‘Law & Order: SVU’ season 18 spoilers: The future for Benson, Tucker

It’s been a rather long time since there’s been a new episode of “Law & Order: SVU” on the air, and there’s been a wide array of reasons for that in between Presidential Debates, holidays (see the day before Thanksgiving), or even NBC doubling up on “Chicago PD” for a night.

Here’s the good news: The show is going to be coming back in less than a month! On January 4, the next episode “Next Chapter” will air, and this is one that could hold some key ramifications for the Benson / Tucker relationship. While we know that they are together, developing them is a process that the writers have done slowly, likely realizing that there effectively no need to hurry anything along at a pace that felt unusual. It feels like the time for some more movement with the two of them, and the synopsis below hints that this is coming as Benson’s new love contemplates a different path ahead:

“A woman is sexually assaulted by a masked man, but she believes the rapist is the same man who went to jail for stalking her. Meanwhile, Tucker (Robert John Burke) contemplates retirement and a future with Benson (Mariska Hargitay).”

The title for the episode is absolutely appropriate given the direction of the story, but there is no guarantee that the developments in his life will turn out to be ones that further along his relationship. It’s really one of those things that we have to take a wait-and-see approach on for the most part. The same can be said for the case this week, mostly because (as is often the case) there is only so much that we can say about this for the time being given the limited information.

Hopefully, more will be released before we get around to the episode airing — be on the lookout.

(Photo: NBC.)