After last being seen on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in the season fifteen finale, Richard Belzer, everyone’s favorite on-screen conspiracy theorist John Munch, is coming back for an episode that airs on May 4, according to E! Online.
The news of Belzer’s return was first reported by Entertainment Weekly on March 22.
“We love having Richard back on set. This episode was perfect for Munch’s cynical eye, and just the right time for him to give Benson (Mariska Hargitay), and Noah, some much needed support,” executive producer Warren Leight said at the time.
Wednesday’s episode is called “Fashionable Crimes,” and is about a photographer who assaults one of his models. Munch comes back to assist on the case as it reminds him of a case from when he was still working with the squad. He’ll get to work with Fin (Ice T) and Rollins (Kelli Giddish), who he worked with during his first run on the show, and will be introduced to Carisi (Peter Scanavino) and Dodds (Andy Karl), who have joined the squad since Belzer’s character retired.
Virginia Gardner, Sandrine Holt, Griffin Dunne, Tom Pelphrey and Jonathan Bock will also appear in the episode.
Belzer started playing John Munch all the way back in 1993, starting with NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Streets, where he was a cast member for the show’s seven-season run. When the show was canceled in 1999, he became a series regular on SVU, where he stayed on as a regular before his character retired in the fifteenth season.
The character of Munch has also appeared in four episodes of the original Law and Order show, and has been in one episode of The X Files, The Beat, Law and Order: Trial by Jury, Arrested Development and The Wire.
All in all, Belzer has been credited with appearing in 369 episodes of television as John Munch.
SVU returns from its month-long hiatus Wednesday, May 4 at 9 p.m. The first part of its two-part finale airs next Wednesday (May 11) and will finish out its seventeenth season on May 19. The show has already been renewed for its eighteenth season.