Nick Amaro (Danny Pino) will be sorely missed on Law & Order: SVU, but should we take the certainty of his exit from the show with a pinch of salt.

Rollins To Get "Obsessed" With A Case In Season 17

The NBC procedural has brought back various characters in the past, and as long as they are alive they haven't quite left the building. We are rooting for Amaro's return and in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Warren Leight suggested that while Amaro's departure was kind of definite for now, this might not be the ultimate goodbye.

"So far, Cragen's come back and Munch has come back, and even Dean [Winters] came back," he said. "I try to leave that door open. I would like to be able to bring him back. At this point, it depends on where he is and what he's doing and what the story needs. That's one of the advantages of not killing a character that you like. On Criminal Intent after I left, they killed off Captain Ross and there have been a couple of times where I just wish I had him for an episode. And Jill Hennessy's character was killed off [on Law & Order], and there have been a couple of times where I wanted to bring her in. I'm not sure it's a great idea to kill off characters who have brought a lot to this show."

This definitely leaves things on a positive note but from Leight's other statements about coming to decide that it was time for Amaro to go, we reckon the character will not be coming back any time soon. The fact that this character departure was thoroughly thought through -- and had been in the works a year ago -- means the writers are going to let Amaro rest in peace for a season's worth at least.

Here's what Leight said of the decision:

"It's tricky. It was almost in the wind a year ago. Danny did four years here and seven before this on Cold Case. That's 11 years straight [years] of procedurals, and he lives in LA and has a home there so there was some question about whether he was going to stay last year. Then as the season went on, it became something of a questioning process and then [a] decision of: Where can this character go? Because we've put his character through the ringer and in some ways, he probably went through more changes in four years than the entire cast of Mad Men did in eight years.

I tried to be very careful about making sure when Cragen left and Munch left that there was a sense of closure, so that fans weren't left in the lurch, and Danny felt the same way. We weren't even sure until the last four or five episodes of the season that that's where we were going to go. These things are hard. No one likes separation. In his first episode, he almost put his life on the line to rescue Rollins when he thought she was in trouble. He has that gear that if a woman is in jeopardy, he will fly in front of a bullet to try and save her. That's something that's been in his DNA from early on. I wanted him to go out in character, doing something heroic, and I didn't want him to die. For a number of reasons, I didn't think that was necessary."

Season 17 of Law & Order: SVU will premiere on Sept. 23 at 9 p.m.

Watch a preview of the finale for season 16: