LAW & ORDER Crossover Event Recap: ‘Gimme Shelter’ Sets Up a Big SVU Storyline

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the LAW & ORDER crossover event.]

The LAW & ORDER franchise came together for its biggest crossover yet with the season-opening “Gimme Shelter”—and laid the groundwork for LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT season 24.

After a young girl, Ava, was killed in front of him, LAW & ORDER’s Detective Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan) paired up with Detective Shaw (Mehcad Brooks) to figure out who killed her. But when they realized Mark Sirenko (Beau Knapp) might be involved, it put the duo on a collision course with ORGANIZED CRIME’s Detective Stabler (Christopher Meloni), who told Cosgrove OCCB had been working him for six months.

Cosgrove convinced Stabler—thanks to a little bit of emotional blackmail—to help take down Sirenko for this murder. Stabler asked his CI, Vince (Andrew Yackel) who had been embedded getting information on Sirenko’s drug running, to clone Mark’s phone.

Using the footage, Stabler and Cosgrove found proof Sirenko had been trafficking girls, and there was a female pimp working with him. Stabler brought the video to SVU’s Captain Benson (Mariska Hargitay)—who had helped earlier by advising about alternate boat dock footage—and she got her squad to track down Sam (Stephanie Gunn), AKA the Mother Hen.

The teams arrested Sam, and found a young girl, Nicole (Jaci Calderon), who was able to help Benson with information about Ava’s final hours. As all three squads moved in on Sirenko, Benson, Stabler, and Cosgrove stumbled on materials to build a bomb. Unfortunately for them, they got there too late and the bomb was gone….and Sirenko was on the move with it.

With no leads about where the bomb was, Stabler went back to Vince—who OC’s Jet (Ainsley Seiger) equipped with a hidden camera—to try and get intel. But Sirenko was suspicious, and had Vince go with him into a garment factory…and Vince realized quickly it was a trap. When Jet IDed he was looking at a concrete mixer, Stabler put together it was a hit and frantically tried to save him, alongside Benson and Cosgrove. Stabler, however, wasn’t able to get there in time—Vince was shot, fatally.

After discovering the bomb was allegedly at a hotel, the squads mobilized, trying to evacuate the space; Cosgrove, for his part, spotted Sirenko. (Naturally, he lost him again.) Shaw found the device and initially refused to leave, until he was directly ordered to evacuate by L&O’s Lieutenant Dixon (Camryn Manheim).

As Cosgrove and Shaw refocused on evacuating people, the former spotted Sirenko—only for the bomb to go off. While Sirenko initially got away, the squads tracked him down to a clothing store, holding hostages. When he tried to run, Stabler apprehended him.

L&O’s ADA Price (Hugh Dancy) was skeptical about why Sirenko would target the hotel—it was filled with diplomats, not his normal crowd. After realizing Sirenko may have been a pawn, Dixon recruited OCCB to find out more. They found a Russian link, via a man named Rublev, and Price and L&O’s ADA Maroun (Odelya Halevi) opted to try the case between him and Sirenko together.

Unfortunately, when a motion tossed out one of their key pieces of evidence, they needed Nicole to testify. Benson agreed and called Rollins, who was with the young woman. But the safe house wasn’t so secure—it was ambushed and Rollins was shot.

Though the event technically is in its own timeline, the impact of Rollins’ injury will play out in SVU season 24. (Giddish, for her part, will be exiting the series later this year.)

“We talked about that [with their creative team] to make sure we were all on the same page, and that whatever we set up in the crossover would service what they intended to do for the season,” “Gimme Shelter” co-writer—and LAW & ORDER boss—Rick Eid previously told Give Me My Remote.

With Rollins recovering–”Her surgery went well, she’s in stable condition, but hoping for the best,” Benson told Price—the ADAs still needed Nicole to testify. But Benson realized Nicole’s best chance at having a normal life was to get away from it all, and said she found a relative in Toronto to take her in, much to Price’s chagrin.

Backs against the wall, the ADAs realized they had to offer Sirenko a deal to nail Rublev; he took it. (Stabler, for his part, uh, noted his displeasure to Price.) Rublev got worried and offered to turn on Russia, if he got immunity. Price objected to the suggestion and insisted immunity was off the table. Rublev had a counteroffer: he’d answer anything if they saved his family.

Maroun and Price bickered about the right move, but it ended up being a moot point: Rublev was assassinated when he was being transferred.

What did you think of the crossover?

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• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Bryan Goluboff Exits, Sean Jablonski to Serve as Showrunner
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