Everyone knows that Law and Order: SVU is fictional, but inspired by true stories. So are the characters' lives, which is exactly why Dann Florek had to leave the show. Fans will recall that Cragen left the show just before the character's 63rd birthday. In the real world, the New York Police Department requires every cop to retire then — it's a "hard and fast rule," so Cragen's departure was always coming.
When Richard Belzer's character John Munch left the show for the same reason, showrunner Warren Leight said, via E! News, "In the real world, which we try very hard to simulate, NYPD has mandatory retirement before your 63rd birthday. And we were trying to figure out how to deal with it. The reason NYPD does it is because you can't have 65-year-old guys running after guys. It is a hard and fast rule."
So when it was dropped that Cragen's birthday was just around the corner in his final episodes and he nudged Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) to take the sergeant's exam, fans should have known that his time was up. He officially says goodbye in "Amaro's 180," stating that he was going on a cruise with his girlfriend and that Benson would be taking over as sergeant.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7XCpKCsr5mbwW%2BvzqZma2lla4R2e9aeZKenp2K4r7vWZq6hsV2Zrq%2B6jJ%2BjqKqVoHqtscWtZKWZp2Kur7CMqKmdnaJiwLfBjg%3D%3D