Detective Elliot Stabler is coming back.
Chris Meloni is reprising his role as Stabler, the long-running partner of Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU, in the SVU spinoff created by Dick Wolf.
Meloni confirmed the news, writing on Facebook, “He’s back…”
The new 13-episode drama, which does not have a title yet, will follow Stabler leading a New York Police Department organized crime unit, and could potentially lead to a Stabler and Benson crossover reunion.
Deadline, which was first to report the new show, states that Chicago P.D. showrunner Matt Olmstead is being eyed as writer-showrunner.
Meloni starred in Law & Order: SVU for the show’s first 12 seasons with Hargitay. He left in Season 12 when Stabler abruptly retired from the police force.
After leaving the show in 2011, Meloni went on to star in Showtime’s Happy. He played Nick Sax — an intoxicated, corrupt ex-cop turned hitman — who is adrift in a world of casual murder, soulless sex and betrayal. After a hit gone wrong, his inebriated life is forever changed by a tiny, relentlessly positive, imaginary blue winged horse named Happy (Patton Oswalt).
Many fans of Meloni took to Twitter after news of Stabler’s return to TV spread.