| Law & Order character | |
| Det. Olivia Benson | |
|---|---|
| Time on show | 1999— |
| Preceded by | N/A (Dani Beck when she left to go undercover) |
| Succeeded by | N/A (Dani Beck when she returned from being undercover) |
| First appearance | Payback |
| Portrayed by | Mariska Hargitay |
Det. Olivia Benson is a fictional character on the TV drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, portrayed by Mariska Hargitay.
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Character overview
Benson works as a detective in the Special Victims Unit, which investigates sex crimes. As played by Hargitay (who has received a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for her portrayal), she is tough, compassionate, and completely dedicated to her job, to the point that she has no personal life of which to speak. This dedication, however, sometimes wreaks havoc on her emotional state: she empathizes with victims of sexual assault so much that, when an abuser evades justice or a victim suffers, she holds herself personally responsible. She has also occasionally let her compassion for victims of abuse cloud her professional judgment, an example being a case in the series premiere, "Payback," which she fights her boss, Capt. Don Cragen (Dann Florek), to get leniency for a woman who killed her rapist. Also, when investigating a case, she sometimes lacks the ability to be impartial, as evidenced in the Season 6 episode "Doubt."
Relationships
Benson's empathy for victims has roots in her personal life; she was a child of her mother's rape. Her mother, Serena, was an abusive alcoholic. In "Taken," her mother died in a drunken stupor falling down a flight of subway stairs outside the entrance to "The Velvet Room"(a bar) before they could make peace, a source of great emotional pain. Conceived when her biological father raped her mother, she often worries that she inherited his genetic predisposition to violence and aggression. In the Season 1 episode "Wanderlust," Benson reveals that when she was 17, she was in love with a much older man, a fact she attributes to growing up without a father; in a later episode, "Intoxicated," she also mentioned being engaged for a short time to a 21-year-old student of her mother's when she was 16. She has a close friendship with her partner, Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). Both Hargitay and Meloni have said that a romantic link between their characters would be detrimental to the core qualities of the show.[1] Benson and Stabler's relationship is not without friction, however, as they frequently take different stances on cases they investigate; Benson is quicker to take the victim's side than Stabler is, and they periodically have intense arguments about how best to close cases. In the season nine episode "Paternity," Olivia and Elliot's pregnant wife, Kathy, are injured in a car accident on their way to Kathy's doctor appointment. Kathy goes into labor, and Olivia saves both Kathy and the baby. In the show's first season, Olivia has a brief affair with one of her SVU colleagues, Det. Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters). It is implied that she ends it in the episode "Disrobed" when he gets too close. Cassidy leaves the precinct at the end of the episode.
Show highlights
Uses Of Deadly Force
On two separate occasions (Season 1) "Disrobed", and (Season 3) "Wrath", Benson is forced to kill a suspect. She is especially haunted by the second incident, in which a man she had helped imprison on what later turned out to be faulty evidence started killing abuse victims she had once worked with, saying he was "ending their pain". She feels partly responsible for his crimes and is stricken with guilt over his death, even though she killed him in self-defense. She is especially upset by the fact that the gun the suspect was holding was not loaded and that he wanted her to shoot him.
Leaving SVU
In the episode "Fault," Benson suffers a slash wound to the throat while pursuing a child rapist, but the cut is superficial. However, since she and Stabler have begun to falter in their police work (neither is willing to risk the other's life in order to catch the killer), Benson asks for a new partner. Benson briefly transfers into the computer crimes unit, but the first two cases she works on involved SVU. In the episode "Web," Benson returns to SVU as Stabler's partner. In the 2006 season premiere, Benson successfully infiltrates an eco-terrorist group, and takes a leave of absence from SVU to work with the FBI. While working for the FBI, she assumes the identity of Persephone Freed-James, taken from the girlfriend of an eco-terrorist. Several episodes later, SVU tries to get in touch with her so that she can testify in a rape trial. Near the end of the episode, "Infiltrated," her time with the FBI comes to an end and she returns to SVU. However, when she comes back to SVU headquarters, she finds that her replacement, Dani Beck (Connie Nielsen), looks overly friendly with Stabler. She then tells Cragen that she is not ready to return and requests that her visit to Cragen not be mentioned to Stabler.
Returning
She soon returns as Stabler's "handler." After Beck leaves SVU, Stabler finds himself in an altercation with a nearly mute homeless man while investigating a case. Together, Benson and Stabler get the information needed. As the story continues, they both comment on how the other has changed since their original partnership. In the end, the case leads to a perpetrator donating a lobe of his liver to his estranged wife. When Benson and Stabler realize they are the same blood type, they agree that they would give the other a kidney if it were needed.
Finding Her Family
In the episode "Haystack," Benson learns that kinship analysis may help her learn more about her past. She has her blood tested and, at the end of the episode, discovers that she has a brother, named Simon Marsden. In the next episode ("Philadelphia") she learns that he lives in New Jersey and, after meeting with him, discovers that her biological father — now deceased — had known about her existence having kept track of her until his suicide, and had even tried contacting her once on the phone but Olivia's mother answered. Simon is a suspect in several incidents of stalking. Her interference in that case (which also compromises the case she is working on in Manhattan) leads to Cragen ordering an independent psychological assessment to determine her fitness to remain at SVU. During the episode "Florida," Benson is caught by Agent Dean Porter, her handler while undercover, for sending money to her brother while on the run. Faced with the facts, she tells him the truth and cooperates in re-capturing her brother in return for not being arrested and charged. It is later revealed that Captain Julia Milfield, the detective that had worked her brother's case in "Philadelphia," had framed Simon for the rape, because she believed he had raped her sister when they were in high school. In fact, Milfield's sister was reacting to being kissed by Simon as a flashback to when her father would molest her. Between Milfield's own denial of the truth, as she herself was not molested, and her sister's later drug abuse, alcoholism and death, she loses her own objectivity. This nearly gets both Benson and her brother killed; Millfield rents the same model car Simon owns (in an attempt to frame him) and almost runs Benson down with the vehicle. After Millfield's sister overdoses on heroin, she tries to kill Simon with her own service weapon. After the trial of Darius Parker ends in the season 8 ender episode "Screwed," Benson decided to tell Internal Affairs Bureau the truth about her actions while Simon Marsden was on the run, even though she realizes that it may end her career. Simon had urged her to tell IAB that he forced her to lend him the money, but she believed it would be best to tell the truth. Benson was suspended for several weeks for her actions, returning on the season premiere of season 9.
Trivia
- Series creator Dick Wolf has a daughter named Olivia and a son named Elliot, for whom he named the two lead detectives in the series.
- Benson graduated from Siena College.[2]
- In addition to English, Benson speaks some Spanish and French.[3]
Notes
- ^ Cover Story, TV Guide, 25 July 2006.
- ^ In the Season 1 episode "Stalked"
- ^ In the Season 3 episode "Prodigy"
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| Characters | Elliot Stabler • Olivia Benson • John Munch • Don Cragen • Brian Cassidy • Monique Jeffries • Alexandra Cabot • Fin Tutuola • George Huang • Casey Novak • Melinda Warner • Dani Beck • Elizabeth Donnelly • Rebecca Hendrix • Chester Lake |
| Cast | Christopher Meloni • Mariska Hargitay • Richard Belzer • Dann Florek • Dean Winters • Michelle Hurd • Stephanie March • Ice T • B.D. Wong • Diane Neal • Tamara Tunie • Connie Nielsen • Judith Light • Mary Stuart Masterson • Adam Beach |
| Episodes | Complete list • Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 4 • Season 5 • Season 6 • Season 7 • Season 8 • Season 9 |
