LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Danielle Moné Truitt Previews ‘Huge Cases,’ Troublesome Task Forces, and Bell’s Dynamic with the Stabler Family in Season 5

April 15, 2025 by Marisa Roffman

Law and Order Organized Crime season 5 preview

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME — “TBD” Episode 505 — Pictured: (l-r) Danielle Moné Truitt as Sgt. Ayanna Bell, Christopher Meloni as Det. Elliot Stabler– (Photo by: David Holloway/PEACOCK)

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME returns on Thursday, April 17 (on its new Peacock home, after spending its first four seasons on NBC), with OCCB taking on an important case: An international smuggling ring.

But problems arise for OCCB boss Sergeant Ayanna Bell (Danielle Moné Truitt) when the assembled joint task force—including FBI counterparts—doesn’t exactly see eye-to-eye about how to handle their targets and surveillance approach…or which crimes are actually worth pursuing.

“It’s the age-old [story]: Black women not being respected in their position of power,” Truitt tells Give Me My Remote in the video below. “Everybody feeling like they can do the job better than she can. And, you know, Bell having to check people and put them on notice. And…she doesn’t just check them. She shows them, you know, at the end of the day, she knows what she’s doing.”

“She does not need your help. Fall in line or go away,” she continues with a laugh. “That’s basically what it is with [her FBI counterpart in the first few episodes].”

The friction with other teams comes at “three different times” this season, as well. After the season-opening FBI team-up, “There’s another person that’s going to come in later, and then there’s another person at the end—she’s having to put them on notice,” Truitt previews. “Let them know, like, ‘Yo, you can be a part of what we’re doing, but you need us. You came to us. So we’re running this. Pull up a chair, set up your little station, and do your job over there. But I’ll be handling what’s actually gonna happen with my team.’”

One of Bell’s big early decisions is to ask Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) to go undercover—again.

“Bell is the type of person—she’s not going to ask him to do something unless she has thought about every other way that it could be handled without having to ask him to do it, you know?” Truitt points out with a laugh. “So I think she’s went through every different circumstance, and if she could have went undercover and did it, she would have. But he was the best person to do it. I think she trusts him, regardless of all of his shenanigans and the ways that he can act.”

But Bell receives a surprise when she makes her request: Initially, Stabler—who had previously jumped at the chance to be someone else for a brief period of time—declines to go undercover to take down the smuggling ring. ”I think it brings her a little more comfort in asking him to do it when he responds by not wanting to do it,” Truitt acknowledges. “Because in every other circumstance, he’s been so, like, eager, ‘I gotta go. I gotta do this. ‘ She’s like, ‘Yo, chill out.’ But in this…instance, she’s saying, ‘Hey, I need you to do that.’ He’s like, ‘Are you serious? Really?’”

“I think he’s in a better place because of all he’s had to endure and go through,” she continues. “He’s been humbled a little bit and he’s not so eager to just go off and do whatever. So I think she feels like he’ll have a clearer mindset and navigate things a little bit better. Otherwise, I don’t think she would have asked. She very well could have asked Reyes to go undercover. She could’ve… it’s a drug cartel, it’s his [informant]. She could have asked him to do it. So, her asking [Stabler] to do it, it’s because she does trust him to get it done. And knows he will.”

But Elliot isn’t the only Stabler that Bell gets to spend some time with in season 5.

“She gets kind of cool with Randall because Stabler and all his shenanigans,” Truitt previews. “So she gets to talk to Randall, keep him updated on what’s going on. He keeps her updated on what’s going on [in the family].”

And with Elliot’s son, Eli (Nicky Torchia), now a cop, Bell gets to see the youngest Stabler child “in the field a little bit, which was very interesting,” Truitt teases.

“But more so it’s just her and Stabler,” she continues. “She always knows what’s going on in his family[‘s] personal life, even though she doesn’t necessarily always talk to him about it. But she’s sensitive to what it is he’s trying to navigate, and gives him space to be able to do that.”

Unfortunately, viewers will have to wait a little longer to get an update on Bell’s personal life.

“[There’s] nothing this season,” Truitt says. “[I’m] hoping when we go into season 6 that there will be more. But this season is very much focused on the Stabler family. There’s a lot going on in that family and then very much focused on these really huge cases. There’s three really big, crazy cases. And it’s only ten episodes, so [there] wasn’t much room for anything else. But I am hoping in the future that there will be more.”

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME, Season Premiere, Thursday, April 17, Peacock. (NBC will run a special airing of the season 5 premiere the same night at 10/9c.)

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LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Danielle Moné Truitt Previews ‘Huge Cases,’ Troublesome Task Forces, and Bell’s Dynamic with the Stabler Family in Season 5

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