LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Michael Tow Previews Wen’s Unexpected Partnership with Stabler

Though Michael Tow previously guest starred on a couple of episodes of LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT (playing Counselor Josh Wang in season 21), when he landed the role of LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME’s Wen Shao, it was clear it was going to be a different experience.

“This was a much larger role and much more heavy lifting,” Tow tells Give Me My Remote. “That was quite special. And I actually didn’t realize how large the role was until I was cast.”

On the Thursday, March 30 episode “Blood Ties,” the task force focuses on gathering evidence against aspiring politician Michael Quan (François Chau), who was behind the recent assassination attempt on a city council candidate’s wife. As OCCB looks into a lead, they encounter Wen—who tells them he’s trying to find his missing son.

“This is a single father…everything he lives for is for his son,” Tow says. “And when his son is kidnapped, his world really would end if he can’t find his son. He’ll do whatever it takes to get him back. And if that includes traveling overseas, breaking laws, whatever it takes to get his son back, that’s really his only mission.”

The task force is initially skeptical Wen is trustworthy, but he’s able to win them over—and bond with Stabler (Christopher Meloni) about the importance of family.

“There’s a relationship with Stabler, in terms of a father to another father,” Tow previews. “There’s an unspoken connection between the two men; there’s a lot of understanding. Even though [it’s] two very different cultures, living on two different sides of the world, they understood at the core of it how important family is and the need to help each other find this child.”

As such, Wen starts working with the team. “It’s pretty amazing,” Tow admits with a laugh. “There’s an action, there’s undercover. There’s just being at the bullpen with [the entire task force]. And so it was pretty, pretty awesome as an actor.”

With Wen and Stabler spending a large portion of the hour together, Tow got to work closely with Meloni, “who I’ve looked up to for a long time. And to be able to work with him has been really amazing.”

Establishing that quasi-partner rapport was something the duo took seriously. “Well, Chris is really a next-level actor,” Tow says. “I wasn’t sure what to expect, because I had never worked with Chris before. And I told him this—his dedication to the craft and every scene is to another degree. And I can see why he’s been so successful.”

“Every scene, he really looks into the intention of the character,” he continues. “And if something doesn’t make sense, he’ll focus in on saying, ‘I need to understand what is happening here.’ Where some other actors could really kind of just go through the motions, he’s not like that at all. And from an actor’s point of view, it was like a masterclass for watching and being able to work with Chris.”

Their on-screen counterparts? Well, Stabler and Wen go through more of an emotional roller coaster trying to figure out how they can work together.

“Wen has his own ways of doing things,” Tow admits with a laugh. “So even though Stabler’s the actual detective, Wen has his own [approach]. And he’s not necessarily an easy-going partner; he’s got his own mind for how he wants to find his son…sometimes a little bit of desperate craziness can get the information.”

After his ORGANIZED CRIME guest spot, Tow will next be seen in the Apple TV+ series CITY ON FIRE. (CITY ON FIRE bows on Friday, May 12 with its first three episodes.)

“There’s a similar arc—my character is the father of Chase Sui Wonders, [whose character is] shot in the beginning of the show,” he previews. “It’s a very emotionally draining role that for two months, three months of shooting, I really had to go into pretty dark and mentally draining things. It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done as an actor, and I’ve been doing this for 15, 16 years. So this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“I’m an athlete—I can play sports all day and be like, ‘Alright, I’m tired,’” he continues. “But it’s one thing being physically tired compared to mentally tired. It’s a much harder thing for me to be mentally tired and mentally exhausted and drained like I was everyday shooting.”

“It felt a little bit like that for LAW & ORDER, because it was a father desperate for his son,” he finishes. “And if he loses this opportunity, he could be gone forever. For me as an actor, I had to kind of go there—it’s hard, you can’t just fake that.”

Update (Thursday, March 30): Watch a clip from “Blood Ties”…

LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME, Thursdays, 10/9c, NBC

RELATED:

• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Blood Ties’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Chinatown’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: 5 Hopes for the NBC Drama’s Future
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Shakeup: Sean Jablonski Out, SVU Showrunner David Graziano to Run Rest of Season 3
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME’s Ainsley Seiger Dissects the Fun Dynamics of the New Task Force
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘The Wild and The Innocent’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Post-Mortem: Ainsley Seiger on the Fallout From Jet’s Undercover Assignment
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘All In The Game’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME’s Ainsley Seiger Previews Jet’s Fight to Survive: ‘Stall, Stall, Stall For Your Life’
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME’s Brent Antonello Shares His Crossover Hopes
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Preview: Danielle Moné Truitt and Ainsley Seiger Shine in ‘Punch Drunk’
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Punch Drunk’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘The Infiltration Game’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Post-Mortem: Brent Antonello on Jamie’s ‘Life-or-Death’ Undercover Twist
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Brent Antonello Previews Jamie’s Undercover Gig as a Getaway Driver
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Trap’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Danielle Moné Truitt on the Task Force Twist and Upcoming Insight into Bell’s History
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME’s Danielle Moné Truitt: The Task Force Being Ambushed Requires Them to ‘Put Their Differences Aside’ to Survive
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Last Christmas’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Whipping Post’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Composer Ruth Barrett on Crafting the Show’s Score and the Just-Released Season 1 Soundtrack
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘All That Glitters’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Blaze of Glory’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Post-Mortem: Rick Gonzalez on the Reyes Twist: ‘This is Bobby’s Moment’
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Rick Gonzalez Previews a Case ‘Intimately Connected’ to Reyes
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ Photos
• Kelli Giddish’s Final LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT Episode Set for December
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Spirit In The Sky’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Catch Me If You Can’ Photos
• NBC Releases New Key Art for LAW & ORDER, SVU, and ORGANIZED CRIME
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: ‘Everybody Knows the Dice are Loaded’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Season 3 Will Become ‘Politically Dangerous’ for Bell
• LAW & ORDER Crossover Co-Writer Gwen Sigan Shares Her Favorite ‘Gimme Shelter’ Scenes
• LAW & ORDER Crossover Event Recap: ‘Gimme Shelter’ Sets Up a Big SVU Storyline
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: What You Need to Know About the Season Premiere
• LAW & ORDER Crossover Event: ‘Gimme Shelter’ Photos
• LAW & ORDER’s Rick Eid on Co-Writing ‘Gimme Shelter’: ‘We Threw Format Out the Window’ for the Franchise-First Crossover
• LAW & ORDER Crossover: Watch the Action-Packed First Footage From ‘Gimme Shelter’
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Adds Janel Moloney
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Bryan Goluboff Exits, Sean Jablonski to Serve as Showrunner
• NBC Reveals LAW & ORDER Crossover Key Art
• Bryan Goluboff Teases How LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME and SVU Will Dive Into Elliot and Olivia’s Time Apart—and Previews Their Future
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME is Shaking Up Its Format in Season 3
• Behind-the-Scenes Photos and Videos from the LAW & ORDER Franchise Crossover
• NBC Confirms LAW & ORDER Crossover Event With New Promo
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Adds Gus Halper and Camilla Belle
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Adds Rick Gonzalez and Brent Antonello
• 6 Dream LAW & ORDER Franchise Crossover Pairings
• NBC Eyes LAW & ORDER-SVU-ORGANIZED CRIME Crossover Event
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Sets Bryan Goluboff as Showrunner
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Season 2 Finale Recap: Elliot’s Latest Undercover Mission Comes to an End
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME Post-Mortem: Dann Florek Breaks Down Cragen and Stabler’s Reunion
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME’s Dann Florek Teases Cragen’s Return: ‘It’s Part History and Part Mystery’
• NBC Boss Teases Potential LAW & ORDER and ONE CHICAGO Crossovers
• LAW & ORDER Stars Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni Weigh in on a Potential Benson/Stabler Relationship: ‘It Just Has to be Earned’
• LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME: Danielle Moné Truitt and Tamara Taylor Reflect on Their Favorite Season 1 Scenes

Follow @GiveMeMyRemote and @marisaroffman on Twitter for the latest TV news. Connect with other TV fans on GIVE ME MY REMOTE’s official Facebook page.

And be the first to see our exclusive videos by subscribing to our YouTube channel.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases made through links/ads placed on the site.