Law & Order: Organized Crime returned for Season 2 with Stabler undercover with the Albanian mob, and the Organized Crime Task Force assisting him as best they could. The case quickly became complicated with Sergeant Bell butting heads with Sergeant Brewster of a Narcotics team, and now the two groups will have to combine into one task force. On top of joining forces, the next episodes will see Ainsley Seiger’s Jet Slootmaekers head out into the field to face challenges beyond her computer monitor. Seiger spoke with CinemaBlend about what’s on the way, including “turf war mentality.”
I chatted with Ainsley Seiger ahead of Organized Crime’s big two-hour event on September 30, which will bring in some familiar Law & Order: SVU faces for a crossover. The event comes shortly after the Task Force got the news that they’d have to work with Brewster’s team moving forward in Season 2. The Jet actress previewed what the new team dynamic looks like with the Organized Crime group having to work with Brewster’s Narcotics group:
The new team dynamic has been a lot of exploring this almost turf war mentality of us versus them. There's a lot of butting of heads. There's a lot of belligerence from both sides. And I think both of our sergeants are very stubborn people, and not always the most willing to cooperate with one another, which of course, is never a good thing when you're trying to work towards the common goal. So a lot of what we'll get to see in Season 2 is, okay, how do I work with these people who I just – speaking as Jet – I just got comfortable with Stabler and Bell. And now I have to figure out how to maneuver with these people and negotiate a truce with them when I don't really like them that much. And I kind of don't think they're very smart. How do I do that? But in that conflict, I think when we come out the other side of it, and we're able to actually put the differences aside for even a brief moment and collaborate, it makes the win a little bit sweeter.
Jet isn’t the most social or extroverted member of the Organized Crime Task Force, and now she’s facing the prospect of working with a whole new group of people. And based on the Season 2 premiere, Brewster at least will be a very different kind of superior officer compared to Bell. Bell and Brewster clearly weren’t thrilled about co-leading a task force together, and it’s hard to imagine how anything will get done if they don’t bend a little.
Fortunately, the joint task force members will evidently be able to put their differences aside at least briefly, even if it’s unlikely that Brewster will become the best friend of anybody in Organized Crime. In the next episodes, Jet will have more on her plate beyond dealing with any new people she has to work with, as a case will bring her out into the field. The first season with Richard Wheatley as the top foe proved that it takes a special kind of case to draw Jet away from her computers. Ainsley Seiger shared what’s ahead with Jet’s role in the Organized Crime crossover episodes:
So the case that brings Jet out into the field is Stabler finds a phone that is not able to be decrypted by Jet. What I love so much about that is that it does not come to her as distressing that she can't crack the code. I think it presents itself in her mind as such an exciting challenge of, I really get to not even prove myself now, but I get to do what I'm really, really good at, which is not only hacking, but also being a proper detective. So I get to uncover who wrote the code, and then go out into the field to find this mysterious person and apprehend them. And we get to meet someone else who is a hacker like Jet, but uses that technological capability for very different reasons. What interests me so much about those two characters is that they're both using it to pursue justice in a way, but they're taking very different routes to get there and possibly have very different ideas about what justice truly looks like. Which is an exciting conflict to have.
Jet is almost always able to work her tech magic from her office, even if it sometimes takes a little time or for one of the others to do some legwork, but not this time with a phone that Stabler finds. And for all that Jet is certainly an unconventional member of any NYPD task force, she’s still as much part of the team as any of the others, and fans will see her show off her detective side, as well as how her idea of justice contrasts with however this other hacker views the system.
So, does facing this challenge out in the field as opposed to from behind her computer at the Task Force headquarters mean that Jet will be out of her comfort zone? Ainsley Seiger weighed in on the idea, saying:
I think it's out of her comfort zone in the sense that this is the third time that we have seen her out of the task force room but I think this is actually not so far out of her comfort zone because it has so much more to do with her specialty and it is something she is so confident in. This is the thing that she knows everything about. What she does not know anything about is how to socially interact with other people, which is where the real pressure comes in for her. But I think what's really awesome about Jet is that she doesn't have a lot of nerves related to the job itself. All of the nerves for her come afterwards, of 'Oh, I got this criminal. Now I actually have to deal with him. I have to talk to him. How do I do that?' So it's out of her comfort zone in a different way than I think we would anticipate.
Jet proved in Season 1 that she can handle herself in the field, but the people element of the case will present a larger challenge than anything else. Honestly, for any viewers who ended up working from home over the past year, or are still working from home, Jet not knowing 100% how to deal with people out and about could be pretty relatable! Interesting things are happening for Jet just as they are for the Task Force as a whole, not to mention Benson and Stabler, with Benson turning up on Organized Crime this week after Stabler has a part to play on SVU earlier in the night.
Some of the drama on the way for Benson and Stabler has nothing to do with Jet’s hacking, Bell and Brewster butting heads, or seemingly anything case-related, as the promo for the next episode reveals that Stabler’s infamous letter to Benson will finally be addressed. Check out the full Law & Order night of action on Thursday, September 30 starting at 8 p.m. ET with a new episode of SVU followed by two hours of Organized Crime starting at 9 p.m. ET, all on NBC.
The currently-airing Dick Wolf universe is still expanding, thanks to the news that the original Law & Order will return for Season 21, more than a decade after the original series finale aired in 2010. Between the Law & Order shows, the three One Chicago shows, and the FBIs over on CBS, there are plenty of series sharing the same TV universe, so be sure to tune in to keep up.
