Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 4 Episode 4 Review: The Last Supper

Stabler’s devotion to his job and family comes to a head on Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 4 Episode 4, “The Last Supper.” For years, he has struggled to keep a good balance between being a great detective and being a present father. 

With this episode, viewers get to see just how much that puts a strain on his family as well as his job. He isn’t present enough while with his family, so he puts his phone down, and in the end, he is delayed in being of assistance for his job. 

This whole balancing act is something that we’ve seen him try to get better at since his days on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

The Brothers Stabler

In all the years we have known Elliot Stabler, we have never seen him in the same place as his brothers until now. It’s great to see the whole Stabler clan come together for a meal at Elliot’s and some good old-fashioned family bonding.

It’s like a glimpse into who Stabler is as a person and why he is the way he is on the job. Something that we’ve been wondering about for the past 25 years. 

We’ve got snippets here and there over the years, but nothing more substantial than the revelation about his father’s checkered past with the NYPD that we found out a couple of seasons ago.

Now, we find out that his younger brother has been dishonorably discharged from the military, and his reasoning for it is a bit shifty. Then there is the revelation that Randall is the one who ratted out their dad to internal affairs.

Finding out all this information about Stabler’s family in one go is overwhelming enough for us, let alone the man himself. So, it’s no wonder that his stability on the job falters when he has to immediately rush out to help his team.

Saving Bryanna and Her Kids

Sidelining Stabler from protection detail is a great writing ploy from Law & Order: Organized Crime to allow his family secrets to come out. However, it’s a devastating decision for Stabler, and he takes that home with him, which affects how he reacts to the stuff on the home front.

In turn, all of that mess causes Stabler to be rash and impulsive when he comes back to Bryanna’s house to help protect her from Los Santos. All in all, Stabler has had a roller coaster 24-hour period and shouldn’t have been anywhere near their case at work.

However, he’s going to always jump in when his team needs him and they desperately needed him. Viewers can tell that his scuffle with Randall, which went unresolved, is still on his mind the minute he enters that home. 

So, of course, when the teenaged son pulls out a gun and shoots at Stabler he is going to go over the top with how he takes him down. The kid ends up with a fractured skull, Bell gets shot, and Stabler is suspended.

It’s not often, anymore, that Stabler lets his emotions get the better of him. And this time he assaults a child because of it. 

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this operation going south in this manner is going to sit on Stabler’s mind for a long time. It would be great to see him in a therapy session talking about it in the coming weeks, but that’s not likely.

Is Stabler Just Like His Father?

Randall brings up some hard truths during Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 4 Episode 4, “The Last Supper.” One of which is that their father was an abusive SOB who made sure his actions against their mom never showed up in places commonly seen.

Another thing he brings up is that Elliot is selfish, which Elliot takes very personally. The thing is though, as much as we love him, Elliot can be a tad bit selfish at times.

Something that Eli was quick to point out when Elliot cornered him about spending more time with his uncle than his own father. Eli tells him that he doesn’t listen and that he’s never present.

It’s hard for Elliot to hear, but viewers can see that he takes these criticisms to heart. So, when Randall drops the bomb that Elliot shouldn’t do something their father would do and then leaves we are dumbfounded.

Based on Elliot’s face he is just as confused as we are. There are still so many questions about who the Stabler patriarch really was, but the biggest of them all remains to be, is Elliot more like his father or his mother?

 

 

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

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