"Pandora's Box" (Season 13, Episode 14)

 

What a hot mess. While "Bonafides" was boring and predictable, this episode was worse. The worst thing for me about this episode was that the main storyline--if you can even say there was a main storyline--disappeared under all the other crap (and I use that word intentionally) thrown into this episode. And while Dani's directing was stellar, even she couldn't save it. All I can say is that the four main actors are the only constant and the only reason I continue to watch this series week after week, and while all are strong, I continue to be stunned by the beautiful performances Chris delivers. Even though seldom getting dialogue worthy of his talent, Chris continues to stretch the emotional boundaries as Callen.

Sam is absent from this episode due to reasons relating to his dad (a tie-in to an earlier episode), and he should be grateful. The episode opens with the delivery of a crate to Crusciel & Crusciel, the art storage facility where Katya has a storage vault. Once the woman employee who shows them to the storage area leaves, two men emerge from the crate and with the man who brought the crate in, begin to rob the storage vaults. The two then climb back into the crate and are wheeled out. As the thief loads the crate into a van, he's stopped by a man who has no order for an item pick up. When he continues to question the thief, he's shot by one of the men hidden in the crate and calls the police as the thief gets in and pulls away in the van with the crate intact.

The scene shifts to a center and we see Kensi and Deeks. A woman approaches them and tells them that Rosa, the girl Kensi rescued in "Land of Wolves," isn't there; they found a distant aunt of hers in Barstow who came and picked her up the night before. It seemed they had an appointment to meet with the center about fostering her. 

In OSP, Rountree tries to strike up small talk with Kilbride who's waiting for his coffee to brew, and Kilbride deflects his attempt with his standard snarkiness. It's here that we meet Kilbride's temporary assistant from DC. (If you introduce a new character, at least give the character a purpose beyond carrying a humidor and telling other characters to get to know the boss. Also, unbelievable as it may be, most people in L.A. don't do Pilates.)

The scene shifts to Ops where Fatima is on the phone and when that call ends, she calls Callen who's in his car. She tells him there's been a theft at Crusciel & Crusciel, but she can't get information about Katya's vault. Callen tells her he'll go to Crusciel to get more information. (It seems the only reason Kilbride's assistant was in the episode was so Fatima could join Callen at Crusciel & Crusciel because after 20+ years as a federal agent, he might not be able to question employees at an art storage facility by himself.) And when Fatima gets to the scene, she sort of takes charge. That didn't work for me. While Kensi is one of my favorite characters (I'm still warming up to Fatima), there's a difference between being "strong" and being "bossy." Lately, both Kensi and Fatima are falling into the "bossy" category.

Because this theft involves art that might be sold on the black market, the writers bring back the odd Kim Cho from "Provenance." (If Sam had been in this episode, I wondered if the writers would have brought back his absent girlfriend, Katherine, instead.) Anyway, after Callen and Fatima discover the woman at Crusciel helped the thieves, they get a description of the thief and Kim identifies him as Gerard, a Frenchman with a lengthy rap sheet for art theft who has supposedly retired and moved to L.A. because his daughter and her husband moved to L.A. The search is on. Callen and Fatima head to a shop where kaleidoscope tracked the thieves' SUV while Kensi and Deeks head to the rented home of Gerard's daughter to conduct a search. Callen and Fatima find Gerard; Kensi and Deeks find stolen artwork. Too much time was spent with Gerard, but Callen tells him who Katya--the woman who hired him to steal the contents of her vault--really is and why he's in danger for double-crossing her. He tells Callen that what he stole has already been delivered to someone to sell, so Gerard accompanies Callen to get what was in Katya's vault. There's a brief scuffle, Gerard gets away, but Callen recovers the item from Katya's vault--a reel of film. 

Later, Kensi and Deeks return to the center and meet with a young girl who has something to give them from Rosa. At OSP, Callen prepares to watch the film as Kilbride bids his temporary assistant goodbye. 

If this episode was supposed to weave in a thread about the “horrors” kids go through, it failed. There’s absolutely no connection between a child being afraid of the dark when they’re young (a common fear) and what Callen and Katya experienced as children. Kilbride’s comment about his son didn’t resonate with me because it implied that there was a connection, thereby diminishing the experience of children who endured horrible situations rather than simple childhood fears. (The young actor who portrayed Young Callen in "Bonafides" also portrays Young Callen in this episode.) As for knowing there are monsters, the team’s dealt with Janvier, Sidorov, Tahir, the Comescus, and Akhos among others; there’s no doubt they know all about monsters. The writers need to stop trying to tie things together that don’t work and cut back on Kilbride's lecturing and sermonizing. He's not the giver of wisdom. In other words, he's not Hetty; he's the new kid on the block regardless of his chronological age, and the four main agents could get along fine without him.

There was a lot that didn't work in this episode.

• If Kensi and Deeks were preparing to foster Rosa, the bullpen scene with all the toys and Kensi's comments about baby-proofing the house in the earlier episode makes even less sense.
• More timing problems: If Callen found the receipt for Katya's vault and submitted a request for a warrant months ago and still hadn't received the warrant he requested, he would've called the judge before now to find out what the holdup was. After all, this is a man determined to find Katya, and he found the receipt 8 episodes ago. (In this episode the search warrant for the daughter's home was granted in an hour or so.)
  
• Also, how would Katya have known that Callen had access to her safety deposit box, had emptied its contents, and/or the name of the judge he'd submitted the warrant request to?
  
• Enough about the high cost of housing in L.A. Does Gemmill think constantly slamming L.A. appeals to a certain demographic or does he just hate L.A.?
• Did the writers forget that the woman at Crusciel had met Gerard? There was no point in Callen showing him the coveralls since they had someone who could identify him because he spoke to her in person.
• And what was the point of the auction? Gerard could identify the item in Katya's vault because at the auction he told Callen that none of the items were from her vault. He also told Callen earlier in the shop that what was in her vault was worthless, so why didn't he just give whatever it was to Katya instead of sending it to the art "auctioneer"? And once the items were in view, why the hesitation to close the auction down? Sure, none of the items were Katya's, but Gerard surely would have identified it or the "auctioneer" would have in order to make a deal. Besides, the Russian word on the film reel box might have given it away.
  
• "Do what you have to do, Agent Callen, but be smart." Kilbride's ability to state the obvious and demonstrate a lack of respect for the ability of his agents--especially Callen--comes through repeatedly. 
• If Kilbride feels like he's chasing the agents around, maybe he should try using his cellphone or coms.
• As for Kilbride's rant about giving up gluten, one would think his doctor might be more concerned about his fondness for cigars.
  
• If the film explained why Katya turned out the way she did in Kilbride's view, how would he explain how Anna turned out since she went through the same training or Callen, who, it seems, went through similar training? 

What beautiful, powerful, emotional conversations Callen and Anna could have about their shared childhood experiences, but I don't think we'll see these scenes anymore than we saw their conversation(s) about her lie and not sharing her past with him and how they worked through those issues.

I found this episode such a disappointment because it was so unfocused on "Pandora's box," its contents, and its effect and so focused on irrelevant characters. The attention to insignificant characters takes away time that could be better spent delving into some of the emotions battering Callen. Instead, these emotions are compressed into the final 20 seconds of the episode, but as always, Chris wordlessly reveals the full force of what he sees on the screen through his expression. In a way, it almost seems as though because Chris is able to express so much without words, the writers use his talent as an excuse to not write important dialogue for Callen. It'd be wonderful (and surprising) to see and hear more from Callen about how these resurgent memories are affecting him, his feelings about Hetty, his feelings about his work, his feelings about himself, his feelings about his relationship with Anna, and share some of these feelings with Anna or Nate, but this is Callen--the silent one, not Kensi or Deeks.