Drug addiction is one of the most heartbreaking diseases in the world.
Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 4 Episode 9 hit all the right notes, balancing the pain and suffering many addicts feel with the chaos their behavior causes.
Even the new villain is a mixed bag, making him one of the most realistic drug dealers on TV rather than a stereotype of the evil, greedy drug kingpin.
This case is one of Stabler’s most personal because of younger brother Joey’s involvement with heroin.
Law & Order: Organized Crime is on the chopping block, so this could be Stabler’s final case. Hopefully not, but if so, at least it’s a worthwhile one.
Bernadette was Organized Crime’s MVP Again
The most emotional aspects of the hour involved the subplot about Joey’s drug use, especially Joey’s scenes with Bernadette.
His brothers’ intervention was doomed to fail — something Stabler really ought to have known would happen because a similar intervention Olivia Benson participated in to help Elliot during Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 1 also failed miserably.
The confrontation was intense, but Bernadette’s scenes were the heart of this subplot.
It was both despicable and pathetic that Joey would try to take advantage of his mother, who has dementia as well as bipolar disorder, and was confused about why he was behaving this way.
This was all too realistic for those of us who have dealt with a loved one’s addiction. It gets to the point where there is nothing the person won’t do, no line they won’t cross, all in service of an addiction that will ultimately kill them if left untreated.
Bernadette’s pain and confusion added to the emotional weight of Joey’s addiction. She blamed Randall for having “changed” Joey, but it wasn’t clear whether the man she remembered ever existed.
Bernadette kept saying that Joey was a good boy until Randall and Elliot got ahold of him, but was that true? Was she remembering something from the distant past or mixing him up with someone else?
At least Bernadette’s memory lapse stopped her from giving Joey money. Whether he planned to use, run away, or both, he had no right to her meager savings, especially when she didn’t fully understand what was happening.
What a moving mental health issue story!
Law & Order: Organized Crime Explored The Complexity of Drug Use Among Veterans
Stabler’s visit to the support group at the VA underscored how complicated the issue of drug addiction is among veterans.
Elliot: I’m all for this boys’ night out, but you really think he’s gonna admit to it?
Randall: Being a druggie? No, he’s too much like the old man.
Stabler’s seen the damage firsthand that substance abuse does to the lives of not only the drug user but their family, so at first, he was gung ho about putting a stop to it.
However, the support group leader had a valid point about the unaddressed pain that some vets turned to illegal drugs to relieve. Stabler (and viewers!) got only a tiny glimpse of that pain when other people talked during the group.
The one that stuck in my mind was the man who couldn’t attend his son’s ball games because the sound of the bat cracking triggered his memories of combat in Afghanistan.
These people’s trauma was so debilitating that they couldn’t move on with their lives without help, and almost no one was giving it to them.
That doesn’t mean that Elliot Stabler was wrong to want to stop the illegal drug trade.
Self-medicating with street drugs is often a dangerous solution to the problem. Since these drugs are being sold illegally, there are often gang wars and territorial disputes, leading to innocent people getting caught in the crossfire of a gunfight.
Still, the experiences shared at the support group made me wonder how ethical it was for Stabler to go undercover in that setting.
He was privy to extremely sensitive information about people, and he was listening to it not as a peer with similar issues but as a cop who was hoping to find and arrest dealers.
It’s bad enough that veterans are suffering this way without much support. It would be unconscionable if their deepest pain were used against them by law enforcement.
Stabler’s New Assignment Was Fascinating
Angus Boone and his wife are very different villains from Clay Bonner.
Boone gives off the appearance of a genteel Southern gentleman, much like Days of Our Lives’ Clyde Weston, but is anything but.
The whole set-up of his farm was creepy. Not only is it isolated, but taking away workers’ cell phones and not allowing them to leave their quarters without permission made it feel like a cross between a cult and a makeshift prison.
Boone also played psychological games from the beginning, setting up a rivalry between Stabler and the other workers to test what Stabler was made of.
That resulted in one guy getting shot, and the Boones’ response reminded me of the way Yellowstone‘s John Dutton has people “taken to the train station” when they know too much and need to be eliminated.
Bell Should Have Known Better Than To Try to Abort The Mission
Jet and Reyes provided some comic relief when they posed as a couple writing travel blogs to send Stabler a message. Did Bell think Stabler would give up his new gig the second she said it was dangerous?
How Bell deals with Stabler’s undercover missions has almost become a tired TV trope. She always jumps to pull Stabler out at the first sign of trouble, leading to a bigger problem when he doesn’t cooperate.
I get that she never got past Gina’s death on Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 1 Episode 7, but this is ridiculous now.
Most of the time, Stabler couldn’t leave without sparking greater suspicion, and he’s made it clear he’s not interested in walking away from dangerous missions. So, what is the point of trying to pull him off cases?
Reyes and Jet should have told him that Sam’s disappearance was connected to Boone’s business without ordering him off the case. That would have made much more sense than this futile effort to cancel Stabler’s undercover mission midstream.
What did you think, Law & Order fanatics? Is this new case as compelling as the one that recently wrapped up?
Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know.
Law & Order: Organized Crime airs on NBC on Thursdays at 10/9c. New episodes drop on Peacock the day after they air.
Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on X.