"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" has always been known to integrate real-life scandals and news into their episodes, and this time, they are going to delve into the still-fresh Harvey Weinstein scandal.
"We are hitting Harvey Weinstein head-on, but it's not in the realm of the entertainment business," revealed executive producer Michael Chernuchin to the EW. "It's a real important episode about the rape culture in an industry, and we wanted to try stretch the law to criminalize that sort of environment."
The Harvey Weinstein scandal recently broke Hollywood with its revelation, with New York Times exposing major Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual harassment scandals over the decades. Following the expose, the producer was soon fired by The Weinstein Company, which resulted to exposes of the same nature with other prominent figures in Hollywood, producers, and celebrities alike.
Details are still currently scant concerning the episode's take on the subject, as well as the release date and the chosen actor to play Harvey Weinstein. However, Chernuchin noted that the episode will take place in the airline industry – not Hollywood, as the writers of the series have already worked on the episode before the scandal surfaced.
"We were actually working on a story about airline pilots and what a boys club that is. We were beating the story out and said, 'Wow, this is exactly what the actresses go through in Hollywood. It's the same environment.' So we got all of our Harvey stuff out with airline pilots," Chernuchin said.
Some speculate that the episode may not even air, as NBC already tried to do a similar take in the past. Just last year, SVU decided to halt the airing of their episode titled "Unstoppable," featuring Gary Cole as a politician who had tons of sexual harassment allegations during the campaign, similar to Donald Trump during the 2016 election.
"Law & Order: SVU season 19" airs every Wednesday at 10 p.m. EST on NBC.
