The majority of the Law & Order TV universe got some great news recently with the renewals for the 2024-2025 TV season... but Law & Order: Organized Crime was left out when Law & Order Season 24 and SVU Season 26 were ordered. While the wait is on to find out if Elliot Stabler, Ayanna Bell, and the rest of the OC task force will be back for another round, the lack of renewal news has me flashing back to when I spoke with actress Danielle Moné Truitt earlier in the 2024 TV schedule, and her comments that really demonstrate why the show needs a fifth season.
Organized Crime is the most serialized of the three Law & Order shows, and two of the four seasons so far have run for fewer than the usual 22 episodes for the franchise's procedurals. Season 4 picked up with the task force – to quote Danielle Moné Truitt – "just a little off" in the wake of Det. Jamie Whelan's death the previous season.
While there was no way of knowing back in January that fans would be waiting on OC renewal news just a couple of months later with L&O and SVU already guaranteed returns, what Truitt said about the team then still demonstrates now why they make for such compelling television, and there's no reason to expect that would change. On the topic of her character bringing an artificial intelligence expert into the dynamic after Whelan's death in the Season 3 finale, the actress said:
I think that's the reason why she is open to embracing it. They lost Whelan and she really does believe that maybe if they were using this technology that maybe they wouldn't have lost him. They would have been able to capture that guy without losing a part of the team. We're human, there's definitely human error. I personally think that's what makes life beautiful, is human error. [laughs] That's just how I think personally.
The characters of Law & Order: Organized Crime are just very human, with plenty of human error to go around. Just look at everything from Stabler's handling of The Letter years ago to Reyes and Jet having a messy affair to start Season 4. Every scene with the extended Stabler family is full of human error this year, both in the present and revealed from the past.
And that helps make OC must-see on a weekly basis for me, because what would be the fun in a serialized TV show if it was full of perfect characters who only ever make the right decisions? And would we be invested in their relationships if the sailing was always smooth?
I've been a fan of Law & Order: SVU going back to when I was probably too young to be watching it and have tuned in to every episode of the Law & Order revival, but OC is the show that proved the very long-running franchise can still try new things and do them well. During our conversation ahead of Season 4, Danielle Moné Truitt went on:
When you're in that line of work, and Bell already lost Gina, she lost Morales, and now Whelan, I think she's just tired. She's tired of taking these losses on her watch. So whatever she can do, to protect the team, to protect civilians, and to make their jobs not only easier, but just so that they can be more accurate in the decisions that they're making, I think Bell's going to try it. She's going to try it.
Bell continuing to try even when the odds are stacked against her both personally and professionally is another part of the appeal of the show, and a quality that she shares with the others on her team. For as much as Stabler has gotten in his own way over the years (again, see: The Letter), he never gives up, and the same can be said for Jet as the other main character who has been around from the beginning. Truitt went on to name another element of OC that stands out:
I don't think you can just do AI for everything and it's going to be perfect all the time. I think the human instinct, the gut was given to us for a reason, and I think it all has a place.
Considering how often at least one person on the team is going rogue, "human instinct" is an essential aspect of Organized Crime. It's also an element that receives a lot more focus on OC than the more procedural SVU and L&O. Just this season alone, we've seen how Stabler was right about the importance of trusting his gut, but Jet has been right too about AI as an asset in their investigations.
There's a focus on character that can't really be found elsewhere on a weekly basis on its fellow Law & Order shows, and I'm crossing my fingers that it's not something that fans will have to lose any time soon. It's much too soon for Law & Order: Organized Crime to come to an end, and I think that new showrunner John Shiban has brought the Breaking Bad touch to OC in the best way.
For now, we can only wait and see if NBC orders Season 5 of Law & Order: Organized Crime. To show some support, tune in to new episodes when Season 4 returns on April 11, and stream earlier episodes via a Peacock Premium subscription.
