About Last Night…NEXT LEVEL CHEF, LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, and LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME

Let’s talk about Thursday night’s TV!

NEXT LEVEL CHEF: As someone who loves pizza: These pizzas were too elevated. (It’s a brilliant category for this show, though.) LAMB TONGUE?! And it won?!

Chris was obviously upset to get sent home, but it probably happened to the right person. The fact he almost tanked Jordan’s pizza because he wasn’t paying attention? Not great.

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: On the bright side, a stronger episode than almost everything else this season. A genuine win. I also appreciate that they utilized Carisi a bit more, even though it’s insane how little we’ve seen the court element of the show this year.

Was it implausible a phobia would vanish because Olivia made a good appeal? Sure. I’m at least thankful it was handled with kindness versus a hundred other ways it could have shaken out or gone wrong.

• There is basically no world in which Olivia would say “God bless” like that.
• I’m really enjoying the team’s dynamic. We’re still getting essentially a different lineup every week, but it feels like they’ve at least figured out a rhythm of how to work within those confines versus last year’s messy attempts. (It definitely helps they didn’t drop two brand new characters into the team at once.)
• Anyone else think of Olivia’s Elliot-as-a-bearded-EMT hallucination when she was explaining the third man syndrome or…?
• Look, there is absolutely zero doubt about how much Olivia cares about her work and how damn good she is at her job. But, to be a broken record, it’s also season 25. This is a feat very few shows will ever reach. And rather than celebrate the entirety of this iconic character, the only real element we’re seeing is her work—and they keep actively telling us how little time she’s spending at home. We’re seeing her spend her days off working. Pulling all-nighters. There have been many seasons where it could have been argued she should have delegated more/taken on less “grunt” work as the boss, but there was still wiggle room with what we weren’t seeing; I can’t recall another season, especially since she got Noah, where it’s been so canonically expressed she’s barely going home. It’s deeply depressing.

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Ugh, I love this show.

I’ve praised how well the show utilizes its guest cast, and, boy, did that come into play here. The final confrontation between Clay and Meredith was stunning, with Keith Carradine and Jennifer Ehle delivering incredible performances. The tension built up in a way that I actually held my breath, unsure whether Meredith would be able to stop her father from taking his own life. (Also, my goodness, for such an incredibly bleak scene, it was visually stunning. Weird to say that about a sequence that dark, but everything about this show is gorgeous.) I’m glad Stabler is officially back, but I’ll miss the twisted Bonner family. (Fingers crossed Meredith can find some peace and healing after losing basically everything.)

It’s structurally interesting that “Sins of Our Fathers” included a rare (for this show) flashback to the Bonner family because in many ways Randall Stabler feels stuck in the past, too. We know that Joe Sr. wasn’t Elliot’s hero—it was a complex relationship, certainly, but this was never idol worship. Elliot deeply knew the harm his father could do, personally, and has been grappling with the damage he did professionally over the past few years. But it’s felt all season like Randall has been looking at this family situation in black and white—through the viewpoint of a scared, resentful young man, upset his kid brother didn’t do more. It’s a lot easier for Randall to do that than acknowledge Joe Sr. hurt Elliot, too. (And I’m sure Elliot knew he wasn’t the only Stabler who experienced Joe Sr.’s violence.) Honestly, all of the Stabler siblings are dealing with the fallout from being raised by both of their parents…I may deeply love Bernie, but her illness and decision to not treat it shaped the family, too.

But I’m also deeply frustrated that we (or, at least, I) didn’t end this arc feeling happy about how great this show is. Instead, it’s bittersweet and I’m frustrated OC is the sole NBC Wolf Ent show whose fate is still up in the air. (And to be clear, it has not been canceled. Nothing has, technically, changed from any other day. It’s just every other show in this block has been picked up and this one is still in negotiations…which, yes, is different than the previous years where it was a solo pickup because the other Wolf Ent shows were under a pre-existing multi-season pickup, it got renewed with L&O while the other shows were under the aforementioned pickup, or they all got renewed together.) I generally try to avoid bringing news into this column, but it’s impossible to ignore that. I’ve been clear that ORGANIZED CRIME is the best show on network TV right now and it isn’t even close. Heck, since the show debuted, there’s been maybe two months where it wasn’t in the top one or two shows on network TV.

I’ve been a reporter for what feels like a billion and a half years; I know that quality doesn’t always equal success or the run a show deserves. But OC is genuinely great and I’ll be devastated if we lose it. Truly hope this is all moot and the show gets renewed by the time the L&O block returns with new episodes in April.

A few other thoughts…

• Oh, the heart-to-heart between Cragen and Elliot was everything. It had shades to their history—and arguably no one knows about Elliot Stabler going rogue more than his old boss—while also serving to give Elliot needed information and perspective. (And Elliot getting to see his surrogate father at a time when his biological family was dealing with their own mess? Love that for him.) And, boy, “You’ve got an entire army. Everybody is fighting for you except you,” hit hard.
• And getting to see Bell fight for Elliot? Everything. This wasn’t her covering for a friend. The IAB investigation escalating as far as it did, in general, felt suspicious from the start given how clearly the team was in danger—including Bell being literally shot—and the only thing that was done was an attempt to disarm the shooter. But Bell coming in with the actual file to prove that Warren’s vendetta was based on faulty information? Yeah, I’d want her (and Jet) in my corner, too.
• Literally yelled “YOU DUMMY” out loud to Joe Jr. when they showed him in his car. Sigh.
• Not to be dramatic, but I cannot lose Bell and Stabler’s friendship. The gentle taunting, banter, and overall support? One of the best platonic relationships on TV. I love them so much.
• Elliot Stabler got multiple hugs this episode and he probably still needed another (or ten) after that final conversation about Joe Sr.
• (Well, between Joe Jr. and Simon doing drugs and Joseph Hollister and Joe Sr. committing suicide, Elliot and Olivia will have a lot of family parallels to talk about one day. Maybe.)
• Naz’s “Seriously?!” at her empty squadroom was one of the funniest moments of the show.
• Randall and Bernie living together…that is a mess waiting to happen. I do love he finally saw things from Elliot’s perspective, though.

Which shows did you watch last night?

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