Law and Order: Organized Crime: "Off the Books" (Dick Wolf Entertainment, Universal Television, NBC-TV, streamed June 5, 2025; aired November 13, 2025)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2025 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Like most of the Law and Order: Organized Crime episodes I’ve seen over the five years the show has been on (has it really been that long already?), this one, “Off the Books,” wasn’t as good as the Law and Order and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit shows that preceded it. It was mainly a contest between Elliott Stabler (Christopher Meloni, older and more grizzled than he was in his SVU days but still a hot, sexy hunk of man-meat) and the series’ latest super-villain, British-born psychopath Julian Emery (Tom Payne – my husband Charles wondered if Jonathan Rhys Meyers was playing him, but he wasn’t), over the loyalty of Stabler’s recovering drug-addict brother Joey (Michael Trotter). One of the annoyances of Law and Order: Organized Crime is that the writers have invented a whole slew of Stablers that weren’t in evidence when he was on SVU; they already dragged in Ellen Burstyn to play his mother in Meloni’s last SVU years, but now they’ve given him at least two brothers, Joey and Randall (Dean Norris). Emery has promised Joey untold riches from a mega-deal he’s doing with a Syrian drug cartel, while Elliott is counting on Joey to explain when and where the deal is going down so he and a police squad can bust it.

Though he’s understandably proud of the fact that he’s no longer doing drugs (at least we think he’s no longer doing drugs; maybe he’s lying, but the fact that he says that not only to Elliott but to Emery makes it at least a bit more believable), he’s totally on board with Emery. He gives two false tips to Elliott about when and where the drug deal is happening, and the first time Elliott is fooled. The second time Elliott gives Joey a St. Christopher’s medal, and sure enough, the medal contains a tracker so Elliott and the other cops can find out exactly where the deal is taking place so they can raid it. Ultimately the cops break up the drug deal, but Joey is fatally shot and both Elliott and Randall have moments of tears and real emotional vulnerability over his loss. (One has rarely seen this kind of vulnerability from Christopher Meloni, so it’s nice to see him get the chance to show some of his range as an actor.) The show ends with Elliott and his frenemy Tim McKenna (Jason Patric), a police officer willing to push the rules of law much farther than Elliott ever did in his heyday, literally kidnapping one of Emery’s associates, locking him in the trunk of a car, driving off with him and threatening unspecified tortures if he doesn’t give them information about where Emery might be hiding. It was an O.K. Organized Crime but I didn’t like the killing off of Joey just when he’s starting to get interesting as a character, nor did I like to see Elliott Stabler, who in his SVU days was willing to bend the law at times but not outright break it, suddenly turn, if not outright corrupt, at least mezzo-corrupt.