WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 2, Episode 5, "The Good, The Bad And The Lovely" which premiered Thursday, October 14th on NBC.
Law & Order: Organized Crime continues its crossover with SVU as they investigate the missing trafficked girls. Detective Elliot Stabler briefs Captain Olivia "Liv" Benson and Sgt. Ayana Bell on Albi Briscu and Jon Kosta, the leaders of the Albanian KO gang, as well as Reggie, a higher-up - and his friend as Eddie Wagner - and Flutura, Albi's wife. He says he recognizes Amelia, another girl from the same diner as Rita Lasku, the girl whose disappearance Organized Crime is investigating in tandem with SVU. Benson questions him about Flutura's role, and how Stabler's gotten his info on her so far (and rightly so, as last week ended with him romancing Flutura) and Stabler dismisses her as merely a party planner. The team then sees an unknown man enter on surveillance, and pins him to be the buyer, surveying the girls as "merchandise" while Benson wryly notes how highly involved Flutura seems to be: "she's much more than a party planner."
At the Stabler household, Stabler's mother, Bernadette, is having an apparent memory-related incident and accuses Eli of stealing her pills. She and Elliot share a moment in the garden, where she says she's worried about Eli, Stabler's son and her grandson. At the precinct, Jet "Sloot" Slootmaekers and the rest of the detectives discuss the trafficked girls, and how most of their families truly thought they were sending their daughters to a better life. The buyer is identified as Edmond Ross, an upstanding businessman with an ironic reputation for donating to feminist causes.
Stabler (as Eddie Wagner) visits his regular diner and talks to the waitress, Amelia, noting her black eye. He asks her who did it to her and she says it was her fault because she didn't have a happy enough smile. Amelia leaves the diner and Sgt. Bell stops her, offering to help get her away from her abusers, but Amelia is afraid they'll hurt her family and she hops into a waiting black van instead. Bell and Stabler start to tail it, while Bell says she knows it's hard for Stabler to let her go in the name of the greater bust, having worked with SVU for so long. Benson and Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola then call and say they have learned of an upcoming party that night where the trafficked girls will be. The van pulls up to Flutura's house and the girls get out, but Bell notes that Rita isn't among them.
Still undercover, Stabler then knocks on the door, saying he followed Flutura from the beauty parlor because he can't stop thinking about her. He tells her he's short on cash and he heard she's throwing a party -- he asks to do security for her, as the police's way into the trafficking event. In the other room, he sees the girls and she says they work for her, helping at parties and living in the house until they get settled. Flutura agrees to hire him for the party and Stabler first asks to use her bathroom, so he can stay a little longer and watch her interact with the girls, though all he sees is them singing together. He looks around upstairs and sees one of the girls come upstairs, crying, as well as Rita's own copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, bearing her name on the cover page. As Bell waits for him to get out of the house, Sloot sends her the guest list, which includes Congressman Kilbride, Bell's ally who's offered her a place in politics.
Bell meets with Kilbride to ask him about his friendship with Edmond Ross and his invite to Ross's party. Kilbride deflects, saying he gets a lot of invites. Bell asks him if he's aware of Congressman Howard's arrest for raping a teenager and that he'll likely be giving up more names, hinting at Kilbride's own involvement. She then asks for a favor -- Kilbride's help in getting her into the party. Kilbride says he's heard Ross has a little black book of party attendees and that Bell needs to keep his name out of it, should anything go down. She agrees.
Stabler is concerned about Eli, who's not responding to his texts. However, the next scene shows that Bernadette's accusation of Eli taking her pills was correct, as Eli shares the bounty to sell with his friend at the skatepark. The friend, like a villain from a 90s after-school special, peer pressures Eli into popping a couple of pills first.
Back in undercover mode, Stabler stops to pick up Reggie, whose mom is sick, on the way to Flutura's party. Seeing Reggie care for his ailing mother, Stabler is noticeably touched. In the van, Reggie says he told Stabler to stay away from Flutura, not go asking her for a security job. He's also worried that Stabler booked a job behind his back. Stabler apologizes, saying he was really hard up for cash. Reggie reminds him he's vouched for him - and he doesn't want to regret it.
Stabler and Reggie pick up the girls from Flutura's house and transport them to the party, where they guard the door, while Benson, Fin, Sloot and Detective Carlos Maldonado surveil, with Fin noting there are a lot of repeat offenders at the party. They see Bell show up, glamorous, with Kilbride. They note numbered tablets corresponding to guests, to track who buys what.
Kilbride introduces Bell to Ross and she asks him if the auction is benefitting any particular organization. He calls a girl, Liza, over to help Bell, but Flutura grabs her away and leads her up the back stairs. Stabler follows them as Bell investigates the items for auction. She notices that the tablets that the men have, though, show different lots -- jewelry that's not on the auction table and likely corresponds to girls for sale. Kilbride leaves the party as Stabler sneaks around upstairs and sees two men ushered into a locked room.
Bell notices that the jewelry for auction on the men's' tablets matches jewelry worn by the girls, for easy bidding. Stabler watches one of the girls being led into another room and notes she looks drugged. Benson tells him to leave while they make their raid but Stabler finally sees Rita, the girl they've been looking for, and tells her he's here to save her, but she yells for help that he's trying to take her - and Stabler gets grabbed by Flutura's men. They beat him up, asking him why he's there but he just keeps saying he wanted the girl. Benson and her team swarm the party and Bell rescues Stabler.
Outside, Maldonado sees Reggie flee but lets him go at Stabler's directive. Flutura is panicked at all the police activity and Stabler carries her down from a balcony to safety, telling her to run. As he runs in a different direction, he sees an SUV drive off with Rita and he steals a motorcycle to chase it.
As Stabler chases the vehicle, he takes the high ground and uses it to send his bike careening in front of the SUV to make it crash and stop. Rita gets out and flees and Stabler grabs her. She screams, saying they will kill her son but Stabler says that Gabriel is safe, that he's been picked up by Interpol and is waiting for her in London. She asks him how he knows this and he tells her he's a police officer - and that they have two British passports waiting for them to safely escape. Police pull up and he runs, keeping his cover.
Benson and Bell surround Ross and he pulls a gun on himself. He throws his infamous black book in the fire, but Benson grabs it as Bell disarms him and takes him into custody. Back at the headquarters, Reggie and Kosta are fuming about the swarm and Ross's arrest. Kosta screams "how did this happen?" and Flutura makes a dramatic entrance, saying there's a rat in the organization.
Elliot comes home to find Liv already hanging out with his mom, Bernadette. She lets him know that Bell is currently processing Ross, while she and Bernadette help clean up Stabler's bad face cut. Liv heads to the bathroom for peroxide as Eli leaves it in a hurry, after clearly spilling something, and Liv finds the pills he dropped. She tells Stabler about what she found and he's obviously upset, although Eli doesn't seem to be very good at his burgeoning drug career. Stabler plans to stay the night back at home and confront Eli when he gets home.
As Liv goes to leave, he escorts her out the back. She tells him she wants him to come home before it's too late but he says he's being careful. She says, though, she means before Eddie Wagner takes over and Elliot Stabler is nowhere to be found, his own little Jekyll and Hyde moment. Is she a little too late? Possibly, and Stabler's mournful face shows it. He goes back inside, sits by his mom and apologizes for doubting her about Eli. She says she's not worried about Eli, though, as he's had a tumultuous few months and acting out is normal. It's just life, after all. It's just life.
New episodes of Law & Order: Organized Crime air Thursdays at 10 p.m. on NBC.