LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT Season 27 Finale Post-Mortem: Michele Fazekas on the Benson and Fin Turning Point, the Tynan Arc, and Early Season 28 Plans

Give Me My Remote > Law & Order > SVU > LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT Season 27 Finale Post-Mortem: Michele Fazekas on the Benson and Fin Turning Point, the Tynan Arc, and Early Season 28 Plans

SVU Benson Tynan

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT — “Monster” Episode 27021 — Pictured: (l-r) Mariska Hargitay as Capt. Olivia Benson, Noma Dumezweni as Chief Tynan — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Thursday, May 14 season finale of LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT.]

With LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT’s Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) facing pressure from her new boss, Chief Tynan (Noma Dumezweni), all season—and then staring at a potential suspension after she refused to betray a survivor’s confidence and was held in contempt—the SVU vet was pondering in the final episodes of season 27 if her future was still with the NYPD.

“When I came back onto the show [at the start of season 27], one of my questions—it is sort of a meta question, too—[was], wow, 27 seasons,” SVU showrunner Michele Fazekas tells Give Me My Remote. “And for Mariska, it’s 27 years on the same show. So, it’s sort of a natural question. And there’s a line in the first episode of the season where Benson says to Fin, ‘Listen, I know we’re closer to the end of the beginning.’ And I find that a really interesting place to be for anybody—for Benson, and for Mariska, and for all of us.”

“So I wanted to use this season to explore that, and to explore Benson, looking at her life and her job, and being like, ‘How much longer am I doing this?’” she continues. “And so I think [at] the end of this season, it culminates, in a lot of ways, [with] her recommitting. It’s like, ‘No, I am here. I am here because I can be nowhere else.’”

SVU Benson Tynan

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT — “Monster” Episode 27021 — Pictured: Ice T as Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

In a full-circle moment, a conversation with Fin (Ice T) in the finale also proved to be a turning point for the captain.

“That scene that she has with Fin in the finale, where…he’s joking with her, but it’s also kind of how he takes care of her,” Fazekas points out. “Like, he can see that she’s going through it, and he can see that…this bad guy in this episode is really messing with her. And so when he says, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, I’ve totally revised my opinion on that. I’m never going to retire.’ And [then] he says, ‘And I’m never going to die.’”

“I was there when we shot that scene, and initially, when they did it, they did it more like a joke,” she continues. “And my note to [director] Brenna Malloy, and to Mariska and Ice, was, ‘Do that line softer. ‘I’m never gonna die.’—that’s not a joke. It’s obviously not real, but he’s doing that to take care of her, and she really takes that in. And so for both of them, it’s like, we’re here, we’re in it till the end. So that’s kind of the story we told throughout the season of her sort of looking at her life and looking at her job, and by the end being like, ‘Nope, I don’t have any questions about that anymore. I’m here until I can’t be here anymore.’”

Fin has been Benson’s closest ally for years, but Ice T’s role was majorly scaled down in season 27. Additionally, the show cut two Latine series regulars between seasons 26 and 27, and the rotating cast members meant that multiple episodes featured only white regular cast members. “I think it is always important to have diversity and to show [that],” Fazekas says of plans to fix that in the future. (The casting decisions were made before the show got its official season 27 renewal.) “With Ice T, I think the nice thing is we’ve been able to change that so he can be back much more regularly than he was. And that was a decision that was made before I started. So we’ve rectified that. But, yeah, I think [having an inclusive cast is] always an important thing.”

Outside of that, “the sort of core group, not making any changes,” she says about the season 28 cast.

As for former regular Octavio Pisano, whose Velasco popped up a few times after he left this year, “I would love to have him back,” Fazekas says. “We don’t have any specific plans, but certainly it’s in my head of, again, bringing him back when we can tell a really good story, and not just drop him in. Like, I really liked how he came in to give Benson a pep talk. Like, I thought that was a great little moment between them.”

SVU Benson Tynan

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT — “Monster” Episode 27021 — Pictured: (l-r) Mariska Hargitay as Capt. Olivia Benson, Noma Dumezweni as Chief Tynan — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

In the finale, Benson was ultimately able to get one over on Tynan, thanks to Griffin (Corey Cott) taping the chief’s confession about what she and Griff’s father did back in the day. Now that Tynan knows she can’t come after Benson, “we’ve sort of told that story,” Fazekas says. “I love Noma. I would work with Noma on anything. I don’t have any specific plans to bring her back, but I left it open for a reason. And if there are other stories to tell with her, she’s so great.”

“It was very funny how it came about that she was on the show: I had written the character, Tynan, not with anybody in mind,” she continues. “And I was on a Zoom with everybody—we were talking about it—including Mariska, and we were talking about who could be Tynan. And she was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I met this actress’…and she, like, sort of described her. And I go, ‘Wait, is she on MURDERBOT?’…because I had just seen MURDERBOT. I was like, ‘I love this woman. Who is she?’ So it was a crazy little bit of serendipity, and she happened to be available. So I love her. She makes everybody better in the scene; Mariska loves acting with her. So, seriously, I’m not closing the door on that. I don’t have a specific plan, and I don’t feel like that particular story needs to continue, but I think she’s terrific.”

Tynan spent a lot of resources digging into Benson’s past, and specifically held on to one file Griff gave her, but the showrunner confirms Tynan didn’t have a specific case, or incident, in mind that she was investigating.

“She was just looking for leverage against Benson in any way that she could,” Fazekas says. “And then when Benson gets held in contempt, [Tynan]’s like, ‘Great, I gotcha.’ So there was no specific file that she was looking for. She was just like, ‘Let’s look for any little mistake she’s made. We’re going to comb through 27 years of your career.’ And, of course, there’s going to be mistakes. But then she takes advantage of, ‘Oh, you got called in contempt. Great. I’m going to use that.’”

But will Benson still be facing a suspension? “I think what will happen is by the time we start the new season, that will have been settled,” Fazekas says. “So it will not be a factor at the top of the season.”

Though planning for season 28 is still in the early days, Fazekas notes the plan is to likely do another longer arc. “I don’t know what it is yet, but what I liked about Tynan…I always like a theme,” she says. “Sometimes themes get, like, real heavy-handed, but I always like to find what is the theme for the season? And so we’re kicking some stuff around. Our writers’ room starts next week… I don’t necessarily need a Big Bad, but I do like a theme. And what is the story we’re telling in the season?”

Fazekas is also looking at the big picture for the iconic series, too. “And then, as we’re aiming for whenever this show concludes…I always have to have that in my head,” she says. “We don’t have an end date. But ideally we could plan, ‘How do we want to wrap up this huge epic TV show?’ and be really mindful of that.”

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LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, Thursdays, 9/8c, NBC

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