Law & Order: Special Victims Unit/Trivia

• Actor Allusion:
  • When Tutuola joined the show, his previous background was in Narcotics, which was the job of Ice T's character in New Jack City.
  • And when Lee Tergesen guest-starred as a suspect in the episode "Savior", he and Elliot got very touchy-feely in the interrogation room as they prayed together, undoubtedly a reference to their intimate times in prison together.
  • A Cold Opening of an episode had Bill Goldberg as a perp hopped up on PCP. Elliot clocks him in the back of the head with a fire extinguisher and gets trashed for his efforts. What finally stops the rage? Fin with a chair to the head.
  • "Ballerina": A roommate seeing his friend in the kitchen with a knife and an ear print being discovered at the first crime scene.
• Actor Shared Background:
  • Richard Belzer has openly stated that John Munch is basically "me as a cop".
  • Fin was in the Army, just as Ice-T was.
  • Both Amaro and Barba are Cuban-Americans who speak fluent Spanish, reflecting that Danny Pino and Raúl Esparza are as well.
  • Kelli Giddish is from Georgia, as is Rollins.
• The Danza: In the episode "Friending Emily", Taylor Spreitler guest stars as the victim's sister, Taylor Culphers.
• Fake American: Adam Beach, who played Chester Lake, is from Manitoba.
• Fandom Nod: In 11x13 "P.C.", Kathy Griffin's lesbian character coming onto Liv. The reasons she gives for her mistake are pretty much the same ones fans have been using for their Slash Fic since, oh, the start of the show.
  • The best part being when Olivia asks, "Why does everyone think I'm a lesbian?"
    • No, the best part has to be Olivia fooling the suspect into confessing by pretending to be a lesbian, swaggering into the interrogation room in a leather jacket.
• Fan Nickname: After one too many uses of the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique, Elliot became widely known as "UnStabler".
• Hey, It's That Guy!/Retroactive Recognition: Lampshaded when a Character of the Day tells Fin he looks like a pimp. Ice T was a pimp before getting into rap and later played a pimp in the Mothership's TV movie.
  • RoboCop (the second one) is now a Lieutenant at the Internal Affairs Bureau.
  • Superman is a serial rapist who promptly marries his girlfriend to prevent her from testifying against him.
  • Speaking of Superman, Lois Lane engages in an incestuous relationship with her son Byron Montgomery.
  • Jango Fett is a cop in one episode. Unfortunately there weren't thousands of him.
  • River Song is a defense attorney in a couple of episodes, with the last name POND. And she's awesome.
  • Lily Charles is a corrupt-as-all-hell judge.
  • What, you're telling me Iago is a TARU Technician now?
  • Clarissa Darling a.k.a. Sabrina Spellman graduated to become a teacher who was raped by Cassidy Casablancas. She also marries a religious Roman Catholic man. Too bad magic couldn't save her.
  • Zach Morris is found shot and sexually assaulted in an alley outside of a gay bar.
  • Being raped and brow-beaten into falsely-accusing her coach may have influenced how Sam Puckett became the person she is today.
  • Kim did porno before going to work at Sacred Heart.
  • Mrs. Doubtfire?! When did you become an anti-authoritarian sociopath?
  • Well, Albert, I'd like to see you con your way out of this one.
  • Peter Petrelli framed his stepfather of rape. Claire wants Olivia to adopt her and then grows up and gives oral sex for clothes.
  • Debbie Jellinsky is a foster parent whose daughter goes missing.
  • Peyton Flanders is a wheelchair-bound woman whose husband Gambit had an affair with a stripper, who worked for him.
  • G.O.B. was a prominent member of a pedophile ring.
  • Sandy Ryerson is a sex offender... again... although it's rather more serious this time.
  • Gunnery Sergeant Hartman as a Smug Snake serial rapist and murderer in "Trophy":

"LAWYER, BITCH!"

• • Boone beats his father Richard Nixon, rapes his brother Kevin Girardi, and forces people (even those of the same gender) to have sex before killing and robbing them.
  • Wallace Shawn was on SVU too. The fact that you don't know him by name is INCONCEIVABLE!
  • The most ironic of them all: Chris Keller on a crusade against sexual offenders.
    • With Father Ray and Vern Schillinger helping him out as psychiatrists!
    • And John Munch's first partner on the show is Ryan O'Reilly.
  • Hey look! Scar is a psychologist! His client? Why, it's none other than a meek piano teacher accused of murder, Juliet.
    • That was her second appearance on the show. In the first, she's charged with killing her ill infant daughter, and the child's pediatrician is none other than Alex Reiger!
  • So I heard through the grapevine that Michaela Quinn killed her husband when she discovered he was having an affair...oh, and apparently her son is Jeremiah.
  • Bill Goldberg shows up wrecking the police department and throws Stabler through a glass window.
  • The detectives seek the help of former agent Sylvia Fine after a woman is murdered. She has them interview the various girlfriends of a former 'Mattress Maestro', which include Jennifer Pace, Kim McAfee, and Velma Von Tussle. Kelly Garrett gets involved as well, but she's no angel.
    • Also in that episode, Walter Peck, still a New York City official, tries to put the moves on an undercover Olivia.
  • Maxwell Sheffield raped his mother's best friend Gigi when he was a teen.
  • Paige Halliwell, in addition to seducing a married man and having sex with her twin brother, is a con artist who also goes by the aliases of Tatum Riley, Cherry Darling, and Courtney Shayne.
  • Grace Adler is a television journalist who is receiving death threats, so she decides to assist the detectives on a case that ignites a cold case in her past.
  • In turn, Will Truman is an owner of an online dating website who takes the fall for a murder his daughter had committed.
  • Dr. Kavita Rao is a detective who may have had some involvement in the murder of an ADA.
  • Arlene Fowler's a woman who might have cancer. But that's probably nothing compared to her mentally unfit sister...
  • Emily Prentiss's father was a wanted criminal whose partner-in-crime took care of her, after her biological father wanted to kill her.
  • Uncle Jesse managed to get around 20 women pregnant by deception. And that's just in New York.
  • April O'Neil is a defense attorney who assaulted a male stripper. And a decade later, she played the Maria Shriver to Special Agent Dale Cooper's Arnold Schwarzenegger.
  • Not to mention that some years earlier, Agent Cooper murdered a sociopathic boy who had killed his son.
  • Related to the above, it was a bit jarring for those that watched Novak as the ADA for a few seasons to finally catch a rerun of "Ridicule"... in which Novak (with a different name and hair color) was convicted of raping a male stripper.
  • Phil Diffy raped a TV star and bragged about it on Ben Lewis's radio show. Only for his Moral Guardian mom, Mistress Lisa, to shoot Lewis to make herself a martyr for her cause.
  • Abandoning the love of her life, Valerie left the old town of Daggerhorn for the bustling city of New York. She donned the name "Tandi" and ends up being raped. I guess you can't escape The Big Bad Wolf.
  • Aunt May is quite the evil bitchy grandmother, isn't she? And to think, it all started over mushrooms.
  • In a rather odd allusion to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, Tiana accuses Italian diplomat Lancelot of raping her. The case is brought to court, and the diplomat's attorney? Why, it's none other than Arvin Sloane!
  • Speaking of defense attorneys, Detective Claudette Wyms appears as one often. Aibileen Clark, Ellen Griswold, Mary Jo Shively, Boon Schoenstein and John Hamilton pop up from time to time.
  • Randall Winston and Carter Heywood have both left the Mayor's Office in favor of the New York State Bar.
  • There was that one time Clairee Belcher showed up to defend Angie Bolen's son, who stood accused of murdering his father.
  • Jordan Collier a.k.a. The Rocketeer is an art professor accused of raping his student. He may or may not be in prison for it.
  • "Torch" has Billy Babbitt as a fire expert.
  • In "Name", Al Neri is a terminally-ill killer and Captain Roy Montgomery is his accomplice.
  • In terms of judges: Professor Maggie Walsh presides over several of the cases.
    • Judge Mary Clark was once a young actress from Brewster, New York. In other words, "THAT GIRL!"
    • D.A. (then Judge) Barry Moredock used to be an Alaskan bar & grill owner named Holling Vincoeur.
    • Angela Bower has left the advertising world for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.
    • Judge Lois Preston was once an abrasive madam named Ray Parkins.
    • Judge Karen Taton was one of the Sisters, and before that one of the Thirtysomethings.
  • Angel Guzman ended up as a serial killer who slashes Olivia's throat (she got better).
  • Before he terrorized Woodsboro as one of the Ghostface Killers, Charlie Walker shot two classmates when he was on unsolicited medication.
  • In "Demons", Elliot goes undercover to gain the trust of the recently-paroled T-1000.
  • Captain Kathryn Janeway is now a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney's Office.
  • Jessica Fletcher is a socialite trying to shield her son Ricardo Morales from prosecution. Awkward.
  • Miranda Hobbes is a woman who seemingly has Dissociative Identity Disorder.
  • Brad Chase is once again involved in a paternity dispute, though he deals with it rather differently...
  • Dylan McKay is a foster father who's revealed to be a serial rapist, having married one of his victims.
  • Leon Carp is a doctor who denies that HIV leads to AIDS.
  • Michael Scofield is a cop who's forced to work with Elliot (in an episode titled "Unstable", no less!).
  • The Fonz is a con man who orchestrates the attempted murder of his wife and steals her money.
  • Dwight Schrute is a janitor at a hospital where a comatose woman is raped.
  • Lorraine Baines-McFly became a surrogate mother who kidnaps her biological daughter in "Birthright".
  • Luther survived his pummeling from the Gramercy Riffs to become both a child molester and a lawyer who defends them in "Possessed".
  • Felix Garcia is a gay teen who is suspected of killing the boyfriend of an NFL hot shot that's in the "Closet".
  • Eunice Higgins raised Stu Macher from childhood and started having sex with him when he was 18. Dear god, not Stunice!
    • Also, her husband is Johnny Sack. Unfortunately, he is not so faithfully devoted to his wife. Or alive.
• Life Imitates Art:
  • During the first half of the 2011 season, the episode "Missing Pieces" in which a mother claims that her car was stolen with her young son still buckled into his car seat bore more than a passing resemblance to the still-unfolding Sky Metalwala case. Another episode "Personal Fouls", which revolves around a well-respected coach who uses a children's charity to molest young boys, originally aired a few weeks before the Penn State molestation story broke. However, according to The Other Wiki, this one was actually based on a different sports abuse case.
• Technology Marches On: Inevitable given that SVU premiered in 1999. The show's adjustment to the existence of social media occasionally veers into the hilarious.