Law & Order: SVU is taking on The Bachelor, but that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the "Assaulting Reality" episode.
Things kick off when Rollins (Kelli Giddish) and Carisi (Peter Scanavino) are watching Heart's Desire: New York when a contestant's steamy night with the bachelor is shown on live TV…except she doesn't remember it.
"Wait, I don't remember any of this," she says. "…I'm a virgin, I would never have slept with him. Did Ryan rape me?"
Yikes. Guest stars include The Secret World of Alex Mack and 10 Things I Hate About You star Larisa Oleynik as a producer on the fake reality show, Michael Gross of Family Ties, Just Shoot Me and Hot in Cleveland veteran Wendie Malick, Comfort Clinton, Mather Zickel, Rachael Emrich, Adam Gregory and Jordan Bondurant.
And wait a second, Rollins and Carisi are hanging out watching reality shows with little baby Jesse?! Has their relationship progressed?
"I think it's cool how this relationship has progressed…I think it started kind of enemies…then I think it moved to brother and sister. She was a little annoyed with him, like a little brother, then I think it became like mutual respect, ‘We're equals, both good detectives,' and support for each other and then maybe that's developing into something else," Scanavino recently told E! News on set of the NBC drama. "I don't think there's anything explicit that's happened…I think they try to throw those [moments] in whenever they get a chance because even if it's something that's not going to happen, the possibility of it is always good to have."
As for what's next, Scanavino said, "I think it'd be great if it stayed at mutual respect, but I think also it'd be really interesting if we went down that path."
"Also, I don't think it's coming out of nowhere. It's not like a surprise, ‘Boom!' all of a sudden that's what's going on. I think the viewers would kind of understand that happening," he said about the characters potentially getting together romantically. "You've kind of gotten to see their courtship in a way, if it does go down that path, but I think it's totally understandable if it doesn't."
Law & Order: SVU airs Wednesdays, 9 p.m. on NBC.
(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)