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NCIS: Los Angeles Season 14 Rewatch: “Flesh & Blood”

The basics: Investigate a Navy wife fleeing the scene of her husband’s murder.

Written by: Chad Mazero co-wrote “Internal Affairs”, “Revenge Deferred”, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name”, “The Noble Maidens” and “Pandora’s Box”. Wrote “Tidings We Bring”, “Can I Get a Witness”, “All Is Bright”, “Diamond in the Rough”, “High Society”, “Murder of Crows”, "Overdue" and "Sorry for Your Loss".

Directed by: Daniela Ruah directed “Russia, Russia, Russia”, “Lost Sailor Down”, “Pandora’s Box” (co-written by Chad Mazero) and “Live Free or Die Standing”.

Guest stars of note: Pamela Reed returns from season 11’s “High Society” as Roberta Deeks, Bar Paly returns from “Of Value” as Anastasia “Anna” Kolcheck, Natalia Del Riego is back from “Game of Drones” as Rosa Reyes, Kavi Ramachandran Ladnier is back from the previous episode “Dead Stick” as NCIS Reserve Agent Shyla Dahr, Marnee Carpenter as Alice Morgan, Lauren "Lolo" Spencer as Ella and Rif Hutton as Navy Commander Albert Burns

Our heroes: Work with an abused wife to find some explosives while working through some home issues.

What important things did we learn about:

Callen: Waiting for Hetty to get married. Sam: Worried that Callen is avoiding getting married. Kensi: Feels like she’s not prepared for motherhood. Deeks: Bad baseball game in June of 1990. Fatima: Absent. Rountree: Looking to put his Beale bucks to good use. Kilbride: Not pleased with Deeks’s attitude about the Navy spousal abuse response.

What not so important things did we learn about:

Callen: Orphan. Sam: Once again looking for a caretaker for Raymond. Kensi: Hanging with Bertie, buying cleats with Rosa at the mall and negotiating teen angst. Deeks: Owes Kensi for hanging with Bertie. Fatima: Not around. Rountree: Called “Shark Tank” by Shyla. Kilbride: Not pleased with the Navy’s spousal abuse response in the cut scenes.

Where in the world is Henrietta Lange? Don’t know but Anna wants her found so she can marry Callen.

Who's down with OTP: Anna and Callen are trying to negotiate their way around a wedding date. Kensi and Deeks are trying to negotiate their way around Bertie.

Who's down with BrOTP: With the teams mixing and matching all episode, not a lot of BrOTP time but Shyla worked well with all.

Fashion review: Callen starts the episode in a black running shirt and black shorts. Wears a button down medium blue shirt for the rest of the episode. Sam has a wine colored long-sleeve tee-shirt. Kensi is in a white tee-shirt with thin blue stripes. Cornflower blue long-sleeve tee for Deeks. Rountree is wearing a light brown long-sleeve tee. Kilbride is in his civilian uniform with a medium blue three-piece suit, pale blue dress-shirt, blue tie.

Music: Not today.

Any notable cut scene: Finally! As Rountree is packing up for the day, Shyla asks him if he wants to go out for some tacos. He can’t – he’s meeting with his friend David Packer about his investment money. Shyla asks him not to. Understanding that she may be overstepping, she knows Rountree has a real fire inside after what happened with Jordyn and the LAPD. The person Rountree needs to invest in is himself.

As they leave, Sam is find a caretaker for his Dad. The Admiral says that gets Sam a good night’s sleep. The Admiral also thinks Alice Morgan deserved better. The Admiral thinks maybe they should blow up the whole damn book on abuse cases. Then promises to if Sam tells anyone he said that, the Admiral would make sure Sam didn’t get a good night’s sleep ever again.

Quote: Deeks: So it's, uh... June 30, 1990. And my mom decides she wants to take me to watch the Dodgers play the Cardinals. And I will never forget that day.” Alice: “I don't care about sports.” Deeks: “That's funny, 'cause I don't care about sports either. No, the reason I remember it is because it was so hot. Like, L.A. had been coming off this massive heat wave and I can still see the ice cream cone melting as it's being passed down the row.” Alice: “Now you want to talk about weather?” Deeks: “Actually, I do, because...that is the other thing that I can still see from that day, is my mom. And she's sitting next to me in this 90-degree heat, except for the fact that she is wearing...she's wearing jeans and a long-sleeve turtleneck. And she was covered up like that the whole entire summer. Not that it matters, because she couldn't cover the bruises on her face.” Alice: “Did he spare you, at least?” Deeks: “No. I mean, but I was a kid, right? Kids are supposed to have bruises. I'd just tell the teachers that, um...I got another fight in the playground. What do you tell people?” Alice: “I don't have anyone left to tell. He made me push everyone away.” Deeks: “Yeah, they do that.”

Runner up: Rountree: “Was all that true? About your dad?” Deeks: “Every word of it.”

Anything else: At night in a suburban neighborhood, a woman is frantically packing her things. She gets a phone call from her father and tries to blow him off. Seeing her in a mirror, her clothes are covered with blood. Her father is recommending a Tom Hanks movie as she is trying to get him off the phone. She tells her father she loves him as she tries to leave the house. A man’s dead body is making it hard to open the door. But she succeeds.

Callen arrives home with two smoothies. He’s worn out which surprises Anna. She ran for six-miles, he “bailed” after two. Since the bagel place didn’t have bagels, he brought smoothies. Anna wanted bagels before her job interview that day. She also wants to pick a wedding date. Every time of the year Anna mentions, Callen has a reason not to get married at that time. She offers him an out when it comes to getting married. He wants to get married, Callen assures her, just find the right time to do it.

At the Blye-Deeks home, everyone is running around as the day starts. Rosa is missing her backpack. When Kensi tosses it, Deeks walks right into the tossed backpack. Rosa and Deeks review her latest assignment as they hustle to leave. Deeks gets a phone call – it’s Bertie. She’s been on the road for six months of “eat, pray and loving” her way across the country. Deeks thinks this is all TMI. After seeing “Nomadland”, Bertie rented out her apartment so she is going to crash at the Blye-Deeks residence. She needs someone to be there to let her in. Rosa really needs to leave for school so they are going to figure something out.

Walking near the gym, Shyla hears Rountree working out and quoting “300”. He’s working on an ancient martial arts technique to strengthen his grip and arms. When Rountree gets a text, he asks Shyla to look at his phone – they could have a case. Instead, Rountree has a text from “Packer” who is talking about his pants being on fire. Packer is a friend of Rountree’s from Quantico. Packer is starting a clothing line and Rountree is a possible investor. He’s looking to grow some of the money Eric left them all last year. After what happened to Rountree and Jordyn, he's looking to invest that money into a growing business. Shyla would have taken the Eric money and spent some time in Tokyo.

Sam has a call and so does the Admiral. Both are unhappy with their calls. Sam lost another caretaker for Raymond, NCIS is making Kilbride go through another round of approvals for expenses. Cranky men in Ops alert.

The Admiral looks around an empty Ops and wonders where is everyone. On the screen is the dead man blocking the door from the opening scenes. He is Lt. Jeff Morgan, an intelligence officer working out of a DoD Task Force. Morgan was stabbed several times. There are real concerns because Morgan was part of a team developing software to integrate intelligence gathered by all branches of the armed services. If an outsider or foreign government got access to that software, they’d have access all U.S. military intelligence. Sam asks if there are any suspects – China, Russia, Iran or Alice Morgan, Jeff’s wife. She’s was seen leaving the house at the estimated time of death.

In the office driveway, Kensi and Deeks are arguing about who is going to help Bertie unpack. Deeks is owed a favor by Kensi and he’s calling it in. She’s not interested in helping unpack all of Mama Deeks’s Michael Bublé fannish things. Besides, Deeks should help his mother. Callen arrives but isn’t interested in hearing any of this – he’s an orphan. Deeks says that funny, Callen doesn’t agree.

Sam joins the trio, the most we’ve seen of this foursome together in a while. He's been working since 8AM and everyone else just arrived. Callen and Sam are off to the boatshed to meet with Morgan’s CO, Sam would like Kensi and Deeks to join Rountree at the crime scene. Sighing Kensi mentions she has some accrued leave Kilbride wants her to take so she’ll help Roberta, get Rosa from school and Rosa can meet Bertie. Deeks tells Kensi he owes her.

At the house Morgan household, Rountree found a locked laptop – Shyla is getting a warrant to get in. Deeks is looking through some magazines while Rountree picks up the Morgans’s mail. One magazine has expensive furniture. Speaking of money, LAPD found a Rolex on Morgan’s wrist and a Lexus in the garage – this wasn’t a robbery gone bad. Rountree is confused – a junior officer like Morgan doesn’t make Rolex money.

Deeks flips through Morgan’s credit card bills – they are big. Since Alice Morgan didn’t have a job, the only way they could afford their lifestyle was if Jeff Morgan was selling military secrets. Deeks sees that the credit card bills include electronic toll charges – an EZ Pass. They can find Alice Morgan’s location that way.

In the boat shed, Morgan’s CO, Commander Burns, is not thrilled to be there. There are cellphones for meetings like this. He should be in his office dealing with the fallout from the tragedy of Morgan being killed and not sitting in the boatshed – a “Bubba Gump’s”.

Sam asks about the software. According to Burns, it tracks everything from emails between intelligence offices to weapons and ordnance use and supplies. Morgan was doing data analytics for the team but a month ago, he started visiting weapon manufacturers to make sure their software would work the with military’s new software. Burns really didn’t have much of an opinion of Morgan except he was a good kid. With hundreds of men under his command, he really didn’t know much about him. He remembers Alice Morgan was quiet and unfriendly. Burns is done with Callen and Sam. He’ll answer any other questions by phone – he has work to do. Callen and Sam want to check into Morgan’s travel vouchers to see where he went and who he saw.

In Ops, Shyla was able to get into the locked laptop but most accounts were logged out. She was able to get into Alice Morgan’s text messages – the laptop and Alice’s phones were synced up. There was a confirmation code for a company called Home Connection – discrete vacation rentals. Shyla finds Alice Morgan booked a home on Larchmont an hour after she was seen leaving her home the night before.

In Larchmont, Rountree is really impressed with the area. Good investments homes, water views – Rountree is talking about investments when Deeks says “Alice Morgan” who he sees leaving the rental house. Rountree says “Alice Morgan” which has the same effect of yelling “federal agents” since Alice starts to run. After she throws a branch cutter at Deeks, Rountree gets her to stop as she’s climbing a fence. She is armed but surrenders.

In interrogation, Deeks is on the right side of the table while Rountree is in the corner. Deeks is rattling on about the “Chose Your Adventures” books when Rountree says they have witnesses who saw her flee the scene of a murder. Rountree and Deeks can sit with Alice in interrogation all day or they can help her. Alice wonders where they were six months ago when she asked for help. Deeks wants to know what happened six months ago. Alice says she talked and talked and talked and nobody wanted to help. She moves in her chair, making sure her jacket and long sleeves cover her arms. An obviously bothered Deeks wants to take a break. He’s getting everyone coffee.

Callen and Sam return to the office. Cheryl, Raymond’s latest caretaker who is very into birds according to Callen, quit when Raymond started talking about war pigeons. Mentioning that Raymond’s previous caretaker quit when he wouldn’t ride in her Mazda – Raymond likes American-made cars – Callen thinks Sam is avoiding the real issue. Sam loves this conversation because Callen is all about avoiding issues…like his wedding date. Sam is sure Anna will understand whatever is holding Callen back. The Admiral walks by – everyone to Ops.

Shyla tells an arriving Callen and Sam that Alice Morgan isn’t talking. Commander Burns sent over Morgan’s travel vouchers. Comparing the travel vouchers to Morgan’s EZ-Pass charges, “something is rotten in Denmark” according to Shyla. Morgan visited a number of companies that made high-grade military explosives. After every meeting, he would go someplace 20-miles past his home. Using Kaleidoscope, Morgan is seen driving into a storage facility in El Monte two-days before he was killed. Sam gets a call from the caretaker agency. He’s taking it outside of Ops.

Deeks returns alone to interrogation with a cup of coffee for Alice. He explains it is June 30, 1990 and his mother takes him to a Cardinals-Dodgers game. He remembers that day. Alice doesn’t care about sports. Deeks doesn’t either but he will always remember that day. It was so hot. Ice cream cones were melts as they were being passed down the row. Alice doesn’t want to talk about the weather either. Deeks does. Because all he really remembers from that day – his mother wearing jeans and a long-sleeve turtleneck. Not that it really mattered – she couldn’t cover the bruises on her face. She wore clothes like that for the entire summer.

Alice asks if “he” spared Deeks. Deeks says no but kids are supposed to have bruises. He would tell the teachers he was fighting in the playground. “What do you tell people?” Alice said she had nobody to tell. Her husband made her push everyone away. Deeks asks how long has the abuse been going on. Physically, Alice tells him, three-years. “Mentally, who knows.” She doesn’t have access to their bank account. Morgan controlled every part of her life.

Deeks asks if a few months ago, she told the Navy. There was a military hotline and she called. She didn’t hear back. She filed a report with the family advocacy center who told her they’d look into it. Deeks has to asks and understands if she did – did Alice kill her husband? She didn’t – she found him dead when she arrived home. What surprised Alice was even after everything he did, she tried to save him. It doesn’t surprise Deeks.

Deeks asks why did she run. Alice explains that her husband was a valuable asset to the military, “I’m not.” She was afraid her reports would be used as motive. She asks for a few minutes and Deeks agrees. As he’s leaving, she mentions that her husband would smell like motor oil after he returns from his business trips.

At home, Bertie is telling Rosa about skinny dipping at a Ramada Inn off the Strip in Vegas. Kensi isn’t thrilled. Rosa is really entertained. She would like to see Adele in Las Vegas, a friend has a condo and the family would let her use it. The friend, Tay, is from her calculus class and Bertie is down on calculus. With a disastrous marriage, three dead-end jobs and a brush with a pyramid scheme, she never used the Pythagorean theorem. That’s really geometry, Kensi notes but Rosa is in love. Bertie is the coolest. Since Rosa needs to soccer cleats, she asks Kensi to take her and Tay to the mall. Bertie moves on to a story about taking a sound bath behind a DQ in Marfa.

At a storage unit facility, Callen, now teamed up with Shyla, is brought to Jeff Morgan’s storage unit by the manager. The place was cleaned out but still smells like almonds and motor oil – explosives manufacturers put the scent into their product on purpose. Callen finds a small piece of C-4. Shyla doesn’t think Morgan was killed for the software, he was killed after using his access to these explosive manufacturers to procure some product. Callen worries about where the explosives are now.

The woman managing the storage unit place wants all the inside scoop if there is a dead body – she has a true crime podcast. Three men were removing boxes from the back of the storage facility when the woman started her shift. She doesn’t have access to the video surveillance, however, only her boss can do that. Shyla wants the woman to call her boss – they need the footage now. Shyla is also going to contact Commander Burns to figure out what is missing.

In Ops, Kilbride confirms that Alice Morgan contacted the military abuse hotlines to Deeks and Rountree in the boat shed. The people running the hotlines say they take all abuse complaints seriously but there wasn’t enough information to move it to NCIS. The Pentagon invested $1-billion to remedy this situation after past failures. Deeks wonders how much of that money could have been saved if this was a priority from the start. The Admiral is not pleased with Deeks’s statement. He says since Alice didn’t kill her husband, figure out if she knows who did and disconnects.

Looking at Deeks, Rountree asks how much of the story he told Alice was true. “Every word of it,” is Deeks’s reply.

Bertie finished doing laundry though Kensi out of the dryer sheets. Asking for Rosa, Kensi explains that she’s negotiating between Tay and a friend over a disagreement. She also tells Bertie that she doesn’t have to do laundry. Bertie missed doing the laundry. Kensi tries telling her mother-in-law that she and Deeks missed her but Bertie knows better.

Bertie also knows Kensi is feeling a bit overwhelmed by parenthood. Kensi notes that she’s not “technically” Rosa’s parent. Bertie asks Kensi if she loves Rosa and wants to keep her safe. Kensi does on both. Bertie follows up - does Kensi fear she isn’t doing enough even though she’s exhausted from doing too much. “Every single morning.” Bertie doesn’t care about “technically” – Kensi is Rosa’s parent. Kensi spent her entire NCIS career being one step ahead of everyone else. She thought she could do that with being a parent. She couldn’t.

Bertie offers some words of wisdom from her mother about being a parent – it’s like being pecked to death by a chicken. That’s not helpful.

Shyla has news for “Shark Tank” – Rountree. She’s sending video of the three men who took the explosives from the storage unit but the footage is awful. Rountree goes into interrogation to see if Alice knows any of the men. Alice recognizes one of the men – she met him at a wine festival. She remembers the date – it was her birthday. She thought he was doing something nice for her birthday. Obviously not. As Rountree goes to tell Shyla, Alice asks Deeks what happened to his father. Deeks tells her he shot him and two weeks later, he was in jail.

Callen and Shyla return to the office. She gets a call as she returns to Ops, Callen goes to see Sam in the bullpen. They are on a video call with Commander Burns. He assures Callen and Sam that he’s been working with ATF. 15 to 25 pounds of C-4 is missing with a lot of blasting caps and detonation cord. Callen asks abuse complaints about Morgan. Burns did not have enough evidence to move forward. Before Callen and Sam could press him, Shyla needs them in Ops. They quickly end the call but promise to call back.

In Ops, Shyla found Morgan had several bank account Alice Morgan knew nothing about. Several of them received $9,000 deposits in the prior week – a transaction amount just under the amount of money a bank would have to report to Feds. Met World Holdings sent the money. It is owned by an Ivan Parson, who looks like one of the man in grainy video. Met World Holdings is an import/export business – they move fine foods and fine wines. Parson is connected to extremist groups in Ireland, Germany and Indonesia.

The Admiral is looking for a sitrep. Met World Holdings has an unoccupied space in Hollywood. Deeks is getting Alice to a safe house so Callen, Sam and a seven-minutes out Rountree are at the unoccupied space. The Admiral reminds everyone that the job is to get back the explosives without blowing up a city block. The only way LA is going down in flames is if the Admiral has the match.

Callen and Sam move near the building. They can see some shelves of items and a man but he’s not Parsons. Going through the back door, Callen and Sam see Parsons. Sam throws a wine bottle to get one of the men’s attention. Sam quickly takes him out but makes enough noise to get Parsons and a minion to run. Callen tackles the friend but Parsons gets to his vehicle. An arriving Rountree stops him but Parsons throws his bag of explosives in the air and shoots them. That sends Rountree flying but Sam takes down Parsons with ease.

As Parsons is being taken away, Callen tells Sam and Rountree that Morgan wanted to back out of the deal but Parsons already paid for the explosives. Morgan was either scared or greedy. He also wasn’t as tough as he thought he was.

Deeks joins Bertie on the back porch. They share a couple of beers as Bertie asks if he got all the cats out of the trees. Deeks said he did his best. Deeks wants to talk about “Dad”. Bertie isn’t interested in her past. Deeks doesn’t think that’s fair – it is their past. He only wants to know how she made it through. “Vicodin and Sally Jessy Raphael,” is her answer. She doesn’t know.

Bertie explains that Deeks’s father took everything from the two of them, including the person Bertie used to be. But when he was gone, with Deeks’s help, she got that person back. She’s made a lot of mistakes since that in her life but it is her life. Deeks approves.

Kensi and Rosa join Deeks and Bertie on the patio. They’re just back from the mall. Rosa would like to visit San Francisco and Deeks is all in on that. Bertie invites herself – she knows a thruple up in Barstow that can rent then an RV. Deeks is horrified by his mother being in a thruple. Bertie assure him she’s not a part of the thruple, she just knows one.

Anna returns home. She thought they were going to dinner but Callen has a candles and some wine. He also got bagels. He loves Anna and he’d marry her tomorrow. When they get married, he wants to be surrounded by everyone that means everything to them. Arkady and Hetty are part of the package. Anna isn’t happy but Callen explains Hetty has been in his life from the beginning. He can’t get married without her. She has more of the story and he needs her to tell it. If he doesn’t do this, Hetty will always be the other person in the room. He doesn’t need a lot more time but Anna is giving him all the time he needs. She only asks the he tell the truth, even with it is hard, especially when it is hard. He promises he will.

What head canon can be formed from here: While the case of the week wasn’t much, that felt intentional. The guys who stole the explosives were plot points. They weren’t the typical bad guy – they were a bunch of dudes. The hour instead was about family relationships. It started with the Kolcheck-Callen and Blye-Deeks households, moved to Rountree talking about his sister, Sam with his father and then the case of the week.

This was a terrific Deeks episode. Light and goofy dad/husband at home, sad and serious with Alice and later with the Admiral, Rountree and Bertie. There should be a bonus for the person who decided Pamela Reed would work as Deeks’s mom. Just as light and goofy she could be in most of the episode, she was sad and serious near the end. That scene with them alone wasn’t just family, it was two survivors who built themselves the lives they enjoy.

For a program and an NCISVerse that is mostly pro-military, there was a real sense of disgust by Deeks and disappoint/disgust late in the episode by the Admiral over the handling of Alice’s abuse case.

Loved the explosion that sent Rountree flying – that’s the show I know and love.

Episode number: Episode 307 overall, the fifth episode of season 14.

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