Elliot Stabler made a surprising appearance for the first time in nearly two years on “Law & Order: SVU” — to protect Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and her son, Noah.
The episode was part of a special crossover with “Law & Order” and “SVU” titled “Play with Fire.” Stabler popped up near the end of the event on “SVU.”
Chris Meloni tells TODAY.com he “absolutely” sees his character, Stabler, as a protector, but that’s not the only character he views in that role.
“I feel as though you have to give the caveat that does not diminish Mariska — Benson’s own agency and toughness and street savvy,” he says.
Benson teams up with Lt. Jessica Brady (Maura Tierney), and their squads work together to solve some gruesome murders. The most recent victim is Detective Maria Recinos, whom Benson once saved when Recinos was just a young girl.
Brady and Benson merged their squads to investigate the especially gruesome murders of marginalized women.Peter Kramer/NBC
They eventually start to suspect a fellow cop, Lt. Paul Gomez, who has been assisting along the way, to be responsible for the crimes.
After Benson and Brady have a chat with Gomez, it seems he’s also aware they are catching on to him.
Benson goes to pick up her son from school and sees him beside a car talking to someone through the window.
She asks Noah who he’s talking to, and he responds, “I don’t know. This guy was trying to tell me to go into his car. I wasn’t going to, though.”
Benson’s son, Noah, avoided a dangerous situation when a man wanted him to get in his car.NBC / Peter Kramer/NBC
Benson approaches the driver’s side of the vehicle and knocks on the window asking who the driver is and why he’s talking to her son. The car pulls away before she can get any sort of answer.
She’s clearly rattled by the threat to Noah and expresses these feelings to ADA Carisi (Peter Scanavino) and EADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy). It’s another man, however, who eventually handles the threat.
Enter her longtime partner, Stabler, who approaches the driver of the vehicle while he’s using a urinal in the men’s room. This isn’t the first time Benson has called on Stabler to protect her son. In Season 24, she asked him to safely bring Noah home after a threat from a gang. Benson also said at the time there was no one she trusted more to keep her son safe than Stabler.
Stabler takes the adjacent urinal and says, “You might not know me, but I know you — and not in a vague kind of way.”
“Protelliot” has entered the chat.NBC
Stabler continues to list off the man’s name and life history before sliding over and slamming him up against the wall, noting he’s aware Gomez “owns” the man.
“You and I are just going to cut through the noise,” Stabler continues, further pressing the guy into the wall.
“If you ever go anywhere near my friend or her son again, I won’t take you down,” Stabler says. “I’ll take you apart.”
“Tell Gomez to watch his back,” he adds on his way out the door.
“They just called me up,” Meloni says about his “SVU” scene. “They said, ‘This is the scene,’ and I went, ‘I’m there.’ It’s just — it’s my friend.
“In fact, that’s one of the lines I say,” he continues, while reciting Stabler’s line about not going “anywhere” near his “friend” again.
While Stabler is happy to act as protector, Meloni points out the role is a mutual one for Stabler and Benson.
“It’s just, you know, when a friend sees a friend — I mean, no one has a problem with Benson helping, saving, being there for Elliot, and they shouldn’t,” Meloni says.
In Meloni’s eyes, both Benson and Stabler are protectors.Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin / GC Images
He references the episode he wrote, in which Hargitay guest stars, from the new season of “Law & Order: Organized Crime.” Benson comes to Stabler’s bedside at the hospital after his vehicle is hit by a semitruck. Stabler is in a coma for much of the episode and experiences various dreams, some of which include Benson.
“If anything, I feel as though, the episode I wrote, it’s Olivia that’s able — she’s the icebreaker that can almost break through his, where (Stabler’s) at in his coma,” Meloni explains. “It’s her voice that he hears.
“That’s a protector,” he says.
