After Law And Order: SVU’s Attack On Carisi, BTS Video Proves Peter Scanavino Hasn’t Lost His Touch At Playing A Detective

Law & Order: SVU got personal in the 2026 TV schedule with not only the return of a serial offender, but an attack on Rollins and Carisi in their own home. The home invasion was teased in the promo the week before, and occurred within the first five minutes of the episode. It also revealed that the ADA has no trouble channeling his inner Special Victims cop. His response made it feel like watching Detective Carisi again, and behind-the-scenes video shows Peter Scanavino back in the action.

After the promo for the episode, called “Career Psychopath,” showed Carisi at knifepoint in front of Rollins, I was concerned that SVU would be reopening old wounds for the ADA. He was left with post-traumatic stress after his hostage experience in the Season 26 fall finale, and having a knife held at his neck in front of his wife seemed like a possible trigger.

Instead, the ADA channeled his years as a cop when he was regularly in the thick of danger, fighting off the attacker enough for Rollins to get the upper hand. Considering that it felt like watching Detective Carisi again, I'd say that Scanavino may have been channeling those years of SVU as well! The episode itself is available streaming now with a Peacock subscription, but take a look at the BTS video below:

While I can’t guarantee the man rolling around with the intruder isn’t Peter Scanavino’s stunt double, there’s no denying that the actor himself was portraying Carisi with a knife to his throat. That was the part that had me wondering if he’d be going through some trauma flashbacks to Season 26 after shifting back to detective mode, so it’s also fun to see him making sillier faces at the camera between scenes.

Law & Order: SVU went through a massive shift in 2019 when Carisi switched from his role as a Special Victims detective after five years to working as an Assistant District Attorney. There were several seasons of Special Victims turnover in the years following, with the entrances (and subsequent exits) of Kat (Jamie Gray Hyder), Velasco (Octavio Pisano), Muncy (Molly Burnett), Silva (new FBI series regular Juliana Aidén Martinez), and even Rollins (Kelli Giddish), although Giddish of course returned as a regular in Season 27.

Despite all those changes within Benson’s unit, Carisi has remained an ADA aside from the occasional return to the field to lend a hand… and the occasional hostage situation. Hopefully any future hostage situations are resolved as relatively easily as in “Career Psychopath” with Rollins on hand.

All in all, it was great to get an episode with an emphasis on Rollisi as well as a showcase for Rollins. While I’ve been missing having Fin around all the time (and Ice-T himself worried that he was being written out), having Kelli Giddish back as a regular meant that Rollins was due for the spotlight. After all, the character was treated pretty unceremoniously when she was written out.

Keep tuning in to NBC on Thursday, January 29 at 9 p.m. ET for the next episode of Law & Order: SVU. Fans are facing another hiatus due to the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will keep Benson and Co. off the air until late February. During the break, you can always revisit earlier episodes streaming with a Hulu subscription or on Peacock.