‘Law & Order: SVU’ and ‘Organized Crime’ Crossover Begins With Rollins’ Return

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Organized Crime began their two-week season-ending crossover on Thursday, with plenty of feelings flying all over the place. Christopher Meloni stopped by the end of SVU in “Blood Out,” leading to Mariska Hargitay joining the OC team in “Shadowërk.” It all built up to a dramatic cliffhanger that brought Kelli Giddish back to the set.

This was Olivia Benson (Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler’s (Meloni) first meeting since their near-kiss in the “Blood Out.” They briefly discussed the kiss, with both noting it was “bad timing” for them. Benson also noticed Stabler is wearing his wedding ring again. He was inspired to put it back on after seeing a ghost of his wife Kathy last week. Stabler insisted he is not crazy, adding that he is not a victim. “But you are a survivor… and sometimes that’s just as hard,” Benson told him.

The main story technically started in the May 4 OC episode “Pareto Principle,” where Ayanna Bell (Danielle Monae Truitt), Stabler, and their team investigated murders and robberies being done by people still in prison. They discovered a scheme where prisoners who were furloughed used their time outside to rob targets provided to them by corrupt prison guards. One of these crimes involved the murder of a homeowners association leader. This puzzled them because it didn’t have anything similar to the other crimes.

Separately, in the May 11 SVU episode “Bad Things,” Benson’s team investigated a series of rapes where the perpetrator was a stranger but knew the victims’ names. The rapists also took selfies to confirm they did their evil deeds. However, there was nothing connecting the victims, other than someone in their lives being upset with them. Then, one of the victims was raped by a BX9 member who was already in prison. That sounds like it might be connected to whatever Stabler’s team is working on. Stabler approached Benson because of the BX9 connection. They realized there might be a platform helping people pay to have targets raped.

That led right into the May 11 OC episode, “Shadowërk.” The OC team learned about a website where people could post targets and others would pick them up. They learned that the HOA president’s neighbors hated her guts so much that they worked together to put her up as a target on the site and the BX9 member picked up the contract during one of his furloughs. Benson, Stabler, Bell, and the teams decided they needed to shut this down. Their problem was that they needed the feds involved because they traced the “Shadowërk” site to a home in Dublin, Ohio.

The website’s architect remains unknown. Stabler decided to bring a now-pregnant Professor Rollins (Giddish) in to help. She’s going to work Criminal Minds-style to give Benson and Stabler a profile of their unsub, who just posted a contract for a judge’s death. The episode ended with Rollins giving her opinion on who this crafty murderer must be. The story will continue in SVU‘s “All Pain Is One Malady” and OC‘s “With Many Names,” which air back-to-back on Thursday, May 11 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. Both shows are streaming on Peacock.