March’s ‘SVU’ departure is a jolter

NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU,” which has taken its considerable ratings clout from the show’s regular Friday slot to Tuesdays this season, undergoes further shuffling tonight at 10 as the show bids farewell to veteran cast member Stephanie March.

And it’s a joltingly fine send-off for March, who since 2000 has handled the role of pretty yet gritty Asst. Dist. Atty. Alexandra Cabot. March will move on to other projects, as they say, while her spot in the D.A.’s office is assumed next week by actress Diane Neal as Casey Novak.

Cabot doesn’t get pulled into tonight’s case until well into the episode, tellingly titled “Loss.” An undercover drug agent has been viciously raped and murdered, and when the crime is linked to a powerful Colombian cocaine ring, it sets off an investigation that proves every bit as perilous for the SVU gang as for the suspects.

The identity of the victim, whose tongue-less body was left on a sidewalk clad only in a coke-choked fur coat, is slow to emerge.

Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) notices a religious icon on a chain around the victim’s throat but acknowledges it isn’t much to go on.

“She’s a Catholic Latino,” Benson surmises dryly. “That’ll narrow it down.”

But clues begin to emerge as the SVU investigators bore into the case, bumping against territorial DEA agents who are concerned that their own probe into the drug ring could be compromised by any interference from the police.

Soon the inter-agency head-butting draws the legal system into a tangled game of cat-and-mouse, and the investigation threatens to blow up in everyone’s face while letting the bad guys skip away free.

“I long for the old days,” sighs SVU Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), “when the government would just send in the Delta Force assassination squad.”

As the episode builds to a climax that’s a shocker even with the publicity about short-timer Cabot, you can’t help wondering if even the Deltas would be a match for these drug lords.