Detective Jalen Shaw is handing in his badge.\n<\/p>\n
The actor who plays him, Mehcad Brooks<\/a>, is leaving Law & Order<\/a> after three seasons on the long-running cop show, Entertainment Weekly can confirm. Brooks will not be in the show’s upcoming 25th season.\n<\/p>\n According to\u00a0Deadline,\u00a0which first reported the news on\u00a0<\/a>Friday<\/a>, the parting of ways was mutual, and Brooks is already pursuing other projects. The actor has not yet addressed the news on his social media accounts.\n<\/p>\n It’s understood that the rest of the Law & Order task force \u2014 Tony Goldwyn, Reid Scott, Hugh Dancy, Odelya Halevi, and Maura Tierney \u2014 are set to return for the new season, however.\n<\/p>\n The season 24 finale offered no hints at an exit for Shaw, and Brooks didn’t allude to it in a wrap message shared on his Instagram in April. In it, he wrote<\/a>, “That\u2019s a wrap on Season 24. What an amazing, intense, and deeply grounding experience. It\u2019s a pleasure and privilege to share the screen with such talented and hardworking artists and such an intrepid crew who truly care about what we are co-creating.”\n<\/p>\n Brooks first joined the show in 2022, following\u00a0Anthony Anderson’s<\/a>\u00a0departure. Shaw was partnered up with Scott’s Detective Vincent Riley. The casting for a new potential partner is underway, but Brooks previously opened up about his relationship with his onscreen buddy.\n<\/p>\n “Reid is my brother from another mother, like we were long-lost brothers split up at birth,” Brooks told CinemaBlend<\/a> in October 2024. “I don’t know what happened, but I’ve never gotten along so well with somebody so fast, and he says the same thing.”\n<\/p>\n Brooks continued, “We have the same sense of humor, both really sarcastic and sardonic. We have a lot of similar interests. We’re both Scorpios. We just get along as human beings, and we both work really hard at our jobs.”\n<\/p>\n Mehcad Brooks in episode 4 of season 3 of ‘And Just Like That’.<\/p>\n Craig Blankenhorn\/Max<\/p>\n Aside from Law & Order, Brooks was most recently seen in the ongoing third season of HBO Max’s And Just Like That. In it, Brooks plays Marion, a film producer hired by Lisa Todd Wexley (played by\u00a0Nicole Ari Parker). The very married documentarian confesses to Charlotte (Kristin Davis) that she has a “work crush” on Marion and has even had a sexy dream about him.\n<\/p>\n Sign up for\u00a0Entertainment <\/a>\u00a0to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.<\/strong> He’s also set to reprise his role as Jax in New Line’s Mortal Kombat II in October.\n<\/p>\n