The “Law & Order: Organized Crime” Season Four premiere concluded with a bang — but not one anyone, including the show’s stars, saw coming.
One of the last scenes appeared to reveal that two of the show’s characters, who are also co-workers on the OC task force, have been in a secret romantic relationship.
Detective Jet Slootmaekers (Ainsley Seiger) opened her apartment door to find Detective Bobby Reyes (Rick Gonzalez), whom she hesitantly let inside.
“I thought we agreed not to do this again,” she told him, as the two shared a kiss.
Talk about a cliffhanger!
TODAY.com recently caught up with Danielle Moné Truitt, who plays the duo’s boss, Sgt. Ayanna Bell, and discussed this shocking development.
When asked who from the squad will give Bell the most trouble this season, Truitt says, laughing, “They’re all going to give Bell problems.”
“That’s what they do best,” she adds.
“Jet and Reyes, in particular, are going to give Bell a lot of problems because they’re doing the freaky-deaky stuff now,” Truitt continues, saying she knows the audience is going to “love that messiness.”
She also reflected on her personal reaction to the relationship development.
After reading the script, Truitt says she texted Seiger and Gonzalez.
“I was like, ‘Oh, so, what is this?’” she explains. “They were like, ‘Oh, my God!’”
“That’s the fun part,” she adds.
As a result, Bell will have to “deal with what’s appropriate for people who are working together.”
“None of us are perfect. All the characters have been in those compromising positions, but she’s definitely going to have to check Jet — the way she so lovingly does,” Truitt says about her character, adding Bell will also have to have “some conversations with Reyes, too, about his behavior.”
Reyes joined the team in Season Three, and over the course of that season, viewers learned Reyes has a wife and kids. The status of their relationship in this new season is unclear.
In the Season Three finale, the OC crew lost a member of their team, Detective Jamie Whelan. Before Whelan’s death and while he was in the hospital, Jet told him she loved him during a phone call, though viewers never saw anything romantic ever happen between them. Reyes was also close friends with Whelan.
Whelan also had a mentee-mentor relationship with Detective Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni), with whom he often went out in the field. Stabler took on another case immediately after Whelan’s death, and at the beginning of the Season Four premiere, Stabler rejoined the OC team for the first time since Whelan’s passing.
Truitt says Bell will also have to “check” Stabler in these initial episodes about his attitude. During the episode, Stabler came out of a dangerous undercover mission and had to balance the fallout of that assignment with problems involving his mother, Bernie, who’s portrayed by Ellen Burstyn, at home.
“I don’t think Bell has a lot of support,” Truitt says. “When she’s making a decision to move the team in a certain direction, she gets a lot of pushback — not only from the higher-ups but sometimes her team, as well.”
“The way that she has to have conversations with Stabler, I think, it helps him realize, ‘Let me get on board, even though I necessarily don’t like what’s happening. Let me trust her and get on board with what we’re doing,’” she explains.
Trust is something Truitt has in her real-life relationship with Meloni, who she says is “a great leader.”
“He treats people with respect, and we have a lot of great conversations,” she adds, noting the two have discussed their families, as well as the differences in their races, ages and genders.
“We have a lot of cool things we get to talk about just as personal people, and so I really, really, really appreciate that,” Truitt says.
As for the rest of the show’s 13-episode season, Truitt can’t wait to go on this “exciting journey” with the fans.
“I’m just looking forward to them tapping back in with us every Thursday and giving their commentary, what they think — especially after this Reyes and Jet situation,” she says. “I cannot wait to see what they’re going to say about that.”
“In true ‘OC’ fashion, Bell is going to have some stuff she has to work out with these task force members.”
“Law & Order: Organized Crime” airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.
