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The Law & Order: SVU Pilot Revisited
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In honor of Law & Order: SVU‘s 500th episode, we took a look back at the show’s very first installment, titled “Payback.” Prepare yourself for baby faces, the old precinct set, Olivia’s no-nonsense ponytail and Munch being Munch. If you’re a relatively recent SVU acolyte, get ready to meet the original crew. And if you’ve been around since the beginning, see how much of the inaugural episode you remember.
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Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot -
law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-rain
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot The first time we meet Elliot Stabler (played by Chris Meloni) and Olivia Benson (played by Mariska Hargitay), they’re showing up at the scene of a car crash in the pouring rain… because the driver was stabbed to death and had his penis hacked off. Of note: The pair identify themselves as working for “sex crimes,” not “SVU.”
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-squad-room-1
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot When we go to the squad room for the first time, it’s a bustling place where we meet Capt. Cragen (played by Dann Florek)…
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-squad-room-2
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot … and Detectives Monique Jeffries (played by Michelle Hurd) and Brian Cassidy (played by Dean Winters). Meanwhile, Richard Belzer brought his Homicide: Life on the Street character Det. John Munch to the show, as well.
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-cragen-cassidy
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Moments into the episode, Cragen sends Cassidy to investigate “some guy molesting a dead body” on the IRT. Is it odd that, as New Yorkers, we had a moment of warm nostalgia for the now-defunct subway reference?
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-stabler-court
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Very little of this episode takes place in court, but Stabler’s time there is used productively. While testifying about a flasher he arrested in the park, we learn that SVU is an all-volunteer unit, and that Elliot “requested the assignment because sexually based crimes are a major law enforcement problem.” And when the detective smirks and goads the defendant about his “shortcomings…”
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-flasher
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot … the guy whips it out in front of the whole room! We’re not sure what we enjoyed more: a female lawyer’s laughing reaction to what she sees, or the guy’s happy dance as everyone runs from his freed willy.
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-cragen-red-vines
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot It kind of feels like maybe the show was planning to have Cragen always have food around, like in this scene in his office, when he offers Liv and El red licorice. (He’s eating a bunch of times during the premiere.)
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Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot He also feels like a bit of comic relief here, but that changes decidedly by the end of the episode.
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Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot When a diner waitress learns that one of her customers was the man killed in the incident that opened the episode, her response — “This city sucks” — is perfection.
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Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Back at the precinct, as the detectives discuss possible motives, Stabler says the situation “reads kinda gay to me” and, when reminded that officers found a red-painted fingernail at the scene, blithely responds, “Could be a he-she.” It’s not fair to judge a TV show made 23 years ago by today’s moral standards, but we can’t help it: We cringed.
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Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Benson (and her no-nonsense ponytail) and Stabler start interviewing suspects, one of whom is at a gallery full of paintings of giant mouths. This look, it says a lot, no?
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-munch-baltimore
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Meanwhile, Munch refers to his time in Baltimore and waxes paranoic during lunch in the squad room.
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-munch-jeffries
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot And though Jeffries has pretty much zero to do in this episode, she gets a good dig in about Munch’s sex life. We approve.
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-victim-switch
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot In one of the first instances where it’s implied that Stabler has been on the job longer than Benson has, he pulls her aside, softens his voice and breaks some bad news: Their victim was a Serbian man wanted for war crimes.
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Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot You’ve gotta love Angry! Liv! going! off! on! the! man’s! lying! (and! pregnant!) widow!
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-benson-vomit
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot After visiting a woman that the dead man maimed, Olivia quietly vomits on the sidewalk. A sympathetic but firm Elliot warns her that if she asks to be let off the case, she’s effectively done at the unit.
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-rape-victim
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Perhaps to prove herself, perhaps because everything is so terrible, Olivia visits another of the war criminal’s victims at the architectural firm where she works. Good Lord, this woman’s account of being raped nightly for three weeks is horrifying.
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Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Liv thinks so, too.
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-kathy
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Elliot’s wife, Kathy (played by Isabel Gillies), makes her first appearance in the episode as the Stablers attend a parent-teacher conference. We think they’re talking about Elizabeth when El has to excuse himself to take a work call, one of the zillion times in the next few decades that his job will interfere with their family’s life.
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-serena
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Speaking of family, meet Olivia’s mom, Serena (played by Elizabeth Ashley)! The Benson women have dinner together, and that’s where we learn that Olivia exists because her mother was raped.
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-serena-2
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot “I hate him for what he did to you,” Liv tells her mom, near tears. “So do I,” Serena replies. “And if he hadn’t, you would not be here.”
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Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot As she will so often in the years to come, Liv’s empathy for the victim — even when that victim is also a suspect — pushes her to whisper some probably-not-police-kosher advice to the woman after her arrest.
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-handle
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot And Stabler is all “frowny face can you handle this I’m not sure you can”…
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-knife
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot … but then his method of dealing with a suspect winds up with the woman stabbing herself to death in the middle of a busy restaurant, so who’s to say who’s got better police sense?
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Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Law & Order‘s Assistant District Attorney Abbie Carmichael (played by Angie Harmon) shows up near the end of the hour, as the living suspect confesses to killing the cabbie in a haze after she realized who he was and what he had done to her. Carmichael later tells the SVU detectives she’ll offer a plea deal.
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-stabler-t-shirt
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot Two things: We’re not sure why Stabler thought this T-shirt was appropriate officewear, and look how chagrined the partners are as Cragen calls them into his office!
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law-and-order-svu-episode-1-pilot-photos-cragen-end
Image Credit: NBC Screen Shot As the captain points out the giant holes in the suspect’s story — what, she just carries a big knife around for fun? — he makes it clear that they’re not always going to get away with these kind of fast-and-loose shenanigans.* “You just used your get out of jail free cardon this case, Olivia,” he warns her. “There’s only one in the pack.”**
* They will often get away with those kind of fast-and-loose shenanigans.
** There are more than one in the pack.
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Ha! I enjoyed this. The staying power of this show is pretty amazing!
I really enjoyed the early years much better. Truly liked the entire cast back then
I have never missed a show for law & order SVU. I’m enjoying it now on the 23rd season and it just keeps getting better and better
I’ve been watching Law and Order SVU since episode 1, I think the very first episodes were my favorite and always will be! I’m not saying I don’t like the series today but the earlier shows were raw and we seemed to learn right along side the new detectives! Also Captain Cragen will always hold a special place in my heart!❤️
Me too. Miss him and Munch as the calming influence on the squad room; also their knowledge of “old-time” crimes, criminals, and fellow cops (whether they were upright cops or bad guys).
Love the asterisks at the end. EO fans who want a good laugh should search “Bensler collectively shortening Donald Cragen’s lifespan” on YouTube. The classic Cragen moments are so fun but I also got a kick out of the coda with Bensler back at it in Season 23 SVU/OC. It’s a great way to get in the spirit for tonight’s 500th episode!
Cute and witty recap. I’ve watched every episode of SVU countless times and know one thing to be true – Mariska/Olivia is THE REASON why this series continues to be a ratings success (and, yes, I adore Meloni along with the rest of the cast throughout these many years)!