Here's When the SVU Season 26 Finale Airs This Month (DETAILS)
It's right around the corner!
The month of May is shaping up to be a busy one for viewers, especially for fans of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit!
The Season 26 finale is just around the corner. Here's everything you need to know about the milestone episode, including how to tune in.
When is the Law & Order: SVU Season 26 finale?
Mark your calendars: Season 26 of SVU comes to a close with the final episode of the season on Thursday, May 15 at 9/8c on NBC.
As usual, viewers who can't catch the Season 26 Finale live as it airs on NBC can watch next-day on Peacock and that goes for every SVU episode that may have been missed.
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But before we reach the finale, there's still one more episode to go. SVU's penultimate Season 26 episode airs on Thursday, May 8, setting the stage for what will surely be a dramatic and heart-stopping Finale.
The logline for "Aperture," reads: "When an assault at gunpoint is witnessed through a neighboring window, the squad scrambles to locate the victim to confirm she's safe; a threat to extort the victim's family leads to a shocking suspect."
Mariska Hargitay reveals famous SVU scene with Christopher Meloni was improvised
Believe it or not, one of the most emotional embraces in SVU history was not in the script.
In a 2024 interview with Vanity Fair, Mariska Hargitay reflected on the pivotal scene in the Season 9 episode "Paternity" that featured the first on-screen hug between Olivia Benson and Christopher Meloni's Elliot Stabler. Interestingly enough, Hargitay revealed that the embrace was entirely improvised due to some quick thinking by her co-star.
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"If I'm correct, I think that's the first time we ever hugged on the show," she explained. "And he surprised me with it, and it was so right. And in that scene, I think it's somewhere where you can really feel everything unspoken, almost more than the spoken word."
Hargitay isn't wrong. Longtime SVU fans can feel every ounce of emotion running through the characters in that moment. It's beyond powerful, and one of fans' favorite scenes to go back and rewatch again and again.
"Chris and I were very careful and very judicious [about] the way we interacted physically [on screen]," she confessed.
