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Who Should Benson’s Ultimate Love Interest on ‘SVU’ Be — Stabler or Barba? (POLL)
Listen, we know that the Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler (Christopher Meloni) slow burn has been going on for near three decades now on Law & Order: SVU (and Organized Crime). But hear us out: What if her ultimate love interest isn’t her former partner but the ADA she sparred with (which we loved), Barba (Raúl Esparza)? A case can be made for both. And so that’s exactly what we’re doing for the show’s 26th anniversary.
From the start of SVU, Benson and Stabler were partners on the job, but even though he was married, there was that will they/won’t they vibe. It continued once he returned for his own spinoff, even as his wife was dying in a hospital room, and there have certainly been moments over the years — including an almost kiss! — that hint at the Law & Order universe going there … eventually. And it is starting to feel like it has to happen sooner rather than later because, as much as we hate to think about it, these shows aren’t going to be on forever. The last thing we want is for something to happen between the two at the very last minute. We’re going into 27 years of the slow burn and not getting to see them actually be together would be a shame.
“I think we and the writers are trying to find the way, a satisfying way home. We just don’t know what that home is,” Meloni told TV Insider while discussing Hargitay’s appearance in Organized Crime Season 5. As for how Stabler feels about her — and if he even knows completely — “there could be a whole new spinoff on unpacking that,” he admitted. “I think it’s wrapped up in how he’s wired, how he’s built, his Catholicism, the commitments he’s made and promises and complicated.”
And then there’s Barba. There was just something special about his and Benson’s bond, and who could forget him asking what she’s going to be doing when she’s 85 and her responding, “Squabbling with you?” There’s no reason to take that as romantic, but why not? Factor in how, during his last series regular appearance, he told her she changed him, his “You opened my heart, and I thank you for it,” and that forehead kiss goodbye, as well as him later telling her, “I do know what it means to love someone unconditionally,” and we’re sold.
When TV Insider spoke with Esparza about the use of “love” there in the Season 23 finale, he wouldn’t say if it was romantic love or not. “I think everything is possible. I think that the scene is so beautifully written. It suggests any number of options and I think it would be wrong of us as actors to land on any one definition,” he said. “That was the thing we kept trying to wrestle with was how to convey a couple of meanings without hitting anything too hard because it is a fragile story between them and a moment of real tenderness, which exists often between them, but now coming out of a lot of heartache. So yeah, I think all things are possible.”
But who do you think her ultimate love interest should be? Let us know in the comments section below.
Law & Order: SVU, Season 27 Premiere, Thursday, September 25, 9/8c, NBC
