Law & Order: SVU didn’t hold back from delivering some very personal drama early in the 2025 TV schedule, with the winter premiere picking up where the devastating fall finale left off with a traumatized ADA Carisi. He returned to work in the first episode of the new year, called “First Mild,” but fell out of sight when he remembered his experience at the deli. It was clear why Peter Scanavino previously told CinemaBlend that his character needed some “tough love,” which he ultimately got from Captain Benson. After the episode, Scanavino talked about Carisi’s “wake-up call” and filming the emotional climax with Mariska Hargitay.
Carisi lost control in his first case of the new year, to the point that it was painfully possible that a rape victim would not get justice, and that weight was certainly not lost on him when he received a phone call from District Attorney Baxter, reproduced in Law and order by Tony Goldwyn. He finally opened up to Benson in an emotional scene where they were alone in the courtroom, admitting that he couldn’t “even smile while my kids open their Christmas presents” and “Maybe I don’t have any feelings left.” meaning he didn’t have the passion he needed to win a case.
He also admitted that he was angry, which Benson pointed out, not without callousness, that it was a feeling. She reminded him of all the work he had done to go from detective to prosecutor, and finally took his hand and told him she wanted him to “wake up” and “come back.” It was a relatively quick but powerful scene, and the conversation was what Carisi needed. Although he couldn’t undo his previous mistakes in the courtroom, he gained the leverage he needed to reach a deal that would bring some justice to the victim. (You can find the episode streaming with a Peacock subscription now.)
So when I spoke with Peter Scanavino about Carisi’s second big episode of season 26, I asked him his opinion on why Benson was the right person to wake Carisi up. After all, the winter premiere also featured Kelli Giddish as Amanda Rollins, Carisi’s wife. Scanavino shared:
Because you have that relationship that’s been built over so many years, and if someone can talk to you very clearly and honestly, you have to trust that person cares about you, or you won’t listen. That’s built in between him and Benson. He knows she cares about him and respects him, doesn’t try to pressure him and takes him seriously. So when she says, “You have to wake up,” he can hear it. If it had been anyone else, I would have just turned it off, as part of the noise. But from her, he can hear those words because they have this relationship of mutual respect that goes back more than a decade.
The conversation certainly worked; Carisi’s plea deal not only guaranteed 25 years behind bars for the husband who had organized the attack on his wife, but he also raised a smile when the episode ended with dinner with Rollins and their three children. It was not entirely the BE However, a version of a therapy session worked, as Scanavino continued:
As she says, it’s more of a wake-up call, and also the reality of the situation, that if you don’t get out of it, there will be repercussions for this victim. You can’t process this case and be the way you are. I think that’s part of it too.
It was also significant that the scene took place between Mariska Hargitay and Peter Scanavino, and not just because Hargitay is easily the Law and order Actor who has been in the most episodes of the franchise. Benson and Carisi have a long history together, and according to Peter Scanavino, his co-star guided much of their emotional scene in the winter premiere. He said:
They say action, and then in each episode you can see that there are some scenes that are going to be pivotal to your character, and that was clearly one of them. (I was) I’m not really sure how I wanted to play it. Am I going to get angry? But it’s nice to have someone like Mariska, who I love so much and is such a good actress that I could play her. She dictated a lot of how that scene went. I was just playing with it and knew where it was coming from. It just evolved organically and there were some nice surprises when we did it.
While it remains to be seen if “First Mild” really was the end of this story for Carisi or if the trauma of the deli hostage situation will resurface again, it appears he’s back to his old self for the time being. . After finally smiling with his family at the end of the winter premiere, everything seems to be going well for him in the next episode… or as well as anyone. Law & Order: SVU! Watch the promo for the next episode below:
Law and Order SVU 26×10 Promo “Grasp Key” (HD) – YouTube
Tune in to NBC on Thursday, January 23 at 9 pm ET to watch the next episode of Law & Order: SVU Season 26, called “Grasp Key.” As always in the 2024-2025 television season, BE airs between Law and order Season 24 at 8 pm ET and Found Season 2 at 10 pm ET. As to whether anyone from BE will come across any of Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5… well, we’re still waiting for a premiere date to find out when Christopher Meloni’s show will arrive on Peacock as a unique broadcast.
You can also find Carisi’s last two great episodes of BE streaming on Peacock now, and I, for one, consider them two of the best episodes of season 26 so far, as well as two of Scanavino’s best in his long career as a detective turned ADA.
