Law & Order Team Addresses Possibility of Romantic Relationship Between Benson and Stabler

The Law & Order Universe will get things started in epic fashion this season, as Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, and Law & Order: Organized Crime will take part in a three-part crossover, which will serve as the season premiere for all three shows. A major part of that crossover and the grander Law & Order world is the beloved duo of Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), and fans are intrigued to see if they actually become a romantic couple at some point down the line. In a new interview with Today, Law & Order showrunner Rick Eid, SVU executive producer and head writer Julie Martin, and SVU showrunner David Graziano all addressed that potential romance and how both stars will play into the crossover.

“That’s something we hotly debate back and forth here every day, and some of the considerations about Benson and Stabler have nothing to do with narrative and they’re about just logistics of these two actors’ (Hargitay and Meloni) busy schedules,” Graziano said. “You’ve got to think for a second about the ‘OC”‘: Chris Meloni is in every single scene of that show, and they just can’t lend him out the same way we can sort of give them Mariska for a day or two. Even when we give her over there for a day or two, we feel hobbled without her.”

“Everybody knows the storytelling of will they or won’t they – we like to keep that question going as long as possible. So to answer, either way, is to sort of kill that anticipation. So I think our job – what they talked about at the end of last season is certainly something that percolates in both of their minds, in Benson’s mind and Rollins’ mind, and when she’ll actually act on that … it won’t be in the first episode,” Martin said.

“We have a responsibility to Benson as a character, too. There have been a lot of events that have happened in the ‘OC’ and also on our show, ‘SVU,’ that would seem to preclude an easy relationship with the two of them. And so I think there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be unpacked first,” Graziano said.

“Like, I think one of the fans wrote me about this, and I said something to the effect of like I think true love prevails in the end. I’m a firm believer in true love prevailing dramatically if not in real life. But before you can have a healthy relationship like that, if you have some monsters under your bed, you have to slay those first. Otherwise, they’re going to follow you into that relationship,” Graziano said.

Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, and Law & Order: Organized Crime will return on September 22nd.

Are you excited for the crossover? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things Law & Order with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!