{"id":2051894,"date":"2025-09-26T14:44:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2051894"},"modified":"2025-09-26T14:44:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:44:17","slug":"svu-kills-off-original-cast-member-in-season-27-premiere-fans-react-to-gut-punch-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/svu-kills-off-original-cast-member-in-season-27-premiere-fans-react-to-gut-punch-death\/","title":{"rendered":"SVU Kills Off Original Cast Member In Season 27 Premiere — Fans React to ‘Gut Punch’ Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Viewers reacted with shock as one character who’s been part of the show since Season 1 was killed off between seasons — following a major cast shakeup on the series.<\/h2>\n

Law & Order: SVU <\/em>killed off one of its own last night … and fans were shocked!<\/p>\n

The Season 27 premiere on Thursday night began with Mariska Hargitay’s<\/strong><\/a> Olivia Benson showing up to a bar for a memorial — a memorial for former captain Donald Cragen (Dann Florek). The memorial included a few special cameos, as psychiatrist George Huang (BD Wong) and detective Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters) were also both in attendance.<\/p>\n

“He was the best boss I ever had,” Benson said at one point, adding, “Everything I know about being a captain, I learned from him.”<\/p>\n

Later speaking with Chris Meloni’s<\/strong><\/a> Elliot Stabler\u00a0outside of the memorial, she told him, “I feel like we’re entering the ‘all our friends are dying’ era, as he added, “We had a pretty good run there.”<\/p>\n

Cragen was seen in a video shown at the memorial, appearing to be from a retirement party.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a long road. It hasn’t always been pleasant, and it certainly hasn’t always been easy,” he said in the footage. “I lived for my job, I don’t think that surprises anybody, and I can’t imagine my life any other way. It has been a privilege to have been able to serve with you.”<\/p>\n

The cause of his death wasn’t disclosed. Prior to this episode, Cragen last appeared on SVU<\/em> back in 2021; he also appeared in a 2024 episode of Meloni’s Organized Crime<\/em> spinoff.<\/p>\n

Florek was actually on set for the memorial, as seen in photos with both Hargitay and Meloni shared to Meloni’s Instagram page back in August.<\/p>\n

Fans reacted with shock to Cragen’s death, which followed the exits of Octavio Pisano\u00a0and\u00a0Juliana Aid\u00e9n Martinez, who both left the show after Season 26.<\/p>\n

See some of the most liked responses to the episode below!<\/p>\n

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Everything That’s Been Canceled, Renewed, Rebooted Or Revived In 2025 – Click image to open gallery<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Viewers reacted with shock as one character who’s been part of the show since Season 1 was killed off between seasons — following a major cast shakeup on the series. Law & Order: SVU killed off one of its own last night … and fans were shocked! The Season 27 premiere on Thursday night began […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2051895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[381140,380176,381141,381142,381139,381143,319378,339222],"class_list":["post-2051894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-chris-meloni","tag-dann-florek","tag-dean-winters","tag-detective-brian-cassidy","tag-donald-cragen","tag-george-huang","tag-mariska-hargitay","tag-olivia-benson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SVU-Kills-Off-Original-Cast-Member-In-Season-27-Premiere.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2051894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2051895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2051894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2051894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2051894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}