Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 is moving to Peacock after the first four seasons were paired with Law & Order: SVU on NBC’s Thursday nights, and it turns out that the platform on which episodes release isn’t the only notable change. In addition to recently promoting a Season 4 actor to series regular status, Organized Crime has cast a Law & Order: Criminal Intent alum for multiple installments of the fifth season. Fans, prepare to welcome Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio to the drama as a character with ties to Stabler himself!
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was a main member of the Criminal Intent cast in its ninth season, playing Captain Zoe Callas. She won’t be reprising that role for Organized Crime, however, as Deadline reports that the actress will recur in Season 5 as a character from Stabler’s past by the name of Isabella Spezzano. She’s hardly the first in the Law & Order franchise to play more than one character, as that total is in double digits.
News of Mastrantonio’s casting didn’t come with any details about how her character is tied to Stabler, who will of course be played once more by Christopher Meloni. It seems like a safe bet that she’s not one of the Stabler sisters who remain off-screen despite Elliot’s two brothers making their debut in Season 4, and I’d bet that Isabella Spezzano is somebody from the detective’s years in Italy for the NYPD. She wouldn’t be the first mysterious woman from when he worked in Rome to show up, with the arrival of Tia back in Season 3 mixing things up for Elliot.
With Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio recurring in Season 5, it seems likely that she’ll be important to whatever the ongoing arc will be. I don’t have a guess about whether she’d be on the side of the good guys or the bad guys, but this also raises the question of how quickly Organized Crime is going to resolve the cliffhanger that ended the show’s time on NBC back in the spring with Joe Jr. being whisked away by crime boss Emery.
At the time of writing, it hasn’t been confirmed if Michael Trotter will be back as Joey in Season 5, although he only had high praise for the show and Christopher Meloni earlier this year. So, there are really more questions than answers arising out of Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s casting, aside from the confirmation that she’s not reprising her Criminal Intent role. Will the new character be tied to a serialized case, and if so, will she be on Elliot’s side or the bad guys’ of the season? How closely is she tied to Elliot’s past? Is she part of a new arc or being folded into the Joe Jr. storyline if/when it continues into Season 5?
We can only speculate for now, but it’s a fun bit of trivia that just like how Mastrantonio arrived on Criminal Intent following its move from NBC to USA, she’s arriving on Organized Crime following its move from NBC to streaming for Peacock Premium subscribers. You can watch her run on Criminal Intent on the NBCUniversal streamer now, as well as the first four seasons of OC. It remains to be seen if Organized Crime‘s fifth season will be ready in time for a slot in the 2024 TV schedule, but a star has confirmed that filming has begun.