How is Elliot Stabler still alive?

I have said it many times before but – my God, this man is a breathtakingly awful undercover operative. He lives solely through the power of fiction because if he were real they would have found his body in a ditch a long time ago.

We begin with some Marcy Killers guys getting murdered. The killers are all wearing masks but it’s obvious they’re white dudes – this must be Donnelly and his crew, right? The killers steal some money and – uh oh! – turns out they robbed Preston Webb, which means Stabler needs to tell Donnelly that he’s got a job for them. When Donnelly rightly questions this, Stabler gets defensive, because Elliot Stabler is nothing if not a hothead. The issue here is all the great qualities that make Stabler a good detective – tenancy, asking questions, pulling at threads until they unravel – are what is making him very bad at going undercover. These qualities aren’t bad in a general sense, they’re bad in undercover situations because the way Stabler has always approached investigations is to plop himself square in the middle of a perp’s life and proceed to muck about until he gets the evidence he needs. This is great when dealing with run of the mill perps. This is bad when you’re supposed to be playing it cool because it draws far too much attention.

Stabler has already reiterated to Webb that he’s the kind of guy that you can trust, unlike Donnelly. Just like with the Albanians, Stabler has decided to become a battering ram to push his way into a world and a relationship he doesn’t understand. Is Stabler really naive enough to think that telling Webb to deal with him instead of Donnelly isn’t going to raise some flags? Is he dumb enough not to realize that there is probably a pile of dead bodies who all have one thing in common – trying to muscle in on Frank Donnelly’s territory? He didn’t realize that Flutura was heading up the human trafficking part of the Albanians business even after he found the girls’ passports hidden in her closet behind her shoes so…yeah. Dude’s an idiot.

Do I think that Webb and Donnelly are now working together to take out Stabler? Yes. Yes, I do.

Webb’s money is apparently being held in some fancy money launderer’s town home so Stabler and Donnelly get Webb to give them a million dollars in cash so they can get in the house. The plan is they will come back and rob the place, thus getting Webb’s original money back along with this additional million.

So…this dude, Rutger Ulrich, is some sort of financial genius without a conscious that no one has ever been able to take down…and Donnelly and Stabler think walking up to his front door with some cash is a good idea? No one vouching for them in advance, no prior appointment, no setting the stage, just wander up with money.

WHATEVER YOU SAY, TV SHOW.

When they go back in to rob the place they bring Malachi, who does not do cool hacking but just cuts into the safe with a torch. BUT – after nearly an entire season of undercover work, Elliot Stabler is finally wearing gloves to Do Crime. He finally figured it out! YAY! Look at him, learning and growing! I’m not a parent but I imagine this must be what it feels like to watch your child take their first steps.

There’s nothing in the safe. This makes Stabler think that, hey, maybe someone is setting him up. (YOU THINK??) He gets more proof when they check the video cameras and see that someone hit the place three hours before they did in a van rented using Stabler’s credit card. Stabler now realizes that he’s gonna be fucked if he can’t figure this out, and a meeting with Webb where Webb threatens his life doesn’t exactly give him the warm fuzzies.

When Jet & Ayanna go to raid the place of the guy who’s fingerprint was pulled off the van used in the first robbery, Jet shoots the suspect. Later, we find Jet in her apartment, still in a state of shock over what happened. Malachi comes over with food and an offer to listen when she wants to talk about it. Wait – is the Law & Order franchise showing me a character who experienced a traumatic event dealing with that event? And then someone who cares about that character is shown supporting them through a hard time? The showrunner isn’t on Twitter telling people to imagine this scene happened when they ask why the characters are never shown dealing with the trauma of the episode???? WHAT IS HAPPENING???

Author Brandon Taylor posted this on Twitter the other day about the show Selling Sunset. I’m just going to leave this here for no reason at all:

This scene between Jet and Malachi is what I wanted for Elliot and Olivia after Olivia shot that dude in the fucking forehead back in January. I didn’t even need the kissing part that Jet and Malachi get, I just wanted to see the “balance” the Christmas episode said they were working towards by seeing Elliot Stabler support Olivia Benson. But this is the Bad Place and we never get nice things in the Bad Place.

We do get Stabler talking to his dad’s former partner about the night Joe Stabler was shot in the line of duty. The partner is adamant that Frank’s father was a piece of trash (we know) and that the shooting of that kid was a good shoot. Stabler leaves to go look through old files and watch his Sad Dad Videos. Really surprised this isn’t set to a Lana Del Rey song or something equally mournful.

Also in this episode – Ayanna and Denise are having problems because Denise takes a job at Killbride’s law firm, Nova’s brother buys a gun because he wants to kill Preston Webb.

Next week is a crossover event with SVU. I will admit that I smiled like an idiot when the preview showed Olivia calling Elliot “partner” because all I want is these two working together again. But then I felt…sad? I don’t know. It was an odd feeling. Most of Twitter was losing their minds with joy over the promo, and that’s totally fine! Feel how you want to feel! I’m glad that you’re glad!

I personally didn’t feel happy or excited for next week. I feel tired. I feel worn out. I feel like this season has shoved me into a steel drum, pushed me down a very steep hill, and I’ve just hit another downslope. It’s a weird way to feel about a show you’re supposed to like. It’s also WAY TOO MUCH EMOTION for a television show, so that’s on my “to work on” list along with everything else that’s wrong with me.

We’ll see how next week shapes out. I, of course, have my theories. I think the scene with Elliot and Olivia in the car – where he says “it was good working together again” (WHAT THE FUCK BULLSHIT IS THAT) – is going to go one of two ways:

1. Cute little scene about how they’re great friends and colleagues that does absolutely nothing to further the relationship between them.
2. Scene where we are told without a shadow of a doubt if EO will actually be endgame.

We’ll probably get scene #1. I’m hoping for scene #2 – I would love to see his remark of working together again segway into Olivia asking him WHY THE FUCK HE LEFT HER WITHOUT A WORD IN THE FIRST PLACE. Honestly, this is the only thing I really want answered. But I also feel that this conversation can lead into Olivia shutting Elliot down completely. I can easily see her saying that she can’t open herself up to him again because him leaving hurt her so badly and they can’t be anything but old partners and acquaintances. If we get scene #2, this is what I fear we’ll get because neither Mariska Hargitay or Christopher Meloni will be in the other show’s finale episodes. If we were getting movement in their relationship, we’d get something in the finale.

On the one hand – I would be very sad that we know we’re not getting EO. On the other – I’d be fucking THRILLED to know that the show is going to stop jerking us around.

I’m having too many feelings about a TV show for a Friday morning.

Random Observations:

• Remember how the Marcy Killers and the Albanians went into business together at the beginning of the season? No one notices that Eddie Ashes and Elliot Stabler look a whole hell of a lot alike?
• We all think that when Donnelly ditched Stabler last episode he was actually watching everything go down so he saw Stabler with the OC crew during the raid, right?
• You know who’s a good undercover operative? Nova. She doesn’t bust through the door like she’s late to the party and worried someone else is gonna eat all the Totino’s pizza rolls. She’s quiet. Observant. Thoughtful. She’s getting the job done by doing the work and gaining the trust of her targets.
• The personal scenes in this episode with Stabler thinking about his dad, Jet & Malachi doing more than EO has done in 23 years, and Ayanna & Denise’s domestic drama? Chef’s kiss to all of them. Perfect. 10/10. No notes!
• I feel very bad that they made the actress the plays Cho say “U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crime Enforcement Network.” What a mouthful.
• Donnelly can’t go a few days without a drink and is sleeping in another room so he doesn’t have to get up and help with the baby. Gee, I can’t imagine why his first marriage didn’t work.
• “But you shoulda killed me, Raymond. Cause I’m gonna make sure you spend the rest of your natural born life behind bars.” I love Ayanna Bell so much.
• I’ve been spelling Denis Leary’s name wrong (there’s only one “n” in Denis, not two.) I regret the error.
• Joe Stabler’s old partner’s name is Gus. I love when old men are named Gus because it speaks to the existence of babies named Gus. I think I would like to meet a baby named Gus.

STYLE CORNER (plus pretty, pretty show pics)

I’M BACK BITCHES!!!