Stabler came home
"In the nation's largest city, the vicious and violent members of the underworld are hunted by the detectives of the Organized Crime Control Bureau. These are their stories."
CHUNG CHUNG!
The seventh spin-off of the Law & Order franchise which premiered on April 1, 2021. Like the original, the show features detectives investigating crimes and attorneys prosecuting the offenders. Changes in scene are marked by black screens stating the place and date, as well as the franchise's trademark "chung chung" noise. However, Organized Crime focuses more on the detectives and less on the attorneys, whereas the original show usually shifts from the investigation to the prosecution at the halfway point.
After losing his wife in a failed assassination attempt, Elliot Stabler (reprised by Christopher Meloni) comes out of retirement and returns to NYPD to lead a task force against organized crime and mob-related syndicates.
Aside from Meloni returning as Stabler, the cast includes Danielle Moné Truitt, Tamara Taylor, Ainsley Seiger, and Dylan McDermott.
The show has been renewed for another season, comprising 24 episodes.
Tropes:
- Action Girl: Most of the female characters are cops or criminals, so naturally they are mostly quite capable. In one episode, Stabler has a hit put out against him with the assassin turning out to be a woman who's a former soldier, nearly taking him down in spite of his greater size and strength via her martial art skills.
- Antagonist Title: Organized Crime refers to the crime syndicates the main characters are after.
- Big Bad: Richard Wheatley is shaping up to be this for at least the first season. He in fact comes back in the role briefly in Season 2 as well.
- Black and Nerdy: Angela Wheatley is a black woman and a math professor.
- Broken Pedestal: Stabler looks up to his late father, who'd been in the NYPD too, although they didn't see entirely eye to eye on how police should operate. He speaks proudly of the fact that his father had once been awarded for Taking the Bullet to save his partner. Donnelly, a dirty cop who runs a gang of other corrupt cops like him, later tells him that his father had in fact covered up his partner's mistaken killing of an unarmed suspect, shooting himself to make it look like self-defense. Stabler is visibly shaken and disturbed by this revelation. It gets worse when he learns his father was corrupt in general, and abused his mother too.
- The Bus Came Back: Stabler and his children return to the Law & Order franchise after a decade.
- Character Development: The years away from Special Victims have been good to Elliot, who's now much less judgmental note and, to a very large extent, much calmer, his post-traumatic stress disorder notwithstanding.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
- Dana Wheatley never re-emerges from hiding after the apparent death of her father and the unambiguous deaths of both her mother and brother. In fact, she's never brought up again after that at all.
- Adam "Malachi" Mintock's last appearance was at the end of Season 2 when he went to the ceremony—in which Stabler was honored—as Jet's date. He's not shown up or been mentioned since. It's briefly hinted in one scene in Season 3 by Jet that her relationship with Malachi didn't work out, but nothing since then.
- Closet Gay: Albi Briscu closely guards knowledge of his homosexuality to the point of murdering one of his own lovers.
- Continuity Creep: It's much less episodic than previous Law and Order series, with season 1 focusing on Stabler going after a crime boss who also was responsible for his wife’s death. The following seasons see the series focus on multiple story arcs that focus on different criminals, with these arcs barely crossing over with each other.
- Crusading Widow: Part of Elliot's motivation to stay in New York as part of the Organized Crime Bureau is to take down the bastard who killed Kathy, his wife.
- Dirty Cop:
- Detective 2nd Grade Diego Morales is Richard's mole in the OCCB, giving him more than 2 million dollars to ensure the well being of his sister. Ayanna is forced to shoot him as he tried to aim his sidearm at her.
- In Season 2, it's discovered a whole police gang is operating from the 37th precinct, run by an old friend of Stabler's. They not only give tipoffs for the Marcy Killers, a major Black gang in the city, but steal drug money from crime scenes widely. Stabler goes undercover to join them and take the gang down. They even all have tattoos like regular gang members. It's called the Brotherhood. This trope is more zig-zagged though, in that their leader Frank Donnelly and his ring don't target more obvious innocents in their illegal gains (only other gangs), and Donnelly does still think that the best part of the job is protecting people at the end of the day.
- Stabler finds out his father, a cop like him, was also dirty over time.
- Downer Beginning: The entire show begins following the fallout of Kathy Stabler's death.
- Emo Teen: Justified, given that Eli is absolutely devastated by his mom's death and is withdrawn and snarky as a result.
- Evil Power Vacuum: The events of the first season severely weaken the Italian Mafia in New York City and their allies. In season two, the Marcy Killers (a Black gang) and KO (Albanian) decide to ally so they can exploit this weakness and take over major rackets in the city.
- Fake Identity Baggage: In season 2, Stabler uses the identity of a dead crook named Eddie Wagner in order to infiltrate the Albanian Mob. His cover is threatened when Wagner's 19-year-old son unexpectedly shows up.
- From Camouflage to Criminal:
- Stabler is nearly killed by a hit woman who's a former soldier.
- In season 4 Stabler finds out a Marine veteran is leading other veterans he's recruited into drug trafficking. He infiltrates the group going undercover to stop the operation.
- Gayngster:
- Nova is a Black gangster who's also a lesbian. It turns out this is fake though: she's an undercover cop.
- Albanian gangster Albi turns out to visit gay clubs, and is deeply closeted since he comes from a homophobic culture. He nearly kills Elliot (who discovers this) in fear of being outed to his gang.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Benson and Malachai occasionally join the OCCB for cases. In Season 2, Velasco and Rollins also pop in at various points.
- Hammy Villain, Serious Hero: Detective Eliot Stabler is stern and gruff in contrast to the extroverted and theatrical mob boss Richard Wheatley.
- Hollywood Law: In real life, the NYPD disbanded the Organized Crime Control Bureau in 2016. The detectives of OCCB now report to the office of the Chief of Detectives. Somewhat Lampshaded as while the intro states they work for the OCCB, its never mentioned as that in the script, instead identified as a dedicated Task Force within Intelligence.
- It's All About Me: Ayana's wife, Denise, is very annoyed with Ayana prioritizing her job as a cop over her duties as a wife and mother. While normally this would be sympathetic, it becomes abundantly clear that Denise is more upset at Ayana's alleged neglecting of her rather than their family. When Denise gets offered a job by the task force's current assignment, Leon Kilbride, Ayana tries warning her about taking the job, but Denise is more upset about Ayana not supporting her dream than the fact said offer is coming from a man heavily tied to the Marcy Killers that had already tried getting Ayana into his pocket. It's only after Ayana arrests Kilbride that Denise files for divorce, and despite her claims to contrary, it's heavily obvious Denise is divorcing Ayana and suing for custody of their son solely to punish Ayana for arresting Kilbride.
- Love Confession: Stabler to Benson.
- The Mafia: The fictional Sinatra crime family is set up as a recurring antagonist to the Organized Crime Control Bureau, which isn't surprising in New York City.
- Maligned Mixed Marriage: Manfredi Sinatra never liked his son's marriage with a Black woman, which Richard holds a violent grudge about even after they divorce.
- The Not-Remix: The famous Mike Post theme song gets a heavier and more dramatic sounding remix for this show. There is even a small bar of the SVU theme mixed in.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: For Stabler, it's revealed that his reputation for hotheadedness has been following him during the years he was gone, and its the first thing the higher ups in law enforcement are worried about when he returns, especially because of the current stigma police have to deal with in terms of trust with their communities. Stabler is very annoyed by this.
- Office Romance: In Season 4 it's revealed that Jet and Reyes slept together between seasons when he visits her apartment, with them again having sex offscreen. Jet's not happy with the situation though, as Reyes is still married (though apparently separated from his wife).
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Manfredi Sinatra, who is first seen referring to Black Lives Matter protesters as "mentally deficient" and "thugs". He also doesn't approve of his son having married a Black woman and had children with her (although they later divorced). Still, Manfredi insists he loves his grandchildren despite this (cognitive dissonance, presumably).
- Racist Grandpa: Manfredi Sinatra is an elderly mob boss who openly disparages Black people, and is highly uncomfortable with the fact that his son's married to a Black woman, while his grandchildren are mixed race. He later apologizes and declares his love for them nonetheless, but it's the one thing his son can't forgive him for and it leads to Richard murdering him.
- Secret-Keeper: Elliot is almost killed by Albi Briscu when he discovers that Albi is Closet Gay. However, he then convinces Albi that he would be the perfect keeper of Albi's secret. Elliot's undercover identity is an outsider in the Albanian gang and no one would take his word over Albi's. Since Elliot's well being depends on Albi vouching for him, Elliot would have a strong incentive to keep Albi in a position of power. Albi spares Elliot's life and Elliot quickly proves his worth by covering for the fact that Albi went to a gay night club. A grateful Albi then brings Elliot closer to the gang's inner circle.
- Smokescreen Crime: The episodes "Deliver Us From Evil" and "End of Innocence" deal with the vandalization and bombing of a local mosque in what appears to simply be a hate crime. However, the detectives investigate further and discover that the mosque's refugee charity was being used as a cover for a smuggling operation. The bombing of the mosque was to obscure the assassination of the imam to prevent the operation from being exposed.
- The Syndicate: Season Two shifts focus from The Mafia to the Kosta Organazation (consisting of Albanian-Americans), and the Marcy Killers (a Black group). The Italian families are in disarray after Richard Wheatley's arrest, and they move into the void to become the preeminent criminal outfits, initially at odds but then allying.
- Tattooed Crook: Unusually, a gang of dirty cops all have these, from a police code used as a call sign for them. Stabler gets it while infiltrating them.
- Team Title: Organized Crime refers to the Organized Crime Bureau in which Stabler is now a member of.
- Transplant: Original Law & Order: Special Victims Unit cast member Christopher Meloni returns to headline this show.
- Twofer Token Minority:
- Ayanna Bell is a threefer; as she points out, since she's black, gay, and a woman. She notes to Stabler that due to his Cowboy Cop tendencies making him a pariah and her own minority statuses in the straight white male hierarchies of the NYPD, the two of them are alike in how they've had to, at different points, avoid stepping out of line.
- In Season 2 we get a second Black lesbian, Nova, who's a gayngster. Or at least so it seems until we learn she's an undercover cop.
- Season 3 introduces another in Isabelle Chang, who's a Chinese-American woman and a lesbian as well (she mentions an ex wife). Her and Bell become close friends.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Preston Webb is the leader of the Marcy Killers, a powerful Black gang, but is publicly an upstanding successful and legitimate businessman. His mentor, Representative Leon Kilbride, serves as another example, knowing the real business Webb does and also being personally corrupt in other ways, like ordering a construction project be dragged out as long as possible for milking the funding.
- Waistcoat of Style: Stabler has started wearing a waistcoat in the Organized Crime Bureau, something he never wore during his SVU days.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: After Angela tells her she's literally gotta disappear for a while, Dana is never seen or heard from again—even after Richie's killed and Angela drives off the cliff and kills herself and apparently Wheatley in the process.
