Law & Order: OC Scrapbook

A collection of articles...

Law & Order: Organized Crime’: Christopher Meloni Breaks Down Stabler’s Return to the ‘SVU’ World

TV Insider; March 24, 2021

That said, we know he’s dealing with a family tragedy, perhaps involving his wife, Kathy (Isabel Gillies). How is he emotionally?

Meloni: "He’s lost and trying to find an anchor, the compass pointing north."

Where has the detective been for the last decade?

Meloni: "He wanted to get far away from the sense of betrayal he felt from the NYPD. But bitter is no way to go through life. He needed to heal himself, which started with healing his relationship with his wife. That made him a better man who’s better equipped to handle things."

Organized Crime Is Not What We Need From Law & Order

Vulture; April 2, 2021

So far, Organized Crime looks like a significant departure from the rhythm of a typical Law & Order series, one that feels at odds with Elliot Stabler’s preestablished character. 

After many years out of the franchise and a long promotional run-up to his return, Elliot Stabler is now back in the Law & Order universe as the lead character in the newest spinoff series, Law & Order: Organized Crime. He showed up first in an exciting crossover episode of his old franchise home SVU and was then ported over to his own show in his own time slot, once again running around New York City in pursuit of baddies.

Stabler’s initial return scenes on SVU were fan-servicey and indulgent — lots of opportunities to stare deeply into his old partner Olivia Benson’s eyes and attempt to atone for the mistakes of his past. But by the time Stabler strolls out of the SVU domain and over into his own series, that character in particular and Organized Crime more broadly starts looking like a frustrating measure of just how far the world has moved on from the values and tropes that defined the character years ago. Worse, Organized Crime seems to misjudge the appeal of Law & Order altogether, and it does so in a way that only exacerbates the gap between now and the Stabler of old.

Bringing back Elliot Stabler in 2021 was always going to be a mess. Sure, when seen through nostalgia glasses, Stabler is your Law & Order problematic zaddy or whatever. When he’s forced to exist in a contemporary context, though, it’s immediately obvious that all the things he was best known for a decade ago are now enormous flaws. He’s violent and impulsive, he cannot follow rules, and deep in his heart he truly believes that all these things make him a good cop.

There are a few fascinating moments in the SVU episode launching Stabler’s return, short scenes that do register how much Stabler’s whole deal is now a massive issue. When his wife Kathy is the victim of a bombing (justice for Kathy Stabler; no character ever deserves to spend this much time in a neck brace!), Stabler goes berserk. He demands to be in the interview room with a suspect even though he shouldn’t be anywhere near there, and Benson inevitably has to stop him from violently lunging at the interviewee. Benson and the DA talk about it. Stabler is a liability, he says. Stabler has a terrible misconduct record, and his current behavior doesn’t indicate he’s changed his ways. And yet Benson, who previous episodes suggest should know better by now, defends him! Once again, he somehow manages to be “a good cop” in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

The most intriguing element of the franchise’s big swing is what happens when Elliot Stabler’s preestablished character combines with the format of the new series, Organized Crime. We have only seen the first episode, which aired Thursday night, and there are no screeners available to help clarify what the whole show will be like going forward. At least as the first episode goes, though, Organized Crime looks like a significant departure from the rhythm of a typical Law & Order series. Kathy Stabler’s death (JUSTICE FOR KATHY STABLER) pushes Stabler into a complex world of mob crime, forcing the show out of its familiar episodic storytelling model and into a more serialized slow-burn crime story. SVU has dabbled in this territory before on big occasions, but its core has always been episode-length stories, and it’s possible Organized Crime will eventually revert to the L&O narrative mean. I doubt it, though — from the way its pilot is set up, Dylan McDermott is being built as a long-running Big Bad character, and Elliot Stabler seems primed to work on avenging his wife’s death for quite a while. (JUSTICE! FOR! KATHY!)

I can imagine a circumstance where a slowly developing serialized story could help push against the mess of Stabler’s character history. Episodic storytelling is often a way out for character flaws or inconsistent character development; franchises can get away with not dealing with the ramifications of someone’s bad actions when the plot starts all over again each week. But in a fictional world where Elliot has to work with the same people on the same case for an extended period of time, maybe his grandiose, uncontrollably violent pigeons might finally come home to roost. From the overall tone of the first episode, though, Organized Crime does not seem poised to embrace a reformed Elliot Stabler. In a story world driven by a Big Bad, it seems just as probable that Stabler’s terrible behavior looks increasingly justified, the necessary steps someone has to take in order to bring down the evildoer. There’s a scene near the end of the episode when Olivia Benson returns, hoping to hash things out with Stabler about the past rupture in their partnership. Stabler can’t talk to her; he’s already too far gone inside the tangled web of this new all-consuming case. I honestly can’t tell if Organized Crime wants that scene to be an indictment or an excuse.

More generally, I’m just not sure that Organized Crime is what audiences want from the Law & Order universe. Setting aside the dubious choice of creating even more cop shows right now, the appeal of the franchise’s most enduring properties has always been their role as episodic-TV comfort food. It is copaganda of a very specific flavor: There are cops, there are problems, and then those problems get fixed. If Organized Crime keeps the “cops” and “there are problems” parts of the equation, but chucks out the part where those problems are fixed in a reliable clockwork rhythm, I’m not sure the lingering fondness for Elliot Stabler will be enough to win Organized Crime a dedicated place in viewers’ hearts. (Plus, there’s no DUN DUN. Is it even Law & Order without the DUN DUN?!)

There are bright spots. Dylan McDermott and Tamara Taylor could be a very interesting set of TV antagonists. The pilot of Organized Crime doesn’t make much space to introduce the team of crime-solving regulars, so there’s some opportunity for those players to help balance out Stabler’s Stabler-ness. Still, it’s not an auspicious beginning, especially if the show continues on in the same mode. The one major consolation is that at least Elliot Stabler, by chasing down the criminals responsible for his wife’s death, will be keyed into the thing I most care about in this franchise now: Justice for Kathy Stabler! She deserved a better ending than this!

Nicky Torchia (Eli) and Christopher Meloni in the season opener of Law & Order: Organized Crime at Kathy's funeral

Law & Order: Organized Crime’ Producers Defend Use of Dead Wife Trope

The Hollywood Reporter; April 7, 2021

Showrunner Ilene Chaiken says using the device to kick off the series helps answer why Christopher Meloni's Elliot Stabler would sign on to an NYPD task force.

Amid a big premiere for Law & Order: Organized Crime and excitement over the long-awaited reunion of NYPD Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Det. Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni), some viewers of the show were less thrilled with the motivation behind Stabler’s return.

The SVU episode in which Stabler and Benson come back into contact opens with Stabler’s wife, Kathy (Isabel Gillies), being badly injured when a bomb — intended for Elliot — goes off in the couple’s rental car. Kathy later dies, which sets Elliot on a quest to find his wife’s killers, leading him to the task force at the center of Organized Crime.

It’s also an example of “fridging,” or using a dead female character as motivation for a male protagonist. Showrunner Ilene Chaiken defended the device in a call with reporters Wednesday, saying that even though the storytelling beat was in place when she joined the series (taking over for original showrunner Matt Olmstead), she rolled with it.

“When I joined this show, it was a fait accompli — a premise I was given to work with. I wasn’t in any way put off by it — I was immediately drawn in,” Chaiken said. “When you tell a story about a character who’s been gone for many years, a question you have to answer is, ‘Why now?’ [Kathy Stabler’s death] as a storytelling catalyst is one of the best ‘why nows’ I could think of.”

Law & Order creator and executive producer Dick Wolf called the plot point “one of the most dramatic teasers I can remember on any show. I didn’t see anything that was critical of that storytelling choice, [but] you can’t please all the people any of the time.”

Organized Crime is adopting a more serialized approach to storytelling than its Law & Order predecessors, with the first season focusing on Stabler and the task force bringing down Dylan McDermott’s Richard Wheatley. The season will have one fewer episode than originally planned after production had to shut down for a time due to COVID-19, but Wolf said the arc of the season wouldn’t be affected.

Going forward, the show will continue to focus on both Stabler’s work and his life as a now-widowed father of five kids. Wolf said a potential second season (which hasn’t formally been announced) would be broken into three eight-episode story arcs he described as echoing The Godfather, American Gangster and Scarface.

“These are going to be really bad guys that give Chris a constant source of energy, outrage, belief in justice, and a different way of pursuing criminals than we have before,” Wolf said.

Law & Order: Organized Crime Reveals Kathy's Killer & It Isn't Who You'd Expect

E! Online; May 14, 2021 

On Thursday, May 13's episode of Law & Order: Organized Crime, the culprit responsible for Kathy Stabler's death was revealed. Find out the shocking twist.

Call a bus…because we can't handle this Law & Order: Organized Crime reveal.

On the Thursday, May 13 episode of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit spinoff, the culprit responsible for the death of Detective Elliot Stabler's wife was exposed. For those who may've missed it, Stabler's involvement with the elite organized crime task force came about after his wife Kathy (Isabel Gillies) died in a car bombing.

Since the start of the series, it was assumed that the bomber, Sacha Lenski, was hired by versatile crime boss Richard Wheatley (Dylan McDermott) with Stabler (Christopher Meloni) being the intended target. However, as we learned in the April 22 episode, the hit was actually meant for Kathy. Organized Crime followed up that bombshell with another shocking twist: Angela Wheatley (Tamara Taylor) ordered the hit on Kathy.

This news came about after the task force found new evidence that connected Wheatley's bodyguard/fixer-turned-informant Bekher (Ibrahim Renno) to the bomb that took Kathy's life. Yet, during a meeting with Stabler and Sergeant Ayanna Bell (Danielle Moné Truitt), Bekher said Wheatley "didn't give the order."

He then confessed, "Angela Wheatley did!"

We certainly didn't expect this as Angela Wheatley seemed determined to get her children away from her ex-husband's life of crime. Not to mention, Stabler and the mathematics professor shared a kiss in the new episode after connecting over grief.

So, we understandably have many questions following this reveal: Why did Angela want to take out Kathy? Is she getting revenge on Stabler for something? Is she more involved in crime than we thought?

We guess we'll have to tune in to find out.

Of course, this was only one part of an epic Law & Order crossover, which included more moments between Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Stabler. Catch up on both series on Peacock.

Kathy, Stabler's Wife, Made a Surprising Return in the Latest Organized Crime

NBC.com; May 5, 2023

It was an episode packed with fascinating set-ups as Stabler distracted himself from his inner demons. 

"The Pareto Principle" — the title of Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 3, Episode 20 — refers to the ideology that roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. Statistically speaking, there's usually some larger force at play when problems arise.

This idea played a role in OC's latest episode, which was a nail-biting watch from beginning to end as Detective Stabler (Christopher Meloni) struggled to connect puzzle pieces to form a mind-boggling big picture. Here's what happened: 

The Control Bureau is called in by the Feds after a woman finds her dead husband's head in her dryer. The victim, an unemployed man named Frank, was secretly a member of an elaborate bank robbery operation, and the murderer is clearly trying to send a message. After chatting with the detectives, Frank's wife gives them a tip for one of his friends, Lloyd.

Stabler tracks down Lloyd and finds him lugging around a million dollars in a duffel bag. While in the interrogation room, Lloyd acts confused by the ordeal, saying he was unaware that Frank was even murdered and is simply holding the money for his friend. Attempting to make conversation and distract Stabler from this case, Lloyd asks Stabler if he's married. 

The question instantly strikes a cord, but Stabler shrugs it off while telling Lloyd his wife passed away. It's been a while since Kathy (Isabel Gillies) has come up, but it's an infinitely sore subject for Stabler. 

Stabler gains his ace in a hole after a photo surfaces of Lloyd's work vehicle outside the bank Frank robbed the day he was murdered. Plus, the Feds found the murder weapon in Lloyd's girlfriend's truck, so he's toast.

Stabler can always get the perp to crack, and Lloyd finally confesses that he hired someone to kill Frank. Better yet, Detective Jet Slootmaekers (Ainsley Seiger) successfully traced DNA evidence found at the crime scene to a man named Junior Suarez, Lloyd'd hitman. Case closed, right?

Wrong. Stabler's entire case becomes mystifying after they realize Suarez has a rock-solid alibi. He was in prison on the night of the murder.

Sgt. Ayanna Bell (Danielle Moné Truitt) and Stabler visit Suarez in prison, who acts very pleased with his prison lifestyle. They question him about Frank, and Suarez gives them nothing, telling them there must be a mistake with the DNA evidence because he's been in prison the entire time. The detectives then find out Suarez has been visited by his sister frequently in recent months. 

The OC Bureau's go-to undercover man Detective Bobby Reyes (Rick Gonzalez) visits Suarez's sister, a dentist, under the guise of a typical appointment. Reyes poses as a neighborhood friend of Suarez's and begins asking questions about his recent whereabouts. Suarez's sister reveals that Suarez is often granted furlough, which is why he's seen out of prison so frequently. Reyes ditches his undercover get-up and tells Suarez's sisters to dish details about his recent activity. She reveals Suarez gave $25,000 from his hits to help his sister's family. 

Meanwhile, Jet successfully connects Lloyd to Suarez. Suarez is a member of the BX9 gang and the cousin of one of Lloyd's coworkers. Law & Order: SVU fans will recognize that BX9 is the Bronx-based gang giving Benson (Mariska Hargitay) a massive headache recently, at one point even attacking the captain. 

The detectives realize they are dealing with more than just a calculated hit; they're looking at an entire criminal infrastructure built upon granting furlough to prisoners to execute murders. The person responsible for the murder-for-hire ring is Mike Pendergast, a cheap and calculating correctional officer who selects prisoners who enjoy the inmate life that simply want a small vacation from the cell. Pendergast's prisoners don't care about money; they do it for the respect gained and the free cigarettes he provides afterward. The team successfully arrests Pendergast and recovers all the stolen money, but the question of why Suarez was paid when all the other hired inmates were not is at the top of Stabler's mind. 

Stabler heads home after a productive day and finds his mom, Bernadette Stabler (Ellen Burstyn), cooking up a delicious meal for her son. As her Alzheimer's worsens, Mama Bernie is staying with Stabler until they find the best retirement home. Stabler happily greets his mom and counts three plates laid out. When Stabler asks Bernie why she grabbed an extra plate, she flippantly says it's for Kathy.

Bernie instantly realizes she's made a mistake and apologizes profusely. Stabler reassures her that he feels Kathy is always with him, so it's not a problem. Their conversation is cut short by a call about Suarez being traced to a recent homicide near Frank's residence. Stabler wants to go check out the crime scene, and with his mom under his care, he reluctantly agrees to bring her along. 

After arriving at the scene, Stabler lovingly insists that his mother stays in the car and doesn't leave. But while Stabler interviews the murder victim's angry neighbor, Bernie ditches Stabler's request and leaves the car, effectively joining Stabler's investigation. Stabler and Bernie check out the homicide scene, and Bernie notes that the woman's husband died when she was still very young, which may attribute to her neighbor's negative perceptions of her.

Bell finds a sleepy-eyed Stabler in the office on Saturday morning, and it's abundantly clear he is avoiding issues at home by throwing himself into work. Stabler fixates on the fact that while they can confirm with DNA evidence that Suarez is the murderer, they don't understand why he agreed to these hits. Stabler cites the Pareto Principle as his rhetoric, arguing that Suarez seems connected to something much bigger than the prison operation. 

But at the end of the day, it's a Major Crimes case now, so Stabler is putting his nose where it doesn't belong. Bell tells Stabler to go home, and he opens up about his mother's slip-up the night before. Bell essentially tells Stabler to stop running from his problems by going home, but he ignores her. If there's anything the stubborn Stabler is good at it's dodging his problems by dedicating himself to a case. 

It's been years since Kathy's death, and throughout this entire case, Stabler has been hearing echoes of their marriage and his trauma surrounding her murder. If this doesn't prove Stabler is haunted by Kathy's memory, what happens next does: He catches something in the corner of his eye while looking at crime scene photos. A woman in a hospital gown walks into the interrogation room and Stabler confusedly checks out who it is. And who does he find sitting in the box? None other than the ghostly figure of Kathy herself. 

Stabler is transfixed by this vision, and as the episode fades to black, we see Stabler finally come to terms with what he's been running from all episode. Stabler misses Kathy, and no matter how much he distracts himself from work, it's hard not having her there. Stabler's steel-tight walls are finally starting to tumble down, and fans can't wait to see what Kathy's shocking pop-in will mean for him moving forward. 

Law & Order: OC’ unleashed a twist we didn’t see coming. What does it mean for Benson and Stabler?

Today Show; May 5, 2023

It’s not often a loyal fan base, especially one as observant as the “Law & Order” contingent, is caught completely off guard by a twist, but that’s exactly what happened on “Organized Crime.”

At the beginning of the May 4 episode, “Pareto Principle,” a name appeared on screen during the guest star credits that viewers haven’t seen in years: Isabel Gillies.

Gillies portrayed the longtime wife of Detective Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni), Kathy Stabler, until Kathy died during Stabler’s return to the “Law & Order” universe in 2021 after a 10-year absence. She died after succumbing to injuries sustained in a car bomb explosion in the “SVU” episode “Return of the Prodigal Son.” The episode rolled into the series premiere of Stabler’s spinoff, “Law & Order: Organized Crime.”

Fans had to sit through basically the entire May 4 episode until they learned how Kathy would return. In the final scenes, Stabler sees movement out of the corner of his eye in the squad room and thinks it could be one of his co-workers. He calls out and walks down the hall toward an interrogation room. When he gets to the doorway, he sees Kathy sitting at the table wearing a hospital gown staring straight ahead. Then she turns and looks at him — and even appears to flash a brief smile before returning to a more serious stare.

“Kathy Stabler” started trending on Twitter, and fans were divided over Kathy’s surprise return.

“kathy stabler really showed up on our tv last night … that was not on my organized crime s3 bingo card,” one fan tweeted.

“kathy stabler (2023),” someone else shared, along with a photo of Taylor Swift as a zombie from her “Look What You Made Me Do” music video.

“I am so perplexed. And I miss Kathy Stabler and Isabel Gillies,” another person tweeted.

“if it takes isabel gillies guest starring as kathy stabler’s ghost to have elliot and olivia kiss this season i’ll take it,” one fan posted, speaking on behalf of the fan base who want a romantic relationship between Stabler and his longtime partner over at “SVU,” Capt. Olivia Benson, who’s been portrayed by Mariska Hargitay since 1999.

Meloni even responded to one person who tweeted a photo of Kathy at the interrogation table and asked for an explanation.

“You tell me,” he responded.

Another fan replied to his tweet, attributing Stabler seeing Kathy to his PTSD, among other things. In the episode, Stabler grapples with his mom’s (Ellen Burstyn) declining health on top of a case about a murdered woman who was also a widow. When he returns home one night, Stabler sees his mom, Bernie, cooking dinner. Instead of setting the table with two plates, Bernie says she put three plates out because one is for Kathy, before she remembers that Kathy's no longer with them.

"I just can’t believe I could forget about Kathy," Bernie says to her son.

"The way I look at it, she’s already here with us. So whether you put out an extra plate or not it doesn’t matter," Stabler responds in what turns out to be a moment of foreshadowing.

Combine those things with Stabler witnessing a vehicle explosion in last week’s episode.

“El’s beyond tired, scared to know he may be losing his mom slowly (please no! I love Jr Detective Bernie!) and he’s battling his ptsd. All stressors converging to bring her forward as a hallucination. (And what was Isabel’s reaction to having to be in a hospital gown again? 😂),” the fan tweeted at Meloni.

“You….you….creative spirit!” Meloni responded. “every one else…gets an F for lazy.”

As for if we’ll see the scene with Kathy continue on next week’s “Organized Crime,” that remains to be seen. Something that fans have seen recently, however, is Stabler wearing what appears to be a wedding band on his left hand again during recent photos from filming.

In the May 4 "OC" episode, one of the perps asks Stabler if he's married or single since he notices Stabler doesn't have a ring on. Stabler tells the man his wife passed away, to which the guy responds, "Regret and guilt are like slow poisons."

Maybe the ring has nothing to do with Kathy at all, but fans will soon find out in the remaining episodes of “Organized Crime” and “SVU,” which Meloni will also guest-star on next week before a three-episode crossover finale begins in the following “OC” episode into the May 18 season finales.

The promo for the May 11 episode of “SVU” shows Benson and Stabler reuniting on the steps of the New York Public Library.

“It’s good to see you, partner,” a grinning Stabler says to Benson.

The last time viewers saw these two together was back in January when they shared their closest scene yet in Benson’s kitchen, where Benson and Stabler nearly kissed and a scared Benson pulled away after telling Stabler she “wants to” but fears what would happen if they don’t work out. Stabler, to his credit, responded: “And what if things work out?” Before that moment, Stabler had picked up Benson’s son and brought him home after a gang — BX9 — greenlit a hit on Benson and her son.

That same gang was referenced as part of the case in this week’s “Organized Crime” episode, and in a promo for next week, we see Stabler appearing to rough up the gang’s leader who previously crossed paths with Benson: Oscar Papa. On top of all of that, beloved “SVU” character Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) will be reprising her role for the final episodes of the seasons for both shows. Stabler has previously crossed paths with Rollins, who’s now a professor, at work and appears to seek her out for help with the case. Rollins also is fully aware of the complicated feelings between her pal and former boss, Benson, and Stabler.

In February, Hargitay teased what’s to come for Benson and Stabler during a chat with TODAY.com using one of her favorite methods: hashtags.

“#ItContinuesToGoDeeper,” she said. “#ItsGonnaTakeAMinute. But #ThingsMayNotLookLike … #ThingsMayNotAppearAsTheyLook.”

As if those weren’t enough to get our heads spinning, she threw in a few more: “#ThingsMayBeCloserThanTheyAppear. #NeverGiveUp. #LoveWins. #TheLoveIsReal.”