Former Law & Order: SVU Star Will Return for Multiple Episodes in Season 26

Law & Order: SVU fans haven’t seen the last of Kelli Giddish’s Amanda Rollins. The fan-favorite character, last seen in two Season 25 episodes, will have a larger role in the forthcoming Season 26 of the long-running NBC procedural

Speaking with TVLine, Law & Order: SVU executive producer Julie Martin confirmed that “Rollins is definitely coming back to the show.” However, Giddish will not be returning as a series regular for SVU Season 26; instead, showrunner/executive producer David Graziano revealed that she will be credited as “a guest star, and she’s going to make a bunch of appearances throughout the season. We’re really happy about it.”

Amanda Rollins Has a New Job in Season 26

Giddish first appeared on SVU in the Season 13 premiere, with Detective Amanda Rollins replacing the recently departed Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). After 12 seasons with the show, Giddish departed as a series regular in December 2022, midway through Season 24, with Rollins leaving the force to become an adjunct professor of Criminal Behavior at Fordham University. However, when Giddish made a guest appearance in Season 25, with Rollins volunteering to help Mariska Hargitay’s Capt. Olivia Benson with an attack on a bride-to-be, it was revealed that the character was recently unemployed. At the end of the episode, Benson gently suggested that her former co-worker figure out what she really wanted to do with her life, because “I don’t want SVU to be your safety net.”

SVU fans will soon learn exactly what Rollins has decided to do with life, with Graziano explaining that when she returns in Season 26, the character will be working with the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Unit, “which is very different from the Intelligence Unit anywhere else, because the Intelligence Unit in New York has cops stationed in almost every country in the world. And so, Rollins is going to be traveling a lot as part of that job.”

How Many Episodes Will Amanda Rollins Appear in?

At the time of writing, Graziano and Martin declined to share exactly how many episodes Giddish will appear in as Rollins, although Graziano joked that he’d say there would be a “bouquet of them — and not describe the size of the bouquet yet.”

Giddish will star in Law & Order: SVU Season 26 alongside the current main cast for the show: Hargitay’s Captain Olivia Benson, Ice-T as Sergeant Odafin “Fin” Tutuola, Peter Scanavino as Assistant District Attorney Dominick “Sonny” Carisi, Jr. (who is married to Amanda Rollins), Octavio Pisano as Junior Detective Joe Velasco, and Kevin Kane as Detective Terry Bruno.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 26 is set to premiere on NBC on Thursday, Oct. 3, following the Season 24 premiere of Law & Order. As for Organized Crime, the Law & Order franchise’s other currently airing show that stars former SVU regular Meloni (Elliot Stabler), its fifth season will air on Peacock instead of NBC, with a premiere date not yet announced.