After a year of LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT’s Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) being pushed by Chief Tynan (Noma Dumezweni) to stay within the bounds of her job, the captain contemplated whether it might be time to put down her badge. Instead, season 27 concluded with Benson recommitted to her job. (And with Tynan off her back, thanks to a bit of blackmail.)
“We told the story of Benson last season where she was feeling like, ‘Should I retire? Should I not retire?’ We’ve answered that question,” SVU showrunner Michele Fazekas tells Give Me My Remote. “But I didn’t want to shy away from the fact that, yes, we’re going on almost 30 years of this show. And what is that like for a cop?”
The long-running NBC series will dig deeper into that toll in the season premiere, airing Thursday, October 8 (at 9/8c).
“There’s a case that we’re doing for the first episode that makes Benson be like, ‘You know what? 30 years in, and nothing has changed,’” Fazekas previews. “And [grappling with], ‘We don’t even prevent crime. We just pick up the pieces after.’”
Rather than have Benson go back on her decision to stay with SVU, or pretend these cases aren’t impacting her, season 28 will find the captain in a slightly different position. “What I want to do is see how far we can push Benson’s boundaries,” Fazekas previews. “She’s not going to quit. So what is she going to do?”
“Somebody like a Stabler, for instance, back in the day, would beat up a suspect. Well, that’s not Benson,” she continues. “What are the boundaries that Benson pushes to get justice? I’m interested in exploring that out of—not really despair, but out of feeling a little disillusioned with the system. It’s a long time to be in that system. Not everything works out.”