Stabler and Benson are back together, and the television world feels back in sync
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Managing Editor
For better or for worse, “Law and Order” is part of the fabric of American culture. It’s library of episodes across the franchise spans over 30 years, and everyone has their favorite iterations and their favorite characters.
One particular pair of characters that fans became particularly invested in are Olivia Benson (played by actress Mariska Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (played by actor Christopher Meloni). For the first twelve years of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” (known as “SVU” for short), the Benson and Stabler characters dominated the show for the most part, as the electric chemistry between the two was too much to deny the show’s viewers. Everyone had an opinion about them: they should get together, they shouldn’t, it’s a brother-sister relationship, it’s wrong and etcetera.
Meloni left the show in May 2011, and Stabler was written out, seemingly for good, by way of retirement that August. In his absence, the Benson character grew leaps and bounds, ascending the ladder of police management and tackling compelling personal challenges along the way. Surprisingly, the show’s quality didn’t suffer much in Stabler’s absence; if anything, his departure allowed the show to refocus and tell interesting new stories that weren’t necessarily bogged down by personal elements. But despite the show’s continued success and presence on NBC, something did always feel like it was missing.
Then came this past April. After 10 years away, Stabler returned to SVU and it was revealed that he had un-retired some years beforehand, and chose to work as NYPD’s liaison in Rome … all without telling Benson.
It’s very hard to understate just how strong the Benson and Stabler dynamic comes across on television. Meloni and Hargitay have always brought out the best in each other, and from the moment they reunited this past April, they’ve easily settled right back into that intoxicating dynamic.
Stabler’s new show, “Law and Order: Organized Crime” only enhances the dynamic. Even if Benson and Stabler aren’t together on screen every single week, there have been plenty of crossovers, especially on “Organized Crime.”
“Organized Crime” is a different kind of “Law and Order” than we’ve seen before, as it is heavily serialized. The nature of organized crime is complex, and so the show requires a different kind of formula other than a “case of the week.” For the most part, this works. But in addition to the excellent action and writing on display, the series also gives Meloni a chance to show off a different side to Stabler than we’ve seen, one that appropriately reckons with the kind of cop he used to be in addition to realistically showing a person suffering from and coping with PTSD following the death of his wife in a horrific act of treachery.
Meloni’s return seems to have reinvigorated “SVU” as well, and the show as a whole feels more indispensable than it has in quite some time. Just the mere mention of Stabler’s name, which went mostly un-uttered for so many years, drums up excitement.
This is mostly because the show is leaning more heavily than ever before into a Benson and Stabler romance. Some fans of the shows may not like that, but that’s perfectly fine. It’s been nearly a quarter century. Let them try it out, the rest of the fans have waited long enough.
Between the shows’ shared universe, the tighter writing and the return of the Stabler-Benson dynamic, we are entering the latest new era for “Law and Order.” And it’s an era with no end in sight.
