We can’t help but wonder who we should be more worried about right now: Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) in his current undercover assignment on Law & Order: Organized Crime or the show itself?
There have been talks of the NBC drama moving over to Peacock for its fifth season, with nothing official yet (while Law & Order and SVU have both already been renewed). “I’m not privy to all those talks. I know things are hopefully in the works,” Tate Ellington, who joined as tech expert Kyle Vargas this season, tells TV Insider. “I’m very hopeful for all of it, but I know that everybody’s just had a blast on this season. I think they’ve really set themselves up for some amazing seasons to come, so I hope everything happens with that, but that’s something way above my pay grade.”
What he can talk about is the danger that Stabler is in undercover as the Organized Crime Control Bureau targets a group of vets in the drug business, run by Angus (Stephen Lang) whose former partner is the mysterious Redcoat, Julian Emery (Prodigal Son‘s Tom Payne). He had his people try to kill Angus, who’s now ready to gear up for a war.
In the May 2 episode, titled “Redcoat,” Stabler tries to keep his rank as part of the farm’s inner circle while his biggest ally is questioned. Plus, the team discovers the identity of their top target, but it’s too late to stop the arrival of his newest shipment.
Stabler’s in “quite a lot” of danger, says Ellington. “I think he’s kind of caught up in wanting to do the right thing while also understanding the group that he’s with and seeing what they’re trying to do. But I think this is one of the times that he’s in the most danger, especially for the rest of the episodes. He should be scared, and we’re all scared for him because he’s undercover. These people have already shown a willingness to kill in order to protect themselves. We’re very worried about him and want to make sure that we can do everything we can to extract him safely and make sure to limit any casualties.”
That’s easier said than done, with the official introduction of the “criminal mastermind” Emery, whom Ellington calls “one of the toughest challenges they’ve faced” and “somebody to be quite afraid of, someone they don’t want to mess with. But they have to in the pursuit of trying to bring people to justice—and he’s also British, so he sounds gorgeous, so always a plus,” he adds with a laugh.
While he teases that Vargas will be going out in the field in coming episodes, in this next one, “he kind of meets his match somewhat on technology, with some things he’s not able to work around.” Furthermore, Ellington adds, Vargas, “I believe in two episodes from now, has kind of a full meltdown. That was a blast to film and definitely one where he’s not in control. For the first time, I think he’s been really hit with something he can’t get around initially.”
For Ellington, joining the cast and Vargas becoming part of the team is like “art imitating life because Vargas is having an extremely wonderful time with him as am I. He’s really starting to feel a little more at home. I think he desperately wants to be a part of this group. He wants to have these people as friends. I think he genuinely loves them and really wants to help in any way he possibly can. And they’re more and more letting him be a part of the team, which I think he’s ecstatic about.”
He continues, “This is a world he does not know, and so I think in a lot of ways he admires these people and kind of looks up to them. I think he is really starting to find his place among the team. And me personally, I tend to be a person who doesn’t mind being the butt of a joke or likes to try and make people happy. And I think that’s Vargas. He definitely just wants to be a friend and to have friends.”
