In some disappointing news, Law & Order is losing another member of its cast in season 26. And while it is disappointing, it’s not all that surprising.
As Deadline reported, Mechad Brooks is departing the series. He’s played Detective Jalen Shaw for the last three seasons, filling the void left after Anthony Anderson left the series after just one season of the revival.
Why is Mechad Brooks leaving Law & Order?
While there hasn’t been an official reason given, this is likely linked to the fact that the Dick Wolf shows are needing to find ways to cut the budget down. There are two main ways to do this: cut the episode counts or cut out expensive cast members.
Despite Law & Order managing to mostly stay within the budget, there are always savings to make, so it’s not all that surprising this decision has been made. It’s just disappointing for fans, as having Detective Shaw and Reid Scott’s Detective Vincent Riley go up against each other now and then due to their different upbringings was always interesting. While they didn’t always get along, they did get the job done and were able to find a middle ground.
Riley won’t be working on his own, though. The series is looking for a new detective to join the cast.
Will Jalen Shaw get an exit storyline?
One of the biggest issues with the exits during the hiatus is that the Dick Wolf universe doesn’t tend to give us a lot of closure. We’re usually given one line to explain where the characters have gone. It’s frustrating as hell for viewers, as it’s clear that the characters were never supposed to be written out at this point and it was an NBC decision rather than a show or actor decision.
In this case, we’re not expecting an exit storyline. This isn’t like when Sam Waterston chose to leave the show after more than 400 episodes. Jack McCoy got a huge goodbye, as he deserved. However, Shaw is likely to just get the standard one-liner.
I would be interested in seeing if that line is linked to a previous episode in Law & Order season 24, when Shaw went up against Price. It was clear that Price could come after Shaw due to Shaw’s own actions. I guess we’ll find out.
Law & Order will return with new episodes on Thursday, Sept. 25 at 8/7c on NBC.
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