Law & Order: Organized Crime returns this week to wrap up season 2 and according to the cast, it’s time to buckle in!
Shadow and Act exclusively spoke to several Law & Order franchise stars, including Law & Order: Organized Crime‘s Christopher Meloni (Elliot Stabler) and Danielle Moné Truitt (Ayanna Bell) and Ainsley Seiger (Jet Slootmaekers), at a press event in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood. They talked to us about what to expect from the remaining eight episodes of the season.
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Meloni spoke on the fact that OC has more season-long and lengthier storylines as compared to the case-of-the-week format that the franchise is known for. It’s something that the actor is a fan of.
“Well, for me, it’s a more satisfying way to tell a story because you’re not locked into beginning, middle and end,” he said. “So I think it gives you a little bit of breathing room, behaviorally [and] engagement-wise with other actors and other characters. So it gives you a little more runway.”
Truitt teases the focus on the Marcy Killers' storyline.
‘This last part of our second season is going to focus on the Marcy Killers and it’s going to be so dope,’ she said. “We have Mykelti Williamson on the show as the main villain, we have Ron Cephas Jones from This is Us…it is going to be Black excellence. So I’m super excited about this. I know we have our little breaks here and there, but this last leg is going to be fire. The way that our show is done, you’re able to follow the lives of the characters, see them develop as people, get a little deeper into their psyche and what makes them who they are, and the relationships they have with different people. And I also think with our show being the way it is, it helps to also develop the villains’ characters. A lot of times on shows, you don’t get to get into the psyche of the villain. It’s just like, ‘Oh, they did this bad thing,’ but you fall in love with our villains.”
Meloni echoed the sentiment, also noting that stretching out storylines allows the show to get big stars for arcs, such as Dylan McDermott, Williamson and Cephas Jones.
“I think the plus side of it is that you get very accomplished actors, very hungry to sink their teeth into these longer format shows, because they know they’re going to be able to play a whole concert, not just one or two pop songs,” he said. “They’re going to have eight episodes in which to develop their character and engage.
"[Our showrunner] Eileen Chaiken does a excellent job of humanizing everybody on our show. No matter if they did a bad a thing or a really good thing. We all have flaws and different facets of our personality. So I think that's the fun thing, to see the world develop," Truitt added.
“And then, because our season is so long, there’s a lot of intertwining and weaving in and out of stories, which is cool too. So it’s going to be primarily the Marcy Killers [for] the last eight episodes, but you already saw, Marcy Killers stuff earlier in the season [as well].”
The return to wrap up the season also closes the Wheatley saga.
Seger stated, “What I’m most excited about in the return is wrapping up our story and our journey with Richard Wheatley and his gang…his family, if you will [laughs]…they seem to be one and the same, very Godfather. But really what I’m looking forward to the most in this end of the second arc is how Sebastian McClane’s (Robin Lord Taylor) story comes to an end. Where does he end up? Where does he go? I love working with Robin so much, and I think that McClain is such a fascinating character. And I think he’s additionally a fascinating character to Jet, who generally sees things in a very black and white way, and he becomes someone who very much exists in the gray area of life and morality and challenges, reviews a lot. And I think that maybe is the only reason why she was okay with working with Malachi (Wesam Keesh), a criminal I am also excited [for fans] to see what Malachi and Jet get up to. It’s some fun shenanigans.”
Law & Order: Organized Crime airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on NBC.
