Law & Order: Special Victims Unit/Characters


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Some or all of these characters need descriptions. A list of tropes is not a description.

Main Cast

Detective Elliot Stabler

Detective Olivia Benson

Detective John Munch

  • Agent Mulder
  • Big Brother Mentor: Cassidy saw him as one.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: And he's the most rational of all the main characters.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Dirty Old Man
  • Long Runners: At the end of season 13, Richard Belzer will have played Munch for 19 years (and 20 seasons) as a regular on two different shows (along with cameos and crossover appearances on 8 others) putting him one year behind (or tied with, if measuring by seasons) Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane (on Cheers and Frasier), James Arness as Matt Dillon and Milburn Stone as Doc Adams (both on Gunsmoke) as American television's longest running live action character.
  • Out of Focus: In later seasons.
  • Quip to Black
  • Transplant: From Homicide: Life on the Street to SVU.
  • What Could Have Been: Originally, upon Homicide's cancellation and after hearing that Benjamin Bratt was leaving the original series, Belzer suggested to Dick Wolf that Munch become Lennie Briscoe's new partner, since they had originally teamed in three Homicide crossovers. Wolf loved the idea, but had already cast Jesse L. Martin as Det. Ed Green.
  • Writer on Board / Actor On Board: We're not clear which one.
    • Almost certainly Actor On Board given the content of his books and stand-up comedy act. Read "UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don't Have To Be Crazy To Believe" for a good example.

Captain Donald Cragen

  • Badass Grandpa: He's obviously over 50, and he's still capable of handing perps their asses, albeit he does this rarely. Surprisingly, he also refuses to use more force than is absolutely necessary, as he is the most Lawful Good member of the cast.
  • Bald of Awesome
  • Berserk Button: As much as he chews them out, he is very protective of his detectives, and at least Casey. After a man brutally assaulted her, he mentioned he'd like to throw the man did it out of a window. Alex, too: when a drug cartel puts out a hit on her, he gives her one of his guns and mentions he already had a friend put the permit in her name.
  • Big Good
  • Da Chief
  • Limited Advancement Opportunities: He's been a captain since at least 1988.
  • Off the Wagon: Was at one point. Now, he tries VERY hard to make sure he stays sober, though his job doesn't make it easy.
  • Team Dad
  • Transplant: From the original series to SVU.

Detective Monique Jeffries

Assistant District Attorney Alexandra "Alex" Cabot

Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola

Dr. George Huang

  • Badass Pacifist: This man has been in the room with several psychopaths, and more than one has tried to kill him. This has not stopped him from doing his job once.
  • Berserk Button: Has a rare loss of temper, leading to a public shouting match, when Stabler deliberately sends a mentally ill suspect into a total meltdown in order to get information.
  • Characterization Marches On: In his first appearance, Huang sports glasses, a perv-stache and his interest in the criminal mind seems vaguely prurient. An episode later, he's glasses-less, clean-shaven, his hair is immaculate, and he's a sensitive and trusted confident to Olivia.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: In the episode "Hardwired".
  • Jurisdiction Friction: Huang's position as a psychiatrist and a member of the FBI occasionally puts him at odds with the rest of the team; on the other hand, he also readily uses FBI resources to help them. Seems to be just as much a personality conflict with Stabler as anything else.
  • Mr. Exposition: Sometimes reaching Captain Obvious status.
  • Only Sane Man
  • Put on a Bus: Beginning season 13 with no mention at all, unlike Stabler, whose departure was dealt with in several episodes. It is hinted that he might be working with the FBI full time again.
    • The Bus Came Back: He returned 20 episodes into Season 13 in "Father Dearest", with a mention of working in Oklahoma.
  • The Profiler
  • The Shrink: Incidentally, he can hop between all three subtypes depending on the episode.
  • The Smart Guy
  • The Stoic
  • Invisible to Gaydar: Heavily hinted at for several years and finally recently confirmed.

Assistant District Attorney Casey Novak

  • Hello, Attorney!
  • Broken Bird: Specially because her schizophrenic fiancé was drug-addicted and abusive, and and after she finally kicked him out, he died in the streets.) There's also the episode in which she gets the crap beaten out of her by a man angry that she's prosecuting his sister's rapist.
  • She's Back In Reparations.
  • Honor Before Reason / Idiot Ball: The stunt that got her disbarred had no chance of working. She knew it. She did it anyway.
  • Plucky Girl
  • Put on a Bus
  • Retcon: Her disbarrment, despite being stated on screen as such, was eventually declared a censure later on down the line, likely so she can have further appearances. In fairness, the character who delivered the news could very easily have gotten wrong information.
    • Indeed Elizabeth Donnelly's exact words were "censure, possible suspension."
  • What the Hell, Hero?: To the point where she eventually gets disbarred.

Dr. Melinda Warner

Detective Chester Lake

Assistant District Attorney Kim Greylek

Reoccurring Characters

Detective Brian Cassidy

  • Characterization Marches On: He returns for the Season 13 finale totally different--they might as well be different characters. He went from being the overly passionate rookie to a pervy perp who enables and has sex with underage sex traffickers.
    • There was also the implication that he might be a dirty cop.
  • New Meat
  • Put on a Bus: Sex Crimes becomes too much for him so Cragen recommends his transfer to Narcotics.
    • The Bus Came Back: Returned in the Season 13 finale, "Rhodium Nights", as an undercover cop.

Dr. Rebecca Hendrix

Detective Dani Beck

Darius Parker

CSU Technician Dale Stuckey

Assistant District Attorney Sonya Paxton

Elizabeth Donnelly (ADA Bureau Chief, later a Judge)

  • First-Name Basis: Frequently goes from "Your Honor" or "Judge Donnelly" to "Elizabeth" when speaking with Alex and Casey on more personal matters.
  • It's Personal: Steps down from the bench for a case in Season 10's "Persona" due to her connection with the defendant (see Old Shame below).
  • Old Shame: As seen in "Persona," her run-in with the Idiot Ball that resulted in a murderer escaping from jail coined the phrase "doing a Donnelly" for several years after.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure

Barry Moredock (Defense Attorney, later a Judge)

  • Heel Face Turn: Not immediately. He starts out rabidly Lawful Neutral and a Designated Villain by serving as the defense for the side opposite the SVU team, but by the time he's a judge, he's not nearly as much of douchebag.
  • Rules Lawyer: Very strict on his constitutional law interpretations.
  • Smug Snake: Comes off this way at first. However, he does temper this with being a Graceful Loser, and being willing to admit when he's only defending his client due to a legal interest and does not approve of their actions personally. For example, when defending a Neo Nazi who killed a Jewish child and a black child on a playground:

Casey: Have you had a conversation with him?
Barry: Yes, and I find every word he spews morally repugnant. But his speech, despicable as it may be, doesn't entitle anyone to trample all over his constitutional rights, now, does it?

Jo Marlowe

  1. ↑ Her only and final appearance is in the episode's Cold Open
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