Law & Order Organized Crime “With Many Names” Discussion Topic - Season Finale

Here is the discussion topic for the season 3 finale of Law & Order Organized Crime, “With Many Names” which aired on Thursday, May 18, 2023. Please feel free to add any feedback you have about this episode in the comments!

My comments:

I’m not sure where to start on this one.  This half of the crossover with SVU moved very quickly and a lot happened, but some of this episode annoyed me greatly.  Despite my numerous annoyances, I think they actually put a cohesive crossover story together where most everyone was used at some point in both episodes.  

Annoyance #1: The Feds, SVU, and OC all were focused on catching the Shadowerk perp, which they’ve traced back to Dublin, Ohio. Why did they need to send Benson, Stabler, and so many people from their respective teams (Rollins too) to Ohio to chase this perp down?  If the Feds were involved, couldn’t the Feds get their own team of locals to do the legwork? I mean, we DO have Federal agents and police in Ohio.  I wonder how much that would cost to bring all those detectives from New York to Ohio? I’d be interested to hear what the standard procedure would be for either the Feds or the New York City police department on working a case where the perp is out of state. It felt unrealistic they would transport so many people from New York City to Ohio. 

Annoyance #2  Stereotypical perp: Kyle turned out to be the stereotypical mid-twenties guy living in Ohio in his mom’s attic (not the basement this time).  His mom was clueless that her own son had invaded her workplace’s network to run part of his hit list website.  Of course his mother, when confronted with the truth about him, still defended and protected him. This was all too cookie-cutter for me. Oh, I forgot, he tried to kill himself but lucky for him he got a nibble on his website,  and he managed to save his own life just in the nick of time!  

Annoyance #3: Benson and Stabler, on the hit list, decide to throw caution to the wind and go out in public for some food. *Amazingly* someone easily finds them and disables the Feds in their car and the whole restaurant with an irritating spray EXCEPT BENSON who equally *amazingly* sees the blinding mist coming at them and protects herself. But she gets shot in the left hip with shotgun pellets and falls to the ground along with Stabler.  He can’t see but she can and she *amazingly* uses the gun, while a blind Stabler holds it,  to shoot the attacker in the head.  Now how exactly did Benson get hit in the left hip with pellets and no one else – including Stabler who was right next to her – got hit with any pellets?  I thought they had a spray pattern and at that distance I can’t believe they would have only hit Benson. Any experts out there who can provide some technical insight would be appreciated.  

Annoyance # 4:  Horrible preparation for the takedown. Kyle’s mom eventually gives him up and they trace him to a cabin they have in the woods.  They all charge in, apparently without any  prior surveillance of the house or area to see if he’s even IN the house.  They also don’t realize the area is covered with trail cameras, which they may have noticed had they done advance scouting.  As they have no  idea where he is at, they are sitting ducks and  he shoots,  and Whelan is hit in the neck. They also have this huge team of agents on site but only one medic, and as Whelan lies bleeding and incapacitated,  he urges them to go to assist Kyle - who stabbed himself with a sword (!) – as they need him alive.  With the number of agents they had on site, they should have had a waiting ambulance with more than one medic.   If they would have prepped better, they could have nabbed Kyle without any loss of life. 

Annoyance #5 – Predictable:   Whelan asks Reyes to help him to die as he doesn’t want to live paralyzed.  Later, Whelan dies, and Reyes seems devastated but Whelan’s dad, who also arrived at the hospital, seemed stoic.  Yes, someone turned off the machine (probably his dad?) but it doesn’t matter who, we knew it was going to happen once Whelan begged for it. 

Annoyance #6 – Kyle caves in to Carisi – as long as they leave his mother alone.  That’s because men that age living in their mom’s attic always put  mom first. 

Annoyance #6: Corny:  The red box with the “Live, Love, Laugh” thing that Stabler removes the “e” so it says  “Liv, Love, Laugh”.  I also suppose we will see a lot of Benson’s  compass necklace from Stabler next season so it can “lead [her] to happiness”.  Note: Stabler says he will be on a new case and will be “gone for a while”; this is so we all understand why he won’t likely be visible at SVU or OC until the mid-season shows start.

Annoyance # 7 – with a question:    Were Whelan and Kyle in hospitals in Ohio or New York?  I can’t imagine they would transport them to New York in the shape they were in, but then suddenly Kyle is in the SVU precinct to shut down the web sites.  Which brings me to the annoyance – why did he have to come to New York and to SVU to shut down the web sites? If they were in such a hurry to get them taken down, I suspect he could have taken them down ANYWHERE.  Come to think of it, with all the computer experts out there, couldn’t someone have figured out how to block the sites? If Jet could add a virus to them to slow them down, why couldn’t she just find a way to SHUT them down? 

My wish for next season is they go back to the multi-story arcs.  The show works better for me when the investigation covers more than one or two episodes.