What a Difference a Showrunner Makes

(or the devaluation of Grisha Callen)

In no other TV show I've watched has a new showrunner reshaped a character and altered his trajectory more than Gemmill has done to the character of G. Callen. Gemmill has taken extraordinary steps to revise a well-established character, and the change in the character and his trajectory after Gemmill took the reins is undeniable and not for the better, in my opinion.

In Season 2, Callen, who'd been without a permanent home since childhood, finally got a home, a home that held some of the few good memories he had from his time in foster care. He kept that home until season 10 when he lost it because it had been compromised. Gemmill replaced that home with a room above a bar. Not many would call moving from a single family home into a single room (like the motel room in "Identity") a step forward. And his relationships haven't fared much better than his accommodations under Gemmill.

In Season 7, Brennan gave Callen his first meeting with his father, Nikita Reznikov. By Season 10, Gemmill had taken his father away, but not before Nikita told Callen that he'd raised a Comescu as his surrogate son while Callen was stuck in foster care. After that revelation, we never got another scene between them: no scene where Callen confronts Nikita about this, no explanation about how he and Amy got to America, and no final farewell scene between Callen and the father he'd searched for for thirty years. Perhaps the writers don't feel comfortable writing--or know how to write--emotional dialogue for Callen; that would explain why so many of what should be significant emotional scenes for him never make it to the screen. Or perhaps Gemmill just decides that other scenes deserve the screentime. Showrunners have to make those decisions.

Gemmill did give Callen a relationship: he gave him a half-sister, Alex, and a nephew, Jake, neither of whom have been seen since "Searching" in Season 10. Their current situation with Callen is unclear. When last seen, Callen and Alex were still estranged because she hadn't forgiven him for not stopping Nikita's return to Russia. Viewers never got to see Callen interact much with Jake, but the writers were able to include a fairly lengthy scene of Jake with Kensi and Deeks. After all, it would have been more difficult to write a scene where a boy wants to know more about his uncle who carries a gun, shoots bad guys, and got shot himself than to have the power unexpectedly go out in the bar and Jake be the one to fix it. That made much more sense. (And, yes, that is sarcasm.) Also, the fact that Callen refers to Alex and Jake as his family isn't definitive; family members often still think of each other as "family" even when they're estranged. So, essentially, Gemmill gave Callen a "family" and then made them irrelevant because they never had much impact on Callen's life: we never saw or heard through conversations Callen adjusting--or trying to adjust--to "family life." It was easier and less complicated to introduce them and then quickly ignore them.

And then there's Gemmill obsession with Joelle and her "relationship" with Callen. Even though this relationship officially ended in Season 7, Gemmill can't let it go. It's bad enough that he made a former kindergarten teacher into a female Bourne-style CIA officer who betrayed Callen's trust, but after doing that, he continues to insert her into Callen's life, and while Callen may not be fine with all her machinations and interference or like who she's become, he "understands" her and knows she's "just doing her job." 

Which brings me to the most problematic Callen relationship since Gemmill became showrunner: Callen's relationship with Anna. In Season 7, Brennan beautifully set the stage for Callen to finally establish a serious, long-term intimate relationship, and Gemmill has made it an absolute mess. Instead of seeing Callen grapple with the myriad emotions that come with intimacy--fears, doubts, sorrows, and joys--Gemmill's given us contrived complications wrapped in nonsensical storylines. The first complication was the break-up in Season 9 for no logical reason. This was followed by the Sokolov storyline. (Callen, who's naturally suspicious, would've suspected something was up when Anna didn't offer a defense because a jury, given Sokolov's criminal history and Anna's career history, would've been hard pressed to convict her after her defense established "reasonable doubt.") Then, there's Anna's lie in the Anna-Katya storyline. In the timeline of the Anna-Katya storyline, it makes no sense, but more than that, because Anna knows Callen, it makes zero sense. It'd make as much sense for Deeks to lie to Kensi as it does for Anna to lie to Callen. And what happened to the Callen in "The Circle" who said, "We can work it out" and the Callen in "Missing Time" who promised that he would stand by her? Yes, she lied, but she lied to protect him from someone he knows is a psychopath (and at this point he knew nothing about her past as a noble maiden). Did Callen's widdle feelings get hurt because Anna lied? (sarcasm again) Is that why Callen spent so much of these episodes away from Anna, unable to tell her that they would find Katya together, that she didn't have to face Katya alone, that her problem was also his problem? Seriously, why would Callen offer comfort or assurance to his girlfriend who's being hunted by a psychopath and now being interrogated by the DNI? (sarcasm) The Callen in "Can't Take" and "Red Rover" is NOT the Callen who stood by Sam in Africa while he went after Tahir, who was willing to go to Russia with Anna to rescue Arkady, who demanded that they not give Janvier what he wanted because he'd killed "our people," who promised he would get Mosley's son back. And the Callen who spent the night beside Joelle's bed in "Noble Maidens" is not the Callen who said he would stand by Anna.

But perhaps the strongest indicator of how Gemmill views the Callen - Anna relationship is that in 5 seasons they've had no scenes where they've said anything to one another that they couldn't have said to someone else they cared about. They've kissed and physically expressed their feelings, but as for putting those feelings into words, the writers have given them nothing. The writers have Callen tell his ex that he cares about her, but in 5 seasons they have never had him say those words--words that don't even express the most intense emotion--to Anna, the woman he wants to marry so much that he buys her a ring. That seems perfectly natural. (sarcasm)

The problem for me is two-fold: since Gemmill became showrunner, his focus on Callen has been unremittingly negative or indifferent, and he's rewriting Callen, changing the essence of who Callen is as a character, to make the character fit his vision instead of working with the character that was already well-established. Gemmill has taken away or damaged almost everything Callen has or had. Maybe this will change in Season 13; maybe Gemmill will give Callen back his home, his family, and his relationship with Anna. Or maybe Gemmill will decide to reignite a relationship between Callen and Joelle because that'd be a cheap way to create drama, no matter how out of character it would be for Callen. At his point, nothing's off the table.

By the end of Season 12, it seemed the only things Gemmill hadn't taken away or damaged were Callen's relationships with Hetty, Sam, Arkady, and the team, but I'm already wondering what Gemmill will do to revise Callen's special relationship with Hetty because of the press release for the premiere. When it comes to Callen, Gemmill has a habit of taking the low road.