Law and Order: SVU Season Nine Starts Off with a Big Bang

Season Nine of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" has definitely started out with a bang with the temporary departure of Captain Don Cragen who is the head of Manhattan SVU. In place, Detective John Munch gets promoted to Detective Sergeant Munch. While Cragen is temporarily out of the picture, Munch holds the fort down as the interim head of Manhattan SVU. All of the current cast members from the last season are present with the addition of a new regular character named Detective Chester Lake played by Adam Beach.

Lake has been somewhat of a recurring character in two episode brings a bit more diversity to the cast of characters. Chester Lake should bring some interesting perspective from SVU as he is of Native American heritage; and his family, for three generations has been iron workers that were responsible for constructing New York City himself. Adam Beach looks to be an excellent addition to SVU's current cast.

The ninth season really did kick things off as they dealt with a woman suffering from an extreme case of multiple-personality disorder portrayed by Cynthia Nixon most notable for playing Miranda of the popular series that once aired on HBO called "Sex and the City." Nixon's character is a very certified loony with who knows how many personalities and has an obsession with Detective Elliot Stabler. Under the personality of "Victoria," she is that obsessed with Stabler that she ends up in his house. As a result, he takes Kathy (Stabler's Wife) hostage.

There's a good chance that Nixon's character might come back later on. In a sense, she might be picking up Ludacris' torch possibly in the ninth season or possibly in the next season as Christopher Meloni had signed on to do both seasons nine and ten of SVU. I wouldn't discount Cynthia Nixon's character being a potential antagonist later down in the line as shown of her immediate obsession with Elliot Stabler. One could speculate that she could possibly return to take revenge on Stabler's family or possible go after his partner Olivia Benson portrayed by Mariska Hargitay.