According to The Hollywood Reporter, NBC has released the list of Law & Order: SVU episodes left to air in its current season, but there’s one notable—and wholly predictable—absence: “Unstoppable,” a.k.a. the Trump episode. The episode features Gary Cole as a Trump-like politician whose campaign is threatened when multiple women accuse him of sexual assault, because SVU takes place in a fantasy universe where a political candidate’s career can be threatened because he’s a fucking creep, and it was originally supposed to air in October just before the election. Just after announcing the episode, though, NBC decided to delay airing it until after the election, presumably because the media back then was already doing such a damn good job illustrating the many awful things Trump had done at that point. Plus, it might’ve distracted from James Comey’s email bullshit, and nobody would’ve appreciated that.
After Trump won the election—having been bolstered by the support of NBC’s own Jimmy Fallon—the network decided to bump the SVU episode into 2017, but now it’s starting to look like it’ll simply never be aired. In a statement from a few months ago, SVU showrunner Rick Eid said that the episode’s delay could have something to do with how “sometimes the facts go against you in a way you can’t imagine,” and a thing you write one day may no longer be relevant a few months later.
Basically, it sounds like NBC hasn’t aired the Trump episode because people don’t really care about Trump’s pre-election scandals anymore. Considering how much the Law & Order brand loves its “ripped from the headlines” plots, this might just be one that was ripped too late for anyone to care. Granted, that doesn’t excuse NBC of the cowardly decision to pull it in the first place, but whatever.