Hetty Lange and the Myth of the "Good Mother"

"Hetty is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma--holding a hand grenade." A good description of her by Callen, but not quite a complete one. Hetty Lange is many things--most of them dangerous, but she is not, and never was, a "good mother" to Callen or to any of the children we've met that she claims as hers. This assertion is based on what the writers have given us, and I challenge any reader to provide evidence that contradicts this statement. Regardless of how Callen, Sullivan, Lauren, Grace, and any of her other children view her or feel about her, Hetty failed them all as a mother. In point of fact, Hetty has shown more concern for the other members of the team--Sam, Kensi, Deeks, Nell, and Eric--than she has for her "son," Callen, and the operative word here is "shown." Grace sensed a void in Hetty's life—a void she feared was becoming a reality in her own life—that reflected a void in her role as mother, but only Akhos truly recognized Hetty's failure. He recognized that she introduced him to a new and exciting world, but this introduction came at a cost and she expected her "children" to pay. And they have.

As we learn in "Ambush," Sullivan--the first orphaned child "raised" by Hetty who grew up to become an exceptional NCIS agent--was killed by a white supremacist organization during an assignment . Then there was Hunter, another orphaned child "raised" by Hetty who also joined NCIS and lost her life at the hands of Janvier, the Chameleon. And in "Ravens and Swans" we met Grace who also sees Hetty for what she is and fears that she is becoming her. Is it true that when a mother is a "good" mother, her children "fear" being like her? No. In fact, it's the exact opposite; a child wants to be like his or her mother if she's good (unless the child is a sociopath, psychopath, or suffers from some other mental disorder).

That's why Callen's stubborn affection for her even after all of her lies and deception that continue through season 11, is both annoying and poignant: annoying because I want to slap him across the face and yell "Snap out of It! Hetty is an awful mother" and poignant because to paraphrase him (Season 1), he never had a mother, so he doesn't know what makes a "good" one. Callen's vision of Hetty as someone who has "never failed him" has no basis in anything she's done. She's failed him often, beginning with the death of his biological mother, Clara. Such a skewed view of her is at odds with Callen's personality as a character solidly moored to reality and reflects how he's created a version of Hetty that is at odds with the woman who has repeatedly lied to him and kept secrets from him with never a worry about the lasting effect her actions might have on his emotional psyche. I don't know if this is intentional or the result of poor writing. If intentional, this could lead to some emotional moments in season 12 when Callen has to finally confront who Hetty really is and the damaging effect she's had on his life. If it's due to poor writing, it will just continue to be confusing.

I don't know if this evolution of Hetty was what the producers and writers had in mind when they created her character and when the series began, but it definitely wasn't what I expected when I first met her. It has made her an extremely complex character, and to be honest, not an entirely likable one. There is a lot about Hetty I don't like. Many viewers--and perhaps the show's producers and writers--have accepted Hetty as a "mother" to her team, and while she seemed like that in the beginning, she doesn't seem like that to me anymore, especailly in her relationship to Callen. Her devolution as a mother figure to Callen began rather early and has continued with only minor glimpses of the character we met in the first few seasons. There's an old adage, "Talk is cheap," and when I consider Hetty by what she's done or not done instead of by what she says, I see a woman who took  advantage of vulnerable children and used them for her own ends. The only difference between Hetty and the Soviet system she described in "Ravens and Swans" was that the children Hetty used were orphans. In every other way, she used children, including Callen, just like the Soviet system she described and for the same ends.

In recent episodes, some writers have pushed the idea that Callen is like Hetty. To me, nothing could be further from the truth. In many ways, Joelle is the character most like Hetty, not Callen. Both Joelle and Hetty are, first and foremost, operatives. Both are able to detach themselves emotionally from others; this is what keeps them alive, but it is also what prevents either from forming close, personal relationships. Callen can't do that. He has difficulty forming close relationships, true, but that's primarily due to his traumatic childhood and abandonment issues, not to his singular focus on completing an assignment. He cares for the people he works with and would never be willing to sacrifice anyone for a mission. Joelle and Hetty both see the mission as being of greatest importance. Yes, they would sacrifice themselves to complete it, but they would also sacrifice others. Callen's mother, Clara, died because following orders was more important to Hetty than saving her. Joelle left her son because doing "what she had to do" and being who she is meant more to her than raising her son (If she had wanted to keep them safe, there were other, less extreme ways, and once the organization that had used her was gone, she wasn't interested in returning to her family.) Ahkos trusted Hetty, and yet she let another agency take him from her because they wanted to use him, and Ahkos knew that Hetty wasn't a "real" mother because no real mother would ever allow her child be taken from her. Neither Hetty nor Joelle were willing to sacrifice or give up their careers for their children. (The interesting contrast to Hetty is Mosley who willingly sacrificed her career to get her son back. It's true that she relied on Callen and his team, but she knew that getting her son back would almost certainly result in the end of her career and possibly a criminal conviction.)

What about the Callen-Hetty relationship that, in many ways, forms the heart of the series? It started off well, but has been sliding downhill for many seasons. There's been lip service--also known as dialogue--about Hetty's feelings for Callen, the most notable being her admission to Mosley that Callen is the closest to a son she's ever had. This was a powerful statement, but sadly, it hasn't been shown to be true by anything since then--and very little prior to it. In fact, of all the relationships with her team members, Hetty's relationship with Callen seems the most aloof, formal, and unemotional, an odd stance for someone who says that he's like a son to her and very unlike a mother. In the earlier seasons, Hetty's affection for Callen revealed itself in subtle ways. The sly smiles and knowing looks shared between them made it easy to see the strength of the feelings each had for the other lying just beneath the surface of their professional decorum. Lately, there are fewer and fewer of such subtle signs. In fact, their relationship took a dark turn in "Active Measures" when Hetty threatened Callen with assassination if he misused Kirkin's files (there is no other meaning to the term "extreme prejudice" in their line of work). That showed an anger that was unworthy of a superior, let alone a mother, especially since Callen had done everything to ensure that the reputation of NCIS remained unscathed. Hetty's warning to Callen seemed to be based more on the fact that she was out of the loop than on what he'd actually done or might do. Her threat of violence showed that being in control of her agents, especially Callen, would be maintained by any means necessary. And control is not the equivalent of love.

Hetty has also done literally nothing in helping Callen through his difficult personal experiences during the past seasons. She made no effort to try and prevent Nikita's return to Russia other than tasking the team with coming up with a plan (failure, she stated, was not an option, and yet fail they did). When Anna was convicted, she made no offer to help her or get her sentence commuted (and yet she's shielded Deeks from conviction for Boyle's death since he's been on the team). When Callen was diligently searching for Nikita after he was sent back to Russia, Hetty deliberately sabotaged his attempts. When she found out about Darius, she kept this information from Callen, and so he learned about him from Volkoff while being tortured. Hetty excuses her actions by saying she's trying to protect Callen. That's the same excuse Joelle used for leaving her child. But is she really trying to protect Callen or to control him? Does she want to keep Callen dependent on her for information? She's manipulated people all her life, especially Callen, by providing little bits of information or by withholding information, especially personal information, from him whenever she thinks it's necessary .

None of the children Hetty's "raised" have led normal lives that we know of. Certainly Callen hasn't. That's what distinguishes them from the other members of the team. Sam, Kensi, Deeks, Nell, and Eric have all had parents who gave them a more "normal" upbringing: all of them had choices of what they wanted to do, careers they wanted to follow. Some, like Sam and Deeks, had careers before joining NCIS. There's never been any indication that any of Hetty's "children" did. All of them have gone into the field as agents or worked for other agencies in clandestine capacities. None of them developed lasting, intimate relationships, none of them started their own families. Many of them suffered traumatic events and some of them died violent deaths. Callen is on the cusp of breaking away from the fate of Hetty's other "children." Maybe if he can, he will also be able to look at his past and Hetty's place in it, and not be afraid to make an honest judgment on whether or not she was a "good mother."