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Their chemistry and companionship was the stuff of legend and - despite never actually getting together - one of the most compelling will-they, won’t-they stories in the crime-procedural circuit. For 12 years, the relationship between detectives Elliot Stabler (Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) had provided the backbone for some of the most unsettling crimes on prime-time television. When Christopher Meloni left Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2011, it was unclear how the show would fare without him.
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