Law & Order: SVU Bringing Back Fan-Favorite Actor for Season 23

Law & Order: SVU is in its 23rd season on NBC with the season seeing the returns of some familiar faces thanks to the recent 500th episode. Now, two more familiar faces are headed back to the precinct when the series returns with new episodes after the holidays in January. According to TVLine, fan-favorite cast member Donal Logue will return to Law & Order SVU for the January 22nd episode, reprising his role as Lt. Declan Murphy while Ar’el Satchel, who played Sgt. Khaldun will also return in the same episode.

According to the report Logue’s Lt. Murphy will have just concluded his most recent undercover assignment and will need Capt. Benson and the SVU’s help on a high-priority case that involves what appears to be coordinated hate crimes around New York City. Logue played Lt. Murphy in Seasons 15 through 17 with the character filling in for Benson (Mariska Hargitay). Meanwhile, Satchel’s Sgt. Khaldun was a transit cop who worked with Benson’s team in Seasons 21 and 22.

The returns of both Khaldun and Murphy are likely to be welcome ones for fans, especially with Season 23 of Law & Order: SVU having already featured several nods to previous seasons of the series as well as the Law & Order franchise, but the appearances could cause some interesting complications, story-wise as well. Both Khaldun and Murphy have romantic ties to Detective Rollins (Kelli Giddish). Murphy is the father of Rollins’ older daughter, Jesse, while Khaldun acted as Rollins’ romantic partner during an undercover job.

While Logue’s return to Law & Order: SVU is a little bit away, fans do have more SVU-related things to look forward to in the meantime. SVU and spinoff Law & Order: Organized Crime will have a crossover event airing on December 9th which will see Richard Wheatley’s trial for the murder of Kathy Stabler as well as will see Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) ask for Benson’s help in finding his son, Eli.

“It will be a very Law & Order Christmas,” Law & Order: Organized Crime showrunner Ilene Chaiken said. The Organized Crime portion of the crossover event is titled “The Christmas Episode.” “I’ll just say: I hope we don’t ruin Christmas for you for all time.”

Are you excited for Donal Logue to return to Law & Order: SVU? Let us know in the comment section.