‘Law & Order: SVU’ Showrunner Breaks Down the Landmark 600th Episode

[This story contains spoilers from the 600th episode of Law & Order: SVU.]

Law & Order: SVU reached a huge milestone Thursday: 600 episodes, a number that only two scripted primetime shows have ever hit before. The cast and crew celebrated with a cake on set during filming and a dinner afterward — and then went back to work. Six hundred episodes is an extremely rare feat for a scripted series (The Simpsons and Gunsmoke are the only ones with more), but Thursday’s episode was also the sixth of season 28; 15 more are still to come.

“That’s just doing television,” showrunner Michele Fazekas told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s our 600th episode, but it’s also just an episode within 21 episodes [this season]. You’re working on five episodes at the same time at any given moment — you’re in prep on some episodes, you’re writing on some episodes, you’re in post on some episodes. Nothing changed in that regard.”

Titled “Obedience,” the 600th episode brings Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) back to the Special Victims Unit after jury consultant Gwen Sharpe (J. Smith-Cameron, who also appeared in the season premiere) convinces Benson (Mariska Hargitay) to take another look at an old case. Gwen is convinced the man in prison for the crime, the rape and murder of a young nun in 1998, is innocent.

Stabler is reluctant to revisit the case — with good reason, it turns out. He failed to follow a couple of leads that could have pointed to the real culprit, a now-retired priest who led mass at the convent where the victim lived. He also cut Benson out of the interrogation in the case, which she went along with at the time because she was new to the squad. The case stirs up complicated feelings in the former partners; when Stabler asks Benson why she’s so interested in digging up the case, she retorts, “Why aren’t you?”

He eventually agrees to work with her, and the pair head upstate to question people who knew the victim (most notably, guest stars Laura Innes and Kathleen Chalfant) and track down the priest.

Fazekas, who wrote the episode (Brenna Malloy directed), said she wanted to give the 600th show the feel of “an old school Benson and Stabler episode” while also looking at the people they have become in the years since. To that end, the episode’s final scenes will give viewers plenty to discuss.

Fazekas unpacked those scenes, the reasons for going back to the show’s early days and more in an interview with THR.

Given the milestone that this is, was there extra planning that went into it? Or did you have ideas on the board for longer than you might normally?

Probably a little bit. I think I had an idea early on in the in the season of what I wished to do, and one of the first things was saying, “Can we bring back Chris Meloni?” Assuming that this is the last centennial episode that we were going to have, it feels like if we could do it, this would be the time to do it. So yeah, there were some earlier ideas than your typical running around trying to figure out what an episode is.

Having Stabler come back into the squad was always part of the plan, then?

It was for me. There were a lot of things that had to happen in order for that to become a reality, including Chris having to be available — he’s busy. But he was. I also knew early on — because I was on the show the first time around, seasons three through seven — I wanted to kind of go back a little bit to an old school Benson and Stabler episode of SVU and honor that era of the show. I just had an idea, and I don’t usually come up with ideas this way, but I was like, “I want it to be a road show.” I want them to be in a car, driving long distances and hashing stuff out. I didn’t know what [the reason] was. I always find that interesting, just putting two people in a place where they can’t get away, and then they have to hash out their stuff.

The structure of SVU is such that cases usually get cleared and some sort of justice is served by the end of the hour. I thought it was really interesting that this one is built on something that they got wrong initially. Why did you want to come at it that way?

In part, it was because you have to explain why are we bringing Detective Stabler back. He doesn’t work in SVU anymore. He works in a completely different department. So what would be big enough that he would come back? It felt sort of organic for it to be an old case, but it’s a case that actually predates the show. The show starts in 1999, and this case is from 1998.

What was not planned but came out in the in the breaking of the story is they were such different people back then. Benson was really new, and Stabler was the senior detective, and she has evolved so much because, at the end of the day, we’re still telling the story of Benson. It fits really nicely into what we’re doing with her character this season, and it made sense for why he’s back. But it also goes to wanting to do and old school SVU episodes, but let’s go back to before SVU was even a thing.

I was also struck by Stabler admitting to Benson that his Catholicism might have blinded him to who the real perpetrator was. His religion has been a thread throughout the character’s run, but I think it’s always interesting when it comes up explicitly in relation to a case.

Chris Meloni was a big proponent of that as well. I think allowing your own preconceptions biases you; it goes to that whole issue [of blind spots] generally. Anybody who was raised Catholic, you think of it as one thing, and it’s very hard for people to accept that this thing that you think is one way has a really dark side. At that time [in 1998], it would have been really hard for Stabler to even understand.

You were on the show for a good portion of the Benson-Stabler partnership during your first tenure, and now you’re back as showrunner. What’s your read on their relationship?

My read is Stabler still has work to do on himself that Benson has done. Benson has evolved in a way, and I love them together, and I love them as partners and as scene partners. But I think part of this episode is talking about how she, in some ways, has moved on from the struggles back then. I think Stabler is still working on it. Stabler is still doing a lot of the same things that he did 20 years ago, and he’s starting to realize, oh, I need to change that.

And given what goes on between them in this episode — arguing about work and life, and then him inviting her to come to Arizona for a while — what do you think the audience’s read is going to be?

Listen, I do think they love each other. I think they both know. I think when he says, “Hey, you want to come to Arizona?” he knows her answer is going to be no. It’s easy to ask that question when you know the answer is no. I don’t think he didn’t mean it, but he also knew what her answer was going to be, and I think now is not the time. Is there time down the line? Maybe, but I think he’s got some work to do. She can have some work to do as well, but I think she’s probably a little further down that path than he is.

I’ve always thought that they love each other in a way that sort of transcends a sexual relationship. They deeply love each other, and they’ve acknowledged that before, and I think this sort of reinforces it. But I also think he knows I’ve got more to do with myself.

Where are you in terms of production now?

We are shooting episode 10 and in prep on episode 11.

Anything you can say about the next few episodes?

We have a nice little arc going of that we started at the beginning of the season that we continue, where the cases that they’re faced with are messy and don’t have easy answers. Benson is really struggling with feeling like nothing has changed. No matter how hard we work, sometimes it doesn’t matter. I like the idea of pushing her — the episode we’re shooting now and the next episode are pushing her to the edges of not even what is legal, but what is ethically and morally right to do, because she’s starting to not care.

The episode we’re shooting right now, the bad guy is so bad. We’re talking about “Why is he doing what he’s doing?” And she actually says, “I don’t care,” which is a big thing for her. But you also understand it because the guy is such a bad guy.

Anything you can say about how Stephanie March re-enters the show as Alex Cabot?

Benson goes to her and asks for help. They didn’t end things on a totally happy note the last time she was on the show, but Benson goes back to her.

Is Alex still doing the same sort of work she was that last time?

No. But there’s a reason.