‘Law & Order: SVU’ season 18 spoilers: First intel on ‘Great Expectations’

For everyone out there who enjoys “Law & Order: SVU,” there is some bad news tonight: We don’t have a new episode to discuss. The show is on hiatus for the next two weeks, and will return on Wednesday, February 8.

With this article, we are here specifically to discuss the events of “Great Expectations,” which is the installment that is going to air the week that follows on February 15. This is an installment that we actually first heard whispers about many months ago. Because of the jaunty scheduling by NBC for everything from the World Series to a “Chicago PD” double-episode, some episodes have been a little bit scattered. Given that we’re not entirely sure when “Great Expectations” filmed in relation to some of the other episodes, we expect this episode to stand mostly on its own two feet.

So what are you going to expect to see on this episode? Take a look at the following synopsis: “The SVU investigates the players of a top youth hockey team after a vicious locker room hazing.”

In true show fashion, of course we’re not getting an extreme amount of details — but just from this alone, you can understand that there are some pretty terrible crimes at the center of the story. Hazing is also a topic that has not been examined all that often on this show, so seeing how the show shines a light on this issue should make for a compelling story.

Before we conclude this article, let’s share another bit of “SVU” trivia when it comes to the episode count. While the February 8 episode directed by Mariska Hargitay is being billed as the 400th one of the show, “Great Expectations” is actually the 400th one to air. Another last-minute scheduling change has caused that to happen, as we were originally going to get another episode of the show before Hargitay’s episode aired.

What do you want to see on this particular episode of “Law & Order: SVU”? Let us know in the comments.

(Photo: NBC.)