Hey, Dick Wolf: stop trying to make Bensler happen. It’s stupid, and it shouldn’t happen.
Sorry. Let me explain. “Bensler” refers to the potential for a romantic relationship between the iconic “Law & Order” detectives Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), the two original series leads from the long-running spinoff “Special Victims Unit.” Stabler (and Meloni) left “Special Victims Unit” behind in the show’s 12th season in 2011, but that doesn’t mean the characters never saw each other again; Stabler returned to the small screen ten years later with his own spin-off “Organized Crime,” which provided plenty of opportunities for crossover episodes and reunions between Benson and Stabler.
Wolf and his team — including “SVU’s” current showrunner David Graziano — really need to stop trying to make these characters smash their faces together, though. We’ll get into the minutiae of the Bensler developments, but here’s the point: Benson and Stabler don’t belong together romantically, and it just feels like the “Law & Order” universe is trying to retcon (or retroactively revise the show’s continuity) by insisting that the two were always in love and they can finally act on their feelings now that the circumstances are, uh, “right.” (Someone had to die for that to happen, but we’ll also circle back to that.) Benson and Stabler are one of television’s greatest platonic relationships, and forcing them into a romantic reunion just feels completely wrong. I’m right about this, and here’s why the upcoming 26th season of the procedural should kill their relationship — for good.
For years, Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson were just best friends and partners at work
Right from the beginning of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” the line is clearly drawn between Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler — they’re close friends and partners in the NYPD’s sex crimes unit, and nothing more. Why is that so clear? The existence of Kathy Stabler (Isabel Gillies), Elliot’s wife with whom he has a whole bunch of kids (and the two have a few throughout the run of “Special Victims Unit” too). Stabler is, above all, a family man; he’ll do just about anything to protect Kathy and their children, whereas Benson is sort of a lone wolf. As the product of a sexual assault committed against her mother — and a detective who frequently sees some of the worst sides of humanity — Benson is fairly relationship-avoidant throughout the series, though she does have a handful of boyfriends.
It’s actually really refreshing to watch Benson and Stabler interact like friends and not have to worry about a “will they, won’t they” dynamic for most of the series; it’s like a much more serious version of the working partnership between Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon and Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy on another NBC show, “30 Rock.” They’re also incredibly different — Stabler is staunchly religious and Benson is decidedly not, which leads to a lot of existential debates — but at the end of the day, they deeply care about each other. Platonically. Unfortunately, when Stabler returned to the “Law & Order” universe with “Organized Crime,” their whole dynamic changed, and now, the franchise is trying to sell the audience on the idea that Stabler and Benson are soulmates.
Recently, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has been teasing a romance between Benson and Stabler
At the end of Season 22 of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” Elliot Stabler officially returns to the franchise … for a truly tragic reason. While Benson is receiving an award from the NYPD, a bombing fatally injures Kathy, and Stabler is left widowed and a single parent. This is horrible, yes — but it also leads to a bunch of total nonsense between Benson and Stabler — who, again, just lost his wife of several decades.
The two go on to spend multiple seasons of both “Special Victims Unit” and “Organized Crime” dancing around the fundamentally stupid idea that they are going to date or even should date in the first place, with Stabler accidentally telling Benson that he loves her (and admitting to a third party that he’s in love with someone, unless we somehow didn’t get it), and writing her a letter that basically says they would have ended up together in a parallel universe. (Seems to me the key term there is “parallel universe,” but whatever.) In Season 24 of “Special Victims Unit,” Stabler tries to kiss Benson, who turns him down only because it “might not work out” (a reason that can almost certainly be circumvented by writers once they decide to go full romantic endgame on the two). Stabler, at one point, gives Benson a compass necklace as a gift that she then wears constantly, as it’s a symbol of their enduring love. There’s no reason to believe that this exhausting push and pull won’t continue in Season 26, but it shouldn’t.
Seriously, though: Benston and Stabler do not belong together
The fact of the matter is that Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler should never have been set up as a romantic pairing in the first place, but giving the potential love connection a “real” shot after Kathy’s death is extra weird. (It’s giving “‘How I Met Your Mother’ series finale, which is not a compliment.) There’s also the fact that, if Christopher Meloni hadn’t ever returned to NBC as Stabler, none of this would have been possible, which makes one thing extraordinarily clear: an actual relationship between Benson and Stabler wasn’t ever a real plotline anyone considered, because during Stabler’s original run on the show, they were decidedly platonic.
It’s also just frustrating because Benson and Stabler are such great characters in their own right, and shoving them into a pairing just feels like it diminishes their individual traits. Throughout Stabler’s return to the “Law & Order” universe, the franchise has spent a frankly inordinate amount of time wondering if they will or won’t, so the show should just squash the whole thing and decide that no, they won’t. Benson is not an object to be won or even a woman who needs a romantic partner in order to be happy. Stabler is a deeply traumatized man who has been through hell in his personal life; now’s probably not the time for him to enter into a romantic entanglement. At the end of the day, “Special Victims Unit” and “Organized Crime” are heightened TV shows, so it’s still entirely possible that we’ll have to endure a Bensler wedding or something equally hacky, but still. Benson is great. Stabler is great. Their personal and professional partnership is great. A romantic relationship? Not so much.
