Stabler’s back again: Law & Order: Organized Crime returns for a fourth season this January

Great news all around, dear readers. The highly successful Law and Order spinoff is returning, and fans of the show couldn’t be happier (and that definitely includes this writer).

Producer, Dick Wolf, was quite obviously in high spirits as well when news broke that the show—as well as five of his other shows—would be returning while making a statement to the press.

“I’m pleased to continue my four-decade relationship with Universal Television and NBC. All six shows being picked up again is the ultimate accolade to our incredible casts, producers, and writers. I'd also like to thank our loyal fans who have kept our NBC shows on the air for what will be a cumulative 84 seasons,” Wolf said.

The shows had been granted the old green light for a fall start but due to the writers/actors strike, a January start date was in order. But better late than never, as the old saying goes.

But for those of you dear readers who haven’t kept up with Detective Stabler, you are really missing out.

The show has had a successful three seasons, the first two being better than their most recent offering (season 3), but hopes are high for a home run season, and it seems that plans are indeed in the works to return to a more personal view of Elliot Stabler.

Sadly, the last season wasn’t focused, or rather as focused on his personal life as the narrative showed during the first two seasons. The third season focused on a plethora of random cases and we saw much less of Stabler’s home life, which was really a drawing focus of those first two seasons.

Organized Crime season 4 will dive deeper into Stabler's family dynamics

Here now, it seems as though a deeper look into Stabler’s home life will be returned to, especially with news breaking just recently that the addition of Stabler’s brothers is planned. As per TVLine, Dean Norris, of Breaking Bad fame, will be joining the cast and he’ll be playing detective Elliot Stabler’s older sibling. Also as per the piece, his character’s name is Randall Stabler

As it turns out though, it won’t be only Stabler’s older brother we’ll be meeting, as their younger brother will also be joining the cast.

There will be tension apparently, and for anyone who has been following along, the family tension in the Stabler household goes way back, and the viewers will be getting an inside view into the family once again, and this time specifically, the tension will be focused on the two oldest brothers, Elliot and Randall, which will of course be interesting.

The youngest of the Stabler brothers, Joe, is still uncast, but apparently, the character has spent quite some time in the army and now works in the wine industry, there’s something in his life, or in his past apparently that he’s ashamed about, and his brother Elliot, hero cop and stand up guy, is his hero, so the character of Joe will be worried about letting his brother in on exactly what’s been going on in his life.

As stated, the first two seasons were chock full of the inner workings of the Stabler household…the first season he was well in the pursuit of the man responsible for his wife’s murder (Richard Wheatley, played expertly by Dylan McDermott).

Of course, Detective Stabler was first brought to the attention of Law and Order fans in the original run of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and at a certain point he left and was written off the show.

When Organized Crime hit the scene, Stabler had been working in Italy, delving deeply within the realms of organized crime. His wife was killed and he was hot in pursuit of the man responsible, which of course brought him back stateside and hence the need for the Organized Crime division to be created within the NYPD.

That of course didn’t come without problems. I’ll get into a full recap of seasons one, two and three next time, dear readers, and I’ll get them to you before season 4 is expected to drop…and that’s January 18, according to nbc.com (link above), but that doesn’t at all mean you shouldn’t go back and binge watch the heck out of those first three seasons.

As I’ll get into next time, season 3 was my least favorite but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have some strong points, complete with one heck of a season finale.

So watch up and be sure to catch up on my recap of the show so far which should drop soon after this piece, so stay tuned, dear readers; there’s so much more to come for you Organized Crime and Detective Stabler fans out there.