Bell returned just in time to wrap up Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5. Thank goodness!
She knew Stabler was up to something, and she wasn’t pulling any punches, proving again that the Organized Crime Bureau needs her energy.
Sadly, her story was as rushed as everyone else’s, which has been a fundamental problem on Law & Order: Organized Crime since it moved to Peacock.
Bell Knows Stabler Better Than Anyone, But She Couldn’t Stop His Imitation of Hank Voight
Bell has been at war with Stabler’s worst impulses since Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 1 Episode 1, and this latest story was no exception.
She knew that he wasn’t going to take bereavement leave until after he’d tied up a certain loose end related to Joey’s death.
Why would she believe that? Her relationship with Stabler began when he broke as many rules as he could find to get justice for Kathy.
It was annoying that someone interrupted Bell every time she tried to ask Reyes what he knew about Stabler’s illicit activities, though.
I don’t like that trope, especially when it’s used several times in one episode, but at least it led to some strong payoff.
Bell had just enough time to warn Reyes not to let Stabler drag him down before the man of the hour randomly showed up in the squad room with a significant break in the case.
I had to laugh at that.
Of COURSE Stabler pops in with intel so strong that Bell can’t dress him down about the way he got that information.
Unsurprisingly, she led her team through taking Emery down while keeping an eye on Stabler to make sure he knew his rebellion was at an end.
Before that, Stabler and McKenna were acting so violently that they made Chicago PD‘s Hank Voight look like a cop who follows the rules.
Okay, so that’s an exaggeration, but it isn’t THAT far off the mark.
I couldn’t help thinking that if Bell fired Stabler, he could always head to Chicago to help the Intelligence Unit recover from the mess Reid tried to make out of it. Just saying.
All That Build-Up For A Rushed Ending…
I would have given Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 Episode 10 a perfect score if the ending hadn’t been such a mess.
The procedural had all the ingredients for a powerful ending, with Emery poised to slip through the Organized Crime Bureau’s fingers thanks to an intel-hungry FBI agent — or was he from the DOJ?
Emery said he made a deal with the latter, but the guy said he was from the former, so I was confused.
Anyway, the deal the Feds were insisting on making with Emery was completely ridiculous, especially since his info hadn’t been independently verified.
But the Feds being willing to allow a notorious kingpin and murderer a slap on the wrist in exchange for info that might or might not be useless totally tracks with the miscarriages of justice all around us.
Getting Emery was almost too easy, and Stabler knew how these things usually played out.
Richard Wheatley got away with killing Stabler’s wife, so there was no real reason to expect the justice system to provide anything resembling accountability to the man who killed his brother.
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Emery called Joey a wreck who was nothing but a heroin addict.
While Law & Order: Organized Crime didn’t go into it, I have no doubt there were people in Stabler’s New York who thought that meant he got what he deserved and his death didn’t really matter.
For that reason, I was thrilled that Joey redeemed himself via a flash drive full of evidence against Emery.
However, the DOJ’s sudden decision to drop charges didn’t make sense.
I get that Joey delivered proof that Emery was in bed with Syrian smugglers, but that shouldn’t have been a dealbreaker for people who wanted intel on terrorists — it should have been a stronger reason to make the deal.
After all, Emery had an in with the people they were trying to catch.
This felt like a deus ex machina, which is a fancy way of saying that the writers magically solved the story problem with a rescuer coming out of nowhere.
In this case, I suspect it’s because they didn’t know whether Law & Order: Organized Crime is returning for Season 6.
Too many NBC shows have ended on cliffhangers that won’t be resolved because they got canceled (no, I will never get over Found and The Irrational being axed.)
If Law & Order: Organized Crime isn’t renewed for Season 6, this season finale will become a series finale, so in that sense, wrapping everything up was vital.
I’ll be even more pissed off than before if this series ends, though, especially after the way it treated Bell.
I didn’t realize how much of an Ayanna Bell stan I’d become until she disappeared for a few episodes and something felt off.
I’m so upset about it that I’m devoting space to an editorial dedicated to Bell, so check back for that later.
For now, I’ll just say that it was a travesty that she was gone for a third of the uber short season and that when she came back, she got half an episode to be mad that Stabler had gone rogue before joining him in taking Emery down.
We need Season 6 for several reasons, but one strong reason is that Bell received virtually no story and was shoved off-screen, despite being one of the most important characters in the show.
That needs to change.
Your Turn, Organized Crime Fanatics
Let’s keep the conversation going — it’s the only way the good stuff survives.
Share your thoughts about Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 Episode 10 in the comments and pass this review on to a friend so they can join in.
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Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 is over, but all five seasons are currently streaming on Peacock.
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