‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’: Rick Gonzalez on Reyes’ Concerns About McKenna, Tom Payne’s Return, and More

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 Episode 6 “Red, White, Black and Blue.”]

Stabler’s (Christopher Meloni) past and present collide in the Thursday, May 15, episode of Law & Order: Organized Crime. He reunites with McKenna (Jason Patric) from his Anti-Crime squad days (before SVU!), and his Organized Crime Control Bureau (OCCB) teammates aren’t exactly happy with the way his old friend goes about things.

Reyes (Rick Gonzalez) especially isn’t pleased with how he treats the girlfriend of the cartel kingpin they’re after. The man killed four detectives (one of whom was on Anti-Crime with Stabler and McKenna and ends up being dirty) and an ADA, and it’s revealed that McKenna’s actions led to the kingpin’s wife and two-year-old daughter being killed.

Below, Rick Gonzalez breaks down the episode, teases Tom Payne‘s return as Julian Emery, and more.

Stabler and McKenna have this history, but Reyes is getting a look at how this guy operates. He clearly doesn’t like what he sees and what he’s hearing about McKenna’s past. So what does he think of McKenna by the end of the episode?

Rick Gonzalez: I think everything about McKenna doesn’t sit right with Reyes, and I think at the end of the episode it sort of stays that way. We do introduce him again. So there is another moment in the show where we see him again, so there’ll be more interaction between Reyes and McKenna. I think there’s a lot of red flags there in terms of what he represents in Stabler’s past, also what he thinks about Stabler having a friend like that. I don’t know. But I think at the same time, I am pretty sure Reyes has some questionable friends or people in his past. So I don’t think it’s so much that. It has to do with what he represents and what he’s done in Mexico as a character. And so I think that’s sort of what Reyes immediately picks up on is this kind of like, who is this guy? What is this here? I don’t like any of this.

Virginia Sherwood/PEACOCK

As we see, Reyes was able to get Miguel’s girlfriend to open up about his whereabouts. What did he see in her that he was able to go about dealing with her in the right way? That’s something we see from their first scene together in this episode. He knows how to approach her. He knows to move her to another room.

I think her being Latina and I think culturally just feeling like there’s so much energy towards this woman who is the bad guy, the bad person responsible for something so heinous, or at least knows information about somebody who created such a heinous act. And I feel as though it was easy for Reyes to just sort of see the energy and say, well, let me approach it from a perspective because everyone wants blood out of this woman. So just from a cultural perspective, just knowing that I can meet her at her level and just kind of communicate to her and say, hey, I just want the truth. I just want to be able to talk and help you. And I think that’s sort of, like, Reyes’s knack is just the ability to be able to speak to people in their simplest and basic level. I don’t know, he just has that ability to just be able to get suspects and informants and people to just sort of divulge information. I think that the previous episode was Reyes talking with the nun, one of the sisters, and just him having the ability to be able to pick up on something that didn’t sit right. And it’s all these little clues and I think that’s how valuable Reyes can be with the team. So yeah, it’s great.

Reyes was right there was something about that fifth stash house. That was so satisfying, right?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s great. I think he brings a lot of value to the team and there’s just so much happening in terms of information. And I think what’s interesting, too, is how we start the episode where Reyes is on another task force, another case, and he’s needed to sort of help OCCB with this case and just to come back in and just jump in. And I think he’s sort of a Swiss army knife in that way, that he can jump in and help out.

How’s Reyes feeling about Jet (Ainsley Seiger) being gone and how their relationship ended? That was kind of messy.

It was. It was very messy, but I mean, it made sense in a way. I mean, they bonded through trauma losing Whelan [Brent Antonello], and that sort of hit a soft spot, especially for Reyes, who has lost a lot in his life. He was, I guess, struggling in his marriage, and I think Jet was somebody who spoke to him shorthand. I think there was just this really cool way of them sort of communicating without communicating, and I think maybe he may be holding out some space for her and hopefully that might progress in some way, but I think he’s used to people leaving, so he wouldn’t be surprised if that was that. And I think that’s what’s kind of cool about Reyes and what drew me to him was this guy who has so much trauma in his past and yet can compartmentalize and really go after the thing that sort of fulfills him, which is to help others and to really solve these cases. So yeah, I think this is just another maybe stripe on him that kind of sucks, but it allows him to be even a better cop.

Eriq La Salle directed this episode. Talk about being directed by him. Because you were in an ER episode in 2001, but you didn’t share any scenes.

It was great. As a kid I was a big fan of Coming to America, so it was kind of a treat to work with him. We didn’t really discuss any of that stuff, but it is just kind of full circle when you’re a young boy and you watch these things and then you sort of work with these folks. It’s just kind of like, oh, that’s cool. The 8-year-old me would’ve been really excited to know that. So yeah, it’s great. He’s a great director, he’s very collaborative. He’s respectful and just open to working. He has great ideas, but he’s always been such a smart actor, so it made sense. His transition to directing is so seamless. So yeah, I was excited to work with him. He’s really great.

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So the Joe Jr. (Michael Trotter) storyline seems to be trickling back because Randall (Dean Norris) pulled in Vargas (Tate Ellington). Is the rest of the team going to be getting pulled in as well? And are we going to see Tom Payne again as Julian Emery this season?

Yes, we will. You will definitely see that. We’ll definitely see Julian and Joe Jr. And I think what we’ll definitely see is Reyes is going to suspect that Joey is playing both sides. Those things have to come into play. It’s loose ends that haven’t been tied up yet. So yeah, it’s going to be fun.

And I’m excited to see that because Reyes, with all his experience undercover, I feel like more than anyone can understand the pull in both directions for Joe.

I agree. I agree. I think what the show does really well though is just sort of like to create the complexity of what Joe Jr. might be going through and what that means for him. We’ll have to see what that means for him being so far undercover, doing this, and the toll that it takes. I’m excited to see how fans take that because it’s pretty crazy.

Law & Order: Organized Crime, Thursdays, Peacock