Law & Order Season 22 Premiere Recap: Officer Down! Officer Down! — Plus, Grade the First-Ever 3-Way Crossover
This Law & Order premiere recap is for the final hour of a three-way crossover involving Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime. Make sure to check out our recaps of Parts I and II.
“Since when did drug-dealing, sex-trafficking gangsters make political statements?”
That’s the question of the hour — asked by Nolan Price — as we head into Law & Order‘s Season 22 premiere, which doubles as the third part of a crossover event with SVU and Organized Crime. (A whole lot went down before we arrived in Jack McCoy-land; you can catch up here with recaps of Hours 1 and 2.)
Now, where were we? Ah yes: That gangster-in-question, Sirenko, is in police custody and charged with the murders of five people, as well as a host of other crimes, and everyone tries to figure out his motive for the whole bomb thing. They question one of his associates, who under threat of arrest hands over Ava’s phone, which he found the morning she ran from the boat.
The phone contains footage Ava recorded of a Russian big shot drunkenly boasting that he was going to do something, a “big boom,” that would show the world Russia’s power. But when he realized Ava was filming him, he flipped out… leading to the altercation that bloodied her and sent her running at the start of the crossover. So they arrest the Russian, whose name is Rublev.
The phone footage gets thrown out as evidence, though, so ADA Maroun enlists Liv’s help in getting Nicole to cooperate with the prosecution. Just as Rollins is about to bring her into the city for a meeting, men fire on them, Nicole runs… and one of them shoots Rollins in the abdomen! Oh no! Is this the beginning of the end for Amanda Rollins on SVU?
Benson arrives on the scene after Rollins has been taken to the hospital, and the best anyone can tell her is that Amanda was alive when she was loaded into the ambulance. Then OH GOD CARISI IS HERE AND HE’S CRYING. He’s desperate as he asks whether Rollins is alive or not, and the look on his face as he hugs Olivia just might end me.
Back at the precinct, Benson lets Price know that Rollins is stable following surgery, and that the gunmen probably found Nicole because she secretly texted someone earlier that day. He’s got more bad news: He needs Nicole to testify, or Rublev likely will go free.
But the only thing Benson cares about is giving Nicole a chance at a happy life. So she puts her on a plane to a relative in Toronto. “Get a court order and bring this girl back to New York!” McCoy crows when he finds out what Benson has done. But extradition rules make it tricky, and Maroun makes the argument that Nicole’s trauma will make her a mess that the defense can exploit on the stand. Her solution: Cut a deal with Sirenko to bring down Rublev. To Price’s horror, McCoy is on board.
Sirenko says Rublev, who was basically his boss, told him to kill Ava because she knew too much about his plan to blow up the hotel. Outside afterward, Stabler is very hot about the fact that the man who killed Vince is going to do 20 years in jail instead of life without parole.
The trial begins. Sirenko takes the stand. It freaks Rublev so much that his lawyer offers to give up Russian state secrets in exchange for leniency. McCoy says they have to run the offer by the State Department, which irks Price, who wants the Russian to pay for all the people he killed.
Rublev initially asks for immunity in exchange for what he knows, but an apoplectic Price refuses to play ball. Instead, Rublev acts humbled and says he’ll do whatever is needed as long as Price & Co. save his wife and children. Then, as Rublev is being transferred back to custody, a hitman shoots him at close range. He dies while Price is trying to stanch the bleeding from his neck.
“Though this case was highly unusual, in many respects, and the trial was cut short due to unforeseen circumstances, we feel that justice has been served,” Price tells a group of reporters at a press conference afterward. Meanwhile, we watch Stabler lead a raid on a house where trafficked women are being held. And Cosgrove has another meal with his daughter, where he says there’s no magic wand to make everyone safe, but they do their best.
He continues his “the world isn’t perfect, but it’s still beautiful” monologue as we watch Carisi visit a beat-up but ALIVE Rollins at the hospital. Elsewhere, Liv visits and Nicole, who seems happy, walk in the park.
Grade Law & Order‘s premiere — as well as the crossover event as a whole — via the polls below. Then hit the comments with your thoughts!
Ugh. It was a slog. Unfortunately every squad came off as inept, but the L&O team is the hardest to watch. They all overact and their dialogue is trite and cliched. Please leave that crew out of my SVU and OC episodes in the future – they’re too painful to watch.
Watch the older episodes, where the actual writing and acting punctuated the emotions so there was almost never any music. Now, the writing and acting are so bad, they have to have loud, over-the-top music to let viewers know they should be feeling something. It’s just terrible.
Merridays and Storchy are completely accurate with their assessments of this Crossover experiment.
I don’t think Bronson visited her in Canada. I think Nicole was still in New York. Sure looked like the Empire State Building to me.
Benson. Damn auto-correct
Exactly! Did Benson flake Nicole to live with her? Will Nicole be in other episodes this season?
I’m still unhappy about Amanda (Kelli Giddish) leaving. I couldn’t really focus and follow the story line of the 3 shows. I’m not sure I liked it or not. Esp when I saw Amanda in the hospital and Carisi coming to see her. I just think it was a wrong move. I’m not sure if I’ll be interested in watching the shows once Kelli is officially gone.
When Amanda leaves the show, I’m gone,
She’s the one who wants to leave L&O SVU. It’s not like they are just getting rid of her. Sounds silly to quit a show just because a character leaves. Who knows, you might like the replacement just as much.
Where are you getting that information? From what I understand, it was not her decision to leave.
Kelli Giddish’s upcoming “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” exit was not her choice, nor was it a decision made by showrunner David Graziano, Variety has learned.
According to multiple sources, the “SVU” shake-up was a call made from above, with one insider noting that the company is always looking to keep the show as up to date and current as possible.
We all know what this means.
I agree, they wanted to cut her pay, but she didn’t think she deserved that. They cut her loose so that they could pay a new member to the team less.
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Me Too!!!
The lawyers are the weakest part of the L&O universe right now. I don’t like Dancy’s character at all. And Sam Waterston is so wooden as McCoy. Since I’ve been watching him on Grace and Frankie I KNOW he’s capable of so much more. We need a new cast of DA and ADAs.
He is. see the earlier episodes of L&O. For his range, see two older movies: The Killing Fields; Hopscotch.
Watch the ending again…Olivia wasn’t visiting Nicole…they were in NYC together. Benson played Price.
Agreed. When Benson told the DA Nicole was in Canada, I just assumed she was lying to make the DA forego her testifying. (Hooray!)
Way, way, way too much pandering. Ever notice that screw ups are always attributed to Stabler but St. Benson never, ever gets held accountable for hers? I mean, just unilaterally shipping a key witness off to another country should be grounds for discipline.
Except she didn’t “ship her off”. She just said she did and no one bothered to actually check.
That’s completely beside the point. Benson hid a witness in a massive trial. They have special words for when that happens. It’s called witness tampering and hindering prosecution and they play it out like Benson was completely in the right. I agree with the above post as well. If Stabler did the same thing they’d throw the book at him but Benson can do no wrong because the show has lifted her up on a pedestal. It’s why I can’t watch SVU anymore. It’s so far removed from any semblance of reality and they’re so afraid of annoying the cult of Benson that she does something that in ordinary circumstances would probably get her suspended, meanwhile she just goes on with her day like nothing happened.
The new cop on Law and Order balances Frank’s character better than Anthony Anderson better I think. But Hugh Dancy is wrong in the role and his sidekick acts like a rookie. Real shame that Barba could not someone be welcomed back to the fold. I think his addition would bring the tone up by miles.
Agreed…I love Anthony A…but Mehcad Brooks is 100% better with Jeffrey Donovan, IMO.
I do miss Anthony Anderson. It will take some time to get use to Mehcad Brooks in his place?
Shaw is great! U don’t think I’ve immediately liked a new L&O detective this quickly in a long time.
The fact he saved Rollins’ life with seconds to spare makes him forever a hero to SVU and Rollisi stans! But aside, yeah I liked him, especially how he pushed back against Cosgrove (who is so unpleasant ugh) without losing his charm. I felt bad when that lady smacked him.
Shaw wasn’t the one who saved her. That was a different character called Dawson.
Who plays Sirenko?
Beau Knapp
I hate it when they try and force me to watch shows I am not interested in if I want to see what happens with the case.
They didn’t say what happened to Anthony Anderson’s Character.
Next week: https://tvline.com/2022/08/19/law-and-order-season-22-how-is-bernard-leaving-anthony-anderson/
I applaud them for taking on something this ambitious. This was definitely the most crossover-y event done. Usually there are clear delineations of each show during most crossovers, but here things were more fluid. This must have been hard to do, to get three creative teams to come together and make it seem more like one long episode rather than three.
Totally agreed. It faltered in the final hour, but overall it was a pretty seamless block.
Overall it was a fun crossover, but with the L&O showrunner and DW writing it, it felt very much like the ‘L&O show featuring OC and SVU’ for three hours. We didn’t get a single OC character for half of the OC episode, and I was like ‘…am I watching OC or L&O??’ The second episode was by far the best, in terms of pacing, inclusive teamwork, writing, etc. Third episode dragged for me a lot and the only part of the storyline that was interesting imo was the SVU characters – Benson with the girl and Rollins. That being said, Shaw had a good character intro. I wasn’t a huge fan of how they wrote Stabler though…a tad too much like Cosgrove and too little like 1.0 version Elliot for me.
Looking forward to the new season, but mostly to episode 2 of SVU where we get back to the usual cases. The promo looked good!
I don’t want Rollins to go. I think it’s a big mistake to work her out of the script. Wolf should be ashamed of himself for firing her. She is an Intercal part of SVU. It would be a big loss to lose her.
THIS
First time I’ve watched Organized Crime, first time in years I’ve watched SVU. This won’t change my mind, Stabler is seriously unstable. Benson cares TOO much. cliches still abound, key evidence is always thrown out, but I can’t resist Law and Order. I like the 2 cops. As long as McCoy is there for his 2 minutes, I’ll watch.
Not sure how you could think this disgusting 3 hours was worthy of an “A” or “B” rating. It was 3 hours of violence, male rage, male hero ship, and nearly killing a character that’s been on SVU for 11 years. To top it all off they then completely ignored how Rollins was doing for 30 minutes. Do you think any of the viewers truly cared what was going on with the case at that point? Terrible storytelling. Terrible plot line. Zero characterization. An “F” in my book and a serious disservice to not just fans, but anyone that sees this and thinks this is a positive portrayal of the justice system. Really disappointed in this review Kimberly.
I agree Maddie, and to end up after all that with the premise of supposedly Putin’s best friend calling the shots to blow stuff up was so lame. So tired of politics and the writers political feelings getting in the way of just telling a good story.
Exactly.
Agree 100%. The first hour and even into the second was very OC heavy. There was a lot of OG. It felt like SVU was suppressed. Only in the last half hour did we get to see anything compelling with SVU and when Rollins got shot Liv isn’t rushing to the hospital to be with her and comfort Carisi, who was only onscreen for like 20 seconds? When Amanda got shot 10 years ago everybody including Fin was at the hospital!! I couldn’t focus on anything else, I just kept screaming ‘what about Sonny and Amanda?!’ for the last 25 min. and instead of hearing him comforting his love I had to listen Cosgrove and a bad voiceover at the end 😩
So much THIS! 👆🏻 As a longtime watcher of the Law and Order franchise series I enjoyed the crossover event but also found moments of disappointment. I then have to remind myself that this is “just a tv show.” But … then I’m torn because I think should it not continue to be as good as the originals with Fin, Carisi, Rollins, Van Buren and for the love of all things holy bring back Barba!? I sneezed and Fin was gone from the episode and quite frankly Ice-T has oftentimes been the only one who has saved the show with Hargitay when they have been scrambling for new talent. Just my personal opinion!
This!!!! 👆🏽
OC was so boring after Rollins shot. who cares about other events? It was the longest 30 minutes in the franchise’s history. And those two DAs are really bad. They are very lame, unattractive, without any charm and they have no chemistry. Carisi is much, much better than the two of them together. I don’t watch LO and after last night I’m even less interested in watching it
Wow – I guess the writers forgot this isn’t Rollins’ first gunshot wound. When Benson said, “if anyone can survive a gunshot wound, it’s Amanda,” I thought – that’s because she already has! The episode was Poisoned Motive and aired 5/8/13.
Exactly. That’s what makes this heartbreaking. Does Sonny even know about that? When he ran up to Liv I couldn’t help thinking about that night in S22? he threatened to ‘take all of em out’ if Rollins got shot and back then I was like ‘oh, honeyyyy….’ 🥺🥺🥺
Isn’t Jeffrey Donovn’s “starring” missing in the intro?
I wondered the same thing! The lead detective and the EADA are BOTH given the starring credit. At least as long as I’ve been watching.
Love all the Law & Order shows, but NOT when the story lines continue from one to the other ALL in the same night. Can’t stay awake that time of the evening & can’t
“RECORD” any shows! Not fair for seniors that can’t stay awake for THREE late night shows when the ‘story’ jumps to continue for two more L&O’s. Different nights would be so-o-o-o much better.
I got to say that house they filmed as Sirenkos home was absolutely stunning. I wonder where it’s located? I thought it looked like Staten Island? But wasn’t sure.
I got a kick out of how fake the scene of Carisi crying and running away to the hospital, looked. Truly ridiculous acting there. But overall, I enjoyed the 3 hour event. Good story line.
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The Malba section of Whitestone, Queens, I believe. Where the team first gathered by the water, with the bridge in the background, is across from a house I used to drive by to look at.
This was the weakest of the 3 hours. Sam Waterson is, for me, legendary as McCoy, but it seems like he’s just not quite physically up to it anymore. A new DA could be a great opportunity for NBC to cast someone really big and unexpected to shake up L&O, a John Lithgow or OOH DAVID STRATHAIRN. Hugh Dancy hasn’t settled into his character yet. Or at all. So far his only distinguishing trait is looking good in a suit. Is he a moralist like Stone? Blustery like McCoy? Crafty like Cutter? He’s just sorta vague right now. Same with Random Lady ADA no 2. For a show with such a sterling history as L&O, if the writing can’t cut it, then the characters must be really potent to stand among institutions like Benson and Stabler. So far that hasn’t happened.
It was very disappointing. The worsed Law and Order series.I think the direction its going is the wrong direction.
I seem to be in the minority, but I thought the whole night was great. Interesting story and the interactions were good.
Same!
Why did Law and Order get shown out of sequence on Thursday, September 22,2022?
It was a 3 part crossover and the event that starts the plot is on OC. Law and Order was last. Usually it’s law and order, then SVU, then OC
when Rollins is shot…where is Carisi? in the article and i quote :”Then OH GOD CARISI IS HERE AND HE’S CRYING. He’s desperate as he asks whether Rollins is alive or not, and the look on his face as he hugs Olivia just might end me.” Where was that scene? I watched the 3rd part twice and only saw Carisi at the end of the episode when he arrived at Rollins hospital bed?
It’s at the end of SVU and start of part 3. I watched it on Citytv (Can). One episode blends into another. But apparently people who decided to cut their cable and watch TV on the internet/streaming didn’t see this. I find it weird that a scene would be missing considering there’s no ads? But then there have been Rollisi scenes online that didn’t appear on TV…
Sorry my bad, correction the whole thing is in the third hour (L&O section) in the second half (I was watching on TV and it was around 10:30 when Rollins got shot)
IMHO:
Crossover blending was good. Missed seeing more of some characters.
L&O: Brooks is an excellent match for Donovan – the chemistry is good. The law part of the show is still awful. Love Sam Waterston, but the two DA roles need to be re-worked & re-cast. (David Straithorn… that’s a thought!)
SVU: Hate that Giddish is leaving. And can we see more of Ice-T please?
OC: Sorry they killed Stabler’s CI. Elliot having to train a younger version of himself would have made for some good stories. I love Jet’s endless costume changes, but could they do more than make her a clothes-horse? Seiger can act, given the chance. Hope we see Bernie & Eli this season.
Liked seeing Cosgrove & Stabler together.
I haven’t watched SVU in years, never watched OC but have been a faithful mothership fan since the beginning.
Ironically, I thought the first two hours were the best. Absolutely agree that Brooks is a great addition. And it was the first episode I really like Donovan in. His first season was a bust for me, even though I was really looking forward to his joining the show. Maybe it was growing pains or just not meshing well with Anderson, something was off. Don’t know Brooks from his other shows but I remember liking him in Necessary Roughness. Gives me hope for the rest of the season. Now, if they could only fix the DA’s, they were the weak links last year (especially Dancy) and this ep hasn’t shown any improvement.