Is Kelli Giddish's Rollins Back Working for the SVU?
Rollins has been on a whirlwind soul search, but she's now at the helm of NYPD's Intelligence Unit.
Amanda Rollins' (Kelli Giddish) journey on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has been incredible, and while she may have left Benson's squad, fans have delighted in her guest appearances.
Rollins bid farewell to Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and the squad in Season 24, accepting a job as a criminology professor. However, after getting bored by her new work, she took some time off to consider what she wanted to do with her life; with this came nostalgia for her time on the squad. So when Rollins caught wind of a job leading NYPD's Intelligence Unit, she got excited. Throughout Season 26 of SVU, Rollins has been crushing it in guest appearances as an IU sergeant.
"It's fun. Rollins is now a sergeant with the NYPD Intelligence Bureau, so a little promotion, a different badge. It was fun to see how that felt different, if it felt different..." Giddish told Parade in October 2024. "It was a lot of fun to know that Rollins has all this information from global sources. It's a different kind of calculation to catch the bad guys. It's just a different arena, a different tact, a different approach."
RELATED: What's Happened to Amanda Rollins on Law & Order: SVU?
Rollins' Intelligence Unit connections came in handy during SVU's midseason premiere on January 16 ("First Light") when she was recruited to help her husband, Sonny Carisi (Peter Scanavino), and Benson with a perplexing case.
Is Rollins back with Benson's SVU?
Short answer: No.
While Rollins has been crossing paths with Benson and the squad frequently lately, she's not working for the SVU. Rollins is busy running NYPD's Intelligence Unit, where she investigates organized crime, drug trafficking, and more. Since landing the gig — with the help of a glowing recommendation from Benson — Rollins has been occasionally recruited to help the SVU with some investigations that bleed into Intelligence territory.
Rollins is just down the street, and fans love any pop-in from the former SVU detective.
RELATED: Why It's Not Likely Rollins Is Coming Back to SVU
Kelli Giddish talks about the "joy" of returning to SVU
"[Being back on SVU] is great. I'm honored. I'm always honored to be invited back. It's very comfortable there," Giddish explained. "It's a family I was with for years and years, and I'm missing my crew there. I'm missing the cast and catching up and seeing how everybody's families are doing."
Giddish couldn't be happier to be back on the set of SVU, where "gallows humor" is in high supply. "When I stopped working there on a regular basis, the one thing I [realized was] I laughed a lot," Giddish revealed. "I was at home one day, and I was like, 'Oh my god, I haven't laughed today.' We laughed all the time at work. It was a really nice kind of warm realization to make that even when the material is so heavy, we're such a family and so comfortable with each other. It's always a joy to be there."
Watch Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC and the next day on Peacock.
