Detective Kevin Bernard is handing in his badge—again.
Anthony Anderson will not return for season 22 of Law & Order, E! News confirmed on May 27. Back in 2021, it was reported that the actor had signed a one-year deal to rejoin the crime drama for its revival series.
Anderson first joined the series—which originally aired from 1990 to 2010—for season 18 in 2008, 18 years after the series' premiere. Earlier this month, NBC renewed the series—a.k.a. the longest-running law-enforcement series in American television—for season 22.
The actor, 51, joined returning cast member Sam Waterston, as D.A. Jack McCoy, for season 21, along with new cast members Hugh Dancy, Jeffrey Donovan, Camryn Manheim and Odelya Halevi. It has not been announced yet whether Waterston will return for season 22 of the Dick Wolf-created series.
A world without Bernard or McCoy? We don't want to imagine it.
Back in February, Anderson—who starred as the titular role in ABC's Black-ish across the comedy's eight seasons—revealed that he was the one that reached out to Wolf to reprise his role.
"We were two weeks out from ending our show Black-ish," he told People at the time. "They made the announcement that Law & Order was coming back. So, I picked up the phone and called Dick Wolf up and said, 'Hey Dick, is it true?'"
He continued, "He said, 'It is.' I was like, 'Well, you know, I'm a free agent as of Nov. 19th,'" Anderson added. "And [Wolf] was like, 'Anthony, you have no idea how happy this phone call makes me.'"
While he may be done with detective work, we're just glad we got to see Bernard in action one last time. Keep reading to find out which other stars exited TV series this year.
(E! News and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)