‘Law & Order: SVU’: Beverly D’Angelo to Guest Star as Carisi’s Mother

Beverly D'Angelo, Peter Scanavino as Carisi in Law & Order SVU
Jean Baptiste Lacroix/Getty Images; Will Hart/NBC

ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi (Peter Scanavino) is heading home in an upcoming Law & Order: SVU episode, and that means some family time — including someone we have yet to meet.

Beverly D’Angelo will be appearing in a March episode as Carisi’s mother, Serafina, TVLine reports. The only details that have been released reveal that there will be a family dinner and Ryann Shane is returning as Carisi’s niece Mia (after appearing in Season 19 — and Season 13 as a different character). That means we’ll have to wait to see if Carisi’s girlfriend, Detective Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) is attending as well, but we have to imagine that their relationship will at least come up at some point, even if she’s busy with a case.

After teasing the possibility for years, Carisi and Rollins finally crossed that line when she kissed him after he read his speech for the wedding that didn’t happen in last season’s finale. In Season 23, we’ve seen them together, and, as Scanavino told TV Insider, “You get little snippets here and there, little glimpses into their private lives.”

When it comes to that relationship, Carisi is “very protective of it,” Scanavino said. “They both understand the risks involved, given their positions and their jobs, that this could blow up in their face, but it’s also something that they both really want. So it’s just going to be interesting to see how they navigate this world in terms of how open they are about it or if they’re open at all about it with other people. There’s a lot of excitement between Carisi and Rollins, but then they also have to be very calm and levelheaded about this because it’s kind of explosive material.”

D’Angelo’s TV credits include Insatiable, Shooter, and Mom. She also played lawyer Rebecca Balthus in five episodes of SVU in Seasons 5 and 9.

Law & Order: SVU, Returns, Thursday, February 24, 9/8c, NBC