“In real life, that, fortunately, never happened. We always stayed cool,” Ice T said with a laugh.
legion of passionate detectives have graced the squad room throughout the decades on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but many fans will agree that franchise veterans Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and Fin Tutuola (Ice T) always bring the heat.
Sure, during Meloni’s original run on SVU as Detective Stabler, he spent the majority of his time with his partner, Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), while Season 2 recruit Fin Tutuola was originally teamed up with Detective John Munch (Richard Belzer) before pairing up with several other 16th Precinct icons. As two of the longest-running SVU ride-or-dies, Stabler and Fin worked on dozens of investigations together, taking down hundreds of criminals during their shared tenure in the squad room.
In honor of Meloni’s return to the franchise in Season 22 of SVU and his triumphant arrival on Law & Order: Organized Crime, the franchise shared a behind-the-scenes interview with Ice T and Meloni in which they shared some of their favorite moments from when they first shared the screen on SVU.
During their chat, the SVU icons reminisced about Stabler and Fin’s chucklesome sarcasm, investigative finesse, and occasionally, the tense arguments between the two hotheads.
Ice T loved when Fin and Stabler would duke it out on SVU
While Benson often counter-balanced Stabler’s hot-headed nature, Fin’s no-nonsense approach to investigations could occasionally clash with Stabler’s stubborn methods of closing cases.
“I think the most fun stuff is when we were at each other’s throats, like when we would fight,” Ice T recalled. “When he would stand up to me, and I’d stand up to him. That’s fun, that’s acting. The rest of the time, we were just, like, partners. Like, if I would go out on a case, I would have his back. Vice versa.”
The SVU detectives always did their best to secure justice at the end of the day, but that wasn’t without the occasional tiff. And Ice T loved those spats, viewing those tense SVU episodes as a “fun” change of procedural pace.
“Every once in a while, [Stabler] would see it differently than Fin, and they would let us kind of get at each other a little bit,” Ice T said with a grin, quickly adding: “But in real life, that, fortunately, never happened. We always stayed cool, you know. I love Chris Meloni.”
Some standout examples of when Fin and Stabler clashed include SVU Season 7’s “Venom” or Season 9’s “Cold,” a fight that got so bad that Fin and Stabler had to be physically separated by Captain Donald Cragen (Dann Florek). The SVU detectives always silently worked through their beef, but some jaw-dropping jabs have been tossed between them.
But when Stabler returned to New York City nervous to even approach Benson after his lengthy absence, you better believe Fin was the first person he called.
Chris Meloni loves Stabler and Fin’s “quip-tastic” chemistry
Upon Stabler’s celebrated return to the Law & Order franchise, Meloni was happy to look back on some of his favorite moments from his original run on SVU. After relishing the “quiet moments” with Benson and grimacing at the memory of the rare Bensler fight, Meloni pivoted to one of his more straight-shooting squad mates: Fin.
“It’s always fun with Fin,” Meloni shared, looking back fondly on Tutuola’s infamous barbed wit, which paired perfectly with Stabler’s ceaseless sarcasm. “There was always a quip between us, so it was quip-tastic.”
The love and respect is shared by Ice T, who was excited to welcome back his squad mate after his decade-long hiatus. “Chris is a good person. I mean, I got to work with him for like 12, 13 years,” Ice T said.
True to his long-time role in the squad room, Ice T couldn’t help but compare Meloni’s return to the franchise to his on-camera day-to-day. “I call it recidivism, like going back to prison. You know, like, you left, but you’re back, you know?” Ice T teased. “I’ve been doing a 22-year bid, so I’m a lifer, but this is a prison we want to be in.”
