Episode 10, Season 12 - "The Frogman's Daughter"

 

 It's been quite a break since my last review, and I'm sorry that the break comes to an end with an episode co-written by Jordana Lewis Jaffe, my least favorite writer and the worst of the regular stable of NCISLA writers. True to form, her episode is a disappointment in many ways, and having a co-writer doesn't seem to have made the episode any better than Jaffe's most recent solo offerings. Perhaps her co-writer, Indira Gibson Wilson, will learn from this experience what not to do. In any event, the episode has aired and there's nothing to be done but to examine what we were given.

While the story deals with a current issue--protests against police brutality--making the story so melodramatic lessens the power of the statement trying to be made in the same way the stated focus of the episode, "Mother"--how the constant exposure to violence affects those exposed to it--got lost in the melodrama of that episode. These are serious issues and deserve serious stories, but, unfortunately, some of the writers at NCISLA don't seem up to the challenge.The message of this episode also gets lost in the character of Sam Hanna.

As we saw at the end of the previous episode, Kam, Sam's daughter, is abducted sometime in the evening, and while Sam believes she's safe and still at school, we learn later that she was in L.A. when she was kidnapped. When this episode opens, it's now the next day--at least 12 hours have passed--and Sam has been unable to contact her. This is when we hear the first of the 52 Hanna house rules which is strange since we've never heard any of them in the previous 11 seasons. While this is unfolding at OSP, Kensi and Deeks are self-absorbed with their personal problems in conceiving (actually, only Kensi has the problem), and it takes them about 20 minutes into the episode before they even get involved in trying to help Sam look for his missing daughter although for some reason they don't talk to Sam face-to-face even when they're in the same building until later. Did the writer(s) put them in the armory so they could continue their talk about starting a family, a conversation that is now as annoying as the countless comments about their nuptials? Perhaps it's me, but I don't remember Kensi ever being a whiner in earlier seasons. If being married to Deeks has made Kensi a whiner, maybe she should separate for a bit (just kidding).

While Sam is trying to reach Kam and Kensi and Deeks are bemoaning their current fertility issues, Rountree--the newest agent--is meeting in the boatshed with a woman from DHS who brings a message from all the government bigwigs, including the Secretary of the Navy and the Director of NCIS. If she is forwarding a request from these people asking for the help of the OSP office to identify militia and protest groups to help prevent possible violence at a local protest, she would not be talking to the most junior agent on the team. There's no logical reason for her to meet with Rountree; there's nothing in his backstory that suggests he has any expertise in the field of protests or counterprotests or militia groups, and he definitely doesn't have seniority at NCIS. I only hope this conversation wasn't a decision by the writers based on Rountree being black because there is nothing about it that makes sense.

Eventually, Beale is persuaded--by Sam and Rountree--to use technology to search for Kam and discovers that she has a "secret life" she's kept hidden from her father that involves a boyfriend, her participation in protests, and buying a Mini Cooper (first, her job must pay really well, and second, it must pay really, really well because her insurance rates at her age with that car in California and not being on her father's policy would be out of this world).  I did think the reluctance of Beale to instigate a search for Kam silly. If a family member of any federal agent is unable to be reached through normal channels after several hours and contact is expected--particularly if the family member is the child of a federal law enforcement agent--a search seems an appropriate use of resources. Using NCIS resources to find Sam's daughter is nothing like using NCIS resources to find his Challenger, especially given his personal history and what's happened to his family.

There's no way to logically explain Callen's absence for the first half of the episode. As someone who's made the drive to Santa Cruz 40+ times, I know the drive can be made in 6 hours if you're in a hurry which means if Callen had left Santa Cruz at midnight, he would have been at OSP that morning. And why wouldn't Callen have returned to L.A. after discovering that Anna wasn't in Santa Cruz the night before? He might have gone to local law enforcement, but he has a lot more resources back at OSP than he would have on the road. Which brings up the question: Who believes Callen would have even told Sam that he was going to Santa Cruz? But, since Callen is absent, Rountree serves as his "surrogate," counseling Sam in the early part of the episode and serving as a calming influence. These scenes didn't work for me. Sam's daughter might be AWOL--and at this point there's no evidence she's in danger--but Sam is a professional, an NCIS Special Agent and former SEAL (now a "legend"). He shouldn't need a rookie to step in and remind him how he should handle a situation or a suspect.

Eventually, the team discovers that Kam's been kidnapped by people who are opposed to the protests. She and the other two organizers they've kidnapped are being kept in a closed down sheriff's station which, remarkably, still has power and water services. And the cells still lock--a liability issue for the county when a child gets locked inside and starves to death. All-in-all, considering the poorly written storyline, Kam is a likeable character who seems very much Sam's daughter in her words and actions in every way except the lying, but given the way Sam reacts in this episode, lying seems a pretty reasonable option.

But the main problem with this episode for me is Sam Hanna and there are two glaring issues. The first issue is his overreaction and the way his emotions push out his professionalism. I get that Sam is deeply protective of his family, especially because of his own perceived failure to protect Michelle, but he's also a man who's always been devoted to a sense of honor and duty and what it means to uphold his responsibility as an NCIS Special Agent and as a former SEAL. This behavior doesn't make him seem more human as much as it makes him seem unprofessional and reckless; his behavior is extreme and unacceptable, especially towards Kam's boyfriend and his family. And once Kam is rescued, it's ironic that Sam's treatment of the suspect is so similar to the behavior Kam (and Sam) will be protesting that night. The message seems to be that police brutality is bad--unless someone you love is in danger, and then it's okay. That message is as bad as Kensi killing the unarmed man in "A Fait Accompli" with no consequence. The other issue is his dismissal of Michelle. It didn't fit with everything we know about Michelle and Sam's love for her. When Sam says he has been Kam's only protector, that is like a slap in the face to the memory of Michelle. After all, in "Partners," Sam told the DSS agent that his [Sam's] family would never truly know him because his work as a SEAL and as an NCIS agent took him away from them so often and for so long. And because he was away so much, Michelle--a capable, professional CIA field agent--gave up her career to raise their children. And she was every bit as protective and capable of protecting their children as was Sam. He told Callen in "Talion" he didn't want to let Michelle know what was happening because she'd come in like a mother bear protecting her cub. There's been a tendency of late among some of the writers to rewrite certain characters, and these rewrites are often not successful. Maybe the writers made Sam overreact emotionally to give Rountree a chance to shine, but no character should behave out of character to create a better scene for another, and Sam's comments dismissive of Michelle's protective instincts seemed to serve no purpose.

Something that the writers still don't seem to understand is that viewers notice when a character is absent (as both Hetty and Nell were in this episode) and their absence raises questions which are seldom addressed. This is the most simple issue to solve with a line or two of dialogue, yet somehow NCISLA writers don't seem capable of introducing any logical reason for a character's absence. With Hetty, it's always that she's off on some clandestine mission (and her superiors wonder why agents in her office go rogue); with other characters, they're just not there. 

Finally, the actions of the bad guys seemed pointless. None of the people they kidnapped, including Kam, were "leaders" of any movement; they were local organizers and kidnapping them wouldn't have stopped the protests. And what were they going to do with them? If they were planning on killing them, why keep them prisoner? They obviously weren't interested in ransom or using them as "examples" to other protestors. It would make far more sense for them to make plans to disrupt the protests instead of wasting time and risking felony arrest for kidnapping three unimportant organizers.

Overall, it was a disappointing episode. The point behind Kam's abduction is never made clear, there's little sense of urgency in finding Kam by anyone except Sam and Callen (the lack of urgency by Fatima seems especially strange considering her own ordeal of being kidnapped), that Kensi and Deeks are so focused on themselves throughout is just another opportunity to speculate about being parents--again--and seems unusually selfish, the general sense of everyone milling about in the office without any real guidance seems weird, and the absence of Callen for the entire morning is pointless.This is a subject that is important, timely, and could be tackled by the series if they only had the writers capable of tackling it write the episode. 

I'm looking forward to a Callen-centric episode and Dani's directorial debut next week with "Russia, Russia, Russia."