It's a big night for "Law & Order" fans: A multi-episode arc between "Law & Order: SVU" and "Law & Order: Organized Crime" is about to begin — and TODAY.com has the first look at a scene between two of the most beloved characters.
In the May 11 "Organized Crime" episode, "Shadowërk," Detective Elliot Stabler visits Amanda Rollins, whom "Law & Order: SVU" fans will know left the Special Victims Unit a few months ago to take a job as a professor at Fordham.
In "Shadowërk," DNA from an SVU case connects to an unsolved murder at OC, and Stabler teams up with his former SVU partner Capt. Olivia Benson to work together as part of a crossover event that will continue into next week's season finales.
The May 4 promo for the two-week crossover shows Rollins back at a crime scene with Benson and Stabler. And in TODAY.com's first look at a scene from "OC," we see Rollins teaching her students about "the fabled birthplace for modern terrorism": Alamut Castle in Iran.
Rollins asks her class if anyone knows the meaning of Alamut, to which one student responds "'eagle's nest' in Farsi." Rollins adds it's "also known as the nest of punishment."
Rollins then pulls up a photo on the screen behind her of Hassan-i Sabbah, whom she says is the man who owned the castle and invented the modern-day assassin. She recalls a legend about Sabbah going into the village to recruit young men to go back with him for dinner before having them drugged. She says the men would wake up in the lush gardens of the castle surrounded by nude maidens and fountains filled with wine.
"Sounds like paradise to me," the same student who previously raised his hand says.
"Yeah, well, the men believed they had died and gone to paradise," Rollins responds.
But after living a few more weeks of luxury, Rollins says Sabbah would have the men drugged again, and they'd "wake up at his table rudely yanked back into normal life — and then he would offer them a way back to paradise."
Now, here's where all of the previous shots panning the students in the lecture hall will pay off, as Rollins asks the class if anyone can explain why Sabbah's method was "such an effective method of warfare."
Cue the man at the very back of the room who raises his hand — Stabler.
"Yeah, sir?" Rollins says, acting in the moment like she doesn't know who he is when she, in fact, knows very well who Detective Stabler is and his complicated history with her former boss and friend Capt. Benson. Rollins also previously worked on cases with Stabler, most recently earlier in Season Three of "OC" ("Behind Blue Eyes").
"If you can convince someone their death has more value than their life —" Stabler begins, before Rollins encourages him to "go on."
"You create a very dangerous individual," Stabler concludes.
We can only imagine the subject of Rollins' lecture and Stabler's response will have greater meaning at some point during this crossover event.
“Law & Order: Organized Crime” airs Thursdays at at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, after “Law & Order: SVU” at 9 p.m.
