The second arc of Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 2 brought in some new characters as part of Richard Wheatley’s vendetta against Elliot Stabler, including hacker extraordinaire Malachi to join forces with Jet. That arc is coming to an end, and Dylan McDermott is making the jump to CBS to star on FBI: Most Wanted, but what’s next for the other actors who were key to Organized Crime Season 2? Wesam Keesh, who has played Malachi throughout the arc, weighed in on how he’d want to return to the Law & Order franchise.
Wesam Keesh spoke with CinemaBlend ahead of his final episodes as Malachi in the Wheatley arc, and even previewed the intensity on the way as the stakes grew even higher than ever. With the storyline soon ending, he first shared whether or not he’d be interested in returning to Organized Crime:
Of course! Of course I would. I really, really enjoy being on that show. As a younger actor, getting to watch the older generation of actors do their thing and observe them and soak all that up, it's absolutely priceless. Because there's not this like apprentice-mentor relationship anymore in craftsmanship. And so whenever you get an opportunity on the show to watch the master actors do their thing… I mean, I love acting. I love it. It's my passion. And it's just an absolute blessing and a great opportunity to become a better actor just by observing and being around Chris [Meloni] and Dylan [McDermott] and seeing the way they work. I sincerely mean that, because it's rare nowadays. It's extremely rare.
The actor has also shared how Chris Meloni and Dylan McDermott make working on the show “super fun” despite the very heavy storylines, and the two longtime TV stars evidently helped Wesam Keesh develop his skills as an actor even further. They certainly are playing two very different kinds of characters, as the biggest nemeses of OC’s two seasons so far! If the opportunity presents itself, Keesh would clearly be happy to return to the Law & Order: SVU spinoff.
Plus, the success of OC all but guarantees that it will be back for another season, and the entire nine-show Dick Wolf universe is going strong with the recent return of the original Law & Order to television. There are the three Law & Order shows and three One Chicago shows on NBC, plus the three FBI shows over on CBS. Wesam Keesh weighed in on how he’d want to return to the franchise, if he had his pick of the Dick Wolf shows:
Oh, you know SVU gets so intense, especially because it deals with sexual crimes and sexually assaulted victims. And so the heaviness of doing an arc on a show like that would be so crazy. Maybe even playing a bad guy. I know that original Law & Order is coming up, so that would be cool, too. Like a really cool bad guy role on there.
At 500 episodes and counting, Law & Order: SVU knows how to create a very bad guy, and some pretty big names – like The Mandalorian’s Pedro Pascal – have even appeared as SVU villains before going on to even bigger things. Plus, with an opening narration that specifically mentions offenses that are considered “especially heinous” and “vicious felonies,” viewers tuning in know to expect some intense bad guys! That said, Wesam Keesh also had another idea for a way for him to return to the franchise:
Oh, no, you know what I want to do? I want to be that off-the-rails cop, you know, who like chases down the subject and then beats somebody up and then he gets his badge taken away, but he's still trying to solve the crime. That'd be cool to do for SVU for sure.
After working with Chris Meloni in OC Season 2, Wesam Keesh may have all the inspiration he needs to play that kind of cop in the Law & Order franchise! Back in his Special Victims days, Stabler all but specialized in taking certain cases personally, getting himself in trouble, and continuing to pursue the case anyway. Captain Cragen (who returned in SVU’s 500th episode) was probably partly relieved when Stabler retired from the unit! Now that Benson is captain, it could be fun to see her with that kind of character working under her. And Wesam Keesh is game!
If you want to check out (or revisit) Wesam Keesh’s time as Malachi and the Wheatley arc of Season 2, you can find Law & Order: Organized Crime streaming on Peacock now, plus plenty of other options with a Peacock Premium subscription. Law & Order Thursdays will continue on NBC, with the original at 8 p.m. ET, SVU at 9 p.m., and Organized Crime at 10 p.m. in the 2022 TV schedule.
