Law & Order: Organized Crime: An SVU Pal Returns to Help Stabler Realize He’s Been Hoodwinked — Read Recap (2025)

Do I wish SVU alum Tamara Tunie were in more of this week’s Law & Order: Organized Crime? Of course! That woman, and that character, is a GEM. Will I settle for her being around for the exact moment a very important penny drops for Stabler? I will!

Read on for the highlights of “Lago D’Averno.”

A NEW STABLER IN THE WORLD | Eli’s field training officer Sgt. Hunt preps him for talking to the police department’s Internal Review Board, by which he says he’s been questioned by four (!) times. “Whatever the hell happened is between you and your god, nobody else,” he advises. Hunt shuts down Eli’s thoughts about having his union rep there, then Eli screens a call from his father as Hunt slaps him on the shoulder and says he’s proud of him.

And, oh look who’s questioning him? Moses Warren, the IAB guy who hates Elliot. A very nervous Eli says he hasn’t discussed the shooting with anyone, not even his dad, because it’s “against protocol.” Becky calls a couple of times, but Eli doesn’t answer — even though Mean IAB guy tells him he probably should. Eli reasons that it can’t be important, because their baby isn’t due for another six weeks.

About that! Stabler is at the morgue with Isabella as she identifies Pietro’s body. “The police might have shot him, but it was my brother who killed him,” she says… though I feel like she’ll change her mind about assigning blame the minute she learns the last name on the offending officer’s badge. But pretty soon, Elliot is called away to the hospital —where Becky has just delivered his grandson, with Eli nowhere in sight. The good news is that, despite the baby’s early arrival, both he and his mom are OK. Eli eventually arrives, and Elliot sits with him in the waiting room and tries to reassure him that everything is going to be fine.

ROCCO, IS THAT YOU? | Stabler goes to Isabella’s home, where she is greatly relieved to hear that the police believe Roman is alive, though missing. But she’s convinced that her brother, Rocco, is no longer in prison in Italy and instead is in the United States, pulling Roman’s strings. And when Stabler has Vargas hack into the Italian jail’s security cameras, they see that another man appears to be posing as Rocco—meaning the murderous Spezzano is on the loose.

Father DeLuca, the shady priest from the previous episode, summons Stabler to his church. While Elliot waits to talk to DeLuca, someone in a nun’s habit watches from the balcony but scurries away when El looks up. That’s totally Rocco in a nun’s habit, right? When DeLuca approaches, he gives some fake story about wanting to help the kids in his parish, but all he really wants to ask is if they’ve found Roman. Stabler says he can’t discuss the case, and leaves.

Outside, Becky texts Grandpa Elliot — and his pause to look out his phone is the only thing that saves him from being closer to his car when it blows up!

Randall swings by later that day to bring his brother, who is remarkably fine after nearly being cooked over easy. They talk about Randall intercepting the call he thought was from Joe Jr. “I’m telling you,” he says to Elliot, “I got a feeling about this.” They agree that Randall will let Elliot know the next time a call comes through.

Father DeLuca finds Roman, shivering in an alley from the fever resulting from his infected gunshot. He speeds the young man to Isabella’s, where she lays him out in the barn to treat him. “Rocco is here,” he says, gasping. “So is she.” Isabella immediately knows who her grandson is referencing —a woman named Lucia —and she comforts him as he babbles that Rocco and Lucia came to the house, looking to kill Isabella, so he promised to help them in order to stave them off.

OK so maybe I was wrong about Rocco hiding by wearing a nun’s habit around the parish. The person we saw earlier is a woman — Sister Mary —but PSYCH! she’s really Lucia, Rocco’s sister! Turns out, Rocco is hiding in the back of the church, where they’re torturing Father DeLuca until he gives up Roman’s whereabouts.

SHOWDOWN AT THE HORSE FARM | Stabler meets with IAB and it gets heated when Warren says that Eli’s FTO reported that Stabler had told Eli to “get out” after shooting Pietro. Elliot clarifies that he told Sgt. Hunt to take Eli outside, just to give him some distance from the firefight he’d just been in. “If you’re chasing a bad cop, you might want to look into Sgt. Hunt,” he says.

While that’s happening, Bell gets a warrant to search the church, and they wind up finding Father DeLuca dead in a secret room. Stabler calls Isabella to warn her; without even picking up the phone, she knows that Rocco and Lucia are on their way. So she arms herself and her granddaughter and greets Rocco and Lucia and their henchman when they show up.

She refuses to hand over Roman, so Lucia ties her to a chair and cuts off her finger while the men search the grounds. Stabler arrives on the scene and calls for backup, then runs in when he hears Isabella’s screams. He cuts her free and returns her gun to her, telling her to keep it on Lucia while he heads to the barn.

But before he can arrive, Rocco finds Gia and Roman in a stall. He’s not afraid of Gia, even though she’s wielding a gun, and he gently tells her to put down the weapon. But before anything else can happen, Roman —who appeared unconscious —shoots his uncle dead using the family pistol. Stabler skids onto the scene after it’s all done, then they hear two gunshots coming from the house. When Elliot runs up to the room he was just in, Lucia is gone, and Isabella is dead. Her face is completely shot off, and because we’re on Peacock now, they show us EVERYTHING. Huh. I really thought this show was going to have her find out Eli shot Roman, then have her be the villain of the rest of the season. What the heck do I know?!

Lucia gets away. Roman, who is headed to the hospital, wants to turn state’s evidence against the Camorra. And El is called to the hospital, where Randall reports Bernie is “freaking out.”

‘A COP LIKE YOU?’ | In Bernie’s defense: She’s agitated because she suspects her kids are keeping something from her, and she’s right! Elliot sits her down and explains that Eli was part of an officer-involved shooting. She wonders whether the kid will be “a cop like you, or a cop like your father?”

Stabler is still thinking about that when he stops by Becky’s room a short while later. Becky sends her man to the vending machine so she can have a chat with Elliot: She hopes the police department kicks him out, she confesses, because she’s pretty sure Eli doesn’t actually want to be a cop. “I feel like he does it for you, or some family thing that he feels that he has to do.” Stabler is already tearing up, then she adds, “He just really loves you. He just doesn’t want to disappoint you.”

At the end of the episode, Stabler stops by the morgue, where Chief Medical Examiner Melinda Kickass Warner is looking at Isabella’s body and gleaning whatever info it can give them. Our first hint that something hinky is going on is when Stabler mentions signs of torture, and Warner is like, “Uh, nope.” GUYS. Then he asks if she got DNA from “the finger” and she has no idea what he’s talking about.

He lifts the sheet to see that the corpse has all of her digits. IT’S LUCIA, which means Isabella is currently in the wind! “Nevermind,” he says.

WELCOME TO FLAVORTOWN, AMSTERDAM | Elsewhere in the episode, Vargas remotely helps Randall determine whether the restricted number that’s been calling is Joey’s. Eventually, Vargas uses the cell tower location and geotagging to figure out that Joe Jr. has been frequenting (or working at) a night club in Amsterdam. And in the social media photos he finds, we can see that Joey has Guy Fieri’d his hair. It’s a choice!

Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Hit the comments with your thoughts!