Spoilers ahead for Episode 8 of Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 2 on NBC, called “Ashes to Ashes.”
Law & Order: Organized Crime spent the first arc of Season 2 with Stabler undercover and taking terrible risks to try and take down the Kosta Organization of Albanian mobsters from the inside. After several close calls and multiple bodies dropping, "Ashes to Ashes" delivered a courtroom confrontation that could have cost him his life. And it wasn’t from Albi or Kosta or even Reggie that Stabler was nearly shot, but by Agnes Bogdani. Actress Caroline Lagerfelt, who really got to flex her acting muscles over the past two episodes, spoke with CinemaBlend about the courtroom scene and what "totally freaked" her out about it.
It was Agnes’ last big move before Organized Crime wrapped up the KO arc, but she certainly went out with a bang. She even got to drop what was only her second spoken line of the season, and proved that she is more loyal to besa than just about anybody else. And while Agnes seemed to have no qualms about pulling the gun on Stabler, Caroline Lagerfelt had some reservations. When I asked the actress about her reaction to the final courtroom scene and Agnes’ role in it, she shared:
Well, when I first got the script, there was a terrible, terrible tragic accident that had just happened on that movie out in New Mexico. And the moment I read the part about the gun, that I was going to be pointing it at Chris [Meloni] and shooting at him, I was totally freaked out. And so I texted Fred Berner, the executive producer, who I've worked with on about five shows. I texted him and I was like, 'I am not happy about this.' You know, 'What are we gonna do? Because I am not going to point a gun at the fabulous Chris Meloni and have the world come after me.' And he just said, 'Don't worry, we're taking care of it.'
According to Caroline Lagerfelt, she read the script shortly after the deadly prop gun misfire incident on the set of Alec Baldwin’s Rust in New Mexico, and that was a tragedy that rocked the entertainment industry. Pointing even a prop gun at Christopher Meloni for the sake of Agnes’ last shot at Stabler understandably freaked the actress out, but Law & Order: Organized Crime addressed her concerns for the scene to guarantee that nobody was in any danger. Lagerfelt continued:
By the time I arrived on set the following day, it had already been decided that there were going to be no blanks, no bullets, it was all going to be CGI. And I'm sure the set was super safe anyway, because I mean, Law & Order. All of the different [Law & Order] iterations have been working with guns for years with no problems. I mean, NBC has impeccable controls, and everything's union and they're not jobbing in a bunch of people. And so I got there and they just followed the protocols. Every time they took [the gun] away from me, every time they brought it back to me, they would open it, show me.
Nobody on the set of Law & Order: Organized Crime was in any real-life danger from the courtroom scene, although Stabler would be dead if Agnes had been able to hold her arm a little steadier and aim a little better. Luckily, she didn’t hit anybody else while trying to shoot Stabler either, so no bystanders were hurt before Agnes lost the gun… and lost her chance at getting revenge on Stabler for what happened to the family as a whole, and to Reggie in particular.
As for Reggie, he did indeed survive after making his deal with the NYPD to enter witness protection in exchange for his grand jury testimony, but it wasn’t a happy ending for Reggie. Agnes tipping off the KO meant that she had committed a crime and had to be arrested in New York, so he went off into witness protection all by himself. It was a pretty miserable fate for Reggie, and according to Caroline Lagerfelt, Reggie’s fate was a big part of the motivation for Agnes trying to kill Stabler. She shared:
And how I approached it – at this point, Agnes' plan didn't work. Her son has been whisked off and I think she is ready to... you know, the Albanian mafia does not pussyfoot around. They take care of business very quickly... And I think she's decided to kill [Stabler], to kill this traitor. And that's what she yells at him. ‘Traitor! Besa forever!’ And she shoots off, I think, two shots at him before they managed to wrestle the gun away from her. And I loved that scene, because I love Dash [Mihok]. And this handsome man betrayed my son. And I knew from the first episode, there was something not good about him. There was something fishy about him. There was something I didn't trust. I read it in my coffee grounds.
Caroline Lagerfelt obviously had a good time working with Dash Mihok, playing mother and son! And, as she pointed out, Agnes had her reservations about Stabler as soon as she met him in his “Eddie” persona. Even back when she seemed like a mostly mild-mannered woman who liked to cook and read coffee grounds, something about Stabler rubbed her the wrong way. And then the reveal came that Agnes is definitely not mild-mannered where her family’s safety is concerned, so maybe the cops should have searched her better before they let her back in the same room as Stabler!
Agnes was able to be disarmed without being killed in the process, although she could well be in prison for the rest of her life. That’s bad news for Agnes, but potentially good news for Caroline Lagerfelt when it comes to the future of Organized Crime. As long as a character is still alive, that character can come back, right? When I asked the actress if she’d be interested in returning to Organized Crime if there was a story opportunity, she had an enthusiastic response:
I would light a candle. I would love to return! I definitely don't think her story is done. I mean, you're going to see where Dash is. He's up there in goddamn Alaska or something, and Agnes isn't dead. She's not dead. I'm hoping she will come back like one of those ancient harpies from back in the primeval days to save her son and to wreak vengeance. That's what my plan is.
Will Agnes ever return to Law & Order: Organized Crime? Caroline Lagerfelt is clearly willing, and it comes down to whether or not the story will ever be open for more Agnes. I’d say that Lagerfelt has a pretty solid plan for a comeback, considering Agnes has proven that vengeance is on her mind, and now she’ll have nothing to do but stew over her anger behind bars. And hey, if Richard Wheatley can come back, why not Agnes Bogdani?
For now, however, the story of the KO and Agnes Bogdani seems to be done, and Richard Wheatley will actually be back in the next episode that comes as part of a crossover with Law & Order: SVU. Stabler managed to avoid any terrible personal tragedies even as the lines began to blur between him and Eddie, but will his family be safe once Wheatley’s trial starts? See what happens next with the fall finale of Law & Order: Organized Crime on Thursday, December 9 at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, following the fall finale of SVU, which just delivered an intriguing episode of its own centered on Carisi.
