About Last Night…LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, GREY’S ANATOMY, LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME, and More

Let’s talk about Thursday night’s TV!

LAW & ORDER: I really appreciated how the format was not as rigid this week, and the cops—very naturally—carried over to the court case section of the episode. The messed up dynamic between Shaw, Cosgrove, and Jerry was compelling and could potentially play out in interesting ways for Shaw and Cosgrove going forward. Cosgrove protected Shaw, but how much can/should Shaw trust him? (I’m glad Cosgrove cut Jerry out, though, even if it’s sad he lost someone who meant a great deal to him.)

GHOSTS: Of course a cult found their way to the B&B. Of course Jay couldn’t have normal friends. At least they got them out, though.

I loved how the show handled Flower’s brother. (And Alberta tricking Flower into telling her what happened made me laugh out loud.) I’m glad they both got a little bit of peace. I hope, somehow, the show is able to come back to that beat later.

(Serious Pete freaked me out!!!! I’m glad he was back to his normal self by the end of the episode.)

[For more on the episode, here’s what series star Sheila Carrasco shared.]

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: I really enjoyed this episode: It was the perfect mix of tension, twists, action (such badasses?!), heartbreak, empathy, and protection.

After seeing Fin object to basically everything Muncy has done the past few weeks, I really appreciated the scene between the duo as he tried to give her guidance on how to be a better cop. He was also right: her using the radio to attack the suspect is dangerous precedent to set, could jeopardize their case, and potentially have endangered her if it was a situation where she lost control and needed help. I know Olivia told Velasco to train Muncy, and we’re seeing a bit of their partnership (both off and on the clock), but it’s good to see others stepping up, too.

Every once in a while there’s a case I hope they revisit, but this is one I hope doesn’t pop up again. Olivia and Maxwell mutually deciding to pretend they don’t know what they know so a group of traumatized women can have peace? It’s the kindest outcome possible.

GREY’S ANATOMY: Oh my God, so many homages to the show’s past again. Owen and Teddy were channeling their inner Derek and Addison circa season 2, and terrorizing interns along the way. (Albeit with a lot more love for each other, even if it was buried under a ton of resentment.) The interns going to the gift shop for a break from the madness, a la the OG docs going to see the newborns? I loved it all.

I’m also still really enjoying the new group of doctors…though when they realize Amelia is related to Adams and they’re not sleeping together, it’s going to be really funny.

But my heart absolutely broke for Zola, as she froze on stage, acknowledging how terrified she is her mom and aunt will also die from Alzheimer’s.

And, hey, Nolan Gould! That was a fun surprise.

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Going to bullet point this, again, because there are too many different things to tackle and no one wants 5000 words on a random early season episode.

• I’m so glad the show has not forgotten Gina; it’s understandable why that loss still weighs so heavily on Bell.
• I do love how much we’ve seen Stabler mentoring first Whelan and now Reyes. Bell is the boss, obviously, but he has insight to share, too, and I’m glad he’s in a place to do it.
• Despite the teeny tiny hiccup of getting, you know, stabbed, Reyes was great to watch in his UC assignment. He was able to get what they needed and Rick Gonzalez really held his own. I know his thing is being undercover, but I do hope he’s able to spend some quality time with the task force at some point to see a bit more of how he interacts with Jet and Whelan.
• Before the season started, the (now former) showunner said that they’d be doing mini-breakout arcs outside of the main story. I though of that a few times while watching the episode, because it felt like this hour was the end of a three-episode arc…and also helped snap a few of my issues with the previous episodes into place. (First episode post-crossover, like with almost all of the first hours of the arcs, was a lot of set-up; the next hour felt very much like we were supposed to be more familiar—and invested—in Kenny than made sense given what we had seen of him.) I’m all for doing mini-arcs within a larger framework (especially if we’re spending all season with this casino), but I hope they’re a little better balanced going forward.
• After having Angela, Flutura, and Cassandra being in on the misdeeds the men in their lives were up to (at least to some extent), it would be interesting if Elliot was actually able to turn Pearl early on in the investigation and make her a real asset. (But hopefully if they pull that trigger, she has better luck surviving than their other informants.)
• As much as I appreciate the premiere crossover for its scope and the genuine merging of shows, there’s a weird side effect we’ve seen play out to the start of the seasons for OC and SVU: Elliot and Olivia have both been in their respective shows a lot, and even had a number of personal/personal-adjacent scenes, but neither has really had their own storyline yet. (Olivia, to a degree, is understandable given how much focus has been on Rollins because of Kelli Giddish’s imminent exit.) Frankly, given the amount of time Christopher Meloni was in the SVU hour of the crossover, I’m shocked he was in OC the past two weeks as much as he was. But as we get further away from those episodes’ production, I’m curious how much it’ll shift and we’ll see focus return to them.
• Part of why I bring that up is because the gaping hole of WTF is going on in Elliot’s life feels like a shadow that’s hard to escape from. In theory, Eli is in California and Bernie is with Kathleen. Is that still the case, especially with the showrunner change? Who knows! It certainly hasn’t been addressed on-screen. And, look, sometimes you can get away with things being subtext. But if Elliot killed a perp and witnessed another man kill himself…he should not be alone. Or if he is alone, what the heck does that look like for him? Part of what made ORGANIZED CRIME really special in season 1 was diving into his family life, plus the deep care and attention they paid to showing he wasn’t okay/the extreme effects his PTSD had on him. Now, it feels like he’s going through repeated traumas and it’s being brushed aside; if he’s actually going through this while being home alone for the first time in his life, that’s actually…an interesting story to see? Heck, even when he was with the Albanians last year, he still went home a lot. If you’re playing a new beat for a character we’ve been watching off-on for 24 seasons, let us actually witness it.

Which shows did you watch last night?

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