Camryn Manheim helped to bring Law & Order back to the small screen for the revival in 2021, but left the NBC drama after Season 23 in 2024 and did not return for an on-screen exit. Now, with the fall of the 2025 TV schedule quickly approaching, Manheim is set to return to primetime for another crime drama, but her new show is definitely not another Law & Order. She actually arrives on Fox for Season 2 of one of my favorite freshman shows from the 2024-2025 TV season, and I'm definitely excited that she chose this for her first role since leaving Law & Order last year.
You'll be able to find Camryn Manheim back on the small screen this season as a guest star on Fox's Murder in a Small Town, which will be paired with medical drama Doc starting in September. The Emmy-winner plays a tough working-class matriarch by the name of Jocelyn Tait. She comes to Gibsons after living her life as part of a family feud, seeking a Rome and Juliet-style wedding." Depending on how familiar Jocelyn is with the Shakespeare play, that's either a very romantic or very tragic goal! Manheim briefly appears in the first look at Season 2, at the 1:07 mark:
She joins a solid slate of guest stars, also comprised of Schitt's Creek's Noah Reid to continue playing his murderous character from Season 1, as well as Teen Wolf's Tyler Posey, Lovecraft Country's Jamie Chung, The Vampire Diaries' Sara Canning, and William B. Davis of The X-Files fame.
This follows the trend of recognizable guest stars in Season 1, including Castle vet Stana Katic and the venerable James Cromwell, although Cromwell's role was originally intended for Donald Sutherland before the M*A*S*H star's death in 2024 at the age of 88. That would have meant father and son acting together, with Rossif Sutherland starring as Karl Alberg opposite Kristen Kreuk as Cassandra Lee.
Season 2 has also added Marcia Gay Garden, who is a Law & Order franchise vet as well after appearing on SVU, as a new series regular. She'll play Mayor Christie Holman, a practicing doctor who is beloved in Gibsons, but also involved in politics to an extent that she'll cause some complications for Karl and Cassandra. The first look gives a taste of how she'll pit their interests against each other.
This fits with what executive producer Jeff Wachtel told CinemaBlend in the wake of the Season 1 finale in the spring, teasing that Cassandra will get her own stories in Season 2, "some of which may well run counter to Karl's agenda, because she doesn't really strike me as a law and order type."
As for Camryn Manheim, there's no word yet at the time of writing when her episode of Murder in a Small Town will air, but you can find the full first season of the Fox series streaming with a Hulu subscription now.
