When Harden made her first appearance on the police procedural, she was upright, undercover FBI agent Dana Lewis. By the time she made her fourth appearance eight years later, she was unhinged murderer Dana Lewis.

“And to this day, let me tell you, part of me regrets doing [the last time],” she says of the left turn her character took at the end, chuckling. “I’d never thought that she was dishonest. In fact, she’s one of the most noble people I’ve ever played… So I’m always waiting for them to bump [her] out of jail and go, ‘Oh, just joking! Dana couldn’t do that! It seems she was undercover in jail. That’s probably why she’s been there all this time, busting the most heavy crime mob, etc.”

When we point out that even Chris Meloni’s Elliot Stabler is returning to the SVU-verse after a long absence, Harden laughs. “Maybe that’s the angle,” she says. “If Meloni can come back, then Dana can, too.”

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