The winter hiatus for Law & Order: SVU is nearly over in the 2025 TV schedule, with Season 26 of NBC’s hit drama returning on January 16. It won’t be back to business as usual for all of Olivia Benson’s squad, though, as Carisi still has the fallout from his traumatic experience in the fall finale, called “Cornered,” to deal with. Peter Scanavino spoke with CinemaBlend about the one and only time he watched the episode that I consider the most devastating out of the 200+ he’s credited with at this point.
The fall finale started off badly for Carisi when he was caught up in a deli hostage situation, and then just got worse and worse for him as the minutes ticked on. Despite his attempts to keep everybody calm and avoid any harm or bloodshed, Carisi was held helplessly at gunpoint while a man died in front of him and a young woman was assaulted in just the next room. He of course survived the ordeal, but couldn’t even come close to convincing Rollins (with Kelli Giddish’s second guest appearance of the season) and Benson that he was fine in the aftermath.
The result was one of Peter Scanavino’s most striking performances as Carisi after more than a decade of playing him, and you can find the episode streaming with a Peacock subscription now. When I spoke with the actor about what SVU has in store for his character next starting with the winter premiere, I asked if he’d watched the fall finale or if he prefers to avoid watching himself act, and he explained:
You know, usually… I wouldn’t say avoid. I just find it hard to watch myself, because you’re always commenting on the way you sound, the way you look. You know, the phenomenon when you hear your voice and you say, ‘I sound like that?’ Kind of that, times ten. So you don’t want to just judge too much and let the work stand on film.
I for one certainly know the feeling of not liking to hear my own voice over a recording! Considering that Scanavino – who has actually appeared in the Law & Order franchise as more than one character – has been a series regular on SVU for eleven seasons and counting, he clearly found an approach that works. That said, he took a different approach to the fall finale, saying:
But I did watch this episode. I watched it once when it aired. That was the first time I had seen it. I thought it was very intense and very well done, and I was really proud of it and everybody involved, the writers, the director, everybody. I think it works very well.
I would qualify “Cornered” as an episode that was hard to watch due to how increasingly raw Carisi and his fellow hostages became over the course of the hour, but also hard to look away from due to the performances. Given SVU‘s status as an incredibly successful procedural, there was no guarantee that Season 26 would continue the story for Carisi in 2025. That’s not going to be the case, as NBC’s episode description for the winter premiere, called “First Light,” reveals that it will feature the ADA as he “struggles to move on from his ordeal when the suspect changes his plea.”
Fortunately, the promo for the winter premiere reveals that Kelli Giddish will be back, so Carisi will have his wife on hand. He does seem to be okay in the preview footage, though, so it remains to be seen just how open he is (or isn’t) about his struggles. Take a look:
Tune in to NBC on Thursday, January 16 at 9 p.m. ET for the winter premiere of Law & Order: SVU Season 26, between Law & Order‘s Season 24 return at 8 p.m. ET and Found Season 2 coming back at 10 p.m. ET. No premiere date has yet been announced for Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 as SVU‘s spinoff, but Christopher Meloni‘s drama is expected to make its debut as a Peacock original in 2025.
