Law & Order: Organized Crime Showed an Unhealthy Relationship in a Compelling Light

Reyes and Jet’s relationship went from annoying to compelling in an hour.

On Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 4 Episode 3, Jet’s feelings went deeper than she admitted, contributing to a chaotic undercover situation. And Reyes getting out of control was one of the scariest moments!

This relationship might have been an unhealthy way of dealing with the aftermath of Whelan’s death, but it led to a compelling subplot during a complicated case.

Jet and Reyes hooking up had a bad idea written all over it for too many reasons, so I was waiting for this stupid relationship to end.

Yet somehow, all the beats were just right, and the resolution of this mess kept me glued to the screen. Instead of tired TV tropes around affairs between cops, the writers deftly weaved their relationship woes into the main plot.

Bell and Stabler’s attempts to talk sense into the two of them, and Jet’s reluctance to work with Reyes set up the chaotic scene at the convenience store.

Jet’s feelings for Reyes ran deeper than she admitted; her whispered “Be careful” and insistence on interrupting the operation to help him betrayed her.

And then Reyes scared the hell out of her — and viewers — by beating a suspect to a pulp instead of merely subduing him.

Having a cop lose control was a risky choice; too many viewers have experienced police brutality or know someone who has, and scenes like this can come off as normalizing this type of behavior.

But Bell handled it the way such incidents should be addressed, for the most part. She put Reyes on a desk and sent him to a shrink. He didn’t suffer the consequences of having this on his record, but at least he was off the streets while he worked through his issues.

Reyes and Jet didn’t go through a split for the sake of drama, nor did Jet’s fear for Reyes during the operation drive her back toward an unhealthy relationship. Both developments were refreshing departures from how these types of relationships usually play out.

While Reyes was confined to a desk, Stabler and Bashir investigated an increasingly complicated case. One of Organized Crime’s weaknesses is that the cases can often get so complex they’re hard to follow, and this was no exception.

The case details made sense, but it was hard to keep track of how they related to the part of the story depicted on Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 4 Episode 2.

Stabler and Bashir were supposed to be searching for the suspect who killed Asher and bombed the mosque but instead got involved with a kidnapping case involving immigrants from Afghanistan who were forced to smuggle gems in a disturbing manner.

Horrific schemes like this probably happen in real life, and it was important to highlight them.

Bashir pointed out how the withdrawal from Afghanistan influenced the creation of these types of gangs without his PSA being intrusive. But the disconnect from the first part of the story was jarring.

Most notably, there were no more mentions of Asher and his mother. That aspect of the story got lost in the shuffle while Stabler and Bashir chased down the bomber and the doctor who was altering people’s bodies to accommodate the smuggled jewels.

The bomber seemed to have taken his cues from Law & Order Season 23 Episode 3’s villain, who also took a random person hostage in an attempt to avoid arrest. Stabler and Bashir took care of that more quickly; they returned fire instead of worrying about hostage negotiations.

Shootouts are a big part of Law & Order: Organized Crime. But there were so many of them in the last third of the hour that keeping track of what was happening was hard.

But the cops’ rescue of Kamir more than made up for it. I loved Bashir telling him they were the good guys and his reunion with his father. It’s rare in the world of Organized Crime for anyone to have a happy ending, making this one twice as sweet.

Randall: I thought it would be a nice sendoff for Mom.
Stabler: A Last Supper?
Randall: You’re the one who wants to send her to a long-term facility.
Stabler: She wants to go. Not me. I don’t want her to go.
Randall: It doesn’t matter who wanted what.
Stabler: I don’t want to talk about this.
Randall: By the time you’re ready to talk, it’ll be too late.

Stabler’s brother was more tolerable than his first arrival, though I agreed with Bernadette Stabler that her sons needed to stop bickering.

Stabler’s difficulty dealing with his mother’s desire to go to long-term care made him somewhat of a hypocrite when he confronted Reyes about Reyes’ messed-up life. But Randall was right that if his brother didn’t deal with this soon, it would be too late, and decisions would be made by default.

I didn’t understand what happened in the final scene with Joe, Jr.

Stabler had every right to be angry that his brother didn’t tell him he was back in the States, though Olivia Benson would have a strong case for this being Stabler’s karma. He ghosted her for ten years; now he knows what it feels like.

But what was with the laughter and the fake fistfights? Was this some macho display? I couldn’t break the code on this one.

I’m interested in how Joe Jr will add to the show. Stabler’s family has been missing for too long — although these brothers are newly created, they make up for the hole left when the previous writers got rid of his entire family and focused only on workplace stories.

Your turn, Law & Order: Organized Crime fanatics.

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Law & Order: Organized Crime airs on NBC on Thursdays at 10/9c.

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