Spoilers ahead for Episode 5 of Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5, available streaming with a Peacock subscription now.
Law & Order: Organized Crime continues to push boundaries on Peacock compared to what Stabler and Co. could investigate on screen in the NBC days, and none other than Isabella went through a bloody ordeal leading up to actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio exiting Season 5 in the 2025 TV schedule . The family drama came to a head, and it seemed that the formidable character lost her life… until the twist at the end of the fifth episode that she’d actually only lost a finger. The actress spoke with CinemaBlend about playing Isabella and working with the “very funny” Christopher Meloni .
Episode 5 was the halfway point of Organized Crime ‘s fifth season, and it was full of twists that included the birth of Eli’s child while his future at the NYPD is in jeopardy, Randall discovering that a newly blond Joe Jr. has truly been calling their mom from Europe, the wonderful Tamara Tunie returning as ME Melinda Warner , and Isabella going through a violent family reunion when Rocco and Lucia – a.k.a. the woman posing as a nun at the church – showed up at the horse farm.
While Rocco ultimately met his end in the barn thanks to Gia and Roman, Lucia started Isabella’s torture by cutting off a finger and eventually murdering her, disfiguring her so much that her face was obliterating… or so Stabler initially believed on the scene of the crime. When he later noticed that the corpse had all ten fingers, he realized that Isabella had gotten the jump on Lucia, killed her, and swapped places to escape and go on the run.
And that seems to be it for Isabella for the time being, with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio describing playing the character as a “three-episode job,” although she also said that “it would be nice” to come back to Organized Crime . Stabler certainly seemed relieved to discover that Isabella hadn’t died after all, and I had to ask the actress: how sincere was her character in the interactions with the NYPD detective? The Law & Order: Criminal Intent alum
That’s a good question. I think she’s completely clear. There’s things too in the stories that I wasn’t aware of, because it would come up in another episode. I didn’t know the import of the gun [at first], because I hadn’t read those lines yet. But I think with Stabler, she trusts him, and why hide anything? She’s done all she can, except that she leaves to protect the kids.
Isabella didn’t go on the run to start hunting down enemies or because she was done with the kids, but because she wanted to keep them safer. Apparently, the CI really did hold Stabler in high esteem, and was sincere when they spoke in Season 5. That’s not to say that she was 100% honest every time they interacted, but that’s par for the course for Organized Crime !
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Christopher Meloni had to build and sell a dynamic between their characters that went back many years over the course of three episodes, so what was it like for the duo to team up? I asked the actress that very question, and she responded:
This is a tough admission, but I’ve never seen Law & Order. I was away. I was a working actress, and then you become a mother, and then you’re doing all these things, and then I didn’t live in the country. I didn’t live here, so I never really saw it. So when I first read the script, and I’m reading about horses, I thought, ‘Who’s a Stabler?’ [laughs] ‘Is that a horse term?’ I suppose because I’ve met Chris before, just at a wedding, I think [I’m] just at an age where you just say, ‘Okay, let’s go. Let’s start this thing.’ And then it’s just easier.
Christopher Meloni is involved in Law & Order: Organized Crime as more than just the leading man. He’s an executive producer on the spinoff of Mariska Hargitay ‘s Law & Order: SVU , and he wrote the second episode of Season 5, including what one star described as the “most unsexy pickup line you can imagine .” According to Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, he’s also involved in the rewrites. She went on:
We had a really easy time together, and he’s very funny. He’s very present, and I don’t know where he finds the energy to do this, but he’s deeply, deeply committed to this franchise and the success of this franchise. He’s not just rolling in with new script pages that haven’t quite been dog-eared enough to be in his head. He’s really there and doing a lot of the rewrites. He’s actually great. Very funny.
While we may not see Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio again in Season 5, Law & Order: Organized Crime is only halfway through its ten-episode count so far. In fact, there are enough episodes left that Organized Crime is going to outlast the current seasons of Law & Order and SVU , both of which will air their season finales on May 15.
Keep signing in to Peacock on Thursdays for the newest episodes of Law & Order: Organized Crime . I’m curious to see if there will be any SVU characters crossing over like Mariska Hargitay
