

Mariska Hargitay as Lieutenant Olivia Benson.See also: List of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit characters Main cast Executive producer/director Alex Chapple will join Chernuchin and will be replaced by Law & Order/ Law & Order: Criminal Intent veteran executive producer/director Norberto Barba. Former showrunner/EP Warren Leight (seasons 13-17) is set to return for the record-breaking 21st season. Īfter the season wrapped production, it was announced that showrunner/executive producer Michael Chernuchin departed the show for another Wolf Films series, FBI on CBS. On March 1, 2019, it was announced that actress Lucy Liu would be directing the episode "Dearly Beloved," which aired April 4. On December 3, 2018, Julie Martin confirmed that the episode count for this season is 24. It was confirmed that Hargitay would direct the ninth episode of the season, titled "Mea Culpa", marking it the sixth episode she has directed for the series. A deleted scene featuring Benson and Noah from the previous season was re-shot and placed into the episode "Dear Ben", the scene being where Noah has a question about his father followed up by ADA Stone (Philip Winchester) taking Noah out to play baseball.

The episode also featured Callie Thorne as defense attorney Nikki Staines. Martin teased on August 14, 2018, that the fourth episode of the season, titled "Revenge", would be "a devious twist and turn edge-of-your-seater". On July 12, 2018, Executive Producer Julie Martin posted a photo of a script on Twitter, teasing that the first hour of the two-hour season premiere was tentatively titled "Man Up". Law & Order: Special Victims Unit was renewed for a twentieth season on May 9, 2018.
