Main Recurring Guest stars '' star
Paget Brewster plays Sheila Tierney, daughter of a dying criminal with a checkered past in "Scheherazade". The season premiere "Informed" saw
Marcia Gay Harden reprise her role as Special Agent Dana Lewis, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Acting opposite was Kristen Bush, who shaved her head for the role. After agreeing to do this, Bush said "It was a kind of tenuous connection as to why she was shaved. I probably should have investigated it more, but whatever." The
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series was won by
Leslie Caron for her performance in the third episode "Recall". appears in "Uncle" as Andrew, the uncle of Det. John Munch.
Jerry Lewis guest starred in the fourth episode "Uncle". He played Andrew Munch, the uncle of Detective John Munch. Neal Baer promoted the episode by saying "He brings both depth and heart to this role and gives insight into how often older people with depression are misdiagnosed." In the fifth episode "Confrontation", Elanor Hutchins played Elizabeth Hassenback, a woman who was raped and later murdered.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of
The View, objected to the use of a name that was similar to her own and called for a boycott of
SVU based on this. With the sixth episode "Infiltrated",
Vincent Spano began playing FBI Agent Dean Porter, the case agent for Detective Benson's undercover work. The character would go on to cross paths with SVU detectives again in later episodes. In the seventh episode "Underbelly", Diane Neal had a scene with her husband Marcus Fitzgerald who played an ADA. plays Martin Trenway, a lawyer on trial for rape in "Recall". In the eighth episode "Cage",
Margo Martindale played Rita Gabler, a foster parent whose methods have a devastating effect on a young girl. Neal Baer continued to praise her performance and in 2011 said "I know how good she is because when I did
SVU, she put Elle Fanning in a cage and told her to set Connie Nielsen on fire." The ninth episode "Choreographed" marked the return of Mariska Hargitay's character to the Special Victims Unit. The episode starred
Bob Saget as a suspicious husband. Hargitay expressed her excitement about working with Saget and called him "America's biggest secret." The tenth episode guest starred
Paget Brewster as the secretly adopted/stolen daughter of a man who has a criminal past and days to live. The episode shows Benson spending time with the man, as he bluntly tells her and Stabler character, the stories of his crimes, and how Sheila (Brewster) came to be his daughter. The eleventh episode "Burned" starred
Michael Michele as an alleged rape victim who gains the sympathy of Detective Benson but not Detective Stabler. This reunited her with Eriq LaSalle, Neal Baer and Mariska Hargitay from her time on
ER. LaSalle, who directed the episode, joked that "It also gave [him] an excuse to boss Michael Michele around."
Bill Goldberg appeared at the beginning of the thirteenth episode "Loophole". Wrestler Bill Goldberg is Neal Baer's cousin and was given a physically intimidating role. The fourteenth episode "Dependent" featured guest star
Cary Elwes as mafia lawyer Sidney Truex, who survives an attack in his home where his wife is murdered. It is later revealed that the boyfriend of Truex's 16-year-old daughter is the murderer. The sixteenth episode "Philadelphia" showed Detective Benson clashing with a New Jersey cop played by
Kim Delaney. Delaney mentioned being an
SVU fan especially because of the subject matter addressed in the show and said "It's what we read about in the paper, unfortunately too many times." The episode "Annihilated" was predicted to be an Emmy contender for Christopher Meloni in the
Envelope section of
The LA Times.
Dylan Walsh guest starred as Malcolm Royce, a family man involved in a murder suicide. Meloni described Walsh's character as "outwardly a family man like Elliot, who has everything going for him, but this guy's living a double life." In "Pretend,"
Misti Traya guest starred as a woman who had been posing as a teenager for years. Noting the similarities, Neal Baer said the writers were "stunned" to hear about the sex offender Neil Havens Rodreick who was caught disguising himself as a twelve-year-old shortly after the episode was written. In the season finale "Screwed,"
Chris "Ludacris" Bridges concluded the storyline of his character Darius Parker by defending himself in court. Baer described his performance saying "He defends himself which is cool. So now he takes on the role of a lawyer with
Steven Weber playing his lawyer as well." ==Episodes==