Law & Order: SVU is less than two months away from returning to NBC in the 2025 TV schedule for Season 27, and attentive fans have known for a while that cast changes are coming. Kelli Giddish is returning to play Amanda Rollins as a series regular again, but two regulars were also cut: Octavio Pisano as Velasco and Juliana Aidén Martinez as Silva. Now, a behind-the-scenes video of Season 27 reveals that one of those cut stars will be back after all, but I expected somebody different.
The video features most of the returning cast members, including Peter Scanavino, Kevin Kane, Aimé Donna Kelly, and of course Mariska Hargitay to the tune of Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Lockjaw." (Ice-T is missing from the video, but he confirmed his "Fd up" return for Season 27 on X.) Take a look at the surprise addition to the returning regulars:
Your eyes do not deceive you – that's Octavio Pisano present among the other SVU cast members! The actor, who was a series regular for four seasons as Detective Joe Velasco, was cut from the cast ahead of Season 27, with the expectation that the Season 26 finale was the last that we would see of him. I was okay with that, simply because Season 26 ended with the character getting a big promotion, which seemed like the natural way to send him off from Special Victims without any tragedy.
Juliana Aidén Martinez's Silva, on the other hand, didn't have an exit set up at all. Even though Season 26 was her first (and now only) as a series regular, I would have thought she'd be back for at least a brief farewell to tie up loose ends before I would have predicted Pisano as Velasco.
This doesn't mean that fans should expect Velasco back full time, however. E! News confirms that he's just coming back to wrap up Velasco's arc in the Season 27 premiere. Ultimately, it seems that SVU is giving Velasco the same treatment as Kat (Jamie Gray Hyder) and Garland (Demore Barnes) when they were cut between Seasons 22 and 23. Both actors returned for the Season 23 premiere. Somewhat ironically, Octavio Pisano's Velasco was brought in as Kat's replacement.
While NBC has not yet released any teases for what exactly the Season 27 premiere will be about with Velasco in the mix, the network did recently reveal the premiere date: Thursday, September 25 at 9 p.m. ET. The first episode of the season follows the milestone Season 25 premiere of Law & Order, which will air without Mehcad Brooks after his departure at 8 p.m. ET, and precedes Law & Order: Organized Crime in its return to NBC at 10 p.m. ET.
This isn't a case of Organized Crime being renewed for Season 6 and brought back to its old slot with new episodes after SVU, but rather NBC airing Season 5 episodes that already released on Peacock. Perhaps that's a good sign for the future of Christopher Meloni's spinoff, with OC still in the running for a renewal. In the remaining weeks before Law & Order Thursdays return, you can revisit earlier episodes streaming with a Peacock subscription.
