L&O: Organized Crime will air its final episode on NBC this month. Will the show kill off Detective Stabler as it moves to streaming? Season 4 of the Law & Order spinoff is set to wrap up this month. The Stabler family has been in danger throughout the season, but if the show kills off a family member, which one will it be?
L&O: Organized Crime Fans Relieved, Angry Over Renewal
The fate of Law & Order: Organized Crime came down to the wire. Its sister show Special Victims Unit, and the flagship show, Law & Order, got renewals back in March. Many fans of the franchise feared the worst for the Organized Crime spinoff featuring Christopher Meloni as Detective Stabler. He previously played the role on SVU for 12 seasons before abruptly leaving in 2011.
However, his highly anticipated return didn’t garner the ratings everyone expected. The show was on the bubble again this year when NBC announced its Fall 2024 schedule.
Organized Crime fans breathed a sigh of relief earlier this week when the show was renewed for Season 5, but the renewal came with a catch. The show wouldn’t air on NBC this fall. In fact, it will no longer air on NBC at all. Instead, it is moving exclusively to Peacock, NBC’s streaming service.
The network has done this with a few other shows, most notably its long-running daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives. While many fans are happy to see L&O: Organized Crime live on, many refuse to pay extra to watch it on Peacock, which plans a price increase ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Is The Show Killing Off Stabler Amid Move To Streaming?
The Stabler family has been front and center since Organized Crime began. In fact, the show kicked off with the death of Stabler’s wife, Kathy, in a car bomb.
Oscar-winning actress Ellen Burstyn has a recurring role as Stabler’s mom. The show expanded the detective’s family in Season 4 with the introduction of his two brothers: older brother Randall (Dean Norris) and his troubled younger brother Joe Jr. (Michael Trotter.)
Joe Jr. was dishonorably discharged from the military and reinvented himself as a winemaker. However, fans (and his family) are recently discovering that Joe Jr. has a dark side. An addiction to heroin put him in the path of an international drug dealer.
In the last episode, he got clean after an intervention by his brothers and situated himself right in the middle of the fray between his police officer brother and the criminal enterprise.
Detective Stabler spent most of Season 4 undercover, trying to nab the international drug dealer but didn’t know his brother’s connection to the crime syndicate.
According to soaps.com, it all comes to a head in the Season 4 finale. Will Joe Jr., Elliot, or older brother, Randall, get in the crosshairs of an FBI raid on the warehouse where the drugs are kept?
Fans will have to tune in to NBC on Thursday, May 16, to find out. However, it seems unlikely the network will kill off the lead of the show. Do you think any of the Stabler brothers will die in the season finale?
