The bodies are piling up.
Organized crime cases always end up like this, with as many deaths as a Shakespearean tragedy. The closer Stabler and Bell get to the truth, the more people end up dead.
Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 3 Episode 4 featured a bloody suicide and a bunch of near misses for Reyes and Kenny. Thank goodness Reyes made it out of his undercover assignment in one piece.
Bell’s attitude toward undercover work was the weakest part of an otherwise solid episode. That has got to go!
She carries the ghost of Gina Capanelli every day. So we are going to do this my way.
Stabler
I get that she has never gotten over Gina’s death, but you’re not going to catch mobsters without risking the lives of the detectives closest to making a collar. That’s just how it is.
Undercover work is especially dangerous. Gina knew that going in, and Bell should know it now. Her constant insistence that the assignments are too risky is getting annoying.
She always wants to pull the UC when it’s too soon or not practical. Every conversation involving undercover work is the same. Bell discourages it, insists she has to keep her officers safe, and ultimately relents after Stabler convinces her she’s being ridiculous.
Enough already! Reyes was hired to do undercover work, so stop worrying about his safety and let him do his job.
The only way to make progress on this case was to get Kenny talking; the only way to do that was to put someone on the inside to gain Kenny’s trust. This was not a difficult decision, especially when the detective in question was explicitly hired to do these kinds of jobs.
Once Reyes was on the inside, he quickly proved he was up to the task. Shockingly, Kenny didn’t catch on to how Reyes was playing him; after Reyes took offense to being accused of being a cop, Kenny never brought it up again, and that was that.
Reyes did a great job integrating himself into prison life, though he mostly interacted with Kenny. That should have made everyone around him suspicious.
His task was made a little too easy. The other prisoners should have had their doubts even after he supposedly took a blade for Kenny.
Some guys were milling around when Kenny and Reyes were talking about the possibility of Kenny snitching. They looked like they were eavesdropping, so they probably got an earful. What happened to them?
Prisoners don’t take kindly to snitches. They should have been ready to beat Kenny and Reyes’ asses for discussing the possibility. But absolutely nothing came of it, making it appear they were nothing but extras.
How disappointing! What was the point of showing those guys hanging around if they wouldn’t act on what they learned?
Reyes carried most of the action in this one, which was a departure from previous seasons of Law & Order: Organized Crime.
It was a change for the better. This series works better as an ensemble drama than when it is the Stabler Show. Stabler doesn’t need to be a superhero fighting a cartoonish villain; the Law & Order franchise usually tends toward far more realism than that.
While the crew was worried about Reyes, they were also investigating the connection between Kenny, Dominick, and the Silases.
The Silases were forced to stop work after a crew member was seriously injured, leading to a subplot in which Pearl fired Vincent, who promptly killed himself.
The scene of Vincent’s death was graphic, but what exactly was the point?
He’d been plotting to kill Kenny but ended up completing suicide instead. His secrets went to the grave with him, but Stabler will undoubtedly dig them up.
These complex stories involving masterminds and murders can sometimes make Organized Crime hard to follow. It’s confusing to keep track of all the players and who did what.
This story is more straightforward than some we’ve had in the past. Vincent was Teddy’s foreman. He also has connections in the underworld. Firing him — and his subsequent suicide — will likely have repercussions for Teddy and Pearl.
Pearl is a mixed bag; she’s only half on Teddy’s side and does what she wants. It’s probably only a matter of time before she switches sides and tells Stabler everything he wants to know.
The cracks in the foundation of her marriage began a long time ago. She hired a private investigator, and he paid the woman off to switch sides; obviously, Pearl didn’t trust him.
And now, he’s not happy with how she handled the problem in their business. That’s going to make the problems between these two even worse.
What will it take to entice Pearl to turn on Teddy? She’s more than halfway there.
Undoubtedly, Teddy is far more involved in Henry Cole’s death than he admits. Finding out the real story here is going to be fun!
Your turn, Organized Crime fanatics. Hit the big blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know your thoughts. You can also watch Law & Order: Organized Crime online to refresh your memory.
Organized Crime airs on NBC on Thursdays at 10 PM EST / PST.
Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.