‘Law and Order: Special Victims Unit’ is Finally Reuniting Benson and Stabler With an Intimate Almost Kiss

‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ might finally be giving long-time fans what they’ve been waiting for with a new teaser trailer for the upcoming season 24 episode 12, titled “Blood Out’.

In a teaser trailer released on January 13, 2023, Capitan Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Senior Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) come close to kissing. The teaser has left fans under the impression the two longtime colleagues are finally acting on their feelings for each other.

If the teaser’s implications are true, the kiss would be a defining moment for the series. Benson and Stabler may be one of the longest slow-burn romantic interests in the history of TV. Debuting in 1999, ‘Law & Order: SVU’ follows detectives Benson and Stabler in a fictionalized version of the New York City Police Department. However, Meloni departed the series in 2011 in order to pursue new adventures.

Meloni ended up returning to the Law & Order franchise 10 years later, reassuming his role as Detective Stabler in the spin-off series ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’. The characters have shared many chemistry-filled scenes, with Benson even encouraged to explore her romantic feelings for Stabler in the season 23 finale, but they have yet to share a kiss.

In an interview with Today, Hargitay called Benson and Stabler’s chemistry “undeniable” and “a complicated factor in their relationship.” In an interview with Drew Barrymore, she went so far as to state she believes Benson has “been in love with Stabler for many a year.”

This however will not be the first time Benson and Stabler are seen on screen since Meloni’s return to the franchise in 2021. Season 24 began with a three-hour cross-over premiere event involving all three law and order franchises: ‘Law & Order’, ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’ and ‘Law & Order: SVU’.

The writers of the three related series have been building up to this intimate moment between the two characters over the last year. It all began with the death of Stabler’s wife, which led to him writing Benson a letter, and the two later meeting to discuss the letter’s content. This resulted in a tension-filled scene between the two where Stabler reveals the only part of the letter he wrote himself was where he confesses, “in a parallel universe it will always be you and I.”

After a 2-week hiatus ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ will return to NBC on Thursday, January 26, 2023, at 9 p.m. ET, alongside a new episode of ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’ following at 10 p.m.