Law and Order: Organized Crime: "Stabler's Lament" (Dick Wolf Entertainment, Universal Television, NBC-TV, aired May 16, 2024)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2024 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

The final show in the Law and Order run from May 16 was an Organized Crime episode that more or less wrapped up the story arc from the last few episodes – I say “more or less” because the principal villain, Julian Emery (Tom Payne), not only escapes relatively unscathed in his private jet at the end, he has Detective Elliot Stabler’s (Christopher Meloni) scapegrace brother Joe, Jr. (Michael Trotter) with him on the plane. Much of the episode is taken up with the Stablers’ family issues: mom Bernadette (Ellen Burstyn) is suffering from age-related dementia; Elliott’s older brother Randall (Dean Norris) is lurking around the action and we’ve got the impression he’s led a seamy if not openly and blatantly criminal existence; younger brother Joe, Jr. has been working for Emery for four years since he washed out as a Marine in Afghanistan; and Elliott’s son Eli (Nicky Torchia), who’s considerably younger than his other four kids because he was the product of a mercy fuck his wife Kathy (Isobel Gillies) gave him during their extended separation while Christopher Meloni was still on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, has impregnated his African-American girlfriend Becky (Kiaya Scott) and has decided to enter the New York Police Academy. At this plot twist I joked, “What is this – Law and Order: Blue Bloods?,” referencing the CBS-TV series in which the entire New York Police Department seems to be made up of the Reagan family (though they pronounce the last name “REE-gun” instead of the “RAY-gun” pronunciation the late Right-wing Republican President used).

They’re supposed to be having a family get-together (another link to Blue Bloods, whose writers routinely use the Reagan clan’s regular Sunday dinners to give us plot exposition), and towards the end Elliott announces that he’ll have to leave early because he’s got a break in his current case. Eli expresses his discontent at his dad’s disappearance, and Elliott says, “You want to be a cop so bad? This is what happens.” The big break is the impending arrival of a whole series of weapons and other merchandise which Julian Emery is auctioning off to the highest bidder, and midway through the process Emery figures out that his security has been compromised and executes the leaker via a poison chemical developed by scientists in the old Soviet Union and routinely used by the current Russian government (headed by Donald Trump’s dear friend, Vladimir Putin) to eliminate its real or perceived enemies around the world. There are supposedly six grenades of this stuff but there are actually 12, and in the show’s last scene Emery handcuffs Joe Stabler, Jr. to the last case of six because he’s just promoted Joe to be his lieutenant replacing the one he just murdered. Joe, Jr. is also in charge of looking after Emery’s 10-year-old son Giles (Grayson Margolis) – and kudos to writer John Shiban for giving Julian Emery a real, sympathetic human emotion so he becomes more complex instead of just a ruthless, unlikable villain – and when Julian changes the drop point for his deadly cargoes at the last minute Joe, Jr. uses Giles’s video game console to alert the police at the Organized Crime Control Bureau of the switch in plans. The cops raid the new location and seize most of the stuff, though there are still those six troublesome poison-gas grenades out there on Emery’s plane and Joe Stabler, Jr. is still handcuffed to them. One wonders where Dick Wolf, his show runners and his writers will take this fascinating but also maddening plot line when the show resumes come September!