Ice-T Offers Big ‘Law & Order: SVU’ Update

Odafin Tutuola is heading back to work. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star Ice-T confirmed on Monday he is returning to New York City to start filming the 24th season of the series next week. SVU will extend its record as the longest-running primetime network drama in U.S. history when it returns to NBC on Thursday, Sept. 22.

Ice-T tweeted a video of himself on a plane and narrated as it touched down on the East Coast. “Vacation is officially over,” Ice-T said. “Law & Order starts filming on the 18th. Let’s go. Let’s get back to work. That’s what’s up.”

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While Ice-T is returning to the Big Apple early, his SVU co-star Mariska Hargitay is still enjoying her vacation. She shared a new photo from Croatia, where she has been enjoying some sun with her husband, actor Peter Hermann. “All Croatian and happy and ohhh so grateful,” Hargitay wrote in another post from her vacation spot on July 9.

Law & Order creator Dick Wolf completely took over NBC’s Thursday schedule halfway through last season when the Law & Order revival joined Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Organized Crime on the schedule. All three shows will once again air on Thursdays, with the mothership series kicking things off at 8 p.m. ET. Wolf’s One Chicago universe also owns NBC’s Wednesday schedule, while his three FBI shows air back-to-back-to-back on CBS Tuesdays.

The fall 2022 Law & Order premieres could be the biggest in the franchise’s 30-year history. Sources told TVLine last week that NBC and producers are plotting a crossover story that will involve three Law & Order shows for the first time. The crossover could launch the new season, or be pushed later into the year if there are any scheduling issues. NBC has not commented on the report.

SVU Season 24 will see the returns of Hargitay and Ice-T, as well as Peter Scanavino as A.D.A. Sonny Carisi and Kelli Giddish as Det. Amanda Rollins. Octavio Pisano, whose Det. Joe Velasco was introduced in Season 23 and is expected to return as well. Jamie Gray Hyder and Demore Barnes both left early on in Season 23. Last season also saw the show celebrate its 500th episode with “The Five Hundredth Episode” on Oct. 21, 2021.

Although it seems unlikely that Ice-T will leave SVU anytime soon, he told Mashed in February that he has an idea of how Fin should die. “If I got to go, I want to go in a blaze of glory. Blow me up in a car. I want to be murdered,” Ice-T said. “I say that, but [I’m] in the Wolf Universe. You understand? Law & Order could end and I could be climbing a ladder on Chicago Fire. I could be over on [Criminal Intent],  so maybe I don’t want to die.” Wolf would have to revive Law & Order: Criminal Intent for that to happen though since CI ended in 2011.