7 Lingering Questions About LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME

When LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME wrapped up its first season, the eight-episode arc ended with (almost-month-old spoiler alert?) the good guys (AKA Elliot Stabler and Ayanna Bell) taking down crime boss Richard Wheatley and his family.

But while they successfully got them behind bars, a whole lot of questions about the mess that led them there are still unanswered and could play into season 2…

Who (really) killed Kathy?

On paper, the one thing Angela and Richard can agree on is that Angela wanted Kathy dead. But when it comes down to the nitty gritty, the duo differ: Angela claims she wanted Elliot to pay, but did not explicitly make the call and/or intend for his wife to be killed. Richard says Angela and Izak actively conspired on Kathy’s murder—and he has the recordings to prove it.

Elliot seems to believe Angela, as he and Bell are going after Richard for Kathy’s murder. But is he misguided?

For as reckless as Richard has been, as far as we know, he hasn’t bluffed. When he told Baldi he had names and contacts to spill, he delivered. Richard took out his father to protect himself. When backed into a corner, he could have simply claimed it was Angela and Izak who took out Kathy, knowing that Izak was gone and couldn’t contradict him. But to say he had recordings? What good would it do to falsely claim it and then not be able to deliver if/when they asked for proof, especially since we saw him recording and monitoring so many other things?

Which also ties back to earlier in the season when Elliot was beaten up by Izak and his team—Wheatley seemed shocked to see that had occurred. If he was really calling all of the shots, wouldn’t he have at least been tipped off/alerted it was happening, especially since Elliot had made it clear he was eying Richard as a suspect?

Will there be pushback for the NYPD losing control of the Wheatley case?

When Bell’s family pursued a suit against the department (after her nephew was attacked by cops), the higher ups warned her the only way to keep her job would be for the task force to be successful. In theory, they were: Wheatley was captured. But with the case taken out of their hands, does that mean Bell’s position is in jeopardy? Or is she safe since she did her job?

Was Morales the only mole?

Morales being dirty explains a lot—like how Richard knew the obscure fact that Elliot’s coffee tastes had changed. But…there should be more in play, too? There is still the lingering issue of who called Elliot the night of the bombing, since that prevented him from going to the car…and allowed Kathy to be targeted with the explosion. Even if the person who called Elliot wasn’t dirty, were they directed to call him/reach out then by someone who was? Is there someone else in the mix they shouldn’t be trusting?

How long has Richard been able to send messages as Elliot—and how much access did he have?

Earlier in the season, Richard monitored Gina via CCTV cameras accessible by the NYPD, so we know he’s technologically connected. We also know he knew about Elliot’s past shootings, so, in theory, he had access to his police file. But in the finale, he was able to send a message to Olivia and dupe her into thinking it was from Elliot. Was it as simple as masking the phone number and making it appear the message was coming from elsewhere? Or does/did Richard actually have access to Elliot’s personal phone through a secondary device/technology?

If Richard did have access to things beyond information from his sources and Elliot’s police file, was that why he was able to so confidently proclaim Kathy wasn’t the love of Elliot’s life? Because, yes, there should be paperwork in Elliot’s file indicating his ties to Olivia—at the very least the report from Hendrix (all the way back in SVU season 8), which stated they were too close—but it’s a sizable leap from too close (or even in love with) to saying, with absolute confidence, the love of his life wasn’t the woman he spent more than three decades with. What, exactly, did Richard know—and how did he know it?—to express that and not risk Elliot calling BS?

Why was Olivia summoned?

Richard certainly had fun taunting Elliot—and Angela—about Olivia, and then seemed to enjoy the face-to-face he had with the SVU captain when he was in custody. But with Morales on the verge of taking out Angela, why the heck would he summon Olivia to the hospital? Even if he wanted to prove to Elliot he could get to Olivia, wouldn’t he have utilized that at a time where she could potentially derail a key piece to his possible freedom? So, was Morales supposed to also take her out? Frame her, somehow? Or was something else in play that hasn’t fully happened yet?

Who will be the Big Bad in season 2?

Before the finale aired, ORGANIZED CRIME boss Ilene Chaiken shared the season 1 story is “not entirely closed-ended, but we don’t plan on starting new stories until the second season. In future seasons every season, or every pod, every arc will be a new story, a new adversary for Stabler and Bell and the task force. We may see some new possibilities before the end of the season, but we won’t introduce a new major character or organization of organized crime until we begin season 2.”

While we didn’t meet them, a few possibilities of future targets were mentioned in the OC season finale:

• Dirty politician Congressman Leon Kilbride, who was name-dropped by Richie.
• Richard listed a number of his contacts, including Vladimir Mikhailov, Pakhan of Solntsevskaya Bratva (who had ties to the Kremlin—cyber attacks on government systems), and Masanori Watanabe.
• Or…as a total wild card, Bell mentioned Gina’s family didn’t know she was a cop, because most of them were dirty. Could that come into play in a future season, especially if they blame the cops for her death? (And since Richie tried to have his own father killed, that could also come into play, too.)

Who is coming back?

With so many elements from season 1’s arc unresolved, who might return? Certainly it would make sense for Dylan McDermott and Nick Creegan to return, and Christina Marie Karis’ Dana still feels like a dangerous wild card the show hasn’t fully explored. Tamara Taylor‘s involvement may depend on whether Bell, Benson, and Stabler were able to save Angela in time after the finale cliffhanger. But if any/all do return, what will that look like, especially as the show introduced new foes for the first pod of season 2?

On a non-villanous note, for as much as viewers learned about Elliot’s home life on SVU, the family he grew up with was fairly mysterious: he had an abusive father (Joe, who appeared to die pre-series) and a mentally ill mother (Bernie, who was alive as of SVU season 10), but virtually nothing was said about three brothers and two sisters he said he had. And while season 1 was about reconnecting with his children and battling through his grief over the loss of his wife, Chaiken acknowledged there could be room to bring back Bernie or his unseen siblings into the picture later in OC’s run: “Certainly in the future seasons, everything is on the table.”

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME, Fall 2021, Thursdays, 10/9c, NBC

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