Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (season 2)

Production

David J. Burke and Neal Baer served as chief executive producers to replace Robert Palm. Baer took over in the season finale. Neal Baer, a former pediatrician, left ER to work for Dick Wolf's first Law & Order spin-off. When explaining how he first became interested in the show, Neal Baer said he was "drawn to it by Mariska" who appeared in ER. Mariska Hargitay felt that Baer gave the show the direction it previously lacked and explained "There was no consistency. Dick wasn't really here. We had no leader, we had no vision." Jonathan Greene also credited Baer with improving the quality of the show, saying "He literally took this, not just to the next level, but up five or six levels above that." In a video interview, Richard Belzer said "The show's better this year, so I think it's directly attributable to him being at the helm."

The second episode of the season "Honor", was based on a script that Jonathan Greene had written previously. In it, the squad is exposed to misogynistic "honor killings" used to punish women for adultery. As one reviewer puts it, "Airing one full year before the 9/11 terror attacks, this episode examines Taliban rules and plays differently today than it did when NBC first aired it." In the episode "Taken", Olivia Benson's mother dies after falling down a flight of stairs. The character's backstory, as established in the first episode, is that she was raped by a stranger, causing her to become pregnant with Olivia. The writers briefly considered changing this. Deleted scenes that accompany "Taken" on the DVD show a funeral for Serena Benson, during which it is revealed that she had consensual sex to conceive Olivia. Many episodes in later seasons reaffirm the fact that Benson is the product of a rape, meaning that the deleted scenes for "Taken" are not canon.

Cast changes and returning characters

First season cast members Christopher Meloni (Detective Elliot Stabler), Mariska Hargitay (Detective Olivia Benson), Richard Belzer (Detective John Munch), and Dann Florek (Captain Don Cragen) returned to the show for the second season. Cast member Michelle Hurd (Detective Monique Jeffries) began to depart the cast over the first-half of the season.

Hurd ultimately departed from the series to join the Showtime drama Leap Years. After her departure from the show, Hurd said, "I think it's just sad they didn't have faith to stick around with me." However, she said she bore no ill feelings about her time on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but felt the casting on Leap Years was a "rare opportunity". Roger Friedman of Fox News reported that Richard Belzer arranged for Hurd to be fired because her character was receiving too many storylines and distracting attention from him, but that report was never confirmed. Although Jeffries departed from the Special Victims Unit during the episode "Asunder", her character was still present in the episode "Runaway", which marked the character's final appearance. "Runaway" was originally intended to air before "Asunder" but was broadcast out of order. The retcon explanation in "Runaway" is that Detective Jeffries transferred to Vice and briefly stepped into the SVU squadroom again when they were in need of extra manpower for a case. Hurd was replaced by rapper-turned-actor, Ice-T who began portraying Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola.

Stephanie March joined the cast as Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot, the series using many guest actors and actresses to portray ADA characters in the first season. Tamara Tunie took on the recurring role of Medical Examiner Melinda Warner, replacing Leslie Hendrix's Law & Order character Chief Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers. B. D. Wong began portraying FBI Forensic Psychiatrist, Dr. George Huang closer to the end of the season replacing Dr. Emil Skoda (J. K. Simmons).

Main cast

Guest stars

In the second episode "Honor", Marshall Manesh played an Afghan diplomat and Anil Kumar played his son. Both of their characters follow Sharia law and condone honor killings. The diplomat's wife was played by Susham Bedi. Despite having no power in her country, her character gets the chance to make or break a New York case in a climactic scene of her episode. Tracy Pollan who played Harper Anderson in Season 1, reprised her role as the paranoid rape victim-turned-vigilante in the Season 2 episode "Closure".

The fifth episode "Baby Killer" has a tragic opening in which a seven-year-old is shot by one of her classmates. The shooter Elias was played by Nicolas Martí Salgado. Carlos Leon portrayed a gang leader who played a large role in how Elias came to possess the gun and how he became traumatized enough to fire it. The sixth episode, "Noncompliance" featured Kevin Breznahan playing a schizophrenic man and Kathleen Chalfant playing his mother. Although they realize that Breznahan's character is mentally ill, they wish for him to remain off medication because the world comes across as incredibly frightening compared to his own version of reality. The seventh episode "Asunder" was the first of two guest appearances for Nestor Serrano on SVU. He played a police officer accused of spousal rape. Amy Carlson guest starred as his wife.

In the thirteenth episode "Victims", Eric Roberts guest starred as a vigilante ex-cop. His character killed sex offenders who were known to be spreading HIV every time they raped. Elliot Stabler begins taking antiretrovirals in this episode after a visit to a crime scene exposes him to the blood of an HIV positive victim. This is referenced in the fourteenth episode "Paranoia" as well. In "Paranoia", Khandi Alexander guest starred as a police officer who secretly works for internal affairs.

In episode fifteen, "Countdown", Andrea Bowen played a key witness who helps the SVU track a serial killer. In the episode "Runaway", Kelly Karbacz played a teenage girl who goes missing. Sean Nelson guest starred as an informant who helps the SVU search for her. With regard to this episode, showrunner Neal Baer said "That's the only episode ever broadcast just once on the network — because it was stinky." However, the producers still decided to showcase a scene from the episode in the Season 1 DVD extras to help analyze Cragen's character.

In the eighteenth episode "Manhunt", noted for exploring the partnership between Detectives Munch and Tutuola, R.E. Rodgers and Paul Sparks guest starred as a serial killing duo. R.E. Rodgers' character is revealed to be the smarter of the two when he murders his partner and escapes to Canada. The second last episode "Pique", featured Margot Kidder and Chad Lowe in a dysfunctional and abusive mother-son relationship. The detectives come to learn about this by examining Lowe's character, a disturbed killer with piquerism. In an interview with Larry King, Chad Lowe talked about how exciting this role was. Specifically, "if you're playing a serial killer, you can't play them with judgement [sic]. You have to try to get inside their minds. So the further removed it is from your own experience, the more of a challenge it is."