Warning: spoilers ahead for Episode 20 of Law & Order: Organized Crime, called “Pareto Principle.”
The 2022-2023 TV season is winding down for the three Law & Order shows, and the latest episode of Law & Order: Organized Crime ended on a reveal that was downright alarming for Stabler. Kathy was on his mind after his mom included her in their dinner plans, and his emotional state undoubtedly wasn’t helped by the overlap of his personal life into his work. The episode (available streaming on Peacock) ended with Stabler putting off Bell’s order to go home to his mom, and catching movement out of the corner of his eye… and it was none other than Kathy, played by Isabel Gillies, sitting at the interrogation table wearing the hospital gown she died in.
Now, unless Organized Crime is on the verge of switching genres and magically resurrecting Kathy, the vision of his late wife is all in his head. While seeing this isn’t exactly a good thing for a cop who’s often in the thick of the action (and seeing his late wife may not be great for his upcoming crossover reunion with Law & Order: SVU’s Benson after what he said the last time they saw each other), I think it’ll be great in the long run. That is, assuming this isn’t a symptom of a brain illness or injury.
Even though Organized Crime doesn’t frequently call back to Kathy ever since the Richard Wheatley arc wrapped (and Stabler moved on almost insultingly quickly), she died violently not all that long ago, which his mom seems to forget from time to time. He might not have quite as much closure as he thinks he does, and I see this vision of Kathy as a manifestation of his feelings of guilt. Why else would she appear in her hospital gown again?
And for as much as I still wouldn’t mind if Stabler felt guilty enough about ghosting Benson for a decade (and his drug-induced explanation for The Letter) to actually give her the apology she deserves, facing any leftover guilt about Kathy can only be a good thing if he’s going to move forward as a character. If anything, I see Stabler seeing/imagining/hallucinating Kathy as a sign that the Law & Order shows may be ready to move forward a bit on Benson and Stabler.
As somebody who enjoys their relationship without needing it to turn romantic, I’d still love to see them lose a few pieces of their respective baggage before building up their bond again. I loved them as friends and close partners in a TV universe that often deals with… well, offenses that are considered especially heinous to go with vicious and violent members of the underworld, to quote the opening narrations for SVU and Organized Crime.
I’m also not going to be mad about it if Kathy gets her due. While neither she nor Stabler came off well in the situation with The Letter reveal (which resulted in Isabel Gillies getting some hate), it made me sad that she felt the need to write that even after her husband had been apart from Benson for more than a decade. Fans know that she wasn’t really wrong about how strong the bond was between the two partners compared to her and her husband's. I’m not the only one who remembers when he mortgaged their house for Benson’s bail without telling Kathy, right? I won't say that she was right with The Letter, but at least she had motivation.
On the whole, I see Stabler’s vision of Kathy as the first step toward more definitive closure than Organized Crime has delivered so far, and I don’t really expect it to last beyond the next episode of Organized Crime. Based on the promo after the latest installment of SVU (which still didn’t drop Carisi’s big news), the next episode of that show will cover mostly sexually-based offenses as usual, with the two-week crossover starting with Organized Crime, which will bring in Kelli Giddish as Amanda Rollins. Take a look:
Given that SVU and OC have very different formats, I’m guessing that Stabler's vision of his wife won’t continue into the SVU finale, and it would be strange if he kept seeing Kathy in Episode 21 of Organized Crime, is vision-free when the crossover continues with SVU’s Season 24 finale, and then picks up again in Organized Crime’s Season 3 finale.
Am I being too optimistic that Stabler’s hallucination of his wife will be a good thing in the long run? Maybe, but I’m keeping my glass half full on the Law & Order front for the time being. As long as the vision isn’t because something is medically wrong with him, I think that this bodes well for Stabler healing. All I need now is for him to apologize to Benson for the ghosting and The Letter! I’m certainly ready for Stabler’s thoughts on their partnership, after Benson seemingly hinted at hers on SVU.
See what happens with the big SVU/OC crossover event with the next new episode of Law & Order: Organized Crime airing on Thursday, May 11 at 10 p.m. ET. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a tag at the end of the SVU episode immediately before it to make the transition, but we’ll have to wait and see. The night will of course still open with Law & Order (which just aired a doozy of an episode for Cosgrove and his daughter) at 8 p.m., even though the original series isn’t part of the crossover.
