Warning: spoilers are ahead for NBC's Law & Order: SVU Season 26 fall finale, called "Cornered" and available streaming now with a Peacock subscription.
Law & Order: SVU has never been the most lighthearted show on television, but "Cornered" was particularly devastating as it put Carisi through hell and back to finish the 2024 TV schedule with a hostage situation. While he didn't come out of the crisis the worst of the people who had been trapped, he ended the episode visibly traumatized, and what was possibly Carisi's most painful episode of SVU also may be the greatest showcase of Peter Scanavino as an actor. Yet I can't help but be confused by the promo for the winter premiere that will air in the 2025 TV schedule.
What Carisi Went Through In "Cornered"
I knew the stakes would be sky-high in this episode, not least because it would be Kelli Giddish's first return as Amanda Rollins since what felt like her backdoor pilot earlier in Season 26. But as it turns out, I really wasn't worried enough for Carisi, and that's saying something! By pure happenstance, the ADA walked into a hostage situation when he dropped by a deli to pick up some flowers for his paralegal on her birthday, and everything got progressively worse from there as he tried to talk the bad guys down while also hiding that he's a former NYPD cop who became a prosecutor.
And honestly, the hostage situation was so intense that I kind of forgot that this was the show all about how – to quote the opening narration of the past 26 seasons – "sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous" until the gun-wielding Boyd started leering at Tess, a young woman who was among the hostages, in a way that was all too familiar for longtime viewers of SVU.
Understandably unraveling already, Carisi had to stand there at Deonte's gunpoint and try to talk him down while Boyd assaulted Tess just a room away. All the while, he was trying to protect Benson from trading herself as a hostage for him, and everything was far too close for comfort as circumstances got worse and worse and worse. With Carisi finally talking Deonte down enough for him to shoot Boyd, the ADA leaned on his NYPD skills to disarm the criminal before falling apart.
By the end of the episode, Carisi was trying and failing to convince Benson and Rollins that he was okay, and possibly only convincing himself. He turned down the Special Victims captain's offer to set him up with her therapist, and just wanted to see the kids, although Rollins saw that he was too rattled for it. When they had a moment alone, Rollins asked "He's not okay, is he?" of Benson, who simply answered "No." And he's really, really not.
Why The Winter Premiere Promo Confuses Me
Before I fully get into the winter premiere promo, some context for why I'm confused: Peter Scanavino absolutely nailed this episode from start to finish. I thought I was more or less desensitized to watching SVU without getting rattled myself, but "Cornered" got me. I also have to give credit to guest star Paige Herschell, who played Tess, because her panicked screams as soon as she was free from the deli hit hard. Kelli Giddish's presence heightened the emotional stakes as well, especially after Rollins was all business earlier in Season 26.
All in all, for as much as SVU is usually a serialized show aside from the occasional crossover or multi-parter, the episode ending with Carisi barely holding it together and Rollins and Benson agreeing that he wasn't okay felt like a setup for a storyline that was definitely going to carry over into the new year. Maybe it was somewhat wishful thinking, as I was hoping to see more of Scanavino flexing his acting muscles beyond the courtroom.
This was the kind of SVU episode that I think was an absolute standout, but I'm not sure I'll want to watch again because of what the character went through... and that's why I was taken aback a bit by the winter promo, seen below:
Carisi looks absolutely fine in all of those shots in the preview for SVU's return in the new year! There's not even a glimpse of him looking particularly introspective, which I would have expected from a promo that aired immediately after "Cornered" ended on Rollins and Benson sadly agreeing that he wasn't okay. I wasn't expecting SVU to turn into a serialized story a la what I expect of Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5, but I'm going to start crossing my fingers that the long-running show picks up this plot at some point in the back half of Season 26.
Of course, Law & Order's fall finale also ended on a cliffhanger for one character and then was followed by a promo in which she was fine, but it hits harder after SVU really pushed Carisi to the edge. For now, we can only wait for both shows to return in the new year, with their premieres on Thursday, January 16. As always, the original series airs at 8 p.m. ET followed by SVU at 9 p.m. ET, all on NBC.
