YMMV / Law & Order: Special Victims Unit S12 E23 "Delinquent"

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Hunter actually molested, or was he falsely claiming to be molested, just as he did with Stabler? Was the ending Hunter seeking revenge on his molester and then genuinely reforming, or was it just an act, successfully pulling the wool over the eyes of the legal system once again, fooling everyone about the extent of his dangerousness? Is it really true that Hunter is "going to be all right" as he claims, that his crimes "weren't really him", or is he still the same unrepentant, incorrigible full-blown psychopath he was when he was raping women who had nothing to do with him (and torturing animals)? How many people who were molested by their babysitters become full-blown, unrepentant serial rapist animal torturers by age 14? And how many of those psychopaths were instead that way from birth?
  • His mother never pressed charges, so his claims were never vetted. The only evidence we have is his word (repeated by his mother), and neither of them are reliable expositors. He also refers obliquely to the subject while on the phone but he makes it clear he's doing a performance for Stabler. Hunter is smart and Genre Savvy enough to know that setting up a target is an effective means of shaping the narrative, should he ever need to do that.
    • The way he acts when Benson and Stabler catch him, hungover and covered in his former babysitter's blood, is very much the kind of act suspects put on as part of a Wounded Gazelle Gambit, appearing tearful and remorseful (something Stabler earlier says he's incapable of), claiming the person who attacked those women "wasn't him", and saying that he'll never do it again and that he thinks he'll be okay now? The look on Benson and Stabler's faces says it all.
  • Supposedly Hunter targeted women because they looked like his babysitter. Don't they also look like his mother?
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Hunter at the end of the episode. Yes, the reveal that he'd been raped by his babysitter when he was younger was horrible, as was his mother realizing her doing nothing to actually help him made things worse. That doesn't change the fact that he still raped and murdered several women, overshadowing his own abuse and making it very hard to actually feel sorry for him.