Law & Order: Organized Crime 2×18 added yet another layer of pain to Elliot Stabler’s already-complicated feelings about his father. Regardless of how dangerous or stressful his undercover operation with Donnelly and the Brotherhood may be, no matter how much he might have gotten caught off guard and beaten up by Braden, it was the episode’s emotional center that really resonated most.
It also hurt like hell to witness it all. The good news, though, is that taking the time for Elliot to deal with with his wounds can only lead to him actually being better in the end.
“Change The Game” also, at times, seemed to uncomfortably echo Elliot’s more recent past—namely, the years he spent as Olivia Benson’s partner at SVU. We’re hoping, as viewers, that we’re getting that particular series of kicks to the gut for the purposes of finally moving forward there, too.
As has usually been the case with this series, for as many twists and turns as the investigation takes, it’s really all there for the character development anyway. Or, at least, we’re always here for the bigger picture.
So, let’s discuss how Law & Order: Organized Crime 2×18 screamed at Elliot Stabler, from two different angles: “You are so much more than you think.”
A thing or two about paternity…
There’s a scene at the beginning of “Change The Game” that, on most other series, would have been a throwaway. But as it turns out, this is Law & Order: Organized Crime, so it was setup for more…and kind of an attack in its own right.
During a baby shower, Frank Donnelly says some mess about how he’s not going to be in the delivery room, “biting off the umbilical cord” (which, uh, that’s…not how it works, my dude), when his wife, Bridget, gives birth. And Elliot is…not exactly settled by all of that. And then, he gets a chance to feel like he’s crawling out of his skin, courtesy of Bridget:
“Well, as long as you were there when it counted.”
Because, often, he wasn’t “there when it counted.” Certainly not during the darkest time in his former partner’s life…and also, memorably, he was absent for the most traumatic part of his youngest kid’s birth.
It was…the aforementioned former partner who was taking his very pregnant wife to a doctor’s appointment when all hell broke loose. It was Her (yes, with a capital H)—Olivia—by Kathy’s side when she went into labor and almost died. And Liv was the first person to hold Eli, not either one of his parents. (Which, as a reminder, makes Kathy’s shitty letter a billion times shittier.)
I don’t think anyone reading this didn’t already know all of those things…But it’s all worth pointing out because Organized Crime 2×18 not only shows us Elliot’s pained reaction to (quite obviously) remembering that he made those mistakes, but also gives him a jarring redux of it all. While he’s in the middle of doing what feels like betraying his current “partner,” he winds up being the one who’s there when it counts for the partner’s wife. After mother and baby are in recovery, there’s even a hug between partners.
Basically, it’s a series of distorted “Paternity” throwbacks, and if they left viewers unsettled, that was almost surely the point.
Aside from giving longtime fans of Stabler a chance to suffer through the memories, there’s a lot to draw from these scenes. In the first place, yeah, Detective Guilt is still…feeling guilty. He sees a lot of himself in Donnelly. Too much, actually.
The series has already used the contrast between Elliot and Frank to show Detective Stabler is (and always was) a better cop than Detective Donnelly. Now, in Law & Order: Organized Crime 2×18, we’re seeing the obvious battle between Elliot’s valid regrets, in terms of the times he wishes he had been there for his family but wasn’t…and the misconception he seems to have about himself, deep down, about what kind of father and husband he was.
Regardless of the many, many ways this man has fucked up, he’s not what he fears he is. Case in point: There’s a huge difference between being gone because you’re working and being gone because you’re…doing Donnelly things.
And, yes, there’s also the “am I, or was I, a good partner” doubt still swirling around in Elliot’s head. Stabler’s going to continue to feel terrible about lying to Donnelly through all of this, especially with how much Frank trusts him…But El was a good partner to Liv, back when they were actual partners. It was when he left that he betrayed her. What we really need to think about, though, is if he feels this much like a monster for doing the right thing, just how much he has to hate himself for that time he actually did the wrong one.
Also, he should probably…have that conversation with the partner who was actually his partner for 12 years, the one he actually betrayed, sometime soon. Just saying.
And now, here’s pain
So, we’ve already started to untuck some of the Joe Stabler layers in terms of Elliot learning that his dad’s Combat Cross…might not have been the symbol of heroism he thought it was. Now, Law & Order: Organized Crime 2×18 has forced him to think about who Joe was as a father. Just like every other character in this universe, it turns out El’s dad was not someone we could paint in jet black or pure white. Put another way, Detective Stabler: Original Blend wasn’t a villainous archetype.
Elliot’s dad was abusive, and nothing we learned in “Change The Game” will ever change that. We even hear him say, in this episode, that Joe beat his dream of becoming an architect out of him. And let’s cry about the wistful way he talked about that dream while we’re at it.
So, again, before we go into the new information: Joe Stabler was an abuser. Nothing is going to change that. And no matter which mistakes Elliot has made along the way, including refusing to be honest with Eli about his current undercover operation—even after nearly losing Eli at Christmas—our Detective Stabler is not his father. Whatever he is, whatever his many failings may be, he has always been absolutely disgusted by abusers.
“Your father loved you, Elliot.”
As it turns out, though, Joe…was not only an abusive husband and father. We saw a element side of the character when Elliot finally sat down to watch the old home movies he asked Jet to digitize for him. Apparently, while El has only held on to and remembered the bad things, Detective Stabler the First had his moments of being a loving, attentive dad. There were even lighter moments between Bernie and Joe.
“Boy, you had better let go of the past. Or you’re never going to be free of it.”
It’s not that Elliot needed to see and remember these things because they could somehow make Joe anything other than who and what he was. And, as Bernie put it, no, El hasn’t been “working on it” by hiding all the photo albums away and refusing to “talk about pops.”
Bernie keeps encouraging Elliot to stop bottling up all his feelings about his childhood so he can stop being at its mercy—he needs actually deal with his shit—so he could maybe, just maybe, see his own worth. Not only that, but he’ll never get to find himself, never be able to be all the good he wants to be, without letting go. He has parts of himself that have never healed, wounds that have never been tended to. And none of that can happen without admitting the full story, all the details, of what he’s healing from.
Repression is the road to disaster. It certainly brought out a lot of Elliot’s worst qualities over the years—imagine what might have been if he wasn’t so stuck on these fuzzy concepts of honor, and duty, and loyalty. You can’t avoid your demons forever; you can only confront them, face to face, and barrel on through—not around—them. This case, and having Bernie at home to give him the tough love, are both forcing Elliot to do exactly that.
Thoughts on Law & Order: Organized Crime 2×18 that won’t change any games
- “…want any buns.” He really…I can’t. (But yes, I do want your buns, sir.)
- The decorations really said “PREGNANT AF,” and I really said, “Olivia Benson should have been. With Elliot Stabler’s fifth baby. Once he was divorced.”
- Ellen Burstyn and Christopher Meloni destroyed me, down to my very atoms, in that last scene.
- But oh…the pride and joy from Mama Bernie when she saw what her boy was watching—what he was finally trying to come to terms with.
- Leave me to die, basically.
- “You know how married guys always like to say, ‘I love you, I’m going to leave my wife for you,’ yadda, yadda, yadda…” No, but he should have said that!
- “He is Detective First Grade Elliot Stabler, my partner and my brother.” This would’ve been a moment if not for the obvious reasons.
- Dick Wolf Entertainment is…not great with anything remotely having to do with pregnancy. There’s usually tragedy—big punishment for women who dare to work in fields like policing, medicine, or firefighting—involved. Apparently, Bridget’s the stay-at-home type, though, because she had typical TV show drama, not Wolf’s particular brand of angst, for her labor. Love that!
- Elliot,
myLiv’s love, stay away from the target’s wife. I’m begging. - “There are those who see. There are those who see when shown. And those who will never see.” Damned near sounds like the Four Sons at the Pesach seder, to be honest.
- Also, if Elliot doesn’t hurry up and see what his friend is, and always has been, showing him…I swear to God…
- “I can always spot a man with taste.” Um. He was married to Kathy. Kissed Angela. Banged Flutura…But also…loves Her. He has decidedly mixed taste.
- Eli “Google” Stabler.
- “They say you aren’t a cop until you’re on your second marriage.” Y’all, I—.
- And for the record, the second wife will 1) remember how cute El looked as a carrot and 2) love the new home he designs for them as part of reviving his dream of being an architect.
- “I felt like a good cop.” Because you are one…at least as much as anyone can be.
- “He is going to throw his whole life away. And for what? Loyalty?” Elliot did that a decade ago, huh?
- If Organized Crime 2×18 failed anywhere at all, it’s in the lack of carrot costume continuity.
- On the one hand, Jet asking Elliot about vintage porn totally awkwarded him out—as it should. On the other, I cracked the fuck up. Somewhere between those two hands, somewhere in my deepest, darkest fanfiction dreams, I wondered: Was that grin about sharing dirty videos with Liv?
- Not this man being all OMGCALLINGHOSPITAL, in his panic voice, when he has five kids.
- Speaking of: “I’ve got five kids. If it were me, I’d let the world burn to protect any one of them. But that’s just me.” Elliot,
myOlivia’s friend, was that your reason? Will we ever know it?
Got thoughts on Elliot’s daddy issues? The Donnelly of it all? Anything else about Organized Crime 2×18? Drop us a comment!
Law & Order: Organized Crime airs Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.