Mariska Hargitay is speaking out about that heartbreaking death that fans were welcomed back to upon Law & Order: SVU’s return. Part of the long-running NBC procedural’s season 27 premiere was a funeral to none other than Captain Donald Cragen, who is played by Dann Florek, who left the show back in 2014 when his character retired. In real life, Dann is alive and well — the episode doesn’t disclose how his character Cragen died — however, Mariska maintained shooting the episode was “rough” nonetheless.

During an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Wednesday, October 15, host Kelly Clarkson noted how “season 27 started with a big loss for your crew,” to which Mariska replied: “It did indeed, we lost Captain Cragen. That was a rough one!”

Kelly went on to praise the longevity that the show has had — it premiered in 1999 — and Mariska emphasized that’s what made filming Cragen’s funeral scene, for which B.D. Wong’s Special Agent George Huang, Dean Winters’ SVU Detective Brian Cassidy, and Christopher Melloni as Detective Elliot Stabler returned, all the more special. “They almost act themselves because the circumstances are so powerful and there is so much genuine love, for the Captain, for the actor.”

“These scenes are so earned, that there’s just an ease and effortlessness to it because we lived it,” she continued, seemingly referring to both Dann’s departure over ten years ago and possibly the real-life death of some of their co-stars, like that of Richard Belzer’s in 2023.

Mariska also opened up about the fact that season 27 premiered under the show’s first ever female showrunner, Michele Fazekas, who previously worked on the show as a writer and co-executive producer in the early aughts. “I’m so proud of the show and I’m so proud of all the incarnations and all the amazing showrunners that we’ve had, but I really wanted a female showrunner,” she said.

“She was so brilliant and all my favorite episodes are hers, and so everything linked up perfectly timing wise, and now she’s back,” Mariska went on, adding: “The show feels like there’s this incredible renewal to it, and just that the women are running the show, literally,” also highlighting the return of Kelli Giddish and Amanda Rollins.

Speaking at the season two premiere of The Boys‘ spin-off Gen V, for which she also serves as showrunner and executive producer, Michele said fans can expect “a lot” from the new season, revealing: “In some ways, I’m going back to when I was on the show, which was like seasons three through seven. I remember what we were doing then that worked well. It’s like, ‘Alright, we’re gonna bring some of that back.'”

But while she is focused on bringing the show back to its roots, it’s still doing so by bringing in some newness too. “We have a new producing director. We have new cameras. We changed the sets a little bit. And [we’re] really getting back into a twisty kind of case, [where] you don’t know what it is,” she shared, adding: “And [we’re] also giving some challenges to Benson that she hasn’t had in a while. In a great way, we’re giving her something to push against.”