Law & Order: SVU season 24: Mariska Hargitay on Kelli Giddish exit

Following tonight’s enormous episode of Law & Order: SVU, of course it makes sense to hear from Mariska Hargitay. She’s the engine of the show, and of course, someone as devastated as a lot of us over the departure of Kelli Giddish after so many years. She’s given a lot to the series, and we’re going to be sad to see her go for a good while.

In a new post on Instagram, Hargitay had nothing but glowing things to say about her colleague, making it clear just how much she has appreciated every part of this journey with her over the years:

“Kelli, I’ve loved acting, learning, growing, talking, laughing and crying with you … I’ve loved watching your achingly beautiful performances. I’ve loved watching our friendship deepen and grow and blossom. I’ve loved every single minute of it, and I will miss you so much. You have my respect, my gratitude and my love forever.”

Of course, we do still wonder whether or not we’re going to be able to see more of Giddish on this show down the road, given that Amanda is not exactly gone from the world. Her and Carisi are married now, and she is off with a professor gig. We still think she’ll spend time with some of the team in their off hours and even if we don’t see her, we tend to think we’ll hear from her. This isn’t going to be a similar sort of situation to what we got with Christopher Meloni’s original exit on SVU so many years ago.

For now, the show will go on, but there’s a pretty gaping hole amidst the squad. We don’t quite imagine that this will be an easy one to ever fill.

How much are you going to miss Kelli Giddish following tonight’s Law & Order: SVU episode?

Be sure to share right away in the comments and keep coming back to make sure you don’t miss any other updates. (Photo: NBC.)

This article was written by Jessica BunBun.