Though the crime procedural just entered its 27th season, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is still surprising fans – most recently by making a big (but smart) change to the end of an episode. Law & Order: SVU has aired on NBC since it first debuted in 1999. Since the launch of Peacock, the series has also had its streaming home there.
Episodes of Law & Order: SVU are typically made available to stream the next day on Peacock after they originally air on NBC. Fans who logged into Peacock after SVU’s season 27, episode 2, however, will find an episode that is a little different from the one that aired on NBC.
SVU’s “A Waiver Of Consent” Features Two Different Endings
SVU Season 27’s second episode is “A Waiver Of Consent.” It largely focuses on Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and her detectives investigating allegations of assault at an exclusive wellness club by day, sex club by night. They also see a new team member debut.
After the events of the episode played out, however, fans were treated to one ending on NBC and a completely different ending scene on Peacock.
NBC featured Olivia Benson being alerted to the news that her former partner and Law & Order: Organized Crime lead Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) was in the hospital. Benson rushed to leave her office and head to the hospital as the screen cut to black.
The episode on Peacock the next day, however, did not feature that scene at all. Instead, it featured new addition Detective Jake Griffin (Corey Cott) heading out to meet the Chief of Detectives at her home, right after assuring Benson that he had joined her team to learn from the best, not to spy for the Chief, who was an old family friend.
The scene added to Peacock appears nowhere in the version broadcast on NBC, though it did appear in episodes that aired on international broadcast stations. For example, CityTV airs SVU in Canada, and those viewers saw the scene featuring the new detective instead of Benson’s hospital news.
NBC’s Broadcast Ending Is Needed To Bring Viewers To Organized Crime
SVU featuring an episode-ender that leads right into the events of Law & Order: Organized Crime makes sense when considering that Organized Crime needs a ratings boost. Law & Order: Organized Crime season 5 previously streamed on Peacock starting in April 2025, but NBC is reairing the season following season 27 episodes of SVU.
Not only does the broadcast scene for SVU give Organized Crime season 5 a clear timeline to follow, but it also encourages viewers who might not have watched the season already to stick around and tune in.
The hope is that a cliffhanger ending featuring news of Stabler’s accident will get long-time SVU viewers who are interested in Benson and Stabler’s relationship to keep tuning in. Rumor has it that Organized Crime’s season 5 NBC ratings are going to be a factor in considering whether Peacock and NBC will make Organized Crime season 6.
Right now, Organized Crime’s live audience is much smaller than SVU’s, averaging about 1 million fewer viewers (via TV Series Finale 1, 2). That might not be too small for NBC, though, considering Peacock subscribers have already had the chance to watch the full season for the last six months.
Peacock’s Ending Is Important To Season 27’s Overarching Plot
What is interesting about this change is that it would appear that the Peacock ending to SVU’s “A Waiver Of Consent” is actually the more important scene for season 27’s longer narrative.
SVU operates on a case-of-the-week format. Some storylines might take place over more episodes, and some cases might get revisited down the line, but for the most part, each episode stands on its own when it comes to the case. The personal relationships are what provide the larger story arcs.
SVU season 27 has set Captain Benson up as someone the higher-ups are keeping an eye on. New Chief of Detectives Kathryn Tynan (Noma Dumezweni) approached Benson in the season premiere about a potential promotion in the future that would see her overseeing all Special Victims Units across all the boroughs.
That tease was also followed up with Tynan assigning Benson a new detective while she is down at least one (with a member of her team in the hospital and another having departed between seasons). The Chief assigning the son of a family friend to Benson’s unit is supposedly because she loves the way Benson runs Manhattan SVU.
Benson (and I, and the rest of the audience) is suspicious. It very much feels like she is being spied on by the Chief’s pet detective. To see Griffin rush off to meet the Chief after assuring Benson that he is not there for the Chief feels even more suspicious.
If SVU does not reveal that Griffin is spying on Benson’s unit, that scene adds up to little more than a red herring. That red herring, however, would simply repeat the earlier Mike Dodds (Andy Karl) arc from season 17 of SVU in which Benson’s suspicions turned out to be unfounded. It makes more sense for Griffin to actually be a spy.
It seems odd, then, that NBC would not have some variation of the scene in the episode that aired or opted to cut a different SVU scene to make room for it.
SVU Has Changed Scenes For Peacock Before
This is not the first time that SVU has featured different scenes on NBC and Peacock. The broadcast and streaming versions of SVU were also different for the season 23 episode “Did You Believe In Miracles.”
The broadcast version of “Did You Believe In Miracles” was used to set up an episode of Organized Crime then as well. Its ending featured Benson introducing Stabler to her son for the first time before getting a phone call that tied into Stabler’s Organized Crime case, and Benson crossing over into the OC episode “Lost One.”
In contrast, the Peacock version of the episode eliminates the Organized Crime teaser scene completely and instead features Benson getting a Mother’s Day present from her son. In that case, the Peacock scene seems much less impactful than the change made in SVU season 27.
Changing SVU Scenes Demonstrates How Much Organized Crime Benefits From Its Connections To Law & Order History
Though it has only happened twice on SVU, the broadcast scenes of episodes help showcase how much Organized Crime benefits from its connections to the Law & Order universe.
Organized Crime often feels like it is a world away from the rest of the Law & Order shows because it features longer story arcs and is not broken into the traditional investigation and legal proceedings formats. It is also more isolated from its sister shows, especially after the move to Peacock.
One of the biggest complaints about Law & Order: Organized Crime season 5 when it originally streamed on Peacock was how separated it was from the wider Law & Order universe, but also how focused it became on Stabler’s family drama. Isolating the show in that way did not sit well with viewers
The SVU connections help remind the audience that the show is part of the bigger Law & Order lineup. Seasons 1 and 2 are often considered the best by fans, and they feature the most connections to SVU – including that SVU lead-in to “Lost One.”
Of course, if the connections are too heavily threaded between the shows, it makes it harder for someone to miss an episode of either series and still keep up with the longer story arcs. That’s why the different SVU episode endings for streaming also make sense.
Changing SVU Scenes Also Demonstrates That The Writers Understand Their Different Audiences
It is clear that the SVU writers and producers understand that they are making a television show for two different audiences. We consume television shows in a lot of different ways today. Broadcast audiences are watching shows on a weekly basis. Streaming audiences are more likely to binge shows in larger chunks of time.
Changing the scenes for SVU’s endings on streaming demonstrates that the writers understand how watching streaming is different than watching broadcast television.
There’s an understanding that someone is not going to go into 27 seasons of SVU on Peacock with the intention of bouncing back and forth between shows. It is unlikely that someone is going to pause an SVU binge-watch to find the Law & Order or Organized Crime episodes that need to be watched in between.
It is more likely that someone watching SVU on Peacock regularly is logging in with the intention of binging whole seasons of SVU. There are, of course, those viewers who are simply watching an episode on Peacock because they missed it the night before, but those viewers already have a Peacock subscription and likely have already watched Organized Crime.
On network television, it’s more likely that a viewer is intent on keeping up with what’s airing next and is willing to watch the show in the next time slot. That’s why NBC has an entire Law & Order block on Thursday nights, and why the writers put that Stabler teaser in SVU’s “A Waiver of Consent” when it aired.
This recognition of different audiences is a smart play from the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit team, and it would be a welcome change for the series in the event of more crossovers between the different shows.
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