'Law & Order: SVU' News: Stephanie March, Diane Neal To Return For 13th Season
by Sean Comer
With the passing of another day comes some good “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (aka SVU) news, for a change: the show’s two most iconic ADAs will both once more take Manhatttan for at least a little piece of the show’s 13th NBC season.
With no story arc details to report by TVLine, Stephanie March will reprise her role as headstrong but sometimes rule-bending Alexandra Cabot and Diane Neal will join her as daring ADA Casey Novak.
Cabot has come and gone several times over 13 seasons. She joined the cast as the permanent ADA to the Special Victims Unit during the show’s first season, but was shot in a drive-by shooting during a New York drug kingpin’s heated trial and placed in the Federal Witness Protection program immediately.
She resurfaced roughly one year and four months later, to be a witness against her alleged assassin Liam Connors. Cabot wanted Connors prosecuted, but couldn’t rightfully testify against him for a murder he didn’t successfully commit. She faces him in court, but then disappears under a new identity again.
In the TV series “Conviction,” March once more played Cabot, having re-emerged again to resume work with the District Attorney’s office as a trial bureau chief, before the series was quickly cancelled. Her re-emergence was explained on “SVU” after drug dealer Velez was killed in prison and Connors was sent back to Ireland. She stepped in again as ADA when Kim Greylek (Michaela McManus) returned to the Justice Department. In season 11, it was revealed that Cabot would be training in Albany to work in the state’s Appeals Court. She later joined the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court.
Between appearances and re-appearances, March also appeared in the movies “Head of State” starring Chris Rock and the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie action-comedy “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”
Novak succeeded Cabot’s placement in Witness Protection, and experienced several cases that touched on her sensitivity to the plights of the mentally ill. She got off on the wrong foot immediately by second-guessing and interfering with detective work by lead detectives Elliot Stabler (the departing Christopher Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay). Eventually, she violated Due Process while prosecuting an ex police officer accused of raping two 14-year-old girls, and was believed to be subsequently disbarred, but resurfaced later to reveal that she was only censured with a three-year license suspension.
It’s another in a line of shake-ups. Meloni announced last month that he would not return for a 13th season, and NBC recently announced that Danny Pino and Kelli Giddish have come on-board to fill the void. Hargitay – once believed to become only a part-time cast member this season – is now confirmed for all 22 episodes but Benson may transition into a more supervisory role than one as an active detective.