What To Know
- Filming for Law & Order: SVU Season 28 has started.
- Ice-T has shared a photo of himself and Mariska Hargitay.
We may still be two and a half months out from the Law & Order: SVU Season 28 premiere (Thursday, October 8), but we already have a glimpse at what Captain Olivia Benson and Sergeant Odafin “Fin” Tutuola will look like then. Ice-T shared a photo from set of himself and Mariska Hargitay on Wednesday, July 22.
“SVU is back! First day of filming today.. Season28 @WolfEnt Let’s go!” Ice-T wrote in the caption of the photo.
Hargitay is the only original cast member still on the show; we’ve seen her Benson go from detective when we first met her in the 1999 premiere to now captain of the squad, going into her 28th season. Ice-T is the cast member who has been on the second longest, having debuted as Fin in Season 2. They remain the staples of the Special Victims Unit, and this behind-the-scenes photo, as well as comments from Ice-T recently, tell us that they will continue.
SVU is back! First day of filming today.. Season28 @WolfEnt Let’s go! pic.twitter.com/9QXSoKX8Tw
— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) July 22, 2026
The 27th season touched on the possibility of both Benson and Fin retiring. At the start of it, Fin admitted he was considering it, but by the finale, he’d ruled it out. And Benson successfully fought for her job against Chief Tynan (Noma Dumezweni), who originally wanted her to move into a position at 1PP.
In Season 27, Ice-T was only around part-time, “splitting the workload” with Kelli Giddish (who stars as Sergeant Amanda Rollins). Such won’t be the case in Season 28.
“So this next season, I’m going to be in every episode,” Ice-T shared on The TMZ Podcast. “But it was one of those things where the boss comes to you, and you don’t go, well, I’ve been on here 27 seasons, you go and do this? You know, I got it. I got it. It’s all good. So it wasn’t because of Kelli. It was just the way they moved. And I was more concerned getting to Season 28. I didn’t care about that. I was just like, let’s just keep going. I want to go to Season 30.”
It sounds like that’s a strong possibility, since, as Giddish told TV Insider, both Hargitay and Dick Wolf want that. Plus, as showrunner Michele Fazekas shared after the finale, the questions of Benson and Fin retiring have been addressed.
“Fin was asking himself a question and Finn getting sidelined for a while and by the end they both answered the question for themselves. When Fin is like, ‘I’m never going to retire and I’m never going to die,’ which is kind of the sweet moment of him taking care of her because he can see that she’s really struggling, but Benson has answered the question for herself like, ‘I’m going to do this for as long as I can because I can do nothing else,’” she told us.
She added, “For Season 28, I think [Benson]’s recommitted herself. She’s not going to be asking that question because I think she’s answered that question. [In the] writers’ room … one of my first sort of assignments for myself and for the writers is, well, OK, so what is the story? What is the theme of Season 28? So it won’t be that same question. It’ll be something new.”
Law & Order: SVU, Season 28 Premiere, Thursday, October 8, 9/8c, NBC