Dean Norris & Michael Trotter Talk ‘Organized Crime’ ‘Intense’ Stabler Brothers Intervention (VIDEO)
It’s time for (another) Stabler family intervention on Law & Order: Organized Crime, and unsurprisingly, it doesn’t go well.
In the April 11 episode, “Semper Fi,” Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) leans into his military network to search for the source of a Middle Eastern heroin pipeline making its way to the U.S. Plus, Joe Jr. (Michael Trotter) takes drastic action when his brothers try to stage an intervention. And as you can see in the sneak peek above, Elliot and Randall’s (Dean Norris) attempt to help their brother does not go well at all.
“It’s not the easiest thing to take a junkie in a single scene and turn him into a good guy,” Norris tells TV Insider. “We have fun trying!”
Joe “feels betrayed,” according to Trotter, because his brothers trick him into thinking they’re going to have a night out together. “Any opportunity [for that] he kind of craves, even though there’s a lot of reticence there because he is holding back and carrying quite a bit of lies. But he thinks it’s one thing and it turns out to be something completely different. And I think the prevailing feeling would be betrayal, like, ‘We’re family. How could you do this to me?’”
The scene does get intense, and this comes as, Norris points out, “They’re just starting to get to know each other again as brothers—or get to know each other in the first place as brothers, [for] me and Joe and actually me and Elliot, too. It’s kind of meddling a bit on Randall’s part because I first tricked Stabler into breaking into the place into his hotel room and that’s how we discover all this stuff. So yeah, there’s some betrayal, but obviously, it’s for the good because we want to save our brother.”
“It’s incredibly loaded, and I think as any addict would maybe understand, you can’t see the issue in front of you as well as other people can who are being affected by it,” says Trotter. “In a lot of ways, what you destroy and what’s in your wake are the people who are closest to you. I think I constantly live in disappointment of what my brothers might think of me, which I think is an impetus to hold on to the lies as tightly as I can because I don’t want to face the reality of his disappointment and his shame. And I think that’s kind of what bubbles up to the surface here in this scene.”
Adds Norris, “We are disappointed in you, just to let you know.”
Looking ahead, “we have a lot of good stuff that plays on the themes” of the brothers getting to know each other and revelations about the past, Norris teases.
Virginia Sherwood/NBC
“It’s such a testament to the writing, too, that they’ve been patient enough to kind of give breadcrumbs throughout and you’re starting to ask the audience to, ‘Hey, just come along for this ride. We promise we’ll tie it all together,'” says Trotter.
During the intervention, Joe brings up the Stabler family dinner that took quite the turn, especially between Elliot and Randall, as part of this arc that’s revealing another side to their history (and father).
“I don’t think you knew that many Stablers existed,” Norris laughs, recalling that scene. “It was intense, no doubt about it. It was so much fun to film though. I love working with Chris. We’ve worked together before as well. A lot of that stuff was—I don’t want to say improvised, but we kind of went all over the place with that script in that scene and we just started getting to the gist of it and I think what ended up on the camera was probably half-written and half what we just were yelling out.”
Remembers Trotter, “I had the best seat in the house. I have one line and I don’t even get it out because both Dean and Chris told me to shut up. I can’t say enough good things about Dean in his performance in that scene. It was remarkable to witness, Chris the same. And then any instance that I get to be in the company of Ellen Burstyn is an educational endeavor. So to just watch it unfold and to watch them kind of work through how they were going to do it and then put it on camera, that’s any actor’s dream to be in the company of people who are just that good. Just very grateful to have been there.”
What are you enjoying most about having the Stabler brothers around this season? Let us know in the comments section, below.
Law & Order: Organized Crime, Thursdays, 10/9c, NBC
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