Oone week after Law & Order: Organized Crime started with a huge SVU crossover event, Dick Wolf, showrunner Ilene Chaiken and star Christopher Meloni are finally ready to reveal a little more about NBC’s latest big proceedings.
Details about it for months Organized crime are largely hidden. But at a press conference Wednesday, the trio answered reporters’ questions about what kind of agent Elliot Stabler will be in 2021 – and what it was like to finally reunite him with his longtime partner, Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson.
Last summer, as Black Lives Matter protests spread across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death, talks about police procedures began to shift. For years, data has shown that these programs can promote harmful ideas about police action by valorizing rogue agents, among other things – and by 2020 that reality became impossible to ignore.
As showrunners began releasing statements addressing the issue, some viewers wondered how Elliot Stabler’s upcoming standalone series would deal with this new dynamic, given the detective’s status as arguably TV’s best-known hothead cop. Talk about behind-the-scenes conversations between Law & Authority producers and showrunners, Dick Wolf told reporters on Wednesday: “We spent a lot of time talking about police behavior. I’d put it to you, probably more time than any other non-law enforcement people in the country. Because it is what we do every day. “
Wolf referred back to a statement he made last year, when he said he and his colleagues were listening to the talks of the time, adding that the show’s crew read “pretty much everything” on the subject from both sides of the world. the political spectrum – “From far left to far right.” (The Law & Authority boss has not elaborated on what specific sources or groups the team may have consulted.)
“Of course we’ll take care of what’s going on,” continued Wolf, “but it’s never in a bony way.” He described “the paradigm episode” of Law & Authority like a conversation between all the regulars on the series, where each of them is on a different side of the same question and “they’re all right – because life isn’t black and white, it’s shades of gray.”
Finally he said, “What I said in the spring is still true: the shows speak for themselves.”
While Elliot Stabler recreated the world of Law & Authority last week at the crossover premiere, he faced questions from several colleagues about his style of police work. Many of the detective’s older colleagues, such as Hargitay’s Olivia Benson and Ice-T’s Finn Tutuola, vouched for him from newer colleagues, who were more skeptical. Stabler himself, meanwhile, seemed frustrated by the constant handwringing, even as he acknowledged that, yes, the police world is changing.
But aside from the newfound questions about Stabler’s character, Organized crime will also stand out from the other Law & Authority properties in his stories. As Wolf recently revealed, the show’s premiere season will feature three arcs of eight episodes, which he compared The Godfather, American Gangster, and finally, Scarface.
“All you have to do is watch the casting in the first episode and realize that this isn’t episodic casting,” said Wolf – referring to an episode that featured Dylan McDermott as our first big bad guy, up-and-coming mob Richard. Wheatley. ‘We’re shooting for a bigger game [with Organized Crime]”, Wolf said,” and I think it’s going to be endlessly interesting, and the character … has evolved in subtle ways that get a lot more than lip service. “
Maybe to that end Organized crimeThe premiere included a great tragedy. The series begins with the death of Elliot Stabler’s wife, Kathy Stabler – an occasional presence SVU years before Meloni’s departure. When asked what he would say to someone who wasn’t happy that the show chose to kick off by using a dead woman to motivate the main male character, Wolf was blunt: “You can’t always please all people. It’s not what we do; all we can do is tell stories. ”
You can’t always please all people. It’s not what we do; all we can do is tell stories.
Chaiken said the plot point had already been established by the time she came on board as a showrunner, but added that she thought it was a “great place to start.”
“I was instantly attracted,” said Chaiken. “When telling a story about a beloved character who has been gone for years, the first question you ask yourself is, ‘Why now?’ And that, as a catalyst for storytelling, is one of the best ‘Why now I could think of. “
However, the silver lining to this tragedy was pretty clear to many fans from the start: can Benson and Stabler finally become an item? (Once they have healed all the pain Stabler caused when he left the police without saying goodbye, of course, remains to be seen.) The answer to that question remains to be seen – but Meloni confirmed that both he and Hargitay were knocked out by the responses from fans at their on-air reunion.
“I think she expected it more than I did,” Meloni said of his old co-star. ‘Because I think … they are in the Law & Authority stew … i was not prepared.
“It’s overwhelming, and it’s great, and it’s very much appreciated,” Meloni continued. “And I think this time, I don’t know, the pressure is off. I feel less pressure than when Dick first commissioned me to be Elliot Stabler. So I’m a little more free to appreciate everything. It’s a nice journey. “