Law & Order: SVU Season 26 has finished its run in the 2024 TV schedule, and fans will have to either check out a classic cable TV marathon or stream with a Peacock subscription for a fix of Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) investigating especially heinous sexually-based offenses for the rest of the year. The fall finale was honestly my favorite of the season so far... and also the one I may be least likely to rewatch, because of just how disturbing it was for Carisi (Peter Scanavino).
Now, a week after that fall finale aired on NBC, I realized why an episode totally unrelated to Christopher Meloni's Elliot Stabler had me missing Law & Order: Organized Crime more than ever.
What Happened In SVU's Fall Finale
If you missed the fall finale or just felt so bad for Carisi after his hostage situation that you blocked the details out of your memory, most of the episode took place more or less in real time. He was stuck in a deli along with a handful of hostages and two armed criminals who were getting increasingly unhinged as the police presence grew outside.
Carisi did his best to keep a handle on the situation, but things just got worse and worse as they discovered he used to be NYPD, one of the hostages was shot, and another was dragged into a back room to be assaulted. He had to remain just on the other side of the room while the woman was being violated, and it's no wonder that he definitely wasn't fine when the final credits rolled for the last episode before the 2025 TV schedule picks up.
Peter Scanavino turned in one of his best performance of the series, if you ask me, and the emotional stakes were even higher with Kelli Giddish returning as Rollins for the second time in Season 26. All in all, this was a standout episode of SVU and one that 100% did not make me think of the wait for Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 until a week had passed, and now I've connected the dots.
Why SVU's Fall Finale Makes Me Miss Organized Crime Again
For all that Law & Order: Organized Crime is a spinoff of SVU, the two shows are actually quite different, and I don't just say that because there was a shortage of crossovers last season until the Season 25 finale. But SVU departed from its own usual format to end the first half of Season 26 in late November, mostly taking place in real(ish) time during Carisi's hostage situation and without the usual courtroom drama to wrap everything up. The format felt more OC than SVU to me.
And the biggest sign that the episode really didn't feel entirely like SVU despite Benson and Carisi being at the center of the action is that I kind of forgot the fall finale was an installment in the series about – to quote the opening narration – "sexually-based offenses" that are considered "especially heinous" and "vicious." I was so engrossed by the hostage story that it literally didn't occur to me that an assault was probably going to happen until the lead hostage-taker starting eyeing one of the women.
Am I proud that I forgot about SVU inevitably including a sex crime, after watching more episodes of SVU than I care to admit? Of course not, but it now makes me think that I'm just missing the non-sexually-based offenses that used to air regularly on Thursday nights with a different format than the usual Law & Order. All of this adds up to me missing Law & Order: Organized Crime.
Alas, there's still no word of when exactly Season 5 of OC will premiere with its move to Peacock. Production seemingly began back in August, but the news of John Shiban departing as showrunner came along with reports that the new season is around halfway done. If Peacock intends to wait until all episodes of the season are ready before releasing the first, then it could be a while into the 2025 TV schedule before we pick up on Stabler's story.
My fingers are at least crossed that we get an episode before the end of SVU's current season, but only time will tell. For now, you can look forward to the returns of Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU on Thursday, January 16 at 8 p.m. ET and 9 p.m. ET, respectively, on NBC. As for Organized Crime... well, the first four seasons are available on Peacock as the wait for Season 5 continues.
