Peter Kramer/NBC
Kelli Giddish‘s goodbye to her Law & Order: Special Victims Unit character Detective Amanda Rollins had everything — tears of joy, a standing ovation and a good old-fashioned undercover mission to boot.
The actress ended her 12-season run with Thursday night’s midseason finale nearly four months after Giddish, 42, first announced her departure ahead of the season 24 premiere.
The episode, titled “And a Trauma in a Pear Tree,” opened with instant gratification for Rollisi shippers in the form of a cuddly bedroom scene between Rollins and boyfriend Dominick “Sonny” Carisi (Peter Scanavino). But this is SVU, so their pillow talk swiftly turned into a conversation about Assistant District Attorney Carisi’s upcoming case against pedophile abductor and attempted murderer Elias Olsen (Adam Petchel).
Despite the grim topic, Rollins and Carisi managed to keep their chat light enough that they were still in the mood to smooch. Sadly, though, their 7 a.m. delight was interrupted when Rollins’ daughters ran in to excitedly announced there were only 20 days left before Christmas.
Scott Gries/NBC
Carisi later headed into the office to coach Detective Grace Muncy (Molly Burnett) for her cross-examination about Olsen’s apprehension. He had to cut the session short to head up to court. In fact, he was in such a hurry he dropped a tiny envelope, and Muncy had to chase after him to return it.
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Soon enough, it was clear why he was rushing. Carisi stepped into the courtroom around the same time his and Rollins’ colleagues Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T) and Detective Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano) had assembled there too.
They spotted a glimpse of white in the corner and realized Rollins and Carisi had sprung an impromptu wedding on them.
Scott Gries/NBC
“Carisi and I were talking,” Rollins said, “and we realized that marriage is a lot like a crime — we have motive and opportunity.”
He chimed in, “We figured that all that we needed were witnesses.”
Rollins added, “We didn’t want to do this without any of you here.”
Liv hugged Rollins, welling up as Fin deadpanned, “You gonna start crying already, Liv?”
The judge began the nuptials, asking Carisi: “Counselor, are you ready for the longest arraignment of your life?”
The ADA pulled out the envelope he had dropped earlier, pulling out his and Rollins’ wedding bands before they exchanged vows.
Scott Gries/NBC
The majority of the episode, however, saw Liv and Rollins out of the city in Woodstock, New York, after her adopted son Noah (Ryan Buggle) discovered via a genetic ancestry site that he had a half-brother upstate.
Liv was naturally hesitant to introduce a bunch of strangers — one of whom was the fellow spawn of Noah’s “pimp rapist birth father” Johnny Drake (Charles Halford) — into her son’s life, but as kids will do he forced her hand with a seven-word death blow: “He’s the only real family I have!”
So mother and son traveled up to a well-manicured neighbored (Rollins later jokingly called it “Candy Cane Lane”) to meet Connor McCann and his pie-baking, ice cream-churning parents. The boys instantly hit it off over a shared love of videogames and before Liv could say no, Noah made plans to spend the night with his long-lost sibling.
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Liv headed back to her motel room alone and took a relaxing a shower — well, relaxing until she discovered a spy cam behind her dresser mirror. She immediately suspected the overly friendly desk clerk Troy who gave her a “pervy vibe.”
Rollins just so happened to be calling at that moment to break the news to Liv that she was considering leaving the force to take a job as a teacher at Fordham University. Before she could broach the topic, Liv mentioned that she was staying in an active crime scene. So Rollins — whose honeymoon lasted approximately three hours, maybe less, before Carisi learned Olsen’s trial would begin the next day — volunteered to drive up and help Liv get to, ahem, the bottom of the spy cam situation.
Scott Gries/NBC
Because Troy was not the savviest of amateur pornographers, it took them exactly five minutes to confirm he was creeping on his hotel guests via webcam. He pinned the blame on his lowlife cousin Ray Sprague (Jesse Lehman). The women agreed that the standard course of justice was probably not an options on account of Sprague’s connections in the local DA’s office.
With that, SVU gave fans the best possible send-off for Rollins — an off-duty undercover operation at the local watering hole!
Faster than you can say, “Call me Madam Benson,” Liv spotted Sprague across the bar, tugged down her tank top to emphasize her cleavage and asked Rollins, “You ever had a threesome?”
The partners in crime-busting suggestively bet Sprague they could beat him in a game of pool “two-on-one.” Not long after, they’d gotten the yokel sufficiently sauced and brought him back to the motel. When Liv started to unbuckle his belt, he remembered the camera behind the mirror and got antsy.
It presumably didn’t take much for him to spill the dirty details. With Sprague in a police cruiser, a Woodstock PD officer debriefed Liv and Rollins that he’d admitted to making more than $10,000 a month uploading “homemade porn” from the secret cameras to an online sex site. The cop also informed Liv they’d confiscated naked footage of her but promised to scrub it. But Liv told her, “If it will help them convict, tell them they should use it.”
Later, Liv and Rollins got boxed-wine-tipsy back inside the motel room, with Rollins adorably gasping when Liv called her “Mrs. Carisi.”
Liv gushed, “Can I tell you how nice it is to see you happy?”
“It’s so nice to allow myself,” Rollins admitted. And then, emboldened by cheap red grape juice, she posed her own question: “When are you gonna do the same?”
Liv wondered, “With who?”
Rollins didn’t wait a beat, naming Liv’s former partner and forever will-they-won’t-they love interested Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). “I used to joke about you two being in a motel room,” Rollins quipped, “and now here we are.”
Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
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Liv didn’t try to be tough. “I did feel like Stabler was my home,” she told Rollins. “But he left me, Amanda, and I’m not over it. And the thing is, I didn’t have a right or a claim. He’s somebody else’s husband.”
She went on, “And I know this sounds crazy, but sometimes I think that it would almost be easier—”
“If Kathy hadn’t died?” Rollins finished her thought. “She was your boundary.”
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Liv went on, “And with her gone, it’s like there’s nothing but possibility — which is paralyzing.”
Rollins understood. “If things didn’t go well, so much to lose,” she acknowledged, “a whole friendship.”
Liv told her, “That is why I am so grateful for you.”
Steve Sands/ New York Newswire
It wasn’t exactly an ideal time to break her news, but Rollins had to rip off the Band-Aid.
“And now I might be leaving too,” she told Liv.
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Liv was clearly hurt. Rollins tried to console her by mentioning how much she had gained from their friendship. “You taught me how to love myself and how to let people in — victims and Carisi, you,” she shared, adding. “This is hard for me.”
Liv shot back, “Hard for you?”
Rollins was resolute: “I made this choice. Liv, I need you to be OK with it.”
Zach Dilgard/NBC
The next morning, when Liv went to check out, she discovered Rollins had left without saying a word — but hey, at least her DIY porn set motel room was comped!
All this time, Carisi had been having a rough go of it in the Olsen trial, which ultimately ended with a hung jury and a new trial looming on the horizon. Rollins consoled him after the news came in and confirmed with a broad smile that she was definitely going to take the Fordham job.
“My wife the professor,” he said, “that’s got a nice ring to it.”
Next, Rollins headed into the precinct to clear the air with Liv, who apologized that she “shut down” the night before.
“Stole one of my moves,” Rollins joked. “I’m gonna blame the boxed wine.”
She assured Liv, “You’re not losing me. We’re friends. That’s not gonna change. I’m not gonna disappear.”
Liv told her, “I wouldn’t let you if you tried.”
They hugged it out and shed a few tears as Liv urged Rollins, “Don’t postpone joy.”
She added, “I love you, Amanda,” and got an “I love you” back from Rollins.
They shared a bittersweet chuckle before Rollins walked out into the squad room to receive a standing ovation from her SVU colleagues as Liv looked on with pride.
RELATED: Mariska Hargitay Calls Kelli Giddish a ‘Lifelong Friend’ Ahead of Law & Order: SVU Exit
Hargitay paid tribute to Giddish shortly after the episode ended on Thursday.
“Kelli, I’ve loved acting, learning, growing, talking, laughing and crying with you,” the Emmy winner, 58, wrote on Instagram. “I’ve loved watching your achingly beautiful performances. I’ve loved watching our friendship deepen and grow and blossom. I’ve loved every single minute of it, and I will miss you so much. You have my respect, my gratitude and my love forever. xo M”
RELATED: Law & Order: SVU Star Kelli Giddish Exits Series After 12 Seasons
Back in August, Giddish announced she’d be leaving SVU some time during season 24. In an Instagram post, she called her time on the series “one of the greatest joys and privileges” of her life and said there was “simply no other character [like Rollins] on TV.”
She continued, “She’s grown and changed, and I have as well. I started on this show when I was in my late 20s and I’m grateful I got to spend so many of my adult years with Rollins in my life. … I’m so excited to take all the things I have learned in my time on SVU and put them toward everything that’s next to come.”
Giddish has been on the show through the births of her two children, with her pregnancies becoming storylines for her Rollins character. When Giddish was pregnant with her son Ludo, her character’s baby was with former commanding officer Lt. Declan Murphy (Donal Logue) in season 17. Three seasons later, when she had her son Charlie, writers added another pregnancy to the story.
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Before her departure from the series, Giddish’s costars opened up about the series moving on without her.
Ice-T told PEOPLE in August that her exit was a “sad thing” and that calls “from higher up” were behind in Giddish’s exit.
“When I heard about it, I called to check on my pulse, like, ‘What’s going on?'” he said. “But this is the business we’re in, and they shuffle the deck occasionally.”
He affirmed, “Kelli will be missed.”
Santiago Felipe/Getty Images
Pisano, 36, told PEOPLE saying goodbye to his former on-screen partner would be “bittersweet.”
“When I came to the show last season, Kelli was the first one to kind of take me under her wing, and most of my scenes in the earlier episodes were with her,” he said. “So her and I have a bond. Her dressing room is right next to mine, so we connected.”
He admitted, “Obviously I’m really sad, but I’m truly excited about the next chapter in her life because she’s an amazing talent.”
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Law & Order: Special Victims Unit returns Jan. 5 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.
