Law & Order actor and fan favorite Mehcad Brooks to exit series ahead of Season 25

Mehcad Brooks, who plays Detective Jaylen Shaw in NBC's Law & Order, has departed the show after three seasons and will not return in the upcoming Season 25.

While the news is sudden and disappointing for Detective Shaw's fans, Deadline reported that the parting was mutual and Brooks wanted to explore other opportunities and is already looking at different projects.

The actor joined Law & Order in 2022 as a detective and filled in for Anthony Anderson, who departed the show in 2022. Brooks eventually became a fan favorite character, which makes this news even more heartbreaking for his fans. They were looking forward to the character solving many more cases in the upcoming season.

NBC's longest-running franchise, executive produced by Dick Wolf, Rick Eid, Alex Hall, and Peter Jankowski, will return for its 25th season in Fall 2025 and is produced by Universal Television in collaboration with Wolf Entertainment.

While it was confirmed that most actors in the Law & Order and Chicago franchises will be featured in fewer episodes than usual for cost-cutting measures, Brooks' exit is surely surprising.

More on this in our story.

Mehcad Brooks to exit Law & Order ahead of season 25

Law & Order Season 25, which will return to NBC this Fall, will be quite different than usual as Detective Shaw, played by actor Mehcad Brooks, will not return in the franchise.

The actor was certainly happy to join the franchise back in 2022, as he expressed in an interview with The Wrap:

“There’s a system in place that is filled with traps for people...Jaylen being a Black man who is a cop — not a cop who’s Black — he understands that there’s a system that was put in place centuries ago that every Black person has to fight against. Maybe you can escape it, maybe you can’t.... He never wanted to be the guardian of that system.”

In another interview with Entertainment Weekly, he added:

''It's a dream come true in so many ways. I grew up watching the show, so it’s surreal in some ways.”

Brooks' character certainly highlighted a new aspect in the procedural, and his presence will surely be missed in the new season.

In addition to Law & Order, Mehcad Brooks is also known for projects like Necessary Roughness, Supergirl, My Generation, Boston Public, and True Blood. Recently, he has also joined the cast of HBO Max's And Just Like That...Season 3 as Marion Odin.

Law & Order Season 25 will feature the returning main cast, including Tony Goldwyn, Reid Scott, Hugh Dancy, Odelya Halevi, and Maura Tierney.

Season 24 of the series concluded in May 2025 and saw Shaw at the centre of the action. Fans would have to wait to see how the upcoming season wraps up Detective Shaw's storyline.

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