‘Law & Order: SVU’: Mariska Hargitay Directs Bradley Whitford’s Return (PHOTOS)

Bradley Whitford returns to Law & Order: SVU in a very different role in the February 23 episode — he previously appeared on the show nine years ago in the Season 15 episode “Reasonable Doubt” — and the “King of the Moon” photos not only offer a look at his guest spot but also at Mariska Hargitay directing!

In the episode, Whitford plays a man with dementia called Pence Humphreys, who confesses to murder, but Captain Olivia Benson (Hargitay) and ADA Sonny Carisi (Peter Scanavino) believe there’s more to the case. Are they right? Or did he kill his wife? Benson doesn’t think he did in the promo (which you can watch below). “He just thinks he did it,” she says. She’s later seen consoling him when he tells her, “I don’t want to be here without her.”

Also in the episode, when rumors swirl around the squadroom, Sergeant Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice T) presses Detective Joe Velasco (Octavia Pisano) for the truth.

This is the eighth time Hargitay has directed an episode of the drama on which she’s starred since the beginning. She previously directed Season 15’s “Criminal Stories,” Season 16’s “Padre Sandunguero,” Season 17’s “A Misunderstanding” and “Sheltered Outcasts,” Season 18’s “Motherly Love,” Season 20’s “Mea Culpa,” and Season 21’s “She Paints for Vengeance.”

Scroll down for a look at the case as well as behind the scenes with Hargitay and Whitford of “King of the Moon.”

Law & Order: SVU, Thursdays, 9/8c, NBC