Roundtable Discussion: NCISLA Mid-Season 6 Review, Part 2

Mid-Season 6 Roundtable Part 2

The wikiDeeks team is back in Part 2 of our semi-annual Roundtable discussion. There was still a lot to like about the first half of Season 6 and we shared some of our hopes for a dedicated Deeks storyline soon and what the fans are saying about the Densi relationship.

 

Karen P: Does anybody have anything they liked about the first part of the season?

 

Lindy: I liked the way Deeks looked. [laughter]

 

Randy: Oh my goodness. [more laughter] I can’t believe I got stuck in this. I should be on the Kensi page.

 

Diane: Well this is a Deeks website, Randy, so unfortunately you’re going to have to suffer the slings and arrows of our passion.

 

Randy: He pulls off the scruffy, surfer bum really well, I’ll give you that.

 

Lindy: I’ll take it.

 

Diane: I sort of like where Eric and Nell are kind of going, I know most people probably don’t, but I do.

 

Gayle: I’m with you Diane, it’s OK.

 

Diane: OK. I thought their interaction in “Spiral” was pretty funny, actually. I feel like something now is going on there, and if we had a Debating Eric & Nell, we could probably use that as a topic.

 

Allie: I think there’s been lots of good banter and friendship moments between not just Kensi and Deeks, but Sam and Callen… I feel like they got back on track to where they were a couple of seasons ago. There have been lots of cute, enjoyable little bantery scenes, and the way that they’re including Nell and Eric, and a more community feel that is one of the things that I really like about the show. And I like when they do those types of scenes so it’s been good to see a lot of those this season.

 

Mel: I actually really liked the beginning of the show, with Hetty having to be called to the carpet a little bit for some of her actions. I thought that stuff was interesting, just having her actually have to go to DC and explain her actions. They kind of dropped it… maybe it will come back- that’d be interesting. But I actually liked that they were following through with that because that’s the kind of storyline that the show doesn’t really, at least in the past has not had the format really to address. But that’s such a big thing in the last season, that I thought seeing the fallout was important, and I liked that they started to do it. But then, I don’t even remember, I think she just sort of like escaped from the hearings, never to be called back again, and they haven’t really gotten back to it. But I did like that they started that.

 

Karen P: I felt like it should have been satisfying to see that, but I felt like the writers were very clearly on Hetty’s side, making that congressional investigator out to be the bad guy. I think they thought we should have thought Hetty was the one to root for there, so I didn’t find that satisfying. It was not what I would have liked to see.

 

Gayle: There were tiny little shifts in Kensi too, and I think you had to be looking for it, quite honestly. It wasn’t obvious, that they really stopped using the term “partners.” And obviously, for a number of reasons, she stopped physically brutalizing Deeks. But there are points in their banter that instead of her just really coming back at him, she just takes what he says, or she’s got a little glimmer in her eye, or she’s smiling… she stopped fighting back. I like that progression for her.

 

Karen P: I thought there’s been a lot of good humor throughout. Things like Eric getting interrogated by the DOJ investigator, and Sam in his little clown car in Mexico, and the guest star in “SEAL Hunter” who I just found hilarious. That scene where he and Deeks are looking at each other’s hair was great. And even Granger has had some really funny lines that he delivered with such a straight face. So for me I think that’s been a highlight of sorts.

 

Diane: And I actually kind of liked them giving Callen a love interest because it kind of made him a little more human in terms of getting to see how he relates to another woman. So that for me was a plus.

 

Lindy: Everyone’s getting together. In “Humbug” that was kind of the thing. You had Sam and Michelle, and you had Callen and Joelle, you had Kensi and Deeks, and Eric and Nell… one big happy let’s all get together kind of a thing.

 

Diane: That’s when we like the show the most, when we have the character developments. We want more of that obviously and less of the boom and explosion stuff. That’s when the show really kicks in for me… So anybody frustrated with the lack of Deeks storyline so far? Deeks has been part of the show now for basically five years and we really still don’t know a whole heck of a lot about this guy, right?

 

Gayle: I think you can’t be on this call and not agree with that. [laughter]

 

Randy: I’ll pose the question… what would we like to see as far as Deeks’ storyline? Would we want to see more of his background at LAPD or his childhood? What do you guys want to see?

 

Gayle: Yes. [laughter]

 

Karen P: Yes, I agree with Gayle.

 

Gayle: Any or all of the above. I think we’ll take what we can get.

 

Randy: You guys are hilarious.

 

Lindy: We’re here for your entertainment.

 

Mel: I think it would be interesting to see Deeks in something of his own environment, because he basically has been brought into the NCIS environment and into these characters’ lives. I think it would be interesting if they were brought into his world a little bit. I don’t know how, I just think it would be interesting.

 

Lindy: Sounds like a fan fic story.

 

Randy: There’s been some fan fics and there’s been some other things that I’ve seen, like a flashback to a case of his when he was undercover years before, a few years before he came to NCIS, where it was a cross-over with NCIS- they just didn’t know it. They were working it from a different angle, and he was working it from his. The resolution happened, and the feds swooped in and took over everything and he’s left blind-sided, he never saw it coming. That maybe was the first time Hetty noticed him, or something. I think they did something like that on NCIS with Tony where he flashed back to a case with Baltimore P.D. where it had an impact on the case they were working at that time. it’s TV, they can do just about anything. That’s something I’d like to see personally.

 

Lindy: You’re not reading my new story, are you Randy?

 

Randy: Yes I am. [laughter] There you go, that’s what I would like to see on the show. I can go to fan fic and see just about anything I want, but that’s what I think we’re missing with Deeks is that background story. We have Callen, we’ve seen enough of him. We’ve seen flashbacks and parts of Sam’s history. Kensi, we know a lot about her. And then there’s Deeks, and he’s been there for five years, I mean really? This is all we know about him? They give us little tidbits but I don’t think it’s ever enough.

 

Lindy: I would like to see more about his childhood. I don’t think we know more than the fact that he shot his father when he was eleven. That’s all we really know. We’re assuming everything else.

 

Diane: I would love to see Deeks in uniform, I would love to see him in an LAPD uniform. [laughter]

 

Randy: Y’all are killing me.

 

Diane: Karen S. did a great fanfic of Deeks in uniform. If you haven’t read it, it’s great. What else? What else are we longing to see?

 

Karen P: I want all of that backstory of course, and I hope that we’ll see it. It sounded like they were planning to do some of that last year and it got derailed, so I’m optimistic that we’re going to get some of that backstory. I’d also like to see a little bit of follow-up to that interrogation he did of the burned guy in the season premiere this year. His behavior there to me didn’t… it just didn’t feel like the Deeks I know. So I don’t want that to have been a random choice on the part of the writer, I really want that to be some sort of seed they were planting that would come back later. The other thing I’d like to see- don’t listen, Randy- is, I’d just like to point out that we’ve now this season seen a shirtless Callen and a shirtless Granger. [laughter]

 

Mel: And that we didn’t ask for.

 

Lindy: And that we didn’t need. [laughter]

 

Randy: I vote for a shirtless Hetty.

 

Lindy: There’s one thing I would like to see more of this year, if they’re not going to do a Deeks backstory. I would like to see more of the team’s interaction. I think we got a little bit of that in “Spiral,” but I remember how great “Kill House” was where they were all working as a unit, and they were in danger, and I thought that was a really great group, with team action that I really enjoyed, and I think we haven’t gotten too much of that. Everybody’s kind of been sectioned off every time. It would be nice to see the four of them working together as a unit.

 

Karen P: I’d also like to see them switch up the partners some more, like they have in the past. I’d love to see how Deeks and Sam would work together now given everything that happened last year for them. And I’d really like to see Callen and Deeks together because I feel like they’ve maybe ever had like two scenes where they were alone at the same time. That scene in “SEAL Hunter” where he thought Deeks was questioning Sam’s character… I just think they have a lot of chemistry and I’d be curious to see how that would play out.

 

Diane: Now that the Gurkha is coming back, here’s a great opportunity for us to find out more about Deeks, particularly if they put the two of them back together again, because he says he owes Deeks, and I’m hoping that they pair him up with Deeks again and we get some more in terms of Deeks’ backstory. I guess we will find out soon.

 

Some of you have your own websites, and a lot of you read a lot of the different tumblrs out there. Have you been seeing a change since “Humbug” in the Densi fandom at all? I know some of them are really hesitant, they’re so afraid this bubble’s going to break, but what are you reading, in terms of what the fans are saying?

 

Gayle: I think initially right after it aired, people of course were just over the moon excited, and it was the holidays, and that episode was just so fluffy, a term that gets used a little too often. But now there’s still some underlying, I don’t know, like long-term grudge, especially pointed to Dave [Kalstein].

 

Diane: What are they upset about?

 

Gayle: I think that a lot of people are still holding a grudge from “Frozen Lake” and “Three Hearts,” and the various things that they’ve renamed “Three Hearts” that I won’t go into. And I think “Spiral” was just so case-based, that there’s still a question as to what he in particular might do to them in the future.

 

Diane: I have been reading somewhere they’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop now that everything is kind of hunky-dory. But it’s hard to say since they actually filmed “Spiral” before “Humbug,” and so there was no real continuation to what had happened during “Humbug”. I was just wondering if you guys had heard anything else out there.

 

Randy: There’s been that Moonlighting scare of when you bring the two characters that have had such chemistry and such angst and all that, and now they’ve finally come together it can all fizzle out. But I’ve seen in other shows and other areas that just because they’re together, that’s not the end of the road. They work together, and that could be stressful. The job that they do is inherently dangerous and something else could break them up. I mean, really? You could imagine just about any scenario coming back in to challenge the status quo as well. There’s just way too many variables. And I think some people when I see them on fanfics and in some of the comments from readers, they’re a little nervous about it being where it is now. They’re kind of like us, they’re just waiting to see what happens next, and just kind of holding on to hope that they don’t mess it up too bad.

 

Diane: Well it he does wind up going back to the LAPD, and I hope it’s not a ruse this time, I hope something happens that there’s real emotion and angst going because of that happening. I’m hoping that is part of the story arc that will lead us into the new season.

 

I was wondering if there was anything else that you all want to add to our discussion. Is there anything that you want to say to the producers, the writers, in case they read this?

 

Karen P: I would say that I would encourage some of these female writers. I think two of the episodes I’ve liked the best this year, “SEAL Hunter” and “Praesidium,” were co-written by women and I think having more female writers on staff to bring that perspective would help a lot.

 

Randy: They’re in a 10 o’clock time slot. They need to take advantage of that. You watch the other shows that come on during that timeframe, and really, some of them push the envelope a little more through that time. So I think that’s what some people are looking for. A little bit more. A little bit more than what they get from NCIS at eight.

 

Diane: Well I did notice Deeks has been cursing a lot more lately but I don’t think that’s what you are getting at!

 

Randy: I mean, if all we’re going to get is a shirtless Granger, then maybe we need to re-evaluate. [laughter]

 

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The team will regroup at the end of season six and take a look back over the year and give you our thoughts and insights regarding the past year and our favorite characters.  We always have a lot to say, and hope you will join us again this summer!  Don’t forget to join in the discussion and leave your comments below!