Spoilers ahead for Episode 2 of Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5, called "Dante's Inferno," available streaming now with a Peacock subscription. Abandon all hope (of spoiler-free sentences), ye who enter here!
Law & Order: Organized Crime wasted no time in the 2025 TV schedule in ramping up the intensity, with the Season 5 premiere ending with Elliot and a young girl in a devastating car crash. As one might expect, the second episode was pretty dramatic as the plot thickened with the case, Bunny was in bad shape in the hospital, and Elliot was basically in a coma The Stabler family surrounded him at the hospital, with Mariska Hargitay stepping away from SVU to visit as well.
There was one major break from the seriousness early on, thanks to Randall Stabler making a pass at Benson, and new Season 5 series regular Dean Norris spoke to CinemaBlend about the attempt at romance going back to Christopher Meloni himself.
After the Special Victims captain introduced herself and provided a bit of backstory about how she and Elliot were partners and good friends for a long time, Randall took the conversation in a different direction. Standing over the comatose body of his brother, he offered to make Olivia some of his "world-famous" brisket.
Mariska Hargitay's reaction was pretty delightful as she clearly was thrown for a loop, and it honestly looked for a moment like Benson thought "brisket" must be a code word for something, but her eventual promise to bring cole slaw was the unlikely catalyst for Elliot to wake up.
I personally found the exchange all the more fun for the fact that Christopher Meloni co-wrote "Dante's Inferno" along with showrunner and Breaking Bad vet John Shiban. When I spoke with Norris about Law & Order: Organized Crime getting "more realistic" this season, he also opened up about the brisket exchange between Randall and Benson:
I just thought that was so funny. And again, that's Chris Meloni's writing. I just love that part there, because Randall is kind of rough around the edges. He's not the smoothest kind of guy, and I just think it's funny that boy, he immediately sees her and decides that he wants to hit on her. What does he go to? Brisket. [laughs] The most unsexy pickup line you can imagine. 'Hey, baby, you want to try some brisket?' You know, I thought it was great.
As somebody who had been wanting Benson to meet Randall Stabler as far back as 2023 when Dean Norris' casting for Season 4 was first announced, I was pretty delighted by the sheer weirdness of the eldest Stabler brother choosing that moment and that method to flirt with Elliot's longtime partner.
And hey, that may not have been the smoothest approach with Olivia Benson, but I'm sure there's a lady out there for Randall who would indeed swoon over the offer of brisket. Maybe it was just never meant to be between two people with their own cole slaw recipes.
Interestingly, "Dante's Inferno" is Christopher Meloni's first writing credit over a career in showbiz going back to his first acting gig in the late '80s, and I'd say that the finished product delivered a nice combination of tragedy with just enough humor to keep it from getting too depressing.
In case you missed it or just want to relive it, this was Randall's pitch to his brother's longtime friend/partner/kinda sorta maybe almost love interest/formerly codependent Special Victims coworker:
Do you like brisket? Let me cook you a brisket one of these days. It's world-famous, mouthwatering, perfect bark, all right?
Randall never got around to explaining what makes his cole slaw "world-famous" as well, because Elliot chose that moment to wake up and said that Olivia's cole slaw "is better." Sign me up for that backstory! In all seriousness, I do hope this means that we'll someday see Benson at one of the Stabler family cookouts. Randall can still cook her a brisket, even if he should probably count his losses on any attempt at a love connection.
I would say that Law & Order: Organized Crime is off to a strong start in its first season as a Peacock streaming original, with new episodes continuing to release each Thursday on the NBCUniversal streamer. If you want to keep watching Benson on her own show, you can also check out new episodes of Law & Order: SVU on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. Finally, if you missed CinemaBlend's live-blog of the Law & Order crossover with SVU followed by the Organized Crime premiere, you can relive my journey.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
