Ellen Burstyn in grave danger in ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’ exclusive clip

If you weren’t watching closely, you’d assume Ellen Burstyn’s insignificant amount of screen time this season on Law & Order: Organized Crime equated to an insignificant role in the larger story being unfurled. But this exclusive clip from Thursday’s new episode confirms all of the clue hunters, note takers, and close watchers’ worst fears – that her Bernadette “Bernie” Stabler is in fact at the center of this season’s most dangerous arc.

In the clip from “Fail Safe,” the fifth season’s eighth and nearly final episode, Randall (Dean Norris), the brother of series star Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), returns to Elliot’s apartment with a bag of groceries for Bernie, their mom. “Hey Ma! So I go into the bodega across from the karate studio, ask for a DVD section – guy laughs at me,” Randall riffs, setting his things down and beginning to unpack, assuming Bernie’s listening from the other room. But she doesn’t make a sound.

Randall continues, “Laughs in my face, like I’m the a–hole. It’s like I asked for parchment paper and a quill.” Still nothing from Bernie, but then Randall hears it – an unmistakable mesh of gurgling, groaning, and whimpering that suggests someone is in dire trouble.

“Ma? Ma! Are you okay?” Randall cries, rushing to discover Bernie collapsed on the floor in the next room. “Joey came! And I told him…” she begins to say, but Randall frantically interjects to tell her, “I’m calling for help,” then shouts into the receiver, “I need an ambulance!”

This scene brings the shocking Organized Crime fourth season finale – which has so far only been glancingly referenced on season 5 – back into full focus. Elliot’s younger brother, Joseph “Joey” Stabler Jr. (Michael Trotter), became a major player last season, folding himself back into the Stabler family dynamic after being discharged from army, and even finding himself drawn into one of Elliot’s most volatile investigations with the NYPD’s Organized Crime Task Force.

The final moments of the fourth season finale, “Stabler’s Lament,” saw Joey handcuffed to a suitcase full of chemical weapons by crime boss Emery (Tom Payne) inside a private plane, which then blasted him off to parts unknown. Joey remains missing in action this season, but at least one character claims to talk to him all the time – Bernie.

Burstyn first appeared as Stabler’s emotionally unstable mother on a 2008 episode of  Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, for which she won an Emmy. She returned as a regular guest star on the second season of Organized Crime, and concerns over her bipolar disorder have largely shifted to concerns over her display of early signs of dementia.

For that reason, when Bernie tells Randall in the first episode of season 5 that she talks to Joey “all the time,” he’s alarmed, but not entirely convinced. Neither is the rest of the Stabler family, until Bernie begins to show off knowledge of Joey’s whereabouts that only the OC Task Force should have, Randall uncovers solid proof of that knowledge with help from tech expert Vargas (Tate Ellington), and Elliot begins to intercept mysterious calls to Bernie’s cell from a restricted number.

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The entire Stabler family want their baby brother back. But with the state Bernie’s discovered in, Joey’s homecoming may play out more like a nightmare than a dream come true.

Law & Order: Organized Crime season 5, episode 8 releases on Peacock on May 22, with new episodes following every Thursday.