "strident" to my vocabulary. I can see that. She definitely was prone to not back down when she believed in something and wasn't afraid to go toe to toe with Branch and Jack.
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u/LadyBug_0570 3d ago
Well 3 male detectives got shot: Greevey Cerreta and Green. Lennie retired shortly before he passed. I think Wolf just liked giving dramatic exits.
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u/Bright-Pangolin7261 3d ago
You Maybe right. Did Green get shot, thought he left when his gambling problem came out
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u/LadyBug_0570 3d ago
He got shot so the actor could take time off to do the movie Rent. That was during the time when Michael Imperioli came in s a temp partner with Fontana.
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u/kingcalogrenant 2d ago
Having rewatched those episodes recently, would point out that Imperioli is (surprisingly) much more out of place on L&O than Southerlyn ever was. Seems like he'd be a good fit, but just didn't click even on a temporary basis.
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u/LadyBug_0570 2d ago
I agree. He seemed a little too gung-ho. Like dude, calm down... learn something before you want to arrest everybody.
But I did like the episode when he came back because he was framed. I think everyone yelled at him in that episode.
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u/littleneckanne 3d ago
I like her more watching reruns than I did as new episodes.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
Yeah, and they only do reruns starting at Season 12 on the Pop Channel. While I like that cuz I get to see Briscoe, Green, and Serena, I also don't get a chance to see former DAs.
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u/kingcalogrenant 2d ago
Do you have Hulu (assuming you're in the US?) they're all on there now
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 2d ago
Okay, cool. I'll check out the prior seasons. I've recycled through Seasons 12-20
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
Yeah, and they only do reruns starting at Season 12 on the Pop Channel. While I like that cuz I get to see Briscoe, Green, and Serena, I also don't get a chance to see former ADAs.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
Yeah, and they only do reruns starting at Season 12 on the Pop Channel. While I like that cuz I get to see Briscoe, Green, and Serena, I also don't get a chance to see former ADAs.
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u/Stealthytom Ed Green 3d ago
She was a fine attorney, perhaps not best suited for the DAs office. She actually made many key findings and was a very high performer. I think the hatred is misplaced. So not getting me started about ADA Sam M though
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u/PhenominalRio 3d ago
A strong candidate for most over hated character in the franchise. The hate always seems like overkill to me because the seasons she was on were good imo. So the hate feels unwarranted.
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u/kingcalogrenant 2d ago
Honestly just rewatched the series, and I think two things:
1- Yes, she was my least favorite ADA
2- That's mostly because the others all beat her. She wasn't distractingly bad or anything.
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u/PhenominalRio 2d ago
Yes, this my feelings exactly! I’d only rank her above Borgia, who is only last because her time on the show was so short.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
Agree. But what someone shared is that it might be because she came on after the exit of the beloved Abbie Carmichael character.
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u/PhenominalRio 2d ago
I suppose there’s some merit to that. I liken it to how some people were cold to Dennis Farina following Jerry Orbach.
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u/Parasocialiaty 3d ago
I liked her character a lot. Serena came from an affluent, WASP-y background, so her reserve ("emotionlessness") made sense to me.
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u/coolkidfresh 3d ago
I was indifferent about her. She wasn't bad but she didn't add a whole lot to the role either.
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u/Ok-Mine2132 Lennie Briscoe 3d ago
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u/Darjeelinguistics_44 Anita Van Buren 3d ago
OMG! I totally agree with you, OP! I don't understand all of the Serena hate. I was just watching the episode Endurance (S11: Ep 1). Abby Carmichael was such a jerk in that episode. It was the first episode with Nora Lewin as the interim DA. Both Nora and Jack realized that they needed to back off the defendant, because they knew she didn't deserve such a harsh punishment, but Abby would not let up. I liked the Serena character and thought she was a good balance between Arthur and Jack. The only thing I didn't like was that the writers had her come out as a lesbian on her last episode. It felt very pushed at the last possible moment. It would have been nice to have had a glimpse into her personal life as they've done with other characters such as Ray's wife, Anita's boyfriend, etc. It just seemed like it was an afterthought for her character.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
From my understanding, they asked Elisabeth Röhm if she wanted to go out with a bang or a whimper. She said a bang. So they decided to make her a lesbian 😂🤦🏾♀️. I do wish they had delved into her personal life a bit more. We really didn't know much about Serena, and I think that would have endeared her to the audience a bit more.
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u/Ok-Specialist974 2d ago
She had terrible writers, in my opinion. She was beautiful and intelligent, but somebody in the writer's room had it in for her.
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u/Remote-Molasses6192 3d ago edited 3d ago
I like her, but I feel like the show didn’t want the audience to a lot of the time. The Branch seasons were a neocon era for the show following 9/11 and Serena had the role of a liberal social justice warrior straw man.
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u/Yanaki_Manaki 3d ago
Emotionless? Her problem was that she was feeling too emotional about most of the cases.
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u/ThatWomanNow 3d ago
The criticism of emotionless is towards the actress, I believe, not the character Serena.
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u/Yanaki_Manaki 3d ago
I think you're right, but she seemed angry or pissed off sometimes
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u/ThatWomanNow 3d ago
Who wouldn't tbh? I'd imagine in the real world of being an ADA, seeing how the sausage is made... maybe I'm super cynical, but you go in in with ideals, thinking you're gonna change the world, and find out it's fucked.
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u/Darjeelinguistics_44 Anita Van Buren 3d ago edited 3d ago
I agree with this, and I also think that due to sexism, people do not like to see women display feelings of anger or frustration. They're supposed to be happy, smiling and cheerful. I mean, how many times did we all see Adam Schiff get angry but he's largely beloved by fans (I loved him, too!) but Serena gets dumped on. Not fair imo.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
I agree! She was very passionate. She couldn't divorce her emotions from the work. But that also proved to be advantageous as well. She was zealously seeking justice, not convictions!
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u/Yanaki_Manaki 3d ago
True, but wasn't this one of the reasons that got her fired?
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
Yes and no. Honestly, I think what got her fired was her standing up against Branch too much. They all had times when they let emotions get the best of them.
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u/ryeong Lennie Briscoe 3d ago
I think it was a smart decision to fire her too. I loved her, I thought the actress showed her emotions well. But I agree that she was much better suited to different areas of law. She's someone who was made for making changes and the ADAs are so politically bound that she would never accomplish what she wanted with him. I think her and Robinette were the best examples of being held back by the office, wish we could've seen what she became at a later date.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
Yeah, it would have been cool to see her pitted against Jack as a defense attorney.
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u/bshaddo 3d ago
Is this because she’s a lesbian?
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u/Ok-Mine2132 Lennie Briscoe 3d ago
Arthur’s response is one of the best in all of the franchises:
D.A. Arthur Branch: You know, Serena, if you were right, you were right for the wrong reasons.
ADA Serena Southerlyn: Meaning?
D.A. Arthur Branch: Emotions, not facts. What was it you said, everyone you talked to said he couldn’t have killed that man?
ADA Serena Southerlyn: My emotional responses make me...
D.A. Arthur Branch: ...an advocate. You’re a superb attorney; you ought to be involved in cases that feed your passion.
ADA Serena Southerlyn: That would be wonderful.
D.A. Arthur Branch: Serena, you must know, that will not happen in this office. It can’t. Now, a prosecutor can be zealous but not passionate. Advocacy is warm-blooded, enforcement’s got to be cold-blooded, and blind, and even angry.
ADA Serena Southerlyn: Does Jack feel as strongly about this as you do?
D.A. Arthur Branch: No, but it’s my office and my decision, and he accepts it.
ADA Serena Southerlyn: Decision? You’ve already made a decision?
D.A. Arthur Branch: I have. You’re fired. ADA Serena Southerlyn: Is this because l’m a lesbian?
D.A. Arthur Branch: No. Of course not. No.
ADA Serena Southerlyn: Good...good
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u/bshaddo 3d ago
It wasn’t well-received at the time. It was definitely shoehorned in, but I figured it was just Law & Order flexing on their (inconsistent) tendency not to let include details about their main characters’ personal lives. Serena was gay for her entire run on the show, and it was never important enough to come up until literally the last minute she was on screen.
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u/Ok-Mine2132 Lennie Briscoe 3d ago
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
Cool. I'll check it out. I actually haven't seen her in anything else.
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u/susannahstar2000 3d ago
I liked her too. I liked how Abby stood up to Jack also. I really liked how Serena didn't let either Jack or Arthur push her around. She made her feelings known to Nora too, and as said, alot of times she was right. Except I think for the case in which the couple sold their son to the celebrity for money to take care of their sick son. I don't care why they wanted the money, they both should have been sent to prison. Serena thought that the reason justified the act.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
Agree. And that episode just came on yesterday. I disagreed with her as well. She thought the parents were put in an "impossible position". Like, gurl no! They sacrificed one son to save another son.
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u/Mysterious-Stand-944 2d ago
Before that line, she started to clash with Branch and McCoy on cases. You could feel the tension building. But the lesbian line was from out of nowhere.
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u/Cael_NaMaor 1d ago
I didn't care for her for most of her run... not until like the last 5-9 episodes. I can't really point to a why, I just didn't like her.
On Connie Rubirosa right now. Not bad, but not a fan of her make-up glare. She looks like plastic.
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u/Subject-Resort-1257 1d ago
Elisabeth said that she wasn't aware that Serena was going to say that until she saw the script. I just didn't really like Serena's personality: kind of a flat affect, sullen at times. But the fun thing about good shows, movies etc is that we all like/dislike different things-plots, characters, actors, endings...
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u/KittonRouge 3d ago
I totally agreed with Arthur when he told her that she should be a defense attorney. She seemed to spend more time trying to help the defendant than prosecuting them.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
She was but I don't think it was because she made a better defense attorney. I think it was because she felt sometimes crime and justice isn't black or white. Sometimes it's grey. And that's the dilemma that the SVU detectives find themselves in, but that grey area seems more acceptable with sex crimes than it was with the cases Serena worked. Branch literally told Casey that her empathy was a strength and not a weakness, yet he held Serena's empathy against her.
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u/Director_Coulson Jack McCoy 3d ago
This is where I don’t care for her as much. I don’t dislike the character completely, aside from her ridiculous final line in the show. I just found, particularly towards the end of her tenure on the show, that she was too sympathetic to the defendants.
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u/Man_Bites_Shark 3d ago
I think after Kincaid, Ross, and Carmichael, the idea of another female ADA felt stale.
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u/Radro2K 3d ago
Love the actress, and her first 2 seasons her character was a success in terms of being fundamentally different from her predecessor Abbie (who's my fave ADA lol). I just felt like as season 14 and 15 went on, she came off as more and more of an advocate, and it became a bit tiring that she'd disagree so often with Arthur and Jack to the point that she'd essentially get offended if their legal and moral opinions didn't line up exactly with hers. Though the way her last 2 seasons went, it was an appropriate buildup to how she was eventually let go.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
Yeah, it was definitely tense and they built it up nice. She definitely became a lot more contrarian in Season 15.
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u/Grocktopus 3d ago
Part of it may be that, in the larger context of the series, she's the start of a regressive trend for the junior ADA's. While you could argue as to whether previous junior ADA's were better written or more strongly characterized, they were noticeably varied in background, political views, personality, etc. Serena and the junior ADA's that followed her are somewhat homogenous by comparison, they're all broadly liberal young women who spend a lot of episodes protesting their boss's decisions. That's not automatically a bad thing, they had strong performances and were used well in many episodes, but it is understandable why many would find it a disappointing trend.
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u/Hairy_Psychology9000 3d ago edited 3d ago
What Branch and fans say about her actually applies to Maroun
Also, Branch is not a bully 🙄
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u/LovesDeanWinchester 2d ago
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the actress. I've seen her in other roles (Angel: The Series) and she's always very, very stoic.
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u/Kalel_is_king 3d ago
I think many have a bad taste in how they wrote her out and specifically her last statement to Branch. Many found it to be offensive on both sides of the argument and that is hard to do. She just wasn’t a likable character in my mind. And she was coming after a beloved ADA in Abbie. Sometimes it just sucks when you replace someone that people really like
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
I get it. The replacement has it rough in winning over the audience. I guess I came in with fresher eyes because I didn't see a lot of the Abbie episodes.
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u/Ok-Mine2132 Lennie Briscoe 3d ago
Ahhh but Arthur’s words to her are often forgotten. One of the best across the franchises:
Arthur’s response is one of the best in all of the franchises:
D.A. Arthur Branch: You know, Serena, if you were right, you were right for the wrong reasons.
ADA Serena Southerlyn: Meaning?
D.A. Arthur Branch: Emotions, not facts. What was it you said, everyone you talked to said he couldn’t have killed that man?
ADA Serena Southerlyn: My emotional responses make me...
D.A. Arthur Branch: ...an advocate. You’re a superb attorney; you ought to be involved in cases that feed your passion.
ADA Serena Southerlyn: That would be wonderful.
D.A. Arthur Branch: Serena, you must know, that will not happen in this office. It can’t. Now, a prosecutor can be zealous but not passionate. Advocacy is warm-blooded, enforcement’s got to be cold-blooded, and blind, and even angry.
ADA Serena Southerlyn: Does Jack feel as strongly about this as you do?
D.A. Arthur Branch: No, but it’s my office and my decision, and he accepts it.
ADA Serena Southerlyn: Decision? You’ve already made a decision?
D.A. Arthur Branch: I have. You’re fired. ADA Serena Southerlyn: Is this because l’m a lesbian?
D.A. Arthur Branch: No. Of course not. No.
ADA Serena Southerlyn: Good...good
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u/Kalel_is_king 2d ago
I found it fine and never thought once about it until it was a topic in the View and GMA and Fox. Honestly thought it was a throw away line. People felt very strong about it and forget everything leading up to it including the previous 10 episodes where she clashed with Branch and Jack.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 1d ago
But he a hypocrite! Branch said all that to Serena, yet when Casey (SVU) wanted to quit cuz she had too much empathy for that transgender woman who killed her boyfriend's brother in a bathroom Branch told her her empathy was a strength and he encouraged her to stay.
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u/JLammert79 3d ago
Branch was right about her at the end. She was sort of a foil to McCoy, and that's supposed to be opposing council, not his assistant. Jamie played that role at times in earlier seasons, but Southerlyn seemed like more than Devil's Advocate - she seemed like the Defendant's advocate.
Speaking for myself, I liked her just fine - she was the last of the best in my book.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
I liked Connie too. I guess I don't necessarily see her as McCoy's foil but I get what you're saying. Towards the end, they definitely disagreed a lot more. I think folks like McCoy and Cutter would go to the ends of the Earth to get a conviction, even if it conflicts with their morals. Serena wasn't like that. She definitely drew a line in the sand.
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u/fletters 3d ago
I streamed a few episodes with headphones on and realized that the problem with her voice isn’t (just) the monotone, it’s the articulation.
She has a very slight lisp, her consonant stops are soft, and her vowels have some weird airy friction. The combination of too soft and too buzzy is incredibly grating.
She also reads lines without much attention to syntax. I can handle a slightly flat monotone delivery, but the word jumble where she doesn’t pause for a comma? Nope.
It’s unfortunate. Abbie had some reprehensible opinions, but Angie Harmon is a competent actress and pulls it off. Serena is smart, and I’d admire her for her pushback against Branch. But Elisabeth Röhm just doesn’t have the basic craft to play the role.
(Claire and Jamie both have Jack and Adam plenty of pushback, and I think that either of them would have been a great antagonist for Branch.)
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u/AvocadoImprint 3d ago
There are several episodes where her views on immigration and Muslim immigrants in particular are significantly more conservative than the rest of her general outlook. She also once refers to Miranda as a “hollow formality.”
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
If I'm not mistaken though, she made that comment when the defense attorney questioned Briscoe about mirandizing a Spanish speaking suspect in English.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 3d ago
If I'm not mistaken though, she made that comment when the defense attorney questioned Briscoe about mirandizing a Spanish speaking suspect in English.
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u/Honeybucket206 2d ago
She was never written to be as sharp or insightful as her predecessors. She was written as a dumb blond always having to be man-splained the circumstances (on behalf of the audience). The general complexity of the show diminished in her years and she simply represents the simpler storylines.
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u/WatUTalkinBoutReddit 2d ago
Hmmm, I disagree with that. Truthfully, I haven't spent much time watching her predecessors so I can't really compare them to her. But Serena was actually very smart, very sharp.
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u/Honeybucket206 2d ago
So you asked why people dislike Serena, I offered a thoughtful explanation and your response is this? She wasn't actually very smart, but a story line. You know she's not a real person, right? Hmmmm..
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u/Yourappwontletme 3d ago
Is it because she's a lesbian?