Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 3 Episode 15 Review: The Wild and The Innocent
Jack Ori
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Organized Crime took a break from its usual complex cases to deal with a kidnapping.
Unlike most cases the unit deals with, this one could have just as easily been a case on one of the FBI series.
On Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 3 Episode 15, Organized Crime handled this case because Stabler knew the victim's father. While the abduction involved a gang war, this case didn't exactly fit the unit's mission.
Even the structure of this case felt more like FBI than Organized Crime, with the cold open involving a seemingly ordinary couple getting plunged into a nightmare when Calvin was killed, and Janelle kidnapped.
The hook, of course, was that Stabler knew Janelle's father. While the promo advertised that David was Stabler's Marine buddy, the relationship was a bit more complicated: he was Stabler's erstwhile platoon leader who had turned to a life of crime after ending his tour of duty.
Did anyone else want more of David's backstory? I wanted to know how a Marine commander who saved Stabler's life ended up leading a biker gang that committed violent felonies regularly.
I guess the horrors of war turned David into a criminal, but that was never made clear. The only explanation we got was that Stabler went in one direction and David in the other, effectively ending their friendship.
Biker: Know this guy?
David: Yeah. We served together and now he's a cop.
Stabler: We need to talk.
David: You disappear for 25 years and now you want to talk?
From David's point of view, Stabler ghosted him. It sounded plausible, especially since his complaint echoed Benson's about Stabler's disappearing act.
But Stabler told Bell a different story: a drunk David cursed Stabler out and rejected his offer of help, then never called Stabler again.
The details of who ghosted who don't matter. David's fall from grace was tragic, but it was hard to feel anything about it when there was so little info to go on.
At first, David and Stabler were working at cross purposes. Stabler was trying to conduct an investigation that could easily have been ruined by David's determination to take matters into his own hands.
That conflict didn't materialize. Instead, David reluctantly gave Stabler info in exchange for a lesser sentence for various gang-related felonies.
What a shame! It would have made for more intense storytelling if the two worked against each other throughout the hour.
Although this wasn't the most compelling story Organized Crime has ever had, it had its moments.
Jet was back in her element; oddly, she seemed to have forgotten all about Seamus' death and that whole mess already. Despite the lack of explanation for how she got herself back together, she played an interesting role in this investigation- though more typical for her.
Reyes: What did I just hack into? This doesn't look good.
Jet: The federal government looks at me and I look at them. Don't worry about it.
Jet's conversations with Whalen and Reyes while they hacked into the government system for her cracked me up. I'm on the fence about whether Jet's password was some sexual reference or something embarrassingly childlike.
I loved the ease with which she was able to get into a government server, too. Reyes was freaked out, but was he surprised? I certainly wasn't.
Whalen got somewhat of a chance to redeem himself when he played the role of the gunmaker.
What would have happened if there hadn't been that unexpected wrinkle in the plan, though? Whalen was playing the role of a gunmaker who was about to get held hostage; presumably, the rest of the unit would have his back. Still, anything could have happened.
What if Grimes had demanded that Whalen produce a new gun for him on the spot? That could have been a disaster!
I was surprised that Grimes didn't realize that the guns were defective.
Supposedly, they didn't really shoot. But Grimes didn't notice when he tried one out.
This was the riskiest part of the plan; it would have been relatively easy for Grimes to realize the guns were defective, and then there would have been hell to pay.
As it was, the team nearly made a fatal error by not accounting for the possibility of an unwanted guest during the exchange.
They knew that Grimes was selling guns to the cartel, so they should have been prepared for the possibility that the cartel leader or one of his underlings would show up and throw a monkey wrench into things.
They were lucky that the rescue operation went as smoothly as it did after that hiccup led to Janelle being re-abducted. The high-speed chase was exciting, but it was also unnecessarily dangerous.
Two cars chased Janelle and Grimes down roads where people kept getting in the way. The only way to get Grimes to stop was to deliberately cause an accident -- while he had a hostage in the passenger seat. That could have ended disastrously. It was convenient that the only person injured in this mess was the bad guy!
What did you think, Law & Order: Organized Crime fanatics? Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know.
Law & Order: Organized Crime doesn't return until March 23, but you can watch Law & Order: Organized Crime online whenever you'd like.
Law & Order: Organized Crime airs on NBC on Thursdays at 10 PM EST / PST. The next new episode airs on March 23, 2023.
Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on X.
