How ‘Law & Order’ Should Write Out Reid Scott’s Riley in Season 26

Law & Order will be saying goodbye to Reid Scott and his character, Detective Vincent Riley, in Season 26, and since the show didn’t set up any potential exit in last spring’s finale, it’s a good thing he’ll be back for a few episodes for that to happen onscreen, before James Badge Dale debuts as a new detective. (Previously, since returning in 2022, exits from the NBC drama have been addressed with a couple lines of dialogue with the remaining characters.)

So, how will Law & Order write out Riley? Well, we know what we’d love to see: something related to his brother, Matt, played by Ryan Eggold.

Last we heard, Matt’s still in a coma, due to complications from a bacterial infection after he was stabbed for snitching and helping Riley with a case. The brothers’ relationship had been fraught leading up to that (Riley arrested Matt in Eggold’s first episode), though before Matt took a turn, while testifying from his hospital bed, he made sure to say how proud he was of Vincent.

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“I believe, and I really hope. and I think that the plan is to get Ryan back for more because that’s just been such a fun relationship to play with,” Scott told TV Insider while discussing the April 2 episode, in which his character fell off the wagon after accidentally fatally driving into a civilian in pursuit of a suspect. “He brings so much to the show, and I know the audience really loves to see these Riley brothers go at it. My overall hope is that we get Ryan back at some point before the end of the season.”

Added Scott, “I think all of these things add up to a bit of Riley’s breakdown in Episode [16]. He’s got a very fraught relationship with his brother, as we’ve seen. He feels a bit responsible for putting his brother in harm’s way. His brother’s in a coma. Riley carries the world on his shoulders. He is the very definition of a bit of a weary warrior, but he doesn’t know anything else. This is his calling. He really feels drawn to this profession, to this job. He feels a responsibility to the victims and the victims’ families. And he, like any human being, those dark feelings, those dark emotions, they’ve got to go somewhere. And in this episode, we see exactly where they go for him. They lead him down a very dark path, and he falls.”

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What if Matt wakes and Riley takes time off to help his brother recover? Or what if Matt dies, and Riley needs to take time off to grieve? We’d much rather it be the former and Eggold return so we can see him and Scott together one more time. However Scott’s final episodes play out, let’s just hope that Riley doesn’t die so the door is open for a future appearance and that it’s not related to him drinking again, since that played out last season.

But how do you want Riley to be written out? Let us know in the comments section below.

Law & Order, Season 26 Premiere, Thursday, October 8, 10/9c, NBC