Christopher Meloni has been known for his portrayal of NYPD Detective Elliot Stabler for nearly a quarter of a century thanks to Law & Order: SVU and now Law & Order: Organized Crime, but never in those many seasons of television since 1999 did the franchise introduce any of Stabler's siblings. While he canonically has had brothers and sisters, they remained mysteriously off-screen and were barely mentioned in either show. That's about to change in the wake of the SAG-AFTRA strike ending, as OC is preparing to introduce two Stabler siblings, and I've been waiting for this as a longtime SVU fan.
Law & Order: Organized Crime will introduce Randall Stabler and Joe Stabler Jr. in Season 4, according to TVLine. In true OC fashion, they're bound to bring some complications into Elliot's life. Joe Jr. is reportedly the youngest brother, and was dishonorably discharged from the Army for after more than a decade in the service. He landed a job working for British wine merchant and considers Elliot to be his hero, but he's not necessarily proud for his older brother to see what he does.
Randall is the oldest Stabler brother, putting Elliot somewhere in the middle. He left the family to create a successful real estate business for himself when he was young. Unlike with Joe Jr., there's no hero worship between Randall and Elliot, as they've been tense about an incident involving their dad.
While there are no casting details available at the time of writing, both Joe Jr. and Randall reportedly could appear in much of the fourth season of Organized Crime. Family has always been part of Elliot's arc on his spinoff, not least because the whole show launched after his wife was murdered. But his five kids appear off and on in the series, and Ellen Burstyn has recurred in OC as his mom, in the role she debuted on SVU.
As somebody who watched the Stabler family drama for so many years on SVU, I've always wanted to learn more about the members who never appeared. I never got that during Chris Meloni's time on SVU (and all of those episodes are available streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription and/or a Hulu subscription); apparently, I just had to wait through three seasons (and several showrunners) of the SVU spinoff to finally meet the sibs.
The franchise has established that Elliot has three brothers and two sisters, so there will still be some absent siblings even after OC introduced Randall and Joe Jr., but even just a couple of them debuting feels like a reward to me after the prolonged hiatus following the Season 3 finale crossover event with SVU.
Plus, any news at all is welcome! Although Organized Crime's new showrunner was announced not too long ago, NBC's Law & Order reruns throughout the fall have all been either episodes of the original series or Special Victims Unit. Interestingly, OC might not be as drastically affected by the strikes as SVU and L&O. Meloni's show was already expected to run for just 13 episodes and premiere in midseason of the 2024 TV schedule, compared to the other two getting the usual 20+ episodes in a season.
Hopefully the announcements will keep on coming. The news of the extra Stabler sibs on Organized Crime comes shortly after word that Jeffrey Donovan won't be back on Law & Order as a series regular for the upcoming Season 23, and I'm still wondering who SVU will promote to take Muncy's place in Special Victims in Season 25. All three shows are expected to premiere in the first few months of 2024.
