CBS Renew/Cancel Week 16: An Assessment of the NCIS Franchise

How FBI Became The #1 Franchise On CBS Over NCIS

 

NCIS: Los Angeles S13E07 Review: Lost Soldier Down

Lost Soldier Down is NCISLA star Daniela Ruah (Kensi's) second outing as director and she was teamed up with another woman, episode writer Indira Wilson, to bring this week's offering to life.  In Lost Soldier Down, the team investigate the apparent suicide of a Navy intelligence officer and uncover the mystery of why he had taken LSD before he jumped to his death, and why the USS Allegiance had an LCD problem.

NCIS: Los Angeles S13E06: Sundown (Review)

 How far would a father go to seek justice for his child? That is the ultimate question posed in Sundown, written by one of the newer writers, Lee A. Carlisle, when a father takes a busload of hostages, threatening to blow it up unless his daughter's war crimes are posthumously cleared and her death by suicide investigated. The father, Gary DeMayo gives the team until sundown to discover the truth, or he carries out his threat. His daughter, Corporal Kyra DeMayo was asleep on guard duty during an incursion which saw a cache of weapons stolen. Opioids were found in her system and she was other than honourably discharged. Kyra suffered a brain injury during the attack and committed suicide, shooting herself in a park. 

Before this is revealed in Ops, getting shot is discussed by Fatima and Rountree in the bullpen. In a call out to the last episode, Fatima is still on crutches after being shot in the leg. She reveals it's not like the movies and wonders how Callen came back after being shot five times in one go. Rountree suggests it might be why he is sometimes cranky. Making light of such injuries and events is a coping mechanism, and Callen's shooting (in the backdoor pilot via NCIS 'Legend - part 2' S06E23) is hauled out every so often for black humour.

The theme of parenthood is frequently explored in NCIS: Los Angeles, often through the main characters in relation to their personal experiences and how they interact with guest characters and the case in question. In Sundown, this is brought to the fore, not only through DeMayo but also through Kensi and Deeks. At the start, the pair are waiting in the car apparently on a stakeout. Kensi is observing a couple entering a building, describing them as 'trouble' and 'over-achievers'. It quickly becomes apparent they are not on an NCIS mission; Kensi is plucking up the courage to attend an information meeting with Deeks to understand more about the journey to adoption. Of course an alert comes through from Ops, causing the couple to 'divide and conquer', with Kensi left to the meeting and Deeks to work the case. This circles back to questions originally raised by Deeks a number of seasons ago about how they would cope with parenthood if they were both working. Kensi continues to receive text updates from Ops which distract her and lead her to tell little white lies about a sick aunt who takes a turn for the worse. In the end she has to excuse herself to assist the team in the final showdown. Even at the end when Kensi and Deeks are together in the bull pen, they still have no answers of how they will cope. There is no discussion of one or the other giving up their career. Deeks simply says they'll figure it out, as that's what parents do. Once again though, Kensi changes the parameters by suggesting fostering, something Deeks had also been considering. There is a very 'matter of fact' scene between Callen and Deeks (who partner up to interview Corporal DeMayo's mother). They are driving to find a suspect and Callen asks Deeks how the adoption process is going. Deeks is also finding it tough. Callen's response is: 'Talking as a foster kid, I'll say one thing. I'd have killed to have parents like you and Kens.' It's the highest compliment Callen could pay the couple and his choice of the word 'kill' reveals the pain and depth of feeling associated with growing up in the system. There would have been minimal impact if he'd said that he'd loved to have had parents like Deeks and Kensi. 

When the tasks are allocated at the start, Sam volunteers to go to the scene, citing his experience with grieving military families. Rountree is selected to accompany him, due to having taken a hostage negotiating course with the FBI. This sets up expectations that Rountree would take a leading role, however it is Sam who predictably takes the lead. There is slight tension between the pair and LAPD SWAT on the scene and of course the NCIS calls all turn out to be the right moves. Sam also has direct experience of parenthood, yet his attempts to connect with Gary DeMayo fail as the man is on a one track mission to clear his daughter's name. Their conversations via walkie talkie reveal more about DeMayo and his daughter. These are interspersed with Callen and Deeks talking with Mrs DeMayo. She touches on how therapy proved too expensive and comments on the VA backlogs. Yet it is the notebook suggested by her therapist which provides the clue which leads to the team exonerating her, even if it was not conducive to saving her life. 

Fatima has currently assumed the role of both Nell and Eric in ops, and helps move the narrative along. For example she has concrete information that Corporal DeMayo's death was in fact suicide and talks this through with Kilbride who has to tease the information out of her. There is an inference that he is familiar with suicides, citing she most likely shot herself in the park to spare her parents dealing with finding her and the clear-up. She was first introduced as a specialist analyst and is most suited to Ops.

There are limited guest characters in Sundown even though there are several hostages on the bus. This lack of focus means no empathy is built with them. Their fear of being shot or blown up is not shown. Instead the focus remains solely on Gary and to a lesser extent, his wife. Rountree may not be called on for his FBI negotiating skills (a slight on the FBI?) but Sam does give him the chance to shine as a journalist sent onto the bus to hear Gary's side. For a former FBI undercover agent he is rather nervous yet listens to Gary, giving him false hope that his story will be revealed to the world. There are also interactions between husband and wife when Mrs DeMayo is brought to the scene. The bottom line is of such conversations underlines that Gary is not a bad man, the failings of the military and judicial systems has triggered this extreme reaction. He eventually lets the prisoners go, and is willing to only take his own life when it seems time has run out. 

The closing scene takes place in the boatshed, which apparently has wide doors which open to reveal a balcony overlooking the marina. Kilbride aptly voices viewers thoughts that he didn't even know this (balcony) was out there. He ties up the case by confirming Corporal DeMayo has been cleared, posthumously promoted, awarded a medal, given a funeral with full honours with backpay reinstated. Sam, Callen and Kilbride reflect on the question of how far a parent would go if someone hurt their child. Sam admits he can't stop thinking about that dilemma, although past experience (Talion, S7E24) shows restraint when he had the chance to kill Tahir Kaled after taking his son Aiden hostage. Sam is an honourable man and also eventually saw reason when he hunted down Kaled after he murdered his wife. Sam is a trained SEAL with high morals and self control. Gary is an ordinary man who admitted if he had to, he would do it all over again. 

NCIS: Los Angeles S13E05 Review

 

Divided We Fall tells the rare story of the team failing catastrophically in their mission. Failure is not an outcome associated with the NCIS Office of Special Projects which makes this episode all the more interesting. There are plenty of occasions where missions go sideways - it's that unpredictability and intensity which often keeps the interest, however the outcome is usually positive. After all they rescued Mosley's son, even though all bar Kensi nearly lost their lives in the process. The team is not perfect and not infallible so to actually see them fail and the after effects of that failure, is a novelty. 

The episode begins with Callen and Sam approaching a woman (Laura Song) and urgently requesting she accompanies them to a safe house as she may be compromised. Meanwhile Kensi and Deeks pick up Laura's teenager daughter Lily and bring her to the boatshed, while Fatima and Rountree set up in the safe house to undertake surveillance. When Callen states that Kilbride will arrive in an hour, Laura's replies that until then, her life is in their hands.

"One hour later" and Kilbride walks in to a disaster zone. Laura is dead and Callen and Sam are sitting against the wall looking battered.  

The remainder of the episode takes place after another time jump. The team have been separated for 36 hours and are interviewed by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) Inspector General Akhil Ali. This allows the team to fill in the events of that crucial hour from their own perspective, with each member overlapping with the former to provide a full narrative.  These interviews/flashbacks allow Laura to be developed as a rounded character and for empathy to be built as she engages with Sam and Callen on a personal level. She’s a mother who believes her daughter is better off without her, she was drawn into the world of espionage by Kilbride at the age of 17 and knows Hetty. She is strong, confident and defiant, adamant that even though she acknowledges every spy has their expiry date, she repeatedly ask for a gun, refuses to die while locked away in the panic room and selflessly sacrifices herself to save Fatima.  Her actions and words indicate that she'd rather fight for her freedom that be locked in and trapped, even if a few of her actions are odd with this - until Kilbride tells his tale... He concocted the story that Laura's cover was blown so he could (via the team)  secure her for interview to see if she had been turned by the Chinese and was now a double agent.  He found his answer when he saw her walking into the lobby with the ‘bad guys’, chastising them for failing to take out four agents. Kilbride confronts and kills her. 

This knowledge allows the episode to be seen in a different light upon a second viewing. Deeks states that Kilbride has many layers like an onion (and each one will make you cry), which is an apt reflection of Divided We Fall (although maybe not the crying element). This is an intricately constructed and multilayered case.  The one on one conversations Laura had with Callen and Sam now take on a different meaning. She knows Hetty and it can be implied she knows of her orphans and by extension, about Callen. By asking how long he’s known Hetty and relating that to her own story of being dragged into the game so young, she has aligned herself with him.  With Sam she speaks about her teenage daughter and the pair talk about parenting. She struggles with the mother/daughter relationship, believing Lily is better off without her and asks about Sam's daughter’s relationship with her mother. Did she know in advance that Sam’s wife was killed? 

Kilbride admitted to ONI Ali that Laura is the best operative he’s ever known and he kept the real reason away from the team for fear she would see through their charade. Laura Song now becomes a highly manipulative double agent, playing two experienced agents who had little chance of seeing through her facade, thanks to Kilbride.  The other takeaway here is Kilbride’s lack of trust - he clearly has no faith in the team. He acknowledges they are good but not the best (although he tells Lily they are the best, with Deeks naively believing him until Kensi bursts his bubble).  It almost picking up where Hetty left off in terms of manipulation and secret keeping, even picking Laura for a life of spy craft during her teenage years. Perhaps this explains his comments to Callen in the season opener (Subject 17), and in last season’s finale. 

The interviews reveal how events unfolded but also show how the agents perform their jobs. Sam and Callen are the epitome of professional, dedicated to protecting Laura. They repeatedly refuse her request for a gun, providing the ONI Inspector Ali with legitimate reasons for their decisions. When Ali challenges the only discrepancy in Sam and Callen’s story (whether Laura was drinking scotch or bourbon), Sam quite rightly questions if it really matters? It’s the newer and younger agents who’s behaviour during their surveillance is surprising. These scenes typically make personal conversations easy whilst maintaining observations, yet Rountree and Fatima spent most of their time NOT looking at the monitors. Instead they were on their cells and playing a magnet game. Thankfully these actions had no impact on events and they acted as expected when they temporarily rescued Laura.  With Fatima shot in the leg, Laura insists the agent reaches safety first, then closes the elevator hatch. This seemingly selfless act kept the agents safe and gives the appearance of her capture and death (a gunshot is heard shortly after). If  Sam or Callen had been injured and in the elevator, they would have insisted Laura was hauled through the hatch. Certainly Callen left Sam to fight off the attack while he moved Laura to safety,  although Sam did question why Callen abandoned him...(which was out of character).

Kensi and Deeks’ situation was much less intense, taking Lily to the boatshed to keep her safe, thus allowing for a touch of lightness and humour at times.  Again there is a personal element which builds empathy between Lily and the agents. She reveals her dad died when she was 11, something to which Kensi can relate. It is Deeks and his knack of understanding deep human emotions who suspects something is hinky. He tried to call Sam to say that Laura continued to be an operative after her dad died in a car crash.  Laura lost it when husband died but when she returned to work (to her cover job as an art dealer, in actuality as a spy),she became better. The scene cuts to Deeks’ interview and his heartfelt speech where he opened up on his thoughts of dying in line of duty and how people deal with trauma differently. If Kensi died, he didn’t think he could remain operational and raise an 11 year old. It made him question why Laura chose to do just that, enough to make him try and call Sam. 

Kilbride is indirectly responsible. It was his idea to withhold information from the agents and to lie about securing her in a safe house as her cover may be blown.  His plot inadvertently put the agents in danger, although he had no foresight that Laura’s allies would breach and rescue her. The Chinese extraction team were tipped off as they found sustained breach of the ONI safe house security systems and knew as soon as Laura walked through the door. Kilbride may not trust the team or have faith in their abilities but at least he tells ONI Inspector Ali that the report he writes will exonerate the team. The agents accept and admit responsibility for their failure and Laura’s death, and Kilbride witnesses their utter dejection when he calls them to ops for another case and they trudge up the stairs. When he pauses by the door to his office, observing them, he contemplates but still does not take the opportunity to reveal the truth.  The closing scene shows the final piece of the puzzle, which Kilbride withheld from Ali.  In Laura’s dying moments, she reveals that she’s the one who actually manipulated him since she was 17. She chose him as the perfect mark, a broken family man looking for a second chance. His killing her has some parallels to Hetty killing Akhos, as to a certain extent, both were parent figures, and Kilbride clearly thought of her with affection, having her photo in his portfolio case. This image of Kilbride as broken contrasts with the jovial comments Deeks and Kensi make at the start, about Kilbride having a son and what he would be like as a father, and recalls earlier episodes where he share with Sam that he has an estranged son.

The in-depth characterisation of the episode’s guests serve to engage the viewer and to build empathy, mostly though the connections and parallels made between Laura and the agents. The ONI inspector flirts with Fatima and clearly has a crush on her from her acting days, and deeply respecting her religious devotion.  He is given a trait of touching his tie when he’s nervous, an action he repeats numerous times throughout the various interviews. The familiarity between Fatima and Rountree now sees Fatima calling him ‘Tree’ and it is details such as these which help make this episode special.  It is dramatic and intense through the interweaving of the interrogation and action, mixing past and present. The understated acting and direction lends a seriousness and severity to the operation which only emphasises the feeling of helplessness and dejection the team feel afterwards.  Overall, the different style of storytelling adopted by writer Andrew Bartels and visualised by director Terence Nightingall, elevates this to not only the best so far in season 13, but one of the best episodes in the series to date.

A Virtual Scrawl