Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 3 Episode 9 Review: Last Christmas

What should have been an interesting hour of television falls completely flat with uninspired storytelling. It’s disappointing that Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 3 Episode 9, “Last Christmas,” goes into its winter hiatus on such a lackluster turn of events.

This task force has been to hell and back over the years, you’d think taking down a huge mob boss like Robert Silas would be some of the show’s best moments. Unfortunately, everything goes sideways and fails to keep us interested.

Lack of Conflict

Stabler and Bell have such an intense fallout during Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 3 Episode 8, “Whipping Post” that it’s implied that tension would continue into this episode. It does — for a very brief moment — before Bell gives Stabler a ton of excuses that he seems to take at face value and that’s the end of that.

This whole final team showdown could have been even more exciting if Stabler stayed mad at Bell. It would leave us wondering if he will have her back when the other big players show up to take down Silas. 

Speaking of the goons after Silas, even they have no oomph to them. Sure, kidnapping the random DA’s office counselor assigned to this surrender gone sideways is crappy. 

Unfortunately, we don’t know the guy so the level of care would have for his plight just isn’t there. They could’ve killed him and it wouldn’t have added anything to the story.

This show needs to work on the level of urgency and high-stakes drama it places on some of these episodes because it doesn’t quite translate. 

Team Unity

On the one hand, there needed to be more tension between Bell and Stabler — and the rest of her team. But on the other, it’s nice to see the whole team band together seamlessly to get Silas into police custody alive.

Where has this team been hiding this whole time? Is it because they truly think this is their last case together as a team? 

Whatever the reason it’s nice to see them all work tirelessly to come up with solutions to each new problem that arises without any egos getting in the way. They move as one unit in this episode and manage to take down some bigger names than Silas in the process.

And yet, all of this chasing “bad guys” around a warehouse to try and stay one step ahead isn’t exciting in the slightest. It’s there, and there is action, but overall the vibe just doesn’t give us high stakes. 

With this being a big takedown for the case they’ve been pursuing off and on all season, you’d think there would be more pizzazz. This is Robert Silas, not just some everyday criminal. 

The show needs to make us want this more.

What did you think of this episode of Law & Order: Organized Crime? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Law & Order: Organized Crime airs Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.

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