Karen David Previews Diya’s Chaotic Introduction Into LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME World

Karen David has been acting for over two decades—in shows like FEAR THE WALKING DEAD, GALAVANT, and ONCE UPON A TIME, as well as guest arcs on series like CASTLE, CRIMINAL MINDS, and TIMELESS—but Thursday, April 27 marks a new milestone in her career: Her first time on a Dick Wolf series, thanks her guest spot playing Diya on LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME.

“I’ve never done anything in the Dick Wolf universe and the LAW & ORDER universe—I’ve always been a huge fan, too, having watched it growing up,” she tells Give Me My Remote. “My family and my dear friends have also been huge fans of the universe, too. [And] they came to me with this lovely offer to play this role. They said, ‘How do you feel about spending a few weeks with Christopher Meloni?’”

“I said [jokingly], ‘Well, let me think right now. Hm, I think it’s gonna be a very quick yes,'” she recalls with a laugh. “I love the premise and the storyline of the episode. I love that it’s an international storyline, [as well as] filming in New York, which I’ve never done before; I’ve always been to New York for press and on personal trips, but never to actually film. So I was really excited, it’s like all the stars aligned for this. So it was a very quick yes for me.”

In “A Diplomatic Solution,” the task force is assigned to protect Diya, a newly-arrived UN diplomat. “We see this diplomat from India, tasked with the role of having to deliver a speech to the UN on behalf of her country and the Indian government,” David previews.

But things quickly take a turn when there’s an assassination attempt on the team’s convoy, and OCCB has to figure out how to protect Diya and who is trying to take her out.

“Not quite the welcoming that she thought she would get; she didn’t realize the gravity of her presence there would cause such chaos the minute she arrived [via] a car bomb explosion,” David notes. “Her assistant in [the] hospital, lives lost. I mean, that’s the last thing that anyone wants, let alone a diplomat coming in to give a very peaceful speech at the UN. So it didn’t really start off the way she had imagined, understandably, and see her having to navigate as a diplomat has to, through very sticky and challenging situations.”

By her side throughout the ordeal is Elliot Stabler (Meloni), who has been assigned as Diya’s de facto bodyguard.

“Of course, they might not necessarily hit it off in the beginning, where she’s just like, ‘Okay, where’s my car?’” David shares. “She doesn’t know that he’s actually been assigned to her. She just thinks that he’s part of the welcome party…which I think it’s so funny that she gets that so wrong. Only to quickly find out that he is there to help her and protect her and she truly appreciates that.”

With the characters spending much of the episode together, even the actors were wondering what was brewing between their counterparts.

“We were actually talking about it, because we were like, ‘Is this a sort of underlying attraction between the two?’” David shares. “She’s intrigued by him. I mean, what’s not to love? Aside from the fact that this is Christopher Meloni, he’s so charismatic and naturally charming, and a very strong, independent individual who comes in. Not such a bad thing that he happens to be so dashing and so charismatic, and yet very strong.”

Diya’s assistant also senses something, “which completely throws her off guard,” David previews. “But I love those little nuances, and those little moments that happen in between, because it shows her humanity as well. She is there to perform a duty and to carry out a task, but it also shows that she has a very personal side to her, too.”

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

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