Chris Meloni explains why a big Benson-Stabler moment got cut from Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 - Here's all about it

NBC's crime drama series Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 premiered on April 17, 2025, on Peacock and is currently reairing on Thursdays at 10 pm ET.

Created by Dick Wolf, Matt Olmstead, and Ilene Chaiken, this spin-off series delves into the life of the SVU character, Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). Stabler, an ex-SVU detective, joins the NYPD's organized crime task force after a tragic incident turns his life upside down.

If you are an avid Law & Order fan, you definitely know about the complex equation between Det. Elliot Stabler and Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay). The romantic tension between the will-they-won't-they partners has been a pivotal focus of SVU, and now, with Stabler's return in Law & Order: Organized Crime, things are heating up between the two. But do you know that some Stabler-Benson scenes were cut from Episode 2 of Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5?

Titled Dante's Inferno, this episode showed Elliot Stabler fighting for his life in the hospital. He was on an undercover mission investigating a human trafficking network when a brutal accident nearly killed him. Benson visits Stabler in the hospital, and we do get some emotional moments. Unfortunately, a big Stabler-Benson was cut short, and guess what, it was an action sequence.

Speaking to TVLine, Chris Meloni (star and EP) revealed that Benson had more screen time in the former drafts, but due to date unavailability, they had to cut down her scenes.

Continue reading to know more about what happened in Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 Episode 2.

Chris Meloni explains why were Stabler-Benson scenes from Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 were cut

Everybody, including Bensler fans, was expecting a few more Stabler Benson scenes in Episode 2 of Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5. But when that didn't happen, they were left a bit disappointed. Turns out, the previous drafts had more of Bensler moments, so what went wrong?

Speaking to TVLine, Chris Meloni explained that they tried to bring in Hargitay for five days, but when the SVU team cut it short to three days, Meloni and the OC team had no option but to reduce her role

"They (Organized Crime production team) break it down and they go, ‘We’ll need her for five days. SVU comes back to us and says, ‘You got three. “So I go back to the drawing board, going, ‘She’s out of that!'"

Wondering which scene Meloni was referring to? Let's roll back to Episode 2 of Season 5. The episode opens with Stabler lying in the hospital while the doctors inform Benson that he has a traumatic brain injury and will take at least 48 hours to respond. When Stabler's brother and mother arrive, Benson comforts them, assuring Stabler will recover.

As Stabler lies unconscious, he dreams of odd things; for instance, he finds a bunny in the hallway. Even after he regains consciousness, he keeps on talking about the girl whom he tried to save in the previous episode.

Stabler defies the doctor's orders, and he gets involved in the case, and gathers for more information about Sad Eyes ( whose real identity is Louisa Diaz, a sex worker in Three Kings Motel). He tries to contact a prime suspect, Teddy, but he tells him that he knows nothing. Stabler collapses once again.

Later, Benson informs him that Bunny didn't make it, and Stabler becomes desperate to rescue Sad Eyes. Benson drives Stabler to his home. He finally returns to the unit and finds out that Sad Eyes has been kidnapped by Sloppy Joe. In an intense moment, Stabler saves Sad Eyes, but he gets shot again.

Remember the scene at the end of episode 2 of Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5, when the undercover detectives Stabler and Jet Sloomaekers (undercover) search for sad Eyes in the swap meet? It turns out the sequence was originally planned for Benson and Stabler. But due to the unavailability of dates, Chris Meloni had to alter those sequences.

Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 is available to stream on Peacock.

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Also Read: Law & Order: Organized Crime is going back to its original time slot—Here's what we know

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