We're back to Los Angeles for the first time out of two first times this week (if that's a confusing sentence, I'll clarify we've also got Lucifer returning to TVRRoundup tomorrow), and we're back to the Office of Special Projects. What we're not back to yet is normality.
Picking up where season 8 left off, Sam Hanna is deep into a self-imposed exile to grieve the loss of his wife Michelle, until Callen attempts to pull him out of his funk. That opening scene between him and Callen was possibly one of the most earned scenes we'll see this season: we knew the amount they had been through together over the past 8 years, and that added an emotional, Platonic weight that the scene wouldn't have been able to recreate if it had been Deeks or Kensi who visited Sam on his beachside RV. Maybe it could have if the visitor had been Hetty, but that's mystery number two.
I wanted to immediately muster a complaint about the recurrence for a third (or fourth, fifth?) time we've had a Hetty retires (or threatens to retire) storyline, but it looks to be the most intriguing part of the season so far. Her disappearance is mentioned many a time and so are the unsuccessful attempts to locate her, but if OSP doesn't then the audience does in the final scene, with Hetty apparently vanished to Vietnam to trace an ex-CIA agent who may have secretly survived a plane crash alongside her and developed a taste for killing. I think that will be a nice subplot to throughline the season.
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| Assistant Director Shay Mosley (left) and ... Assistant Assistant Director Andrea Bordeaux? (right) Image: CBS |
But with Hetty on her travels and Granger written out (R.I.P. Miguel Ferrer), OSP requires some oversight. That oversight comes in the form of the new Assistant Director, Shay Mosley (Nia Long), who, like every incoming authority figure in every TV show before her, stamps her immediate authority on the team in such a way that the usual balance is upset. That has the benefit of freshening things up temporarily in spite of its frustrating predictability, but it's nice that Mosley doesn't cross that line too far. She may have removed Deeks from OSP (temporarily), and engaged Callen in a battle of wits over the nature of OSP's high-profile activities, but she's still secure enough in herself and her new team to allow them to circumvent the law if it means they save the day.
And all these pieces fit together around an interesting plot premise that ultimately came to nothing. Iran creating a hoax ICBM launch from North Korea to try and coax the US to recall its army ground troops was a splendid idea, but it's a shame all that was required to prevent Iran's frame job was drive the LA-based bomb into a body of water. It was probably the right ending, but I still feel it was a little anti-climactic.
Despite some of the issues the episode suffered from, its ending was typically NCIS LA: a debrief from the Assistant Director, and the team bonding around their desks, with Sam reunited permanently and Deeks given a stay of execution as a consultant that will, in due time, cease coming under threat from Mosley's whims. The sometimes frustratingly predictable - but ever-consistent - NCIS LA is back. And better than that:
"Band is back together. Let's celebrate!"
RATING 8/10
POINTS OF NOTE
- Deeks walking in on his mum and her lover, and receiving some deserved embarrassment, was epic.
- Perhaps it's an indicator of my sedentary nature that just watching jogging scenes exhausts me.
- Mosley's lapdog Andrea returns in episode 2. Why? Are there more things Mosley doesn't like that we need to be aware of?
- I totally knew that was Eric dressed as an avocado. Also, when is it fancy dress day at OSP?
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