Showrunner Ilene Chaiken teases the season 1 finale and the future of Elliot Stabler’s crime-filled world.
It took a long time forChristopher Meloni’s Det.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When you started your season, did you know how it was going to end?
Christopher Meloni in ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’.Virginia Sherwood/NBC
ILENE CHAIKEN:Mostly but not entirely.
We evolve as we carried on, but we had mapped out the season pretty well.
When you started on the show, you said you would tackle one major story line per season.
So will we see a resolution in this finale?
You’ll see a lot of surprises and hopefully some gasp-worthy moments.
There will be some resolution, but not an ending.
Yes, the story resolves itself in many ways.
And when we come back in the fall, we will begin a new story.
But that doesn’t mean we’re simply going to drop these threads.
Are you saying we may still seeDylan McDermott’s Richard Wheatley in season 2?
Wheatley’s influence will certainly remain in our world.
Can you be a bit more specific about what we can expect in the finale?
Will there be any deaths?
You’re asking really tricky questions.
We have to somehow separate the two.
They’re always there.
They’re always in the subtext if not in the text itself.
Those are always playing in our stories.
There were a lot of crossovers betweenSpecial Victims UnitandOrganized Crimethis season.
Will there be more in the future?
We will certainly do more crossovers.
We’re now part of an entire night ofLaw & Order.
It offers us a lot of opportunities to intersect our stories.
There’s no set number, no formula for it.
And yes, I learned a lot about the complexities of doing a crossover and doing them successfully.
We will be more or less on the same schedule.
So we’ll be able to coordinate better and plan these events better.
Do you already know who your mob figure will be for season 2?
I have some thoughts about it, but we have not cast the role yet.
Having said that, now it makes me a little nervous because I don’t want to heartoomuch.
