Olivia Benson

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Law & Order character
Detective 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

Detective Olivia Benson is a fictional character on the TV drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, portrayed by Mariska Hargitay.

[edit] Character history

Benson works as a detective in the Special Victims Unit, which investigates sex crimes. Her undercover alias is Rachel Martin. 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 fought her boss, Captain Donald Cragen, 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".

Benson's empathy for victims has roots in her personal life; she was a child of rape, and her mother, Serena Benson, was a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic. In 2000, her mother died in a drunken fall down the subway stairs before they could make peace, a source of great emotional pain. She often worries that her biological father passed his violence and aggression onto her. 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, Detective Elliot Stabler (played by Christopher Meloni). They are so close, in fact, that some believe Stabler's wife is jealous of the time they spend together, as his job often keeps him away from home. Although the idea of a romantic relationship between the two is popular among the show's fans, 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.

She had a brief affair with one of her SVU colleagues, Detective Brian Cassidy, but she ended it when he got too close. Cassidy left the precinct shortly afterward.

On two separate occasions ("Disrobed", season 1 and "Wrath", season 3), Benson was forced to kill a suspect. She was especially haunted by the second incident, in which a man she had helped imprison at Sing Sing 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 felt partly responsible for his crimes and was stricken with guilt over his death, even though she killed him in self-defense. She was especially upset by the fact that the gun the suspect was holding was not loaded and that he wanted her to shoot him.

In the episode "Fault", Benson received a slash wound to the throat while pursuing a child rapist, but the cut later proved not to be serious. However, since she and Stabler had begun to falter in their police work (neither was willing to risk the other's life in order to catch the killer), Benson asked for a new partner. Benson briefly transferred into the computer crimes unit, but the first two cases she worked on involved SVU. In the episode "Web", Benson decided to return to SVU as Stabler's partner.

In the 2006 season premiere, Benson successfully infiltrated an eco-terrorist group, and took a leave of absence from SVU to work with the FBI. While working for the FBI, she assumed the identity of Persephone Freed-James, taken from the girlfriend of an eco-terrorist. Several episodes later, SVU tried to get in touch with her so that she could 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, Beck, 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.

She soon returns as Elliot's "handler". After Beck leaves SVU, Elliot finds himself in an altercation with a nearly mute homeless man while investigating a case. Together, Benson and Stabler are able to 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 led 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.

In the episode "Haystack", Olivia 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. In the next episode ("Philadelphia") she learns that he lives in New Jersey and 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.

In the episode "Sin," Oliva states that she hates religion, or, rather, the fanaticism of religion.

[edit] 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. Wolf named the character Serena Southerlyn (played by Elisabeth Röhm) on Law & Order in honor of his other daughter, Sarina.
• Benson graduated from Siena College.^[2]
• In addition to English, Benson speaks some Spanish and French.^[3]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Cover Story, TV Guide, 25 July 2006.
2. ^ In the Season 1 episode "Stalked"
3. ^ In the Season 3 episode "Prodigy"