Robert Goren is a Time Lord.
- It certainly explains many of his quirks.
- Alternatively, he's one of Sherlock Holmes's regenerations
Goren has Asperger's Syndrome.
- He shows quite a few symptoms throughout the show's run. Eames even compares him to the autistic Wally Stevens in 'Probability.' For example:
- Eames explicitly says that Goren "doesn't like change."
- He's shown to have unusual speech patterns, like starting and stopping in the same sentence. Also, he hesitates when he's talking, like he's having trouble finding words to express himself.
- His social skills are quite obviously limited, more so even than would be apparent from his childhood.
- His body language and walking style are usually awkward, like he's not quite sure where to put everything.
- He also is shown to be able to detect patterns that no other detective seems to pick out. In season 3 he evens says that he notices "things out of pattern."
- Would explain quite a lot about him, and his mother doesn't seem like the type to take him to a doctor to get him diagnosed.
- alternatively if Goren is meant to be D'Onofrio's age he'd easily pre-date mass awareness of Asperger's; the Namesake doctor Hans Asperger had only started work on it, with 4 patients in 1944 and Citing the disease by his name was not Popularized in the US until 1981
Goren/Eames occurred only because Benson/Stabler never would.
Over time, it became quite apparent that, in spite of the fans' wishes, a romantic relationship between Benson and Stabler would never happen, so The Powers That Be decided to give fans of the Major Case Squad their own shipping between the lead detectives, regardless of the lack of any hints of a non-platonic relationship in the seasons prior. In the end, the shipping between Goren and Eames went over well with about half the fanbase and remained a fixture for the rest of the series' duration and Benson ended up dating fellow detective Cassidy and Ed Tucker, who works for Internal Affairs and was a rival of Stabler's, and her as well, albeit to a lesser degree. And that's not even mentioning those who ship her with Cabot or Amaro... Plus, you have Stabler who (apparently) slept with ex-partner, Jo Marlowe, years before.