Law & Order: Organized Crime Recap: Why Is Stabler Purring? And Other Episode 6 Thoughts
There are a few things I don't understand about this week's Law & Order: Organized Crime. Please understand: That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the episode, which is titled "Red, White, Black and Blue." I did! But in case you, too, finished the hour unclear on a couple of points, I thought we could hash them out here together. Sound good?
Read on for the highlights of — and questions created by — Episode 6.
HEY OLD FRIEND, ARE YOU OK, OLD FRIEND? | The hour's central story focuses on a drug kingpin named Miguel Olivas, a bigshot in the Sinaloa cartel. Olivas is in prison but refusing to talk, so law enforcement officers kidnap his girlfriend, Lucia, and use her as leverage to get him to sing. A condition of his "queen for a day" agreement to cooperate finds him talking with Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Anne Frasier, whom you'll remember from Seasons 1 and 2. Det. Tommy DaSilva and some other detectives are on the scene, too, and they're worried when a car keeps circling the hotel where Frasier is recording Olivas' testimony.
Long, bloody story short? Olivas' men are in the car, and they take out all of the detective who aren't DaSilva. DaSilva tells Frasier to hide, then she hears him arguing with Olivas before a gun goes off twice: Olivas killed the cop, then he beats Frasier into an unrecognizable mess, killing her before he flees. Her phone's recording app, which she started to capture his testimony, audio-records the whole thing.
When Bell calls, Stabler is working out in a boxing gym that doesn't have any lights on.
Question 1: Why? As someone who routinely takes cycling classes in overly humid, dimly lit rooms, I can get into this. Is it the norm for those who like to float like a butterfly yet also sting like a bee? Please educate me in the comments.
Anyway, Elliot picks up Reyes, who's been busting drug houses run by a cartel out of El Salvador, and they go to the scene of Olivas' latest crime.
Stabler is hit kinda hard by the news of Frasier's death, but he's even more upset by the murder of Det. DaSilva. Turns out that Stabler, DaSilva and Det. Tim McKenna (played by Jason Patric, Wayward Pines, Speed 2: Cruise Control) were all on an anti-crime task force early in their careers. McKenna is on scene, and Stabler greets him with a bro hug before they head into a briefing.
Question 2: How does Isabella Spezzano figure into this, you might wonder? She doesn't. There is literally no mention of the woman who just last episode killed someone, then faked her own death, then disappeared into the wind. That's weird, right?
ANY MEANS NECESSARY? | During the briefing, we learn that Olivas is a really bad guy suspected of being responsible for 50 people, many of them women and children. McKenna has been trying to bring him in for years, and the detective is visibly the worse for wear because of it. Though McKenna is a walking red flag, the New York Police Department's Chief of Detectives (aka a Big Boss) doesn't seem to care: He just wants Olivas brought in, and if McKenna and Stabler have to get a little rough in the process, so be it. "It's time we get to be the heroes in the story again," he says to Stabler, all but winking in the process of giving Stabler tacit approval to crack skulls.
Reyes questions Lucia, who claims not to know anything. She also tells him that a cop was responsible for burning Miguel's wife and daughter alive, news that unsettles Reyes. Meanwhile, as Stabler and DaSilva talk to Tommy's wife, Stabler gets teary as he remembers how Tommy saved him from falling off a high fire escape during pursuit of a suspect one Christmas Eve. But when McKenna's questions to the widow get more pointed, she gets angry and throws both men out.
Outside, Stabler wonders how McKenna could question their old friend's integrity. But McKenna points out that DaSilva's house is far too nice to have been bought on a cop's salary alone. More worryingly: In Frasier's recording, it sounds like DaSilva told Olivas "You made it worse for the both of us." He thinks DaSilva was on Olivas' payroll, and Stabler starts to think so, too.
Question 3: Anyone else notice how Stabler and McKenna are giving gravel-voice this whole episode? The hushed, deep tones in which they conduct the conversation outside DaSilva's place continue throughout the hour. Does Stabler usually purr this much? Is it the equivalent of when dudes in souped-up cars rev their engines for each other's benefit? Eh, whatever. Not mad about it.
SHOTS FIRED | McKenna ups the pressure on Lucia by having law enforcement officers in Mexico kidnap her son and her parents. Reyes doesn't love the intimidation play, and he's even more concerned when Lucia blurts out that McKenna was the police officer who had Olivas' wife and child killed. But the scare tactic works: Lucia eventually confesses her boyfriend's exit plan, and Stabler and McKenna lead a huge group of cops as they descend upon Grand Central Terminal.
They eventually find Olivas on a subway platform attached to the train station, and when McKenna shouts his name, Olivas starts firing into the crowd. Stabler and McKenna fire back, which seems terribly reckless given how many panicked members of the public are in the immediate (and tight!) area; the only one who gets clipped is Olivas. He still manages to get away.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MCKENNA | Bell finds out that the DEA has sealed McKenna's file. That intel, plus his increasingly erratic behavior, causes her to tell Stabler she can't have his pal on the investigation. Stabler stops by McKenna's apartment to talk to him and finds him drunk and obsessing about every choices he's made in his life up to this point. Stabler asks him, point-blank, if what Lucia said about McKenna's involvement in Olivas' family's murders was true. He admits that he "fed Olivas' guy some information" that resulted in the killings. "I f—king hate everything he's done, but I hate myself more for everything I did," he says.
As someone who has done plenty of job-related stupid/borderline/harmful himself, Stabler can relate. But he gets McKenna to pull himself together long enough to brainstorm about where Olivas may be hiding. McKenna says he's probably at a stash house, which makes Stabler think about the stash house that Reyes was looking into. The younger cop had a hunch that the place was being protected by someone inside NYPD, and after Stabler visits DaSilva's wife again and she admits he'd been working for the cartel, it starts to look like DaSilva was the one tipping off the drug organization anytime Reyes got close. So, off a tip from one of Reyes' informants, he and Stabler go in. The stash house winds up having a hidden tunnel that leads to another house and that's where Stabler finds Olivas, bleeding copiously in a bathtub and looking very close to death.
Question 4: Why wouldn't Stabler and Reyes at least call it in before they entered the house? The way Stabler tells Reyes they're going in solo makes it seem illicit somehow. But this is solid intel that they've investigated out, and Olivas is a very dangerous dude. Strength in numbers, my guys!
LEARNING AND GROWING | Later, back at the office, the Chief of Detectives commends Stabler and admits he didn't expect him to bring the suspect in "breathing." This doesn't sit great with Elliot. "What you said earlier about me being comfortable with violence? Maybe I am," he tells his superior. "But lately, it's what comes after that doesn't feel right."
Question 5: Is Stabler more forthcoming with this NYPD stuffed shirt than he has been with almost any other therapist aside from Dr. Rebecca Hendrix in Season 7?
Stabler finds McKenna hanging around outside, (correctly) assuming that Bell doesn't want him anywhere near her team. Olivas is in intensive care but likely to survive, and Stabler suggests that McKenna go talk to him. "I think it might do you some good, maybe help put this all to rest," he says gently. But McKenna disagrees, saying he's good. (Side note: He is NOT.) And I have to give El some credit here: It appears that he REALIZES he's staring into the abyss of a cautionary tale, and he is slowly, gingerly yet surely stepping back to distance himself from it.
Later, Elliot calls Eli to check in. "Everything's gonna be OK," he reassures his son, giving us the only thread that connects this story to the previous week's. "I love you."
Now it's your turn. Did you have any questions about this episode? Let us know in the comments!