#’Law & Order: Organized Crime’ Promo Teases Stabler’s Return Home (VIDEO)

If you’re like us, you can’t wait to see Christopher Meloni as Elliot Stabler again (he’s back on our screens in 41 days, but who’s counting?). And fortunately, NBC is making the time until Law & Order: Organized Crime a bit easier to take.

During the February 18 episode of SVU, the network aptly aired a promo teasing the return of Meloni, who left the Dick Wolf drama after its 12th season in 2011 and is back in his own spinoff. It will premiere as part of a crossover event with his old show on Thursday, April 1 (beginning at 9/8c).

In this first new footage of Stabler in his old stomping ground, he’s seemingly explaining why he’s been MIA all this time.

“You know how so much time has passed that you can’t reach out? Days turn into months turn into years, and I just kept waiting for the right moment,” he says to someone.

When SVU fans last saw Stabler on their screens in the Season 12 finale, the detective had to shoot a young girl when she opened fire in the precinct following the arrests of those responsible for her mother’s murder. In the following premiere, his partner, (now Captain) Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), learned he retired. Those two are going to have a lot to talk about when they reunite.

The promo for #organizedcrime

“I just kept waiting for the right moment.” pic.twitter.com/j6tjol45zD

— obsessedwithstabler #DestielisCanon (@MionaShulesLove) February 19, 2021

In Law & Order: Organized Crime, Stabler leads a new elite task force battling organized crime for the NYPD following “a devastating personal loss,” NBC teases. “However, the city and police department have changed dramatically in the decade he’s been away and he must adapt to a criminal justice system in the midst of its own moment of reckoning. Stabler will aim to find absolution and rebuild his life while … taking apart the city’s most powerful criminal syndicates one by one.”

Joining Meloni in the new series are Dylan McDermott, Tamara Taylor, and Danielle Moné Truitt. There are no details yet about any of their characters.

Law & Order: Organized Crime, Series Premiere, Thursday, April 1, 10/9c, NBC