Anthony Anderson Brings the Heat to the New ‘Law & Order’

Filling Jerry Orbach’s comedic (gum)shoes​

The child of a single mom (and his game show cohost) and a proud son of Compton, California, Anderson has sharpened his comedic timing portraying Dre, which should serve him well in his return to the New York City-set drama. Not because policing is a laugh riot but because Anderson’s character already had a nuanced sense of the world’s absurd twists from previous seasons. And let’s face it: Someone’s gotta carry on the tradition of Jerry Orbach’s sharp little asides.

Bringing Law & Order into a post-George Floyd world​

Given the social justice upheaval the nation has experienced since Det. Bernard last worked cases, it will be intriguing to see what Anderson and the writers bring to his conservative-minded character and the reboot of a show so instrumental in shaping what viewers thought of criminal justice and policing. On The View in 2020, Anderson recounted being attacked by police officers during a peaceful protest against the Ku Klux Klan in Washington, D.C., in 1989. He said that story became “part of our storytelling here on Black-ish.” Intriguingly, the first episode of Law & Order Season 21 is titled “The Right Thing.” ​​

As for “leaving one great show to go back to another,” it was the right thing, Anderson said recently. “I jumped at the opportunity to do it. I thought it would have been a foolish move for me not to come back to a show that I’m such a fan of. … And, you know, to know that Sam [Waterston] was coming back and I would be back, and we would be the two familiar faces on the show and to welcome all the new people that we have on the screen right now was definitely a plus.”​

So sit back and watch what the slightly older, socially conscious, television-savvy Anderson brings to the iconic show. Dun-dun!​​

Lisa Kennedy, a regular AARP film critic, is a former Village Voice editor (1986-96) and Denver Post film critic (2003-15) who writes on popular culture, race and gender for Variety, The New York Times, Essence, American Theatre, the Denver Post, and others.