Elliot Stabler is undertaking a dangerous undercover assignment when Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 2 begins.
Christopher Meoni shares details on where Stabler is when the hit series returns and the personal aspects that will shake up his life.
How did Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 1 end?
After spending the entire first season of Law & Order: Organized Crime chasing corrupt CEO/mobster Richard Wheatley (Dylan McDermott), Stabler was thrown for a massive loop in the finale.
Having been convinced that Wheatley was behind the murder of Stabler’s wife, Kathy, Stabler discovered the hit had been ordered by Wheatley’s ex-wife Angela (Tamara Taylor).
Yet Wheatley was responsible as he had tricked Angela into believing Stabler had killed her son in a raid when, in fact, Wheatley had murdered the boy.
Wheatley was arrested with his own son, Junior (Nick Creegan) trying to have his father killed. However, Wheatley survived and forced a corrupt cop to try to murder Angela in her hospital bed with Stabler standing outside the hallway.
What’s coming in Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 2?
Speaking to TV Insider for their Fall Preview issue (on sale Friday), Meloni revealed that Angela survives and her testimony puts Wheatley behind bars (McDermott will continue to recur over the season).
With him put away, the Kosta Organization, headed by Jon Kosta (Michael Raymond-James), has taken over the drug business.
“I’d say his easygoing nature belies his lethality,” Meloni says.
The Organized Crime Control Bureau goes to work, sending a bearded Stabler undercover as an arsonist known as “Ashes,” with Meloni claiming “Elliot did his research.”
Instead of the brutal Kosta or his underboss, “Uncle” Albi Briscu (Vinnie Jones), Stabler cozies up to Reggie Bodgani (Dash Mihok), a more vulnerable player. Despite himself, Stabler soon begins to admire the young man.
“It’s an interesting relationship,” the actor reveals. “There are certain insecurities that he carries with him. He’s my boss, yet I’m his father figure.”
Complicating matters is the Narcotics Division running their own investigation into the Kosta Organization, which could jeopardize Elliot’s cover.
The season is divided into three eight-episode arcs. The second will have Mykelti Williamson as a powerful kingpin, and Wheatley promises to return in the third arc.
Will we have a Stabler-Benson romance at last?
A major question is if this season will finally have Stabler and former partner Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) embark on a romance. Benson helped Stabler over his grief for Kathy, with Stabler even blurting out “I love you” to her during an intervention by his family.
“It was deliberately left open to interpretation,” Meloni explained while citing the scene as one of his favorites.
Meloni states the pair are playing “deeply emotional and deeply connected scenes that were not part of our [original] relationship on SVU.”
Benson will be meeting up with the Organized Crime team as an upcoming Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode will have her helping the abused girlfriend of a mobster the Organized Crime Bureau is investigating. Unfortunately, that leads to chief Ayanna Bell (Danielle Mone Truitt) clashing with Benson on the case.
Meanwhile, Stabler will be distracted by the return of his mother (Ellen Burstyn), who’s fighting medical issues, including her own failing mental acuity, and wants to reach out to her estranged son.
“We have to come together as a family and weather the storm,” Meloni says. “It’s complicated, isn’t it?
That last line can sum up Season 2 of Law & Order: Organized Crime as Stabler is about to be put through an emotional wringer that fans can’t wait to see.
Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 2 premieres Thursday, September 23 at 10/9c on NBC.