Episode 13, Season 12 -- "Red Rover, Red Rover"

 

This episode was better than "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" in overall pacing, but this isn't a Callen episode or even a Callanna episode. This is a "save Joelle" episode. This isn't the first time the writer, Andrew Bartels, has written an episode focused on this minor character. His "Fool Me Twice" episode was all about Joelle and gave us far more details about her life than were wanted or needed. I'm not sure why he feels this affinity for her character; maybe the soap opera aspect of her relationship to Callen appeals to him.  Whatever the reason for his fascination, this episode was uneven, and the main problems were the story (a recurring issue with episodes the past few years) and the characterization of Callen.

Overall, the acting was--as usual--very good by all involved. Joelle (Bogush) had the most dramatic scenes and her scene with Sam (LL) in the park was both touching and tense and they complemented each other well. Arkady was Arkady--you can't ask for more, but the scenes that stood out for me were the scenes between Anna (Paly) and Callen (O'Donnell). These scenes were brief and few, but they were a combination of heat and ice and were some of their most effective scenes to date in conveying the confusion, regret, anger, frustration, and love between people who have been through the emotional wringer too often. Those two throw sparks or icicles at each other without a word being spoken, and singe and stab each other when they do. There were also the action sequences--car chases and explosions--for which NCIS:LA is known. The acting and the pacing weren't problems in this episode, but there were a few problems that made the episode less effective than I wish it had been given the subject.

The main problems with the story or plot are ones that have plagued episodes lately: the writer includes details or scenes he thinks are interesting or important that aren't and he doesn't include details or scenes that would be interesting or are important. And continuity with preceding episodes is also problematic. This episode continues almost immediately following the end of "Can't." It's the same evening and Callen, Anna, and Carlson are still in the boatshed. Nell is also there with a device to identify the severed finger (it's Joelle's). Callen, meanwhile, has tried to contact Arkady unsuccessfully and sends Kensi, Deeks, Fatima, and Rountree to his home to ensure that he's safe. He then lets Anna know, interrupting her interrogation by Carlson. It is utterly unbelievable that, given Anna's experiences and that she was previously kidnapped by someone trying to leverage Arkady--and that he continues to have nefarious connections--that Arkady would not have shared the location of his panic room with his only daughter. In fact, he would have been proud to show her that, if she ever needed a place of safety, he could provide that because that's what a good poppa does, he protects his daughter. But he apparently hasn't, because when Callen asks her where Arkady might be other than his home, she never mentions his panic room.

(I have to interject that I dislike dialogue that's dramatic for its own sake. During Carlson's interrogation of Anna, Anna tells Carlson that the only thing Katya understands is betrayal, and Carlson responds, "Clearly, so do you." It's a powerful line, but not completely true. Anna did betray Callen's trust, but that is not all she understands. As she says, she does what she has to do to keep people she loves safe. That's nothing like Katya. This scene reminded me of a similar scene in "Fool Me Twice"--also by Bartels--where Joelle accuses Callen of being  just like her because he also lies to people. It was a powerful line, but also not completely true.)

Back at Arkady's, Kensi and Deeks locate the panic room which had also been located by the intruders because a hand drill is on the counter and shallow impressions of a drill bit in the door. First, the intruders must have known exactly where the panic room was located because nothing else is disturbed in the house other than the dead security men: no walls have been damaged and no furniture moved, and the men were not tortured for information. Second, while Katya may be well-organized, she knows nothing about drills and drill bits because that hand drill couldn't have made it through that door even after 24 hours of nonstop drilling. Once the room is located, Callen's still unable to contact Arkady by phone--and coms go silent briefly--so he tells the team to look for a jammer. They find it and Arkady opens the door after being contacted by Callen and Anna. Back at the boatshed, Anna asks Callen if they found Katya at Arkady's, and Callen tells her that she was gone when they got there. Because Katya has evaded Anna for months, she's sure she's being helped by someone to stay a step ahead, and they both reach the conclusion that the Russians are helping her because they want to kill her to prevent her defection. Which then raises the question, unless the mole or the Russians have bugged the boatshed, how would the Russians have known that the NCIS team was heading to Arkady's that night? The only people who knew were Callen, Sam, Nell, Anna, Carlson and the team--and none of them contacted anyone.

When morning comes, the team is still at Arkady's. It seems that the entire team decided to spend the night at Arkady's compromised house, with Arkady--the target--because the writer wanted to give us a comical scene between Arkady, Kensi, and Deeks. I'm all for comic relief, but only when it makes sense in the story, and this didn't. It would have made far more sense for Kensi and Deeks to have taken Arkady immediately to the boatshed to see his daughter before then taking him to a safe house while Fatima and Rountree waited for the police to arrive to secure the premises. But then, we wouldn't have had that very funny scene which was totally irrelevant to the plot. It's a fact that not every episode needs--or should have--comic relief.

Back at the boatshed, Sam berates Callen for not calling him to come the night before even though nothing much happened. Callen and Sam confront Carlson about being played by Katya (she fingered Callen as the Russian agent), and during this conversation Carlson tells them that Joelle defended Callen and insisted on handling Katya's defection herself when the CIA decided to go ahead. So, Joelle knew that Katya was accusing Callen of being a Russian agent and defecting to the the U.S., and yet she didn't tell him. But neither Callen nor Sam show the slightest anger at being kept in the dark by Joelle--again. Meanwhile, Callen is angry at Anna for lying to try and protect him while she hunted Katya. That makes no sense at all. If he's going to be upset at Anna for her lie, fine, but he should also be upset that Joelle didn't share what she knew because not knowing puts him and others in danger. Anyway, Carlson confesses her fear that there's a mole in the CIA as Kensi and Deeks return to OSP after finally seeing Arkady to a safe house. We're now halfway through the episode and neither Callen nor Anna have even stepped outside of the boatshed or had a conversation about recent events. Shortly after Kensi and Deeks arrive at OSP, Katya calls and insists on talking to Anna (which never happens, but evidently Katya forgets she made that demand). She offers a trade: Anna for Joelle and sets the time and place. Callen says he'll take Anna's place, but Katya refuses. Anna agrees to do whatever she needs to do to get Joelle back, and the team goes to the rendezvous.

They're all in their positions and there is a tense, uncomfortable scene between Callen and Anna in his car as they wait. Anna wants to talk, but Callen doesn't, and Anna tells him she's sorry and there's still so much about her he doesn't know. (Anna did tell Callen in an earlier season before she went to prison that she had to become someone she was before she met him). Maybe the next episode will make sense of what she says in this scene, but for now, it's just one more thing that's on Callen's mind. The trade takes place and Joelle--wearing a bomb vest--is dumped in the park and Anna is taken into the van. While Sam attends to Joelle, Callen and the others pursue the van. During the lengthy scene between Sam and Joelle as he tries to remove or diffuse the bomb vest, they find time to talk about Kam and her acceptance into Annapolis, but both seem to forget that Anna has just become Katya's captive. Instead of reminiscing about better days, it might have been more helpful if Joelle had told Sam everything she could remember about where she was being held (something she did easily in "Fool Me"). Could it be that Joelle is hoping Anna isn't rescued? On the pursuit, Callen cuts off the van, but soon after the driver exits, the van explodes. The driver tells Callen that Anna and her captor got out of the van before the explosion, but Nell is unable to locate them or whatever vehicle they got into. Callen, frustrated, explodes. And then the team calls it a day.

I can't recall any other episode where someone went missing and the team, while it was still daylight, just decided to call it quits for the day. That felt wrong. After all, only Callen, Nell, and Anna had gone without sleep the night before, but here--in the late afternoon--Nell sends Kensi and Deeks home, Fatima and Rountree talk about taking a vacation to Hawaii, and Sam and Carlson head off to question the Russian captain who's finally conscious after being in a coma for several days. Callen, meanwhile, is at the hospital, waiting to hear about Joelle who's in surgery. It turns out that Joelle will lose part of her leg. One of the problems with this diagnosis is that it makes the timeline of events confusing. This episode takes place immediately after "Can't," and in "Can't," Sam and Deeks stumbled upon two dead CIA agents supposedly involved in Katya's defection. So, when exactly, did Katya kidnap Joelle? If she kidnapped her before "Can't," wouldn't the CIA have already been after her, and if she kidnapped her when the two CIA agents were killed, she's only been a captive for a day--not enough time for an infection to set in and do sufficient damage to require amputation. After Callen receives the news about Joelle, the scene shifts to Anna, being held captive in a shipping container--like Joelle earlier--and being visited by two women from her past at the "academy," neither of whom is Katya.

One of the things that's interesting about the episodes that pretend to focus on the Callen-Anna relationship is how very few intimate scenes between the two characters there are in these episodes, and this episode is no exception. I don't understand this dearth of Callen and Anna scenes. I get that both of the characters have "trust" issues and that the writers concocted an implausible scenario for Anna's disappearance earlier, possibly so they could raise these "trust" issues yet again. It seems the only drama Callen faces in his personal life after 12 seasons is this, and it's become tiresome that the writers repeatedly return to this one issue for Callen to work out while other characters in the series are given an ever-evolving variety of personal issues to confront. But trust, whether it's trust in Hetty or trust in a romantic partner, always seems to be the writers' go to drama for Callen. It's why they keep bringing Joelle back, I suppose, and play up her personal connection to him rather than her position as a CIA operative.

It also seems as though the writers have confused someone who suppresses their emotions with someone who never talks. These aren't the same. In fact, it's clear from earlier episodes that while Callen often doesn't express himself through words and doesn't engage in small talk, Callen is, in fact, determined to find answers and will engage in conversation to get them. One of the best things about the earlier seasons were the conversations between Callen and Hetty, conversations that were natural, that revealed something about the characters and about their relationship. And those aren't the only conversations Callen has engaged in. Callen was ready to talk with Kristin about their past and had no problem sharing his feelings about what happened in their partnership with Tracy. It was Callen who insisted that Nikita tell him the reasons he left him, and he was the one who wanted to meet with Joelle after she betrayed him because he needed closure. In "The Circle," Callen didn't hesitate to speak with Darius, the stranger who lived what should have been Callen's childhood, and his emotions were plain to see. Callen often engages in very personal, meaningful conversations with not only people he knows but with people who need his help or with whom he feels a kinship, such as Nadir in "The Seventh Child," Lance in "Skin Deep," and Finn in "Mountebank" among others.

The conversations Callen should be having with Anna aren't happening. Why not? Perhaps one reason is because this relationship has been treated more as an afterthought by the writers than as a lasting relationship. It's also not clear that the writers have let this relationship evolve much if "trust" is still an issue after more than a year of living together and after what Anna has done for Callen in the past. Callen has always been someone who forgives others easily; he forgave Hetty, Joelle, and his father, all of whom caused him, and people he cared about, more hurt than Anna has ever done. That he wouldn't even be willing to listen is not in his character, but the timeline of these current episodes may be partly responsible for the lack of conversation time. We know that Anna left Callen before Christmas, but we have no idea how much time elapsed between Callen's discovery in "A Fait Accompli" that Anna lied to him and "Russia, Russia, Russia." It's probable several days, possibly weeks, passed because Kam was kidnapped in between and has been living with Sam for a while, and at least a day (maybe more) elapsed between "Russia, Russia, Russia" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" which means that Callen has been stewing about Anna's lie, unable to communicate with her, for a week and probably longer. And when he does reconnect with her in "Can't," the action immediately shifts to rescuing Joelle. Essentially, there's been no down time for these two to reconnect and try to work through their issues. Here's hoping the writers find the time to let them do that in the coming episode(s) because they deserve time to sort things out and we deserve to see it.

This is the link to a scene I would have included in this episode:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13852945/1/In-the-Boatshed