Law & Order: Organized Crime got dark in a new way this week.
Just after promising to turn in his badge if he couldn’t bring down Wheatley, Stabler was on a dangerous hunt for Constantine while the personal battle between the two foes got even hotter in, As Hubris Is To Oedipus.
A dark meeting is held
Stabler and Bell were brought before Governor Garcia, who finally realized Wheatley had been playing him for a fool and ordered his arrest. However, he wasn’t going so far as to issue a public statement supporting Stabler.
A woman was walking down the street when a car brought her to a hotel where McClane was hiding out and complaining about the bad food order. McClane saw the woman shaking, thinking it was her drug habit but realized too late the food was drugged. He passed out as the woman opened the door for Wheatley.
McClane woke up in a room with Wheatley and a concerned Angela who, like McClane, was tied to a pipe. He refused to help, openly daring Wheatley to shoot him. Instead, Wheatley threatened Angela with a game of Russian Roulette to force McClane to agree.
The team had evidence of Wheatley’s hacking of the stock market but didn’t want to publicize it until they could indict him. With Angela missing, Jet revealed that McClane’s dark web followers were talking of an uprising against the police and a rare in-person meeting.
At a hidden location, a pack of hackers saw a video of McClane claiming he was out of reach but needed them to step up their work to expose the corruption of the system and welcomed them to “Project Bedlam.”
Posing as a power crew, a group of McClane’s followers broke into a records room and made off with some files and maps. Most got away, but Donald Mathers (Andrew Durand) was caught escaping.
Mathers tried to play dumb as he had a clean record yet admitted he was simply following a message on his “mission to dismantle the system.” Like many of McClane’s followers, he was convinced he was becoming more irrelevant and shared word of a coming meeting.
Stabler goes undercover again
Bell was wary of Stabler going on yet another troubling undercover job. “Nothing is fair, Elliot. I don’t deal with that by changing my identity and running away from my actual life.” Stabler rolled off that to say this was the best way.
Donning a cap, Stabler attended the meeting, meeting Ana (Lea Zawada), who gushed on McClane as a hero. Brother Bill (Marc Menchaca) showed the video of McClane talking about “five pillars” to take down: the banks, courts, health care, government, and law enforcement.
Stabler heard a sound in the background of the video for Jet to isolate. Stabler could see behind his bold words, McClane was nervously looking off-camera while the followers found cards for each team.
Stabler was pulled into a room by some guys worried about him hitting on the girl. He invoked Malachai to vouch for him, getting the guy on the phone to prove his identity while warning “baldie” not to embarrass him again. Jet smirked at how Stabler was going to get Malachi for that.
Stabler was brought to a van to see a massive bomb concealed in a truck to realize how serious this was. Bell and Brewster soon sent out cops to cover any possible targets with Bell trailing Stabler’s van.
Stabler could see Ana was getting freaked out over this. The van was parked in a federal plaza garage with Bell following them. Stabler played like he would set the bomb but then took down the attackers. Ana, knowing this was getting out of hand, ran off.
Wheatley continues his chess game
The team stopped the bomb with Bill refusing to talk until Stabler employed his unique interrogation skills to tell Bill this wasn’t McClane, but Wheatley and Bill was working for the very sort of criminal millionaire he hated. Bill gave up the locations from the D.A.’s office to the New York Stock Exchange.
Wheatley left McClane with a bomb next to him. He then untied Angela with McClane realizing the pair were working together all along as they shared a hot kiss. “You two deserve each other.”
While three teams were stopped, one bomb went off by the Stock Exchange, although no one was seriously injured. Jet managed to isolate the sound in McClane’s video to a general location. She and Malachi realized they could track him by his message signal.
Wheatley talked to a hacker named Wayne (Michael Lewis) in front of a huge power plant. Bell and Stabler were on the way with Stabler shaken by the job, but Bell said she shouldn’t have doubted him.
The pair tracked down McClane’s location to find him with the bomb. They freed McClane with the bomb defused. Bell looked at the stolen files to see the plans for the power plant in Queens named “Big Alex.”
Wayne helped Wheatley break into the plant as Bell and Stabler realized taking that out would knock out power for most of the city. Bell mused, “never underestimate the sheer tenacity of a rich white man with nothing to lose.” After killing the technician on duty, Wheatley did some hacking while Wayne fired at the arriving cops only to run into some power wires and get fried to a crisp.
They found a mocking message from Wheatley with a cop pushing the laptop, which began a countdown. They cleared out, but instead of a bomb, they turned to see a code blacking out all of New York City as Stabler breathed, “Wheatley just took the whole city hostage.”
Another exciting hour sets up the grand conclusion to the Wheatley storyline as the final chase begins.
Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 2 airs Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.