Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Week 2: Idenity


Welcome to week 2 and the first official episode of NCIS: Los Angeles

Identity (Originally Aired September 22, 2009)


Starts off with LAPD chasing a blue Tahoe after a routine traffic stop on the 101.  The police catch up with the SUV and demand they get out of the car.  There is a shootout and after both suspects are killed they find out that there is a dead passenger in the back seat of the SUV with his hands tied and a black hood covering his head.

G. Callen is looking out the hotel window.  We see scars on his back from when he was shot about three months ago.  Sam picks him up and asks the reason for leaving.  "Too noisy," is his reply.  Seems he always finds something wrong with the places he stays at.

OSP is in a new location, which they have been at for 3 months and the neighbors still don't know they are there.  There is a new Office Operations Manager, Henrietta "Hetty" Lange.  The best way to describe her is a cross between a Mom, Yoda, and a Ninja.  Kensi, Eric and Nate are still there and there's a new guy who started earlier that week named Dominic Vail.

Director Vance makes an appearance, and he tells Callen his case is still active. Commander Frank McGuire worked for the office of Naval Intelligence and was killed in the crossfire between the LAPD and his kidnappers.  They are worried about this because Operation Dakota starts in less than twelve hours with both US and Mexican military going against the drug cartels and McGuire had a lot of information about this operation.  After looking at the footage they see that McGuire wasn't killed in the crossfire, he was murdered.

Sam and Callen banter like an old married couple on the way to McGuire's apartment. When going in they hear the phone ringing and someone erasing the phone messages off the answering machine.  There is a picture of a girl named Emma, birthday cards and no signs of struggle.  Callen talks to the gardeners and finds out that McGuire wasn't kidnapped, "his friends" picked him up and dropped him off three hours later back at the apartment. Sam sees someone parked in a car and when he goes to talk to them they drive away.  No plates on the car.

The person who had been erasing the phone messages is Bobby Jenlow, a friend of McGuire's. Sam and Callen go over to question him and they over hear him on the phone arguing with someone "standing up for your brothers," who has known him since they were kids.  Sam and Callen can tell Bobby is well armed and planning an operation.

Kensi and Nate go to talk to McGuire's sister Helen.  Helen seems on edge, answering very quickly as if preoccupied.  She mentions sending all her friends home because she wanted to be alone.  She mentions that Frank took his niece, Emma, to the farmers market over the weekend and then takes a phone call.  Nate tells Kensi that everything she just told them was a lie.

After returning, Callen is met by Hetty who sets him up with some new clothes and we find out that Callen was never told what his first name is.  All he knows is that it starts with G.

Eric explains to Sam how he cracked into McGuire's laptop.  While waiting for access to the laptop Kensi figures out that the reason why McGuire did what he did was NOT to betray his country, his niece was being held hostage.  Emma was no where around when Kensi and Nate talked to Helen.  Emma had not messaged any of her friends in the last four days.

Once in the laptop, they figure out how McGuire was getting information to send to the cartel.  Director Vance is contacted and informed that Project Dakota has been compromised.  The mission cannot be stopped, but he orders them to identify which cartel got the intel.  That cartel will be hit first.  He tells Callen that getting Emma back is a top priority.

McGuire gave Bobby Jenlow a GPS tracker to lead him to Emma.  Bobby is leading a group to rescue Emma.  After Callen and Sam fight there way to Bobby's location.  They find Bobby wounded, but no Emma.

Callen has Eric check another location on the GPS and the address is a house owned by "Mad" Manny Cortez who is a drug lord.  Emma's father calls Helen and is on his way from London.  Kensi talks to him tells him that she's from NCIS. The plan is to give Cortez what he wants so Callen poses as a lawyer with Sam as his client to give him Satellite access 24/7 and that his client knew McGuire.  Nate tells them that the person on the screen is NOT Manny Cortez.  It's actually Emma's father.  The mission has been compromised because he knows that NCIS is involved.  Her father has worked for him for about seven years.  Callen's phone rings and he says "McGuire isn't dead" and hands him the phone.  This is just a distraction, and the fight begins.

Callen calls up Kensi and tells her to put Helen on the phone.  He hands the phone to Emma who asks her mom when she can come home.

Hetty gives Callen his expense reports dating six months back and gives him the "no rush, tomorrow will be fine" guilt trip.  Sam offers the couch at his place.  "Too noisy," is his reply.  At the end of the night Hetty leaves and sees him sleeping on the couch.  She puts a blanket on him and goes home.


Questions:

  • So where did Lara Macy go?  After Callen was shot Director Vance reassigned her to a task force in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.
  • So what does G stand for?



Hetty-isms:
  • "Just because you were an orphan Mr. Callen doesn't mean you have to dress like...Oliver Twist!"


Favorite Quotes:
    Sam:  Okay so you're a bad guy. You're surrounded by LAPD You've seen the movies you're going to shoot your way out.  Only your buddy take one in the chest, he'd dead before he hits the ground
    Callen:  I  think I've seen that movie.
    Sam:  Now the cops are blamming away: Blam blam! Six cops squeezing Glocks. That's a led storm it's coming right at you.Definitely ain't no movie. what do you do?
    Callen:  Al Pacino was in it.  Might have been DeNiro
    Sam:  You pee your pants, you drop your wepon and you kiss the pavement. Okay. At least that's what I'd do.


    Trivia:
      While listening to the commentary on the DVD, Shane Brennen said that for the car chase in the beginning they were able to close the 101.  This is the first time anyone has ever done that for filming.

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