Heartwarming / Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

In the criminal justice system, no matter how horrific or disturbing the cases faced by the detectives of the Special Victims Unit, there are occasional moments that remove the grimness and replace it with hope. These are some examples.

DUN-DUN!

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All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned

Per Season

Season 2

• When the cop turned activist suspect offers to get a first aid kit for Elliot when the latter accidentally cuts himself. Given the former cop has been snarky of the detectives throughout the episode, this Pet the Dog moment shows that while he may not like the detectives investigating him, he's not an asshole.
• In "Manhunt", Munch and Fin are tracking down a serial killer. After they catch him, Munch goes to visit the one that got away and tells her, "You can turn your lights out tonight."

Season 3

• The end of "Denial" has a Fin moment when he gives Claire, the victim of the week, a framed picture of a forensic reconstruction of her long dead baby sister, whose face she has been forgetting unless she was high, and she HUGS him in thanks.

Season 4

• The ending of "Dolls". It has to be seen. For context, Fin spends the whole episode bonding with and helping a woman, Violet, who left her daughter with a neighbor while she went to rehab, only to come back to find out said neighbor had died and her daughter was missing. An unidentified girl (nicknamed "Cherish Doe") has been discovered dead, and Violet is understandably terrified that it's her daughter. It's not but Cherish was killed by the same man that kidnapped Violet's daughter. However, the team manages to track the girl down, and Fin finds her in the killer's hideout, traumatized and assaulted, but alive. He carries her out, cradling her like a baby, and gives her to Violet, who's shedding Tears of Joy.
  • Just Fin's bond with Violet that whole episode. He's the first person to truly believe Violet when she says she's clean and recognizes that she only left to help her daughter and get clean. Fin spends the whole-time fighting tooth and nail to help her.

Season 5

• The ending to "Coerced", when Elliott visits paranoid schizophrenic Kevin at the hospital. Kevin kidnapped a child (who later gets rescued) who he thought was his son, Tate, whom he hadn't seen since his wife kicked him out of their home after he lied about being on his medication. When Kevin reveals that he witnessed a murder in a corrupt mental institution however, Elliott investigates into the accusations, and promises to retrieve a photo of Tate. After the asylum's director is arrested, Elliott wasn't able to get the picture Kevin wanted. Instead, Elliott gives him a camera, and motions outside the door - for Kevin's wife and son to step inside, with his wife mentioning that she wanted Tate to see how great his father's been doing recently. While he did do some terrible things during his psychotic break, Kevin and Tate's reunion scene is extremely touching.

Season 6

• The ending of "Haunted", where Fin finds the grandson of a woman whose daughter had been killed by drug dealers. It's a very sweet moment especially with Fin holding the toddler and pointing him toward his grandmother.

Season 7

• "Design" ends with Barclay Pallister receiving custody of his daughter Sarah. Even though Sarah's conception was the result of him being raped by April Troost, he doesn't hold April's crimes against their daughter and clearly adores her, having prepared her room while waiting to be given custody. As Barclay is wealthy, Sarah will want for nothing.
• The end of the episode "911" (which itself is probably the CMOA of the series). Good lord. To elaborate, after an absolutely grueling and suspenseful build up, and Liv's badass beatdown of the perp, the detectives are in a race against time to rescue a little girl who was buried alive in an abandoned lot. Until the literal last minute, the show keeps us guessing as to whether the girl will be found alive or if it would've all been in vain (It wasn't). Olivia's frantic digging leads her to find a trash bag, and what seems to be a Downer Ending - however, this trash bag was full of clothes. She keeps digging again, and finally finds the bag that the girl is in. And the girl is alive. She coughs and says Olivia's name. The expressions on the face of the little girl and Olivia are indescribable.
• Munch getting shot in the ass may be a funny moment, but when Fin comes to visit him in the hospital and expresses that he's glad to see Munch pulled through after the courthouse shooting, even sneaking in a little something for him, it shows just how close the two partners are.
• The beginning of "Rockabye" features some blood-curdling screams of a girl in a motel while several other residents ignore her. One woman, a prostitute about to service a John, overhears the girl and runs to her, tells her client to take a hike as soon as he demands that she come back to him and manages to call for help and assist the discovered teenage girl. Even in a motel of people and as a prostitute, she was able to actually give a damn and save a girl's life (and provided some useful information to detectives).

Season 9

• The second half of the episode "Paternity" comes to mind. Even if you absolutely hate Elliott being with his wife, Kathy, instead of Olivia, this episode's end is rather sweet and shows what kind of a woman Benson is. As she is taking Kathy to an obstetrician's appointment for Stabler, the two of them are struck by a drunk driver. Uninjured and able to break out of her side window (as it was a passenger side impact), Benson helps to extract Kathy from the car, delivers her baby and stabilizes her condition. After seeing that both his wife and son made it out okay, Stabler surprises his partner with a tight Bear Hug and tearfully thanks her.

Season 10

• In "Babes", after a girl's mother is taken to jail for assault, and her brother for murdering the father of her child (he thought she was raped; she wasn't), she begins crying, because she thinks she's going to be taken to foster care, and that her family is lost forever. The grandfather of her child then takes her in, despite his son being murdered by her brother, saying there's been too much grief and suffering already. It helped that the same man (played by Michael Badalucco from The Practice) stood up to his neighbors, who were about two steps away from kicking down the door of the girl's apartment to get at the mother. He doesn't necessarily disagree that the mother has done some very bad things (she apparently bullied another teenager into committing suicide), but he just doesn't want to see anyone else get hurt.
• A brief one in "Wildlife", but when the criminal throws the basketball containing a rare monkey at the cops, Cragen catches it. He then opens the ball to free the monkey and even hug said animal to give comfort.
• One of the last scenes of "Stranger," when the poor girl is finally reunited with her mother after six long years of being kept as a sex slave by her father.
• "Transitions" features a trans girl, Hailey, who has trouble believing people support her gender identity because her own father can't. She asks Stabler how he would react if his own son wanted to wear dresses, and he tells her the truth: "I would try to understand. It'd probably be very hard and I'd probably make a lot of mistakes. I'd never stop loving him." The display of unconditional love from a parent is enough to make Hailey tear up.
  • At the end of the same episode, Hailey's father overcomes his transphobia and decides to get to know his daughter, implying they will start over with a healthier relationship.
• Alex Cabot's first episode back, "Lead". Due to the case at hand, nobody can really spend time reveling in the fact that Alex is back at all, but it's nice to see everyone in the episode pleasantly surprised at her appearance. Surprisingly, one of the few people that takes a moment to welcome her back is Judge Petrovsky, who even notes that it's good to see her again. It's especially heartwarming since Petrovsky never forgave Alex for pulling several Amoral Attorney stunts in her courtroom.
• The episode "Liberties" involves a situation where a defendant in a stalking case is revealed to be the long-lost (and supposedly dead) son of the judge presiding over the case. At the very end, after being arrested for killing the defendant's "father", actually his kidnapper, he meets with the defendant and tells him who he really is. The scene between them is heartbreaking, but all the more beautiful for it.

Season 11

• In "Savior", the genuine joy and excitement from the victim, Gladys, over the prospect of having a child, her determination to turn over a new leaf and be a good mom, and her singing a lullaby to her baby in the hospital when she's born prematurely. Which only makes Gladys leaving Olivia in charge of the child for the baby's own good even more heartbreaking.
• In the episode "Bedtime" when investigating an old murder, Cragen shows Olivia and Elliot commercials of the victim's husband who was a local celebrity years ago, Elliot recognizing them and gets an uncharacteristically delighted and almost childlike look on his face (even recalling how "his ads were on every five minutes on channel 11").
• In "Witness", the eponymous character is a refugee from the Congo, where rape is used as a weapon of war, who overcomes her fear of deportation to testify after the victim whose rape she witnessed dies of an infection. When the guilty verdict is read out, the witness just stands there in absolute awe at the fact that a rapist is going to be held accountable for what he did, and that she was a part of that. You can practically see her entire worldview shift as it really hits home that what she lived through is not inevitable, that there are parts of the world where things are different. The experience is so profound that she decides to go back to the Congo, despite the risk to herself, in order to help women in her country get justice too, because now that she knows change is possible, she wants to be there to see it happen.
  Witness: I can't believe I helped put a rapist in jail. I never thought it was possible.
  • Alex is so moved by the witness' story that she takes a leave of absence to help pursue the same goal.
• At the end of "Conned", Joyce is seen holding Andrew and Dr. Stanton's son at his mother's allocution, implying that Andrew wants to be different from his absentee father by raising his child with his mother's help.

Season 12

• In "Behave", Jennifer Love Hewitt plays Vicki, a woman raped four times in the last fifteen years by the same person — who has been stalking her across the country. The first scene of the episode has her being discovered, barely conscious, by a street-preacher who initially assumes she's drunk — upon realising that she's hurt, he immediately drops his sermon and approaches her with gentle, honest concern.
• In "Pursuit", after Sonya Paxton is murdered, Elliot leaves the FBI academy he'd been visiting for most of the episode and meets up with Olivia in the hospital. Olivia rushes to him and says "I'm really glad you're back." in a choked-up voice, before the two embrace. Also doubles as a Tear Jerker.

Season 13

• "Personal Fouls":
  • Very blink-and-you'll-miss-it, but when the new detective Nick Amaro makes an offhanded question to Fin about the comments he'd heard about his predecessor "UnStabler" Elliot and Fin responds by saying Elliot was "a good cop" which shows that in spite of all the antagonism shown between the two characters, Fin still considered Elliot to be a good cop and felt sorry he was gone (even if it was just out of empathy for Benson).
  • Earlier, Fin watches Liv clear Stabler's table with a bit of an absent look on his face like it's just dawning on him how much the dynamic of the precinct is going to change without Elliot there and how much of a struggle it'll be for Liv to adjust to life without him.
  • Also from the same episode, we get Fin telling his new partner Amanda that his son Ken, as an openly gay black man, is the bravest man he knows.
• In "Educated Guess", a man who was arrested for masturbating in public while under a drug's influence witnesses a victim (Gia) being raped. Immediately afterwards, he tells Fin and Rollins about the assault. He doesn't pretend not to see anything or try to stay out of it, and he doesn't try to use Gia's rape as leverage in his own case, he just wants to help Gia. A genuine Pet the Dog moment.
• In "Theatre Tricks," it turns out that among all the pervs in the poor victim's life, the evildoer was the roommate. Benson comments as she leaves that you'd like to think women would look after one another. Rollins agrees, then unexpectedly calls after her to get home safe.
• The entirety of "Home Invasions". Rollins has a personal connection to the case and . . . consults her reliable friend and partner Fin for advice. He is very concerned for her, instructs her to come clean immediately, and she actually does. The whole team rallies to her defense, and she deals with her problems in a professional and responsible manner. Everyone demonstrates their care and concern and a sense of professional ethics. It is awesome and rare and a wonderful It's Personal episode done right.
  • Cragen stands out in particular, both for sharing his own story to show Rollins they're not so different and for making the decision to use his position to help her the way his own superior officer did for him.
• In "Learning Curves", when Fin's son Ken is nervous about introducing his fiance Alejandro to his father, he seeks out Munch for guidance, and Munch is completely supportive and awesome.
  • It's worth mentioning that Ken and Alejandro meet up with Munch to discuss it over dinner at a nice restaurant. Just seeing them enjoying themselves in that sort of setting is heartwarming all on its own. To top it off, Ken and Munch part ways with this wonderful dialogue:
    Munch: You know, your dad's very proud of you. He says it all the time.
    Ken: He does?
    Munch: Yeah. Good night, kid. Good luck.
  • Doubling as both heartwarming and funny is Munch saying Fin is his 'long-time companion', with Alejandro afterwards calling him Fin's 'better half'.

Season 14

• The SVU squad celebrating Christmas, intercut with shots of Amaro and his daughter, at the beginning of "Presumed Guilty". We love to see them in action, but it feels just as good to see them happy and enjoying the holiday, when they can forget their daily burdens and laugh and have fun like normal people.
  • Also from the same episode is the scene towards the end of Fin's family inviting Rollins to join their Christmas dinner. They know her relatives live out of state, so she would be spending Christmas alone otherwise.
    Rollins: Have a nice night, Fin.
    Fin: Where you going?
    Rollins: Home.
    Teresa: Like hell you are. Your family's in Georgia, right?
    Fin: You better sit your ass down and have some food, 'fore I have to pay for not inviting you in the first place.
    Teresa: Got that right. Come on in.
• In "Undercover Blue", the entirety of Amaro's reaction to learning he has a nine-year-old son. He starts the episode being a little bit of an Arrogant Cop Guy and is distinctly unsympathetic to Brian Cassidy's predicament, only to get knocked down a few pegs himself when his own indiscretions while working undercover are revealed. One of those indiscretions resulted in a child, which Amaro only learns about when the mother sues for child support. Amaro's first impulse? Is not to look out for his own interests, but to go out and immediately try to establish a relationship with the boy, and then to go Papa Wolf when he's blocked by the kid's drug dealer stepfather. Equally heartwarming is watching the SVU squad (including Cassidy) help him do exactly that, rallying just as they did for Rollins in her It's Personal episodes.
• Regardless of how you feel about his actor being on the show in the first place, it's hard not to smile at Reggie Rhodes hugging Olivia and Bayard at the end of "Monster's Legacy" when he finds out they got him a stay of execution^note just two days before his was scheduled and a transfer to a different prison (alongside the possibility of a retrial in the future), after learning of everything that lead up to him murdering his last abuser.

Season 15

• Munch's retirement party in "Wonderland Story" alternates between this and funny. There's a lot of heartfelt moments mixed in with teasing.
• "Military Justice":
  • Barba assuring the victim, a female navy officer getting shamed left and right, that he'll be "in her corner" during the trial.
  • The way Amelia talks about not wanting to let her admiral father down, it is easy to expect he's a chauvinist who would blame his daughter for "letting herself get raped". Instead, he turns out to be an Officer and a Gentleman who stands by his traumatized daughter 100%, completely disregards that her attackers were fellow officers, and when her commanding officer insinuates that Amelia got what she deserved for being "uppity" about her family's history of navy service, the admiral gives the misogynistic ass an overdue punch in the face. At the end, he tells her how proud he is of her for standing up against her attackers during her trial.
• The season 15 finale and conclusion of "Spring Awakening", when Liv becomes a mother to Noah. You can see how thrilled she is when the judge grants her custody.
  • From the same episode, Munch posting Amaro's $500,000 bail with the money he has saved up from salaries and two pensions. Heck, just seeing them embrace before that is enough to give you the warm fuzzies.

Season 16

• In "Padre Sandunguero", Barba privately offers Amaro a way out of testifying against his own father, remarkable given Barba's normally ruthless drive to win his cases. Barba adds the rare personal admission that that his own father was similar to Amaro's and that he knows what it's like to have to face down someone like that. Given that Amaro and Barba don't always have the warmest relationship, it's a really nice moment to show they share some similarities.
• Martha being reunited with her daughter Ariel in "Undercover Mother". This is a mother has dedicated three years of her life trying to find her missing child.
• Benson comforting Barba when he has to put his grandmother in a nursing home in "December Solstice":
  Barba: What are you gonna be doing when you're 85?
  Benson: Squabbling with you?
  Barba: (smiling) Wouldn't that be nice.
• Benson finally and officially adopting Noah in "Surrendering Noah".

Season 17

• In "Transgender Bridge", the perp, Darius, is a 15 year old boy who accidentally shoved a trans girl, Avery, off a bridge. Unlike his buddies who were egging him on, Darius genuinely feels terrible for what he did, and is wracked with guilt. He gives some papers to Fin, asking to see that Avery reads them. It's a beautiful comic he drew for Avery, apologizing for what he did, saying he'd give anything to change it, and hoping that one day Avery can find it in her heart to forgive him. The comic ends on an image of Avery and Darius holding hands. Judging by Avery's tearful smile, she did have it in her to forgive him. Unfortunately, she dies before she gets a chance to tell him so.
• In "Patrimonial Burden", Rollins ends up in the hospital again where she tells Carisi that she doesn't think that she can raise a baby on her own. Carisi gently assures her that she will.
  • Also Heartwarming in Hindsight: in season 23, Velasco asks Carisi when he knew Amanda was "the one."
    Carisi: I guess I knew for sure when she... when she was giving birth to Jesse. You know, there were complications, doctors rushing in, and I looked at her, she was... She was vulnerable. She was... She was so strong, you know, the way she fought. Yeah, that was, that was it for me.
• In "Townhouse Incident", when the leader of the home invasion group tells Benson to pick someone from her unit to call who really cares about her and would be upset if she died, she picks Tucker of all people, a man who has tried to destroy the lives of her and her squad members, nearly got one of her past boyfriends killed, and has even tried to go after some of her friends, even the ones he has no jurisdiction over. At the end of the episode, when a traumatized Benson is finally rescued, she collapses into a near child-like state and is lead away to safety by him. When she begins repeatedly thanking him, he gently reassures her that she has nothing to thank him for, she saved herself and the family being held hostage.
• At the end of "Collateral Damages", Benson and Tucker are shown going to get a friendly drink together. When Benson turns down the usual bar (as there were a bunch of cops there, and she didn't feel like having to talk to them), she slips her hand into his as they walk away.
• "Unholiest Alliance":
  • Barba sympathizing with Carisi's plight. Bear in mind, whenever the two share a scene, Barba usually says something sarcastic or insulting to Carisi; here he could could see how much this bothered Carisi and instead of putting him down he shares his own doubts. No insults, jokes, or sarcasm. Just understanding.
  • All the previous moments between Benson and Tucker in the season are made more heartwarming when it's revealed that the two have been dating for a while. At the end of the episode, when the two are in a bar together, Benson takes Tucker's hand and kisses his fingers, and it's absolutely adorable!
• "Sheltered Outcasts":
  • You have to give credit to the Caskeys. Despite the fact that Richie did rape a girl and admits it, he and his wife still love each other deeply, and have stuck together through everything they had to go through. He couldn't live with her anymore (which was why he lived at the shelter) because their apartment was too close to a school and they couldn't afford to move, they decided to never have kids because they didn't want to deprive a child of experiences like playdates and sleepovers (because he couldn't be near kids) or force them to live with the stigma of being the child of a sex offender, and he can't find a job to help support her. Despite the fact that Richie did admit to a horrible crime, they both were willing to work through their problems and not give up on each other. They are really one the few true examples of a good, trial-tested couple in this series.
  • At the end of the episode, Rollins cheers up a dejected Carisi by inviting him to come over to cook her dinner and play with her daughter. Even sweeter because Carisi's reaction makes it quite clear that this was exactly what he needed.
  • Fin happily tells Olivia that he has a dinner date with his son and his husband; Ken's fiance did survive being the victim of a hate crime, and the two were able to marry.
• The episode "Fashionable Crimes" has a few:
  • The opening shows Benson, Rollins, and Carisi taking Noah and Jesse to a carousel at a park so that Carisi can try out his professional camera on them.
  • In the season 22 premiere, eagle-eyed viewers noticed that the photo Carisi took of Rollins and Jesse is now on his desk at the DA's office. It's also the only photo on his desk.
  • At the end, Benson comes home to Munch babysitting Noah. The two detectives agree that they are glad that they learned there is more to life than SVU. The ending is simply adorable with Noah saying "Bye-Bye, Munch" as he falls asleep in Olivia's arms. Doubles as a Tear Jerker in hindsight with the death of Richard Belzer, as it's his final appearance as Munch.
• The beginning of "Intersecting Lives" has a small one for Fin's arc: Over dinner with his father, Ken reveals that he and Alejandro are expecting a child (by way of a surrogate mother), and Fin is delighted. He may never be able to fully make up for being a subpar father to Ken, but at least now Fin has the opportunity to be a good grandfather.
• A very subtle one amongst the Tear Jerker that is "Heartfelt Passages," the episode where Mike is killed. After rushing him to the emergency room, Olivia and Chief Dodds are approached by the attending doctor, who asks if they're the family. Olivia responds with, "I'm not, he is," while Dodds responds with an immediate, "yes, we are." Despite the crap he sometimes gives Benson and SVU as their boss, he considers them to be family to himself and his son. It makes her comforting him when Mike dies all the more poignant.
  • Also from that episode, when Carisi finds out he has a blood type compatible with Mike's, who is desperately in need of a transfusion, it takes him all of a nanosecond to volunteer to donate blood for him. Given how mistrusted Mike was when he started SVU, it's triply heartwarming.
  • Dodds' scene with Mike in the ICU is heartwarming as well. Up until this point, every scene with the two of them was either work-related or Chief Dodds trying to manage Mike's career, but after Mike is hurt, all that drops away and for the first time, we see him just being a father, and it's clear how much he loves his son underneath it all. Although it only makes Mike's death and the Chief's reaction that much more wrenching.
  • There's also the ending, with Noah holding onto Olivia's and Tucker's hands as they walk together. It's a nice scene to emotionally wind down with after everything that happened.

Season 18

• During "Heightened Emotions", the victim, a women with untreated bipolar disorder, takes off her shirt while on the stand. In the midst of the courtroom chaos, Barba runs over while removing his suit jacket and uses it to cover her up, without any hesitation. He then speaks to her in a quiet voice to try and get her to calm down.
• In "Motherly Love", a boy named Luke shoots and kills his friend, who he thought was raping his mother. When Luke begins to break apart as his mother throws him under the bus, and Benson assures him that he is a good, gentle person. This gives the young man the courage to face his self-centred mother who pressured his friends into sexual relationships and give the statements that prove her guilty.
• At the end of "Know It All" Barba is in danger of getting fired or disbarred after a past action of his comes to light (paying off a junkie witness to put a criminal away, inadvertently resulting in her death because she overdosed shortly after). Olivia walks with him to the meeting that will decide his fate, and in a poignant moment puts a hand over her heart in support for him, which he clearly sees and appreciates.
• Benson and Chief Dodds reconciling in "The Newsroom". Their relationship has been strained since the season premiere when Dodds accused Benson of getting Mike killed, but when a suspect implies the same thing, Dodds immediately cuts the interview short, and then, once they're alone, tells Benson he doesn't blame her and never did and apologizes for taking his grief out on her. Benson, knowing what he was going through when he made the comment, forgives him instantly. The end of the episode shows the two of them talking over a case in Benson's office — it took most of a year, but they've finally recovered the tentative friendship they had started to build before everything happened.

Season 19

• Another small Barba-and-victim-breaking-down-on-the-stand moment from "Contrapasso": After the victim smashes a conch shell and starts bleeding profusely from her hand as a result, Barba can be seen running to the stand to help her out.
• The final scene of "Gone, Baby, Gone" Benson watches the entire squad (including Barba) play with Noah and Jessie like a family.
  Noah: We saw a mommy deer and her baby when we were driving home. They ran right in front of us.
  Barba: In front of you? That's jaywalking. They're lucky they weren't in New York.
  Noah: A deer, in New York? You're silly.
  Barba: [laughs]
  • Before that, watching the whole team launch into a frenzy doing everything they can to track Noah and help Benson through this crisis. Obviously, finding any missing child warrants a level of urgency, but its clear in everyone's faces that they all care about Noah and his kidnapping hits the team on a personal level.
  • When Olivia breaks down over Noah in her office and Barba tries to comfort her. He obviously has no idea what he's doing (and says just that), but he's trying. After awkwardly offering her coffee, Barba embraces her, gives her his handkerchief, and, very briefly, pets her hair.
  • Barba's convo with Olivia at the end counts as this, too.
    Olivia: But you didn't come over to, uh, listen to me talk about that.
    Barba: [chuckles just a bit] I came here to talk to my friend about whatever she wants to talk about. [looks at the door] She gonna ask me in?
    Olivia: [chuckles the same way] Of course.
• In "Pathological", Barba not-so-subtly forces a mistrial to prevent an abused girl from being sent to prison, and he gets chewed out for the misconduct by the judge afterwards. Barba tells Olivia that he "deserved it", to which she responds with, "Whether you deserved it or not, I have absolute faith in your humanity."
• At the beginning of "Send in the Clowns", the squad throws Fin a surprise birthday party, and Ken and Alejandro visit along with their adopted son Jaden. Fin takes the opportunity to dote on his grandson to his coworkers, and it's obvious that he's completely delighted.
• In "Service", the defense lawyer of an accused rapist in the military berates a witness, a fellow military man and transman, that being trans means that he has been lying about who he is. After the defendant is convicted, the soldiers under the command of the witness in the gallery stand and salute him as he leaves, showing that they don't care and still respect him.

Season 20

• At the end of "Dear Ben," Stone learns the DA father he always resented for putting work first wrote little memos to himself as he poured over That One Case, reminding him to spend time with his kids. He didn't want to be distant, but was determined to protect the city and his family from a violent serial rapist.
• During "A Story of More Woe," Rollins goes into labor. Carisi takes her to the hospital and stays with her (at least, until Rollins' boyfriend gets there). At the end of the episode, the squad gathers to welcome Billie Rollins with Carisi holding Rollins' older daughter Jesse.
  • Rollins, scared from her previous experience giving birth, begs Carisi not to leave her when they finally get to the hospital. He assures her he's not going anywhere. Turns into a tearjerker moment, though, since it means he stays and has to hear Al's impromptu proposal when he arrives.
• The victim in "Assumptions," Nahla, is worried to go on the stand for fear her devout Muslim parents might not accept her when she tells the court she is a lesbian. After the trial, her father and mother assure Nahla she has not lost their love, and the family tearfully hugs.

Season 21

• At the end of "Down Low In Hell's Kitchen", Benson signs Noah up for the dance lessons he asked for. She's aware of the implications and visibly not 100% cool with it, but still doesn't force Noah to stick to baseball. Her choice is rewarded with a big smile from her son as the class starts.
• During the opening of "The Burden of Our Choices," the squad attends Billie Rollins' christening, with Olivia and Carisi being named her godparents.

Season 22

• Kat makes detective in "Our Words Will Not Be Heard", and Fin surprises her with dinner with Phoebe and Olivia.
• The ending of "In The Year We All Fell Down": A woman named Vanessa lost her mother, became estranged from her husband and her son, and pretty much had her life eviscerated by the pandemic, until she has a breakdown when she's about to lose her restaurant. When Benson manages to talk her down and take her outside, Vanessa is surprised to see the whole neighbourhood has come out to support her, and they've started to raise funds to save the restaurant.
• In the season 22 finale, after six seasons of Will They or Won't They? and their growth since Carisi’s season 16 debut, Rollins and Carisi finally share a kiss at Fin’s wedding. What makes it especially sweet is that it happens after Carisi reads the speech he wrote for Fin and Phoebe that he never got to use and after his date stood him up that evening. As one fan pointed out, you can see the moment as he reads it where Rollins realizes she’s in love with him. The fan reaction was joyful, to say the least.

Season 23

• In "Never Turn Your Back On Them," Kat gets shot, and Fin is very protective of her. He rides with her in the ambulance and tries to keep her awake, telling her, "I got you. I'm not going anywhere, and you aren't either." He also stays with her at the hospital and tries to encourage her to stay as a police officer.
• In "The Five Hundredth Episode," Cragen tells Olivia how proud he is that she's the squad's Captain.
  • At the start of the episode, Nick surprising her.

Season 24

• At the start of "And A Trauma In A Pear Tree," Carisi and Rollins tie the knot.
  • It turns out Sheila was not Noah's only living blood relative after all, as Johnny D fathered another son, Connor McCann, who was adopted by loving parents. They welcome Noah and Olivia into the family, with us being treated to scenes of Noah and his big brother bonding.

Season 25

• "Probability of Doom" reveals what became of Maria, the little girl Benson fought tooth and nail to save in Season 7's "911": She grew up and became a police officer. At the end of the episode, Benson goes to visit Maria and, after wordlessly revealing who she is, the women share a tight hug.

Unsorted

• When Rollins gets another It's Personal episode, she's equally awesome! In fact, her (loyal, supportive) friends have to stop her from being too honest and incriminating herself. Seeing everyone rally to help her is just amazing.
• Any scene involving Benson and baby Noah.

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