This article contains spoilers Season 5 Episodes 1 and 2 of “Law & Order: Organized Crime.”
Christopher Meloni returned as Elliot Stabler in a two-part “Law & Order: Organized Crime” episode that he wrote himself, one that included a visit from his former “SVU” partner Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay).
“I wanted to write it, because I think I write the Benson/Stabler dynamic well,” the actor told TheWrap before Thursday night’s Season 5 premiere. “Maybe that’s hubris, but that’s how I feel,” he said with a grin.
The two characters, who were first introduced in 1999, have been dancing around each other in one of the longest “will they or won’t they” for would-be TV couples.
(Olivia Benson) Mariska Hargitay at Stabler’s (Christopher Meloni) bedside in Season 5 of “Law & Order: Organized Crime” (CREDIT: NBC)
The two-parter finds Stabler in the hospital with a concussion after trying to save a young girl from a sex trafficking ring. The set-up lets his family and loved ones, including Benson, pour their hearts out to him while he’s in a coma.
“It was a way to potentially skirt the same old, same old, which is when they get together: Will they? Won’t they?” said Meloni. “We’re separated by me being infirm, a little bit damaged and in a coma for a while, and her on the other side. So there is a barrier between us.”
Meloni included a cheeky nod to viewers who ship the former police partners: When he regains consciousness and wants to get back on the case, Benson reluctantly agrees to accompany him. He asks for a bit of privacy as he changes from his hospital gown to his street clothes, telling her, “Or you can just stand there and watch me get naked.”
“I’ll give you that one,” he conceded. “I wrote [that line] and was like, ‘Oh, that’s classic Stabler,’ but I also understood the other purpose it served.”
In one of the coma dream sequences in the episode, he’s following a uniformed policeman from another era. In another, Benson walks away from Stabler while he’s still in his hospital bed. When he comes to, he tells his mother he was dreaming about “things he’d lost.”
Now that the show has moved from NBC to Peacock+, Meloni said that streaming gives the series a little more leeway for more graphic language and violence. “Yes, all of the above,” he laughed about what’s now permitted on the show when asked if he can now drop the odd F-bomb. Stabler’s always been quick with his fists, but in the two-parter, he also swings a mean baseball bat on a suspected trafficker.
“I felt that everyone was trying to find their cinematic rhythm with what’s allowed,” said Meloni. “I wouldn’t say we’re reinventing the show, but it’s a slightly different animal.”
The actor also teased the rest of the season as “the evolution of Stabler.” He explained, “There’s a nice two- or three-parter that is very challenging for Stabler’s moral compass, like, how far is he willing to go in order to get what he needs or exact revenge?”
New episodes of “Law & Order: Organized Crime” premiere on Peacock+ on Thursdays.
The post ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’ Star Christopher Meloni Scripted That Season 5 Opener: ‘I Think I Write the Benson/Stabler Dynamic Well’ appeared first on TheWrap.
