When a TV show is successful enough to earn a long run, it’s inevitable that fans are going to look at how the most current episodes compare to earlier seasons. How have the characters developed as we’ve gotten to know them? How has the writing changed over time? As Law & Order: SVU’s 26th season prepares to debut on the 2024 TV schedule, one fan has a specific complaint about the crime procedural “going woke,” and longtime star Ice-T simply wasn’t having it.
Ice-T has starred as Fin Tutuola on the Law & Order spinoff since its second season, and while everybody’s been picking their favorite moments of the Paris Olympics this summer, the rapper/actor has been hard at work on his 25th round as a Special Victims Unit detective. He said as much on a post on X (Twitter). leading one fan to air her grievances about the series’ most recent seasons. The viewer said:
Did they write SVU back to normal yet? It started to go woke
Law & Order: SVU is known to deal with some pretty heinous crimes, so when it comes to complaints about its subject matter, going “woke” maybe wasn’t the complaint others in the thread were expecting. When asked for clarification, she said in a separate post that one past episode made “a big deal out of hurt feelings” and “over emphasized the whole DEI and ‘body shaming.’”
The discourse continued back and forth pretty much as you’d expect a comments section to do, but one person was not willing to entertain any of that mess, and that was Ice-T himself. The actor reposted Nicole T’s question, adding his own strongly worded comment:
What the F is Woke? lol Like I give a Fuck.
Real-world issues have often been brought up on Law & Order: SVU, and with the world having changed so much since the NBC series’ 1999 premiere, it’s only natural that the tone has evolved over the years. However, Ice-T didn’t seem particularly worried about the show’s tone or accusations that the material has become overly politically correct.
It’s that kind of confidence that Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fans have loved about the actor in his quarter-century as Odafin Tutuola. Ice-T is so confident, in fact, that at 66-years-old he’s still showing off that physique. Not bad at all!
Law & Order: SVU might not be for everybody — and apparently even past fans may grow away from the show — but Ice-T said earlier this year that he feels like he hit the jackpot. He said that the crime procedural helps some viewers who are survivors of their own trauma, serving as much as a therapeutic experience as entertainment. I’d imagine the thanks he gets from those fans are more than enough to drown out any of the other negativity.
Season 26 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit will premiere at 9 p.m. ET Thursday, October 3, on NBC, following the Law & Order Season 24 premiere at 8 p.m. ET.
