That’s one way to get fans’ attention. New showrunner, Michele Fazekas, is seemingly starting things off with a bang while Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 27 films its first episode. Just like they did in March when they broke the Internet, Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay are at the center of news of a potential reunion on Season 27. Meloni posted to Instagram, posing with Hargitay as well as Dann Florek saying: “Hangin with friends on a Friday nite @therealmariskahargitay @dannflorek.” While it’s only been a few years since Florek and Hargitay, as well as Florek and Meloni, and of course Hargitay and Meloni have shared the screen, the three have not shared the screen together since 2011.

 

Elsewhere, set photos are breaking the internet, characters both old and new are gathering at what appears to be a pub. Not surprising to fans is Hargitay’s Captain Olivia Benson, as well as Ice-T‘s Sgt. Odafin Tutuola and Peter Scanavino‘s ADA Dominic Carisi. Who did surprise fans, however, was Dean Winters, who played Detective Brian Cassidy, and, of course, Meloni, who plays Detective Elliot Stabler, and Florek, who played Captain Don Cragen. The gathering of these characters specifically heavily implies a nostalgia trip, and fans are SEATED.

If the Nostalgia Train Continues, Could ‘SVU’ Make the Following Stops?

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Nostalgia can be a slippery slope. Most recently, SVU called back to “9-1-1”, an early episode from Season 7, in which Olivia Benson stays on the phone with a girl, Maria Recinos, who had been kidnapped and buried alive. Maria would grow up to become a cop herself, but her career would be cut short. In the Law & Order and SVU crossover event, “Play With Fire,” Maria is killed and the squads of the 1-6 and 2-7 must team up in order to get Maria and other women, justice. Bringing the character back, just to kill her off, was met with mixed fan reaction. The meeting of all of these characters, not dressed down, but not dressed particularly up either, per the set photos, may imply a more positive meeting of these characters.

And if Fazekas is looking to do more of this in her first season as showrunner, bringing back the likes of Stephanie March‘s Alex Cabot, Judith Light‘s Judge Donnelly, Michelle Hurd‘s Monique Jeffries or Danny Pino‘s Nick Amaro may prove very fruitful if the shift is truly moving from an impersonal case-of-the-week and shifting back to interweaving the characters’ personal lives with the story at hand. Fazekas had a hand in three particularly standout episodes among fans that did just that: the previously mentioned “9-1-1,” “Rage,” and “Fault.” The storytelling was engaging and personal, and if that kind of storytelling is returning under Fazekas’ leadership, Season 27 is shaping up to be great.