SVU has been notorious for ignoring the supporting characters of this show. Which is why most of the longtime regular actors have left (BD Wong, Stephanie March, Diane Neal, Dean Winters, Danny Pino and so on). Only Ice T has stayed and he has said in various interviews that as long as he gets paid he'll stick around. Richard Belzer has played John Munch for about 20 years, first in Homicide: Life on the Street and now on SVU (making cameos on various other shows in between). Now he leaves and all he gets is a few minutes in the beginning and a final bookend to finish the show. It's a real waste of a great character. They only get a few bonus points for having Clark Johnson (Meldrick Lewis from Homicide) and a scene from the pilot of Homicide as a flashback. If they only could have harnessed that kind of interesting admiration for the past throughout the show.