Chris Meloni might be ready for an Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler romance — but it’s not his call to make.
“I’m always open to opening that can of worms,” Meloni, 64, told Us Weekly exclusively while promoting Law & Order: Organized Crime season 5, hinting at a possible relationship between Benson and Stabler. “It’s powers that are above me.”
The show’s two-episode premiere airing on Thursday, April 17, includes “a lot of trauma for one guy,” Meloni joked to Us, referring to his battle-tested NYPD character, Stabler.
“It has echoes of unresolved issues from his days as an SVU detective,” Meloni continued. “He’s in — I wouldn’t say fragile — but an emotional state that’s rather jagged.”
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In the episode, Stabler, who brings back his undercover alias Hank, attempts to bust a trucking company that’s smuggling drugs — and trafficking women. Things go awry when he gets a soft spot for a parentless young girl named Bunny, who goes missing. When attempting to rescue the young girl, Stabler’s truck gets rammed by an 18-wheeler, causing her death.
The detective is briefly in a coma after receiving a traumatic brain injury (TBI) diagnosis, which leads to some pretty wild dream sequences — one of which features Mariska Hargitay as Benson, disappearing from his bedside.
Upon waking, Stabler admits to his mother (Ellen Burstyn) that he’s been having bad dreams about “things I’ve lost.” When Meloni was asked about this moment — and the obvious allusion to Benson and Stabler — the actor played coy.
“That’s a whole giant can of worms that I haven’t even found the giant can opener to open,” he quipped.
Hargitay, 61, made several appearances in the episode to visit her longtime friend and former partner in the hospital. (Hargitay and Meloni shared the screen on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit from 1999 to 2011.)
While the duo had their share of special on-camera moments, Benson also had quite the face-to-face meeting with Stabler’s brother, Randall (Dean Norris), who became a series regular for the show’s fifth season.
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Their rather hilarious scene featured Randall hitting on Benson “over my dying body,” Meloni joked.
“Don’t forget about Randall. That little thing they threw in there,” Norris, 62, reminded Us. “All of a sudden everyone started thinking, ‘Oh, we can make that happen.’”
The onscreen brothers — who’ve been friends for 20 years in real life — also teased that, all possible romances aside, their “very dysfunctional” family dynamic will be explored throughout season 5.
“I think that brotherly love grows a bit,” Norris said. Meloni added, “I agree with that.”
New episodes of Law & Order: Organized Crime premiere Thursdays on Peacock.
