‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’ Brings Back ‘SVU’ Alum for Guest Role, and It’s Not Mariska Hargitay

Elliot Stabler is again reaching out to the past to help him out on Law & Order: Organized Crime. While we’ve seen Ice-T appear on the show, Mariska Hargitay has been a regular presence in her former partner’s adventures.

We’re about to see another favorite return to the Law & Order universe after his series exit. Dann Florek is set for the April 7 episode as Captain Donald Cragen, Stabler’s former boss and mentor.

Cragen’s return comes as Stabler is heading back undercover, joining with a group of dirty cops led by Donnelly, played by Denis Leary. It’s a situation you’d want to bring in some big guns for, so Stabler seeks Cragen for some wisdom and discussion on bad cops, corruption, and his own personal history.

Stabler’s father and his police history play a significant part in this season of the show, especially with Donnelly mentioning how the elder Stabler was a hero in his house growing up, but also shares that he wasn’t as clean as his son believed. As Donnelly explains, “his partner shoot him in the leg and make it look like Joe was defending him. … So Joe Stabler got a damn combat cross for taking that bullet. Now you want to talk about loyalty, you want to talk about brotherhood, we’re just like our dads.”

If this isn’t a good enough reason to run to a father figure in the Law & Order world, there can’t be much more out there. Trying to determine if his father was a dirty cop is the thing that can shift an entire lifetime’s worth of thinking.

So Cragen is coming in to help his one mentee in a dark moment, while the last time we saw him was his other mentee’s proud moment as Benson moved up to become the new captain after Cragen’s exit. Organized Crime returns on April 7 to cap off another night full of Law & Order drama.