Law & Order: Organized Crime Flashes Back To Stabler's Time In Italy, Complete With Appearance By [Spoiler] — Read Recap
If you've ever wanted to watch Det. Elliot Stabler speak Italian while sporting his circa 2019 hair, boy, is this week's Law & Order: Organized Crime for you.
Stabler has barely healed from his near-fatal T-boning when he gets pulled into a case involving a Mafia-like organization. Put on the water for some pasta and uncork a nice chianti, because we're taking a peek at his sojourn in Italy — complete with a cameo by a very-much-alive-then Kathy.
Read on for the highlights of "Paranza dei Bambini."
CHANGE OF PLANS | Los Santos kingpin Carlo Pescador is about to appear before the grand jury when Carisi calls Stabler. "Get down here," he says, irked, "Bryanna Pescador just recanted her statement." Since Carlo's sister is the main witness against him, Stabler suspects that Carlo had someone intimidate her into walking her story back. But he can't prove it. And when Carlo summons Stabler to the cell where he's being held, he seems to be telling the truth: Whoever is messing with his sister, he says, is working for "a new player in town, and they don't play by no rules." He warns Stabler that if he doesn't fix things, he's going to have a new drug war on his hands. Later, even though Carisi pleads with the judge for time to pivot, Pescador's case is dismissed for lack of evidence.
Carlo is hugging his lawyer and preparing to walk out of court a free man when the bailiff (!) steps forward and shoots him in the chest a few times, killing him. Stabler and Bell pull their weapons and run after the bailiff, cornering him in the hallway. Stabler repeatedly orders him to drop his gun. "I can't!" the man yells; Stabler shoots him. After Bell takes Stabler's gun — per protocol — they find a Catholic prayer card in the officer's pocket. Several of the words on the back have letters circled in red.
THE ITALY YEARS | The card causes Stabler to flash back to Naples, Italy, six years before, when he arrested a woman named Isabella Spezzano (played by Blindspot's Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) for stabbing her husband to death. Isabella is resistant to Stabler's interrogation at first; she mocks his Italian and won't say anything about being part of one of the area's largest crime families.
Stabler FaceTimes with Kathy (hi, Isabel Gillies!) because he's going to miss dinner. She understands, and the cozy conversation that follows gives us a window into their relationship at the time. As we've been told before, the Stablers do seem to be doing much better as a couple than they were when he left the Special Victims Unit. They blow kisses. She suggests he ply Isabella with a good meal. He sprinkles in some Italian terms of endearment. (Meanwhile — and just for context! — this was Benson's post-William Lewis, roughly Rob Miller era.)
When Stabler brings Isabella some of Kathy's spaghetti, she's impressed. She winds up talking about her grandchildren, whom she loves very much and for whom she is very worried. Stabler floats the idea of Isabella's taking a deal and helping to bring down the Spezzano syndicate so she can be reunited with the kids. She wants a horse farm in exchange, which he can't make happen, but he can promise her freedom in America. She takes the deal.
OLD FRIENDS, NEW TERRITORY | In the present, the New York Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau clears Stabler in record time; Bell gives him back his gun and badge, and he returns to work just as Reyes is reporting that the man Stabler shot killed the bailiff and stole his uniform and ID to sneak into court. They're not sure exactly who wanted Pescador dead, but Stabler has seen the prayer card before, in Italy: It's a code that a Naples-based, Mafia-like organization called the Camorra uses to deliver messages to their foot soldiers. And the case gets bigger when Bryanna tells the Organized Crime Control Bureau that her brothers — also involved in Los Santos — were just killed via car bomb in the Dominican Republic.
Stabler goes to see Isabella, who is doing well for herself with a big estate and a thriving horse farm, which is "all legal," she reassures him after greeting him warmly. After pleasantries — which involve her condolences about Kathy — he shows her the prayer card. "Is the Camorra here?" he asks. She says she doesn't know and definitely isn't involved in anything unsavory, but she agrees to help him decode the prayer card.
Meanwhile, Bryanna Pescador is killed by a gunman on a motorcycle while walking down the street with her teenage daughter.
THE NEW PLAYER UNMASKED | When the team gets a lead on who the new shooter might be, Stabler and Reyes go to visit the suspect's grandmother. On the way, Reyes tells Stabler that he and Jet — who's still not back at work after the trucker case — broke up a few weeks back, and that he's worried about her. Stabler's worried, too.
The visit to the grandmother goes bad when the shooter, who's a teen like the fake bailiff was, runs to the roof and jumps to his death rather than surrender to the police. It turns out that both boys were working for the Camorra, which demands absolute loyalty or severe consequences. Stabler and Reyes find another prayer card in the second boy's bedroom and surmises that the Camorra is now recruiting in the United States.
Over at Isabella's, she confesses to her now-adult grandson, Roman, that the Camorra are now in America and will come for her for giving up her brother, Rocco. He assures her they can't touch her. So she goes back to decoding and soon confirms to Stabler that the cards were instructions for taking out Bryanna and Carlo Pescador. The Camorra paid Bryanna to recant so Carlo would get released/be easier to kill, then had her offed to tie up a loose end.
And when OCB follows the money, they realize that it's tied to a shell company that also is connected to a new brewery in Long Island City... run by Roman — who apparently is far more connected to the family business than anyone, including Isabella, realized.
JET JETS | OK, back to Jet. What's going on there? Bell visits the hacker at her apartment and realizes that the serial-killer trucker case is still haunting her; she's built an enhanced database specific to finding victims and has identified more than 100. Ayanna knows that the FBI offered Jet a full-time job. "I turned it down," she says quickly, but Bell reassures her that if she did want to move on from the OCB, it would be OK. After all, Stabler asked for a favor, "and you gave us four years," the sergeant says. "Do what you gotta do."
Later, Bell tells Stabler that Jet is going to take a leave of undetermined length because "she's on her own journey." And he's the only one at the office when Jet swings by to get her stuff. He hugs her and tells her he's going to miss her. Then he says he'll drive her to the bar where the gang is waiting to bid her farewell — in part because he wants to make sure she shows up. (But is she gone for good?)
EVERYONE DOWN! | There's not too much Stabler family drama in this episode... until the very last moments. Elliot and Eli clash a little, first when the old man chides his son for not giving Becky a proper goodbye in the morning, second when El's questioning of Eli's field training officer results in Eli getting lightly hazed by his peers.
There's more friction, this time between Randall and Elliot, when Randall and Bell collude to get El to a checkup MRI. Elliot doesn't like that his brother is planning nanny. Randall doesn't like that his brother is treating a traumatic brain injury so lightly. They also discuss that Bernie keeps mentioning that Joey is calling. Randall continues to dismiss it until later in the hour, when he's making Bernie's bed and sees that she's getting a call from a restricted number on her cell. He picks up. "Joey?" he asks. The line goes dead.
Much later, Elliot returns home from Jet's party at the same time that Eli and Becky get back to the apartment. Suddenly, El realizes that a motorcycle is rapidly approaching, and he screams for everyone to get down just before a shooter unleashes on the trio and the episode goes to black.
Now it's your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments!