Did Law & Order: Organized Crime just reveal Elliot’s feelings for Olivia?

If your jaw is on the floor after watching Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 1, Episode 4, you are not alone. There’s one line viewers are going to be talking about for a very long time.

When NBC announced that Christopher Meloni would finally be coming back to the Law & Order universe after 10 years, viewers who loved him on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit were more than just a little bit excited. After all, Meloni’s Elliot Stabler always had a fascinating relationship with Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson. And when he left, there was no closure.

The new series’s first season kicked off with an SVU crossover, and seeing Benson and Stabler (Bensler or EO, if you will) together on screen again was a delight. But their relationship was far from back to normal—and shouldn’t have been. When the guy who was “the single most important person” in Benson’s life left without a word, there was no way his return would automatically be met with hearts and rainbows.

But ever since Elliot gave Olivia the letter, and especially since his wife Kathy died, there’s been a huge amount of buzz about what might be possible for the future. After the events of “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of,” that buzz is likely to be deafening.

Is Law & Order: Organized Crime setting up a Benson and Stabler romance?

Perhaps it’s disrespectful to talk about Stabler being in love with someone else so soon after his wife’s death…But it’s kind of hard not to at this point.

Episode 4 saw his daughter, Kathleen, tell Hargitay’s Benson that any intervention she tried to stage with her father wouldn’t work without his former partner involved. Then, during the intervention itself, Elliot was anything but cooperative.

It was painful to watch in all the best ways, wonderfully performed with all the right tension. And then, there was this line:

"I love you…I love all of you."

Now, Stabler totally could have only meant his children, who were at the intervention. But um. Olivia Benson was also there, and it was after her “Elliot, tell us what you need” line that he said the first “I love you.”

He also used the word “all.” All.

All of you.

Could Elliot’s obsession over his wife’s murder, coupled with his inability to sleep, be at least partially due to his guilt over loving someone else? Only time will tell.

Considering Benson was the one he called in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep, it’s not exactly as if yearning for these two to get together is a completely lost cause. And let’s not even start on the intense closeness Benson and Stabler shared even before he was a single man.

Besides, Mariska Hargitay and Chris Meloni haven’t exactly been quiet about liking the idea of their characters getting together. For years, they’ve been all about the Bensler. Check out the clip from Entertainment Weekly above, where they said they wanted EO to happen “more than anything” after “12 long years,” and just be haunted by that for a while.

But viewer be warned: Even if EO are endgame, it’s probably unrealistic to expect too much, too soon. Not only do TV writers love a good slow burn, but these characters have a lot of healing to do before they can go there.

Elliot is a total mess who refuses to work on himself. And Olivia still needs to heal from all the pain he put her through by leaving so abruptly. Forgiveness can, and should, come…just not right away.

We’ve waited all these years, so what’s a little more time to make it really work, right? Regardless, between the stellar performances from Meloni and Hargitay and that quote, we’ll be watching the intervention scene Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 1, Episode 4 at least a zillion times.

(And since Meloni is both aware of, and encourages, the thirst, we might just have to put the late-night workout scene on repeat, too.)

Are you rooting for Benson and Stabler? Was it a confession of love? Share your thoughts with us, and don’t miss Law & Order: Organized Crime Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC!