‘Law & Order: SVU’ season 17 spoilers: Rollins’ complicated family reunion

It has been fairly-common knowledge for a little while now that Virginia Madsen is going to guest-star on an upcoming episode of “Law & Order: SVU” as the mother of Amanda Rollins, and now we are starting to understand just why she is there.

As many fans may have predicted, getting to see Rollins’ mom is tied to the character’s pregnancy, which will give us a little bit of lightness hopefully in the midst of what is a dark show at times. Even this lightness may be short-lived for Rollins, given that in this same episode entitled “Maternal Instincts” (airing on October 21), we are also going to see Rollins’ sister at the same time. She is far from a saint, and could complicate an important case based on the synopsis below:

“Rollins’ (Kelli Giddish) mother Beth (Madsen) throws her a baby shower while the SVU reports to a four-star hotel where a famous violinist was raped by her colleague, Anton Krasnikov (guest star Zach McGowan). With no memory of the crime, Anton claims a hired escort drugged and robbed him, and evidence leads to the shocking return of Rollins’ fugitive sister Kim (guest star Lindsay Pulsipher). Meanwhile, Sgt. Mike Dodds (guest star Andy Karl) arrives for his first day at SVU.”

We don’t want to gloss over the arrival of Mike Dodds in this synopsis, largely because we know that this character will be a particularly important part of the story to come. His presence adds another layer of intrigue to the Squad Room; it’s another person for Benson to work with, but given his connection to his father, will he end up undermining our new Lieutenant more than he ends up helping her?

(Photo: NBC.)