Law & Order: SVU season 19: Mariska Hargitay teases ‘Something Happened’

lawlawWednesday night’s Law & Order: SVU episode “Something Happened” is one for the history books. It’s easily one of the best episodes in some time. It’s not a typical installment of the show, and it’s almost for that reason it’s so striking and visceral. You’ll see a different structure, a shake-up in communication, and Olivia Benson having to dive deep into herself in order to solve a complicated case. The material for Mariska Hargitay in this episode is tremendous and her performance should merit some awards consideration.

CarterMatt could easily gush about her performance all day, as well as talk about the secret that’s being hyped up by NBC, but we’ll have some more news on that for you down the road in our full review of the episode. For now, let’s just give you what Hargitay had to say about “Something Happened” in a new piece via E! News:

“Oh my gosh, I have got to tell you. I feel like it’s for me—you know I’ve been doing this a long time—I think it’s one of my Top 5, for sure, experiences on the show. It was such a joy, and so incredibly challenging and everything about it was unique and different,” Hargitay said. “After doing a show for 19 years, it was like doing a play. And every day nothing about it was the same. Every day we would get to work and we would rehearse for an hour and a half, which we’ve never done. Just rehearse, like a play, because it was a whole act that we were doing for that day…The scenes were so long.”

The bulk of Hargitay’s scenes are with guest star Melora Walters, who plays a rape victim by the name of Laurel. Their conversations stretch several minutes at a time and should help you to understand where these two characters are coming from psychologically. While Benson may have seen hundreds upon hundreds of cases — and that’s just in terms of the ones we’ve seen on television — there are those that stick with you. We don’t foresee her forgetting about Laurel anytime soon and what happens here should remain with her for a rather long time.

Following this episode the big challenge that SVU season 19 is going to face is pretty clear: Trying to find a way to top this. While the writers will probably divert back more to their traditional form, at some point they may look at this as a template for creating some other fantastic hours of television. There are two things that make this show as great as it is: The stories and the heroes at the SVU.

(Photo: NBC.)