A Familiar Face Is Returning to ‘Law & Order: SVU’

Law & Order: SVU has a beloved familiar face returning this season. Kelli Giddish’s Amanda Rollins will return to the NBC procedural for the upcoming 11th episode of Season 25 after last making a guest appearance in the season premiere, Deadline reports. An airdate for Episode 11 has yet to be released, and there’s no indication of how Rollins will return for the third to last episode of the shortened season.

In January’s Season 25 opener, Rollins returned to the world of the SVU to celebrate the christening of her baby with ADA Sonny Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino) after her exit from the series the previous season. Rollins later assisted Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) in her investigation into a missing teenage girl, whom Olivia was haunted to learn she witnessed being abducted on the way home from the baptism. Rollins, who accepted a teaching job at Fordham University before her exit from the SVU, told Benson while consulting on the case, “I love the students, but I do miss the feeling of solving a good mystery.”

Giddish’s character exited Law & Order: SVU midway through Season 24 after marrying Carisi before returning as a guest in the Season 24 finale, surprising her former colleagues with news that she was pregnant. Giddish announced in August 2022 that Season 24 would be her last, calling her role as Rollins “one of the greatest joys and privileges of my life.”

“I’ve been so fortunate to be a part of the Law & Order family for the last 12 years,” she continued in a statement at the time. “There is simply no other character on TV like Rollins. She’s grown and changed, and I have as well. I started on this show when I was in my late 20s and I’m grateful I got to spend so many of my adult years with Rollins in my life.”

Giddish, who joined SVU in 2011 for Season 13, continued, “I want to thank Dick Wolf, Mariska Hargitay, Warren Leight, Peter Jankowski, NBC, Universal Television, all of my co-stars, every single member on the crew and all the writers here for our incredible work together these last 12 years. I’m so excited to take all the things I have learned in my time on ‘SVU’ and put them toward everything that’s next to come.”