Week 9: Pushback

This weeks Episode is "Pushback" (Originally Aired November 10, 2009)

This episode solves the mystery on why Callen was shot almost six months ago.

     We start off with a couple on a boat being watched by someone in an apartment.  The person doing the surveillance is listening to music and doesn't know that someone comes in gun drawn.  As they try to light the cigarette they are shot in the back of the head.  The man with the gun calls the man on the boat and lets him know that it is done.  The man on the boat leaves (still not seeing his face)  and the shooter finds video equipment and deletes the pictures on the laptop.  Pictures that are deleted are of the man on the boat and of Callen.

      
     Sam is making tea for Hetty.  Callen mentions that it smells moldy.  Hetty asks Callen if he wants some.  He says he's fine with what he has and Hetty replies “and you can’t taste the paper?” the look on his face is hysterical.  Sam tries the tea and tells her that it is delicious (but his face says otherwise).  Hetty then tells Callen that Director Vance is on the phone for him, walks away and the phone rings. Callen asks Sam “how does she do that?” (HELLO it’s Hetty!) and Sam tells him that was the worst tea he ever had in his life.  Hetty tries it and says “oh! Moldy” and pouts.
 
      Director Vance tells Callen that a woman was killed and had a flash drive hidden in her ball cap.  Had pictures and files and LAPD called him because when identifying the people in the pictures Callen’s name came up. LAPD lets them take care of it and the team looks at the pictures.  They are taken at his old apartment about four days before he was shot.  They then look at the crime scene pictures and he looks at the woman’s face. Guess who it is?

Remember the Russian girl?

  

     The oldest photos on the flash drive are eight days old the most recent are from the day before.  Nate walks in to find out what is going on.  He goes to Hetty to see if there is something more about Callen's in the personal file about his shooting he’s hoping that it can help heal old wounds. Sam, Callen, and Kensi go to the apartment where the “Russian girl” was shot.  Sam and Callen go “old married couple” to the point where when Callen leaves Kensi says to Sam “How long have you two been married?” THANK YOU KENSI!!! They go in and see that what she had was "fold and carry" meaning easy to pack up and get out.  She was not a professional because her back was facing the door.  The apartment manager claims he had no idea she was there but how did she get in? Kensi poses as a person who just needs a place to crash....

   

   
     So the manager then SUDDENLY remembers after he finds out that they are NCIS that he did let the Russian girl stay there and didn’t delete the security footage.  They find the person who shot her walking in and leaving covering his face knowing that the security camera was there.  Dom tells them that she backed up everything on the server.  Callen notices a name on the screen they open the “Cossack” file a mission that he was on about ten years ago in  Europe against the Russian mafia.  A three man team Ethan Stanhope with the CIA, Ricky Taylor and Callen both worked with the DEA.  Eric looks them up and sees that Stanhope and Taylor are both dead.  Murdered on May 5th the same day that Callen was shot and should have died.

     Eric has the traffic cam footage of both Stanhope and Taylor’s shootings.  Stanhope’s was in Las Vegas and Taylor’s was in Chicago and were also drive by shootings like Callen's.  No one had been charged for the murders.   The three of them were on a  joint operation with Russia where there was a syndicate trying to manipulate the flow of oil from the Black Sea into Europe and someone let them know that they were coming. Taylor and Callen were out from the DEA because they both spoke Russian.  CIA set it up and Stanhope was their point person but they only saw him at a bar eating caviar and drinking expensive vodka. They never did find out who betrayed them.  The Russian contact was an Arkady officer in the KGB, which Eric looks him up to see that Arkady is now living in LA.
 
     Kensi works with Nate to see what Arkady has been doing   Hetty has met Arkady and Nate read about him in Callen’s file.  90% of the information about Arkady is redacted.  Hetty is able to let them see an uncensored copy of his file.  Arkady is a security consultant now. Callen and Sam go to talk to Arkady.  Eric calls and tells them that Arkady has a very high level security system that even he cannot break but he’s on the road to go to a local market place.  Callen sees him gets out of the car with bodyguards. Callen goes with Plan B.  Leaving Sam to do his "Plan B" which I think is one of the funniest scenes in this episode.
  

  (Special Thanks to my partner in crime for helping me out for this footage! writing about it would not give this scene justice.)

     The one bodyguard that took Arkady gets him to the car and there is Callen with his gun out. Arkady tells the guard that it’s okay and that he knows Callen.  Says that he knows that Callen probably thinks that he is responsible for the deaths and him being shot and tells him that he is not.  Tells Callen that he sent someone to warn him and the others that they were in danger. Callen asks who it was he sent and he tells him a Russian girl.  He didn’t tell Callen himself because he know that he didn’t trust him after what happened ten years ago. Callen asks why he would think he would believe some Russian girl and Arkady tells him that he knew her. She was at one of the foster homes Callen was in as a kid the girls name was Alina.

     Callen told Arkady about Alina when he asked him about how he knew how to speak Russian Callen told him from a little girl named Alina Rostoff.   He called in a favor and got the address where she was living and knew that if Alina talked to him that he would know her.  She was going to greet him by saying “My big brother” in Russian.

     He remembers that she tried once but he scared her away.  The second time was just before he was shot.  Next week the mafia will be signing a billion dollar contact with an American oilman named John Cole.  Cole maybe part of the syndicate or the syndicate and they didn’t want the members of the team to be around when the deal was signed. He had Alina find out everything that she could about Cole.  She found him on the yacht and he set up surveillance and helped her because she wanted to avenge Callen.  She found out where Cole was and one day later she was dead.  Arkady gives Callen a flash drive with everything about John Cole.

     Hetty sees that Nate is worried about Callen.  His file is only a page with no family history or next of kin.  He tells Hetty that he could put in a physiological assessment to the director telling him the reasons why he didn't want Callen on the case but he doesn’t want to lose the trust of everyone on the team.  She tells him that this could be okay and could be clues to his life. If she is wrong then Nate gets to tell her that he told her so, Director Vance gets to rip her a new one, and Callen does what he always does which is survive.
 
     The man on the yacht is John Cole. He is the owner of an oil refinery company which he bought seven years ago.  The friend/bodyguard (who killed Alina) is Max Tyrus.  Eric cannot find anything on Cole so he looks into Max Tyrus.  Pulls up the phone records and the last call was to a jet charter company.  Callen calls them up posing as Tyrus to confirm the details.  It’s a one way trip that leaves in four hours.
 
     Callen and Kensi go in as EPA inspectors for a surprise visit and Sam as back up. Nate has the opportunity to tell Callen that he shouldn’t be on the case but doesn’t.  Max Tyrus tells them that the EPA has already been there and tries to make them go away.  Cole comes over to see what is going on and sees Callen and says “They said you were dead.” Callen replies with "They said the same thing about you” John Cole is Ethan Stanhope.
 
     Callen mentions that he actually thought Arkady did it because he was the only one left alive.  Stanhope tells him that he was going to try again next week.  It was all about the oil the deal is set for next week and he was going public. If anyone who was on that operation was alive it would be embarrassing and costly.  Stanhope asks how many hits he took Callen tells him five. 
They go chasing after them.  Max is shot by Kensi and falls off the catwalk and is dead.  Callen continues chasing after Stanhope Sam blocks off his way, Callen gets him and Stanhope is arrested.
 
    Nate and Hetty talk about Callen's time in foster care.  From the time Callen was five to the age of eighteen he was in thirty-seven foster homes.  Some for a couple of weeks some for just a few days.  The longest time he spent in a home was three months and that was with Alina’s family.  The parents have died and Alina still had the house. Hetty finds Callen making tea, and he tells her that he was tasting the paper.  She hands him an envelope that has a picture of Alina and him when he stayed there and the address of where they lived.  He goes over there and has memories of the time he stayed there.

Nitpicks:  Okay I saw this picture when I started working on this on this back in May.  This was on the set of "Legend"

   

   

   

Now while watching this episode about a month ago I had to go back to this picture because of this:

  

Stanhope: How many bullets did you take?
Callen: Five. Thanks for asking.

Five?  Are you sure?

My Count is SEVEN!

Music:

Normal Man by Duff Dugan

Next Weeks Episode is Ambush

Preview for Pushback

Week 8

Hello!  No Rewatch this week!  On vacation with family (sadly not at the beach!)  But will be back next week.

Week 7: Keepin' it Real

Keepin’ it Real (Originally Aired November 2, 2009)

A party on a rooftop of a hotel hosted by Brandon Valdivia  He meets up with a friend and hands him something that looks like a counter.  Brandon takes a phone call and is upset about being accused of something.  We then see him falling off the roof.  

Callen and Sam walk into the building having a discussion/argument on if agents are made not born.  Hetty joins in the discussion then tells them that they are late.  Brandon Valdivia, Corporal in the Marines, fell to his death the night before.  LAPD is ruling it a suicide because three months ago he was diagnosed with PTSD after getting back from Iraq.  The reason why they are called in is because Valdivia’s family are close friends with a Congressman.  

He did not have any type of record, in service or out.  Sam and Callen go to the apartment he recently got off base. They find receipts for 160 copies of Guitar Hero.  He got them at “mom and pop” shops and paid for them in cash. They also find no sign at all of a suicide.
Eric tells them that when Brandon died he landed on his back with his arms out.  He also had a broken jaw with no bruise so the hit was fresh.  The suicide just became a murder.

Callen and Kensi go to the hotel to speak to the events coordinator, and she tells them that he’s had parties there for the past three weeks.  The last one cost about twenty seven thousand dollars and was paid in cash.  They didn’t question it because, “who questions cash?” Amy the waitress said that he was not drinking that night, was a nice guy and mostly hung out with his friend Alex.

Both Brandon and Alex were assigned to the supply unit of Camp Pendleton.  Sam talks to Gunnery Sergeant Jerrold Mulhearn or “Gunny Pallet”  who tells him that the men were not the brightest guys and a week ago they got into a fight about something.  He tells Sam that Alex went to sick bay this morning.  Callen checked sick bay, and Alex was not there.  Callen calls Eric to having him look for Alex’s car.  Kensi and Dom look into resale for the video games.  He has an account but was buying the games high and selling them at a low price.  The small operations that he bought them were all over LA and they are members of the Secret Service Counterfeit Currency Alert. Eric calls Callen and tells him that Alex’s car just went off a pier.

Sam and Callen go to the scene and see divers looking for the body.  They are informed by   Eric that someone from the secret service is there to talk to them. Agent Natalie Giordano looks at the bills and tells them that it is not photo shopped and the reason why they don’t pass is because of the paper. She flirts with Callen who turns her down. Callen tells Sam later that he doesn’t date law enforcement. Eric shows them the footage of the car going off the pier and there is no one in it.  Everyone is looking at the car in the water and one person is leaving, it’s Alex Walder.  They find him on the roof.  When they go to question him, he runs.  Sam gets him before he tries to jump off the building, and they find the counter that Brandon gave him the night before on him.

They question Alex at the boathouse.  Alex tells them that he wanted to honor his friend and did not throw him off.  Brandon was the one who got him through Iraq. He wanted him to stop having the parties and spending the money.  That’s why they had the fight the week before. Alex told him he was going to get killed for it.  Callen tells Alex about Jason who was his foster brother in one of the foster homes he was in as a kid.  Jason looked out for him one night the foster father got drunk and beat Jason to death.  Callen felt bad because he didn’t do anything to help him and he still does.  So who killed Brandon?  Rick Pargo.  Rick Pargo is well known for counterfeiting and has been charged for it but has gotten away with it.

Alex tells them that while they were clearing out buildings in Iraq they were in a print shop that was being used to print American money.  They took plates home with them.  Pargo found them and someone must have told him.  They gave Pargo the plates and printed off money but the paper wasn’t good enough so Brandon spent the money  The counter that Brandon gave Alex is a serial number generator
 
Kensi, posing as Alex's girlfriend, talks to Pargo.  She shows him a picture of the serial number generator and tells him that she knows someone who can get him the paper. He tells her that his partner is supposed to get the paper and that’s what got Brandon killed.

Callen poses as Gordon Taymis the one who can get him the paper. Hetty suggests that he take Agent Giordano out to dinner after everything is over.  Rick shows up at the bar. Callen tells him he can get the paper because he is a compliance officer.  Rick tells him that he needs a 3 foot stack (2000 sheets) and has a window every 90 days. Rick calls Callen after looking at the website and says that they have a deal.  Callen meets with Agent Giordano and tells her they need paper.

The next day Callen and Kensi go in to see Pargo.  Sam, Dom, and Agent Giordano are in the car waiting. They start printing while Sam and Agent Giordano argue about going in. She has enough evidence for her case, but Sam tells her no because they are working on a murder. Pargo’s partner shows up and its Gunny. Sam goes in telling Dom that if Gunny leaves to follow him.  Gunny gets in the truck and leaves.  Callen and Sam shoot everyone but Pargo who holds Kensi at gunpoint.  Sam gives her the word and Kensi kicks Pargo’s ass.  

Dom has followed Gunny back to Pendleton.  They are swapping the real money for the fake ones.  Dom goes in and gets Gunny to sign some paperwork. Gunny goes and opens up the stack and it is filled with blank sheets of paper.  After Kensi subdues Gunny, he is arrested. Callen gives Agent Giordano back the real money over at the boathouse. She asks him about going out to dinner he tells her that he has a rule about dating cops.  They joke about her taking early retirement.  As she walks out she says “She must have been some cop.” He replies with  “She was.”



Hetty-isms:

HETTY: Take her out to dinner, after the case is over.
CALLEN: Agent Giordano?
HETTY: Mm. Then take Sam the next night. You know how he gets.


Quotes:

Callen: You cannot use the word "conundrum" before 9:30, Hetty.
Hetty: [Checking her watch] 9:31 which means Mr. Callen, you're late. And so are you Mr. Hanna.

Sam : So you think Hetty was born or made?
Callen: Hatched.

Sam: My point is we compliment each other. But I'm natural.
Callen: I'm natural, and you're made.
Sam: I'm the natural operator.
Callen: If you're a natural, I'm supernatural.
Sam: That doesn't even make sense. 



Questions:

So who was “she” and what happened?





NO REWATCH NEXT WEEK!!!! I will be on vacation with my family!  Will be back on Tuesday July 19th with the episode "Pushback"

Preview for Keepin It Real

Week 6: Killshot

Killshot  (Originally Aired October 20, 2009)

This weeks episode has Director Vance and Abby from NCIS in it.

Bathing suit clad beach lovers are video recording the fun when an out of control jet ski spoils the day.  The man slumped over the jet ski crashes and is flung up onto the beach .  Some good Samaritans rush to his aide, turn him over to do CPR, open his life vest, and discover that he has been shot in the chest.

Callen is still looking for a place to live and Sam suggests that he could live on a boat.  Nate’s office is being worked on so he’s hanging out reading a graphic novel.  Dom is trying to video Nate without him knowing (but he does).  Dom is now a fully qualified NCIS agent and is told that there are still some things that he needs to learn on the job.  Dom asks what happened to the person before him and they tell him that they had a problem with the weather.  Sam suggests Nate ask Hetty when his office will be done, and Nate’s reply is “you’re armed, you ask her.”

They get called up to the ops room.  Hetty tells them about Daniel Su, owner of SuSal, who got a contract from DARPA two weeks ago.  He is an electronic engineer who left North Korea five years ago. Secnav wants to know who killed him and why.  They are afraid that it could be the North Koreans.  

The team gets to work looking into the life of Daniel Su.  Daniel was working on a lightweight squad-based communication system for the Marine Corps. More importantly, he kept a regular schedule.  Every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday morning he rented a jet ski and the person who killed him knew it.  

Hetty asks Nate how Dom is doing.  Nate tells her that Dom is anxious to prove himself.  They both agree that it would be best if Dom not know that the three people before him did not make the cut.  Sam and Callen go to Daniel’s house.  Front door is unlocked, back is not, and blood everywhere. They find the body of a dead woman in the house.

Sally Morris is the money person for Daniel Su’s company.  The autopsy report says that Daniel was shot by a person who was shooting from above.  Sam and Callen go to the scene and ask Eric to pull up the camera footage at the marina (while also talking about Callen living in an RV park or on a boat). When they get back, they look at the footage and see a man with a hat who leaves within three minutes of the shooting.  They see that the person getting into the car is not a man but a woman. Director Vance walks in and tells them that the woman’s name is Lee Wuan Kai... adding that they are in a whole pile of trouble.

Kai is North Korean and flew into LA on a fake passport a week ago.  She is an assassin in exile based in Eastern Europe.  He tells them that she is not to be underestimated.  Callen and Sam are both wondering if Kai and Vance have met before and if this case is personal.

Vance talks to Hetty who already knows that it is Kai.  Vance met her in Prague in 1984, Tokyo seven years later, then Sierra Leone, Paris, and New York City.  Left a body count each time.  He should have been killed in Prague but he got lucky.  Crime scene analysis won’t be ready until the next day so Vance calls up Abby to see what she can find.

Sam and Callen met Frank Davis from DARPA over at the boathouse.  Davis seems a little jumpy and doesn’t want to be recorded.  Says that Daniel was very secretive and there were certain things that he didn’t want anyone to know, but under the terms of the DARPA contract that was going to change. As far as he was concerned Daniel’s technology died with him.  There is something about him that Callen does not trust.  

Callen and Sam go to see Daniel’s brother Jimmy. When they pull up to the apartment complex they see Jimmy and his wife leaving.  As Callen and Sam approach they see the reflection from Kai’s gun scope.  They get everyone into cover behind a van.

Kai escapes and even took the shell casings with her.  Jimmy told them that Daniel didn’t talk about his work and he would not relocate or change his name.  Eric calls Callen and tells him to meet Director Vance at the hotel where Kai is staying at. Kensi and Nate stay at the boathouse.  Kensi says that Jimmy and his wife are playing “married couple,” which meaning fighting.  Kensi can read lips and tells Nate that Jimmy knows more about what his brother did than he is telling them.  

Vance is in Kai’s room and sees pictures of Daniel.  The phone rings in the room and Kai is on the phone when Vance answers.  Vance calls Callen on his cell phone and Eric traces it to the seventh floor.  When Sam and Callen get to the seventh floor, they find Kai’s phone on the floor.  She called Vance to tell them that she was not the one who killed Sally Morris.

Dom checked on Daniel’s security system at the house, and accessed the motion detector records.  From the records they deduce that Sally Morris knew the person who killed her.  They look at the phone records from the past 24 hours.  There are a lot of calls between Daniel, his brother, and Frank Davis (the DARPA guy).  But his brother and Frank had been talking frequently also.  They need someone who has not met Jimmy to confront him about Daniel's business and if he killed Sally.  

Dom is posing as an officer that was on the scene at the house.  He is VERY nervous  Callen assures him that he will be fine.  Dom meets with Jimmy and tells him that he was the first officer on the scene and before she died Sally said a name and it was his.  Eric put an alert on Jimmy’s phone so they would know if someone was trying to trace his location.  The alert went off with a strong signal strength.  Vance tells them to abort the mission. Kai shoots at Jimmy and Dom gets Jimmy out of range.  Kai is at a parking garage and Sam goes after her.  Kai gets in the car and tries to escape while Sam shoots at the car several times.  Her car comes out of the garage and hits a truck going in. Callen and Sam find the car empty, but with the seat covered in blood.

Vance gets a call telling him that Jimmy denies killing Sally.  Abby calls and tells Vance that on some of the spatter there is an outline of the killers hand but there are two marks  They call Kensi who is with Jimmy’s wife at the boathouse.  Kensi tells her that they found a bloody hand print and the killer had two rings on her wedding finger.  Sally knew her killer.  Aimee tells Kensi  that Jimmy was the smart one, not Daniel, and only the three of them knew.  When Frank started wondering if he was dealing with the wrong brother he started making a lot of calls to Jimmy, because he wanted to know the truth. Jimmy didn’t care about the money, he just wanted to help his brother.  

Aimee was there with Sally got the call about Daniel and Aimee told her the truth.  Sally was mad that Daniel and Jimmy lied to her. She was going to call and have Jimmy sent back to North Korea.  Aimee confesses that she killed Sally.

Vance arrives at the scene.  Sam tells him that she bailed at the top of the ramp.  Vance tells Dom he did a good job.  Nate says that Vance doesn’t believe that she is dead, and that she will haunt him forever. Dom realizes that he lost the camera button, and all four of them start frantically looking for the button.  “Hetty’s going to kill me.”

Hetty-isms:

(To Eric wearing flip-flops) "Eric this is not the beach!  This is the office!"

Quotes:

Sam: Know when it's going to be ready?

Nate I don't know.

Sam: Who knows?

Nate: Hetty.

Sam: You want to ask her?

Nate: You're armed. You ask her.

Sam: You're the psychologist.

Nate: Look, I've been trained to profile suspect, and brief you operationally. And with 3 years of college, 2 more to get my Masters and my Doctorate and when it comes to Hetty... clueless.

Nate: [Speaking of the Director] You know, he doesn't believe it for a second. He's *never* going to stop looking for her. Even if he drives a stake through her heart, and buries her. He's still going to wake up in the middle of the night, wondering if she's hiding under his bed. Just... irrational fear, it does... strange things to people

Did you know?
 

This was the second episode of the series to be filmed and was planned to air as such until early buzz about the appearance of Pauley Perrette and rumors of a story arc involving suspicious dealing about Leon Vance prompted postponement while more viewers caught onto the show.

(from IMDB.Com)

Music:

California Sun  By the Ramones

Next week Keepin’ it Real

Due to stuff I cannot control right now tonight's blog will be delayed a couple of days (hopefully Thursday).