Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is known for having characters that repeatedly come back on the show, that are not frontrunners or main characters on the show. And one character death in particular, has fans upset. It’s not often that fans get upset about the way a character was killed off (or perhaps it is…) but this is one of those times.
Sister Peg on Law & Order: SVU was a longtime recurring character, portrayed by actress Charlayne Woodard. She appeared in several episodes of the show, beginning in the third season through to the twelfth season.
Sister Peg is a nun that took in prostitutes and victims of sexual assault. Because of this, she frequently worked with the Manhattan Special Victims Unit, like Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Stabler (Christopher Meloni), and more.
In the season twelve finale, Sister Peg is killed when the daughter of a deceased victim carries a gun into the police station and starts shooting. The episode is notable because it is the last one to-date for Meloni, because Stabler felt that he could have done something about the shooting.
Fans wished that she was not killed off. Many viewers do not think she should have died, and are not happy with how she was written off the show.
In a Reddit thread, questions have been raised that perhaps Stabler should have died instead of Sister Peg. A user wrote, “I’m upset about losing Sister Peg. I liked Stabler more, but I didn’t like the rash of SVU getting rid of recurring characters who made for good episodes.”
The idea that perhaps Stabler should have died, kind of fits, since Meloni did leave the show after Sister Peg was killed. While Meloni has stated it’s because Stabler feels like he could have done something to stop the shooting, or prevent more people from being injured, since he left anyway, it would have solved the issue of killing Sister Peg (perhaps).
Although, we have to stop and think about the fact Stabler wouldn’t have left if the shooting had not happened. So maybe that episode was just a terrible choice from the writers.
For some fans, even if Sister Peg had to die, she could have gotten a better death. It could have meant more, and she probably deserved a whole episode dedicated to her death. Fans have speculated that it would have been a neat character arch for the main characters if Sister Peg was killed in a way that forced SVU involvement in the investigation to catch her killer.
No matter what you think of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, do you think that Sister Peg should have died? While Charlayne Woodard does not comment on if she thought her character was ready to die, or that she was ready to leave her character role, she does speak fondly on her time with the team.
The most interesting thing is that Sister Peg only appeared in, eh, maybe ten episodes throughout all of her years on the show, yet she is one of the most memorable. It could be the fact that the writers have written Sister Peg as an “out of the box” nun, or maybe it’s the actress.
