Law & Order: SVU season 19 photo: Philip Winchester’s arc begins

It was earlier on during Law & Order: SVU season 19 that some of the first news came out regarding Philip Winchester appearing on the show over the course of a multi-episode arc as Peter Stone. His former Chicago Justice character is heading to New York City, and while there he could offer up a different legal presence than we’re really used to seeing. Don’t take this as a sign that Barba’s future is in jeopardy (we know there are some fans out there that are worried); instead, it just gives both Barba and the SVU squad a chance to interact and play off of someone different.

We’ve been wondering for quite some time as to when Winchester would be making his first appearance and now we’re getting some insight that it is coming well before the end of the season. The actor confirmed in a new post on Twitter that he is arriving in New York. As a result of that, you can probably rule him out of the next few episodes (which all filmed prior to the holiday hiatus); however, we could be seeing him turn up on the other side of the Winter Olympics, where he could be a part of some sort of extended episode arc. That is one of the things that is a real benefit of the way the NBC schedule is structured this year with the long Olympics hiatus in the middle of it. This enables some of the shows to structure their episodes more around arcs that they can contain within a handful of episodes. That’s always fun, especially with a show that is as procedural as this one is.

In some ways, you can argue that Stone is a perfect fit for SVU since he’s a tough, smart lawyer who will do almost anything that he can in order to get justice for victims. He’s also willing to do almost anything that he can in order to get a conviction. He’s meticulous when he needs to be, but also very tough at other times. He’s probably going to get along with Benson and the team the majority of the time, but we can envision some scenarios in which they both feel strongly about their position and don’t seek out any middle ground.

What do you want to see for Philip Winchester on SVU coming up? Do you think that he will add a layer of exciting freshness to the show? Share in the comments below!

(Photo: NBC.)