Roundtable Discussion – Part Three: NCISLA Mid Season 7 Review

It’s that time again….The wikiDeeks staff  is back with another roundtable discussion and a review of Season 7  so far. The team has a lot to say about this season but we all agree it’s been a banner Densi year so far and we’re looking forward to seeing what the rest of the year brings. Join the discussion in the comments section below and let us know your thoughts. Here’s what our contributors had to say in our final installment of our discussion….

Part Three

Diane:  I was rewatching it last night and watching the interrogation scenes between Deeks and the IA woman know he did kill Boyle, I just thought, “Wow, he is really good at this lie, and he’s very very clever at how he’s spinning this tale and how he’s joking… of course we all know how he uses humor. Did that surprise you at how devious he could be?

Lindy: You have to remember, he’s an attorney. He’s a lawyer. [Laughter.] He knows how to get his way with anything.

Karen P.: He lies for a living- he loves lying. That’s why he loves undercover work. It’s “truth reimagined for the higher good.” So I don’t think it should have been a surprise to us that he was capable of keeping that secret for so long.

Lindy: Also, the writers wanted to fool us into believing that he was innocent the whole time too.

Karen P.: Yeah. To me it was perfectly played because it was simultaneously surprising but not surprising. Like, I was shocked that they made him guilty but I thought it was in character and entirely possible that he could have done it.

Gayle: I am absolutely in line with Karen, where it got to the end and I was like, “Oh he didn’t – of course he did it! The whole interrogation was so cleverly written and expertly acted that it was like, yes, this is the Deeks that we really have come to adore over all the years and for him to just be able to constantly keep that up… He’s known for years that this was probably going to come out at some point, so he’s had plenty of time to prepare for it.

Diane: That’s true.

Karen S.: I was concerned during all of it that he wasn’t trying to protest his innocence at all, and at that point I started wondering whether or not he was truly, completely innocent of it all, because I just kept thinking, “Come on, tell ‘em you didn’t do it!”

Diane: What about his last question to Hetty, the question he had at the end, which was, “Why did you do this?” Why would he ask a question like that?

Lindy: Because I think he was surprised that she stood up for him. He’s not used to that.

Karen P.: That she broke the law and planted evidence for him.

Lindy: Yeah. I think that was surprising, for him. I don’t think it was surprising for the rest of us.

Randy: She had said earlier, she told Callen, “The truth doesn’t pick sides. We do.” The truth was, “Deeks killed Boyle.” Which side were they going to pick? Were they going to pick the side that was going to condemn him for it or the side that was going to be his friend and his partner and do whatever they could to protect him? That was what I got from it. That mother hen thing she’s always done, protecting her agents- Callen, Sam, Kensi- that would be an extension to Deeks.

Karen S.: Also, Kensi called her marker in with Hetty. And had she already planned to do all of that stuff, or after Kensi chewed her out, is that when she started to do all of her stuff? I don’t know.

Lindy: I think she’d already done it.

Tess: Quinn was transferred to wherever he was going, so I think Hetty had this basically lined up for weeks… I just want Bates back more, I like him. [Laughter.]

Karen S.: I loved Deeks’ interaction with him, talking about his porn star moustache. [Laughter.]

Lindy: That was a great line.

Diane: So do you think this whole thing is over, or do you think it might creep up again in the future?

Gayle: I can’t see it being done. That was the thing that I was most excited about at the end of that episode, going, “Oh, I wonder who and when and how this is all going to resurface because they just left too many threads hanging out that could easily be pulled in the future, and I think my biggest question is… What’s going to happen when LAPD eventually gets to the truth, presuming that they do, because as we’ve already detailed today, these people- especially Deeks- are expert liars. So I really do hope that it comes back at some point.

Karen P.: I also hope it comes back because I really want to know the details about what happened. I want to know exactly how dark Deeks really is. I was very satisfied with how they left things but I’m also still curious about that so I hope it comes back and we get to learn more. I know I had seen a couple of mentions of a flashback being included in the episode, which wasn’t. I wonder if it might have been a flashback to the killing scene. I don’t know if I would want to see that or not. Flashbacks to people being younger are often sort of painful to look at but I’d be curious I think.

Gayle: Oh Karen, don’t worry, I’m sure it will show up as a deleted scene. [Laughter.]

Tess: That’s what the DVD’s are for.

Lindy: I don’t know if they’d do a flashback on that, but I think they might have him explain to Kensi at some point what actually happened, and that would be probably a short scene but it’s a possibility that he would tell her.

Karen S.: At the very end of that scene where they’re talking to the Internal Affairs investigator, they ask if he was free to go and she goes, “We’re done, for now,” like she was still looking into it. And so I kind of felt like it would probably pop back up again at some point.

Lindy: It would be fascinating, wouldn’t it?

Karen S.: Yep.

Lindy: More Deeks, all the time. [Laughter.]

Diane: Anything else we want to explore from this episode? I brought up some of the main points I found, but you guys might have another area that you’d like to talk about.

Karen P.: One of the things that struck me when I was watching was the scene in jail with his mom when he tells her how he became the person that he is today. It hit me that it sounded like a superhero origin story, and I thought that was an interesting way for them to explain why he is the way he is. He had this single traumatic event that triggered his lifelong drive to protect women and he’s almost chemically unable to not protect somebody when he sees that they’re in danger, and it almost made him out as a kind of superhero.

Lindy: I think the other thing that was interesting about that scene with his mom in jail was there was kind of a hint that he actually served time for doing that. Did that come across to anybody else, that he might have gone to Juvenile Hall?

Karen P: There was at least a juvenile case, right? There was a record of it.

Lindy: Right, it was in juvenile court. Did he serve any time for that or not? I couldn’t tell but that’s the story we all want to know about, is what happened in his childhood? Will we ever really know? Because they made it sound like it was a one-time event instead of a lifetime of abuse.

Karen S: Well he mentioned something about his juvie record to the IA lady and that it was sealed and that it had nothing to do with what was going on. So there’s a juvie record somewhere but we just don’t know what’s in it.

Karen P: Well we also know he was arrested for stealing a car at some point, right? So he might have a more extensive juvie record than just the one thing.

Diane: Alright, if we’ve exhausted “IA”, what about the whole baby thing? They’ve been talking about, dropping little hints throughout the whole season, and they’re talking about Daniela Ruah possibly getting pregnant again, and so what do we think is going on?

Lindy: I think they are setting us up for if she does get pregnant, if it plays out on screen instead of them trying to hide it again.

Diane: Yeah.

Gayle: I agree with that completely. They just don’t want to get in a situation where they were last time, and I can obviously appreciate that and understand that, but it’s been a little over the top. We all know how they have written Deeks as really seeming to want to have that in his future, but it has been a lot.

Lindy: So you don’t want to see them get together and have babies?

Gayle: I don’t know what I wrote, but somewhere I wrote… I think we need to go back to “respecting the pace,” which was a little mention that somebody else thought about that they’ve gotten together, they’re spending time at each other’s places, but then Momma Deeks jumps in and starts talking about all the kids, and these two have never been fast forward on hardly anything, and so I’m not necessarily sure why they might decide to change that at this point, just from the characters’ standpoint.

Lindy: Yeah, but it’s been what? Six, seven years. They’ve gotta go somewhere.

Diane: I just can’t see her carrying this kid on her back as she’s running down alleyways trying to kill people. [Laughter.]

Gayle: It’s Kensi. She would totally do that.

Randy: She would leave the kid in the car with Deeks. Deeks would have one of those little chest carriers and he’d be standing in the background with a diaper bag and Kensi would be doing her badass stuff. [Laughter.]

Karen P.: Remember these are mutant ninja assasins- they’re going to help catch the bad guys. [Laughter.]

Lindy: Heaven forbid if they have twins. [Laughter.]

Karen S.: I can totally see them leaving the baby with Hetty.  [Laughter.]

Randy: Oh yeah, that would be so much better. I think you’re right. They have been dropping those not subtle hints, you had the lullaby at the end of the last episode, then you had “Cancel Christmas” and you have Kensi in the background with the baby stroller, so I don’t know if they’re setting us up for something or if Dani has brought that up and maybe they are looking at pre-writing alternate storylines in case she is going to be out again and they don’t write it into the season, or they are going to write it into the season? Who knows what they’re thinking sometimes?

Karen S.: I don’t think they can ship her off to Afghanistan again.

Lindy: I just think they’re covering their ass and they have to prepare, and I think that’s what they’re doing. She may not get pregnant, who knows, but at least they have it in place that it’s possible.

Karen P.: I agree that it’s been a little over the top, but I think they’ve been painting them as being a little bit more mature this season. Kensi didn’t go crazy with jealousy when Talia was being her annoying self, Deeks was fine when Kensi was undercover with the rich guy. This is just another sign that Kensi has grown some and is able to maybe see herself as a mother when she couldn’t before, and I think that’s nice.

Diane: This hopefully will take us into another season, talking about this type of stuff.

Lindy: I think it will. I’m confident, I’m confident.

Randy: It better be… what else am I going to write about? [Laughter.]

Lindy: Hey there are people out there still writing about Hogan’s Heroes. [Laughter.]

Randy: Oh it won’t die, that’s not going to be an issue.

Diane: Anything else we want to talk about?

Randy: We’ve mentioned the maturity of both of them, especially in the Densi aspect with Kensi and Deeks, and one of the things I’ve noticed and been impressed with is Kensi’s maturity. Seasons ago when it looked like Deeks had been fired and she knew he was hiding something from her, she was about to kill him. That level of forgiveness wasn’t there. And then we got to “Cancel Christmas” and she says “What do you want for Christmas, what would you want most?” and he says “Forgiveness” and they have their little talk, and you could just tell that to her, it didn’t matter. She was to the point now in their relationship and their partnership that no matter what he did, she would trust him and she would have his back. And I thought it was just a neat aspect of her character that has changed over the years to where, you know, “Don’t get yourself killed” and “Don’t lie to me” and then here we are at this time in their relationship and it’s obvious that she has grown. We’ve seen Deeks change but we’ve also seen Kensi mature.

Gayle: Randy and I are on the exact same page, because what I was going to bring up was the character development of Kensi. Like when we got “Humbug”, and she said “All in”, and then we didn’t seem to get much at the last half of Season 6 I thought, “I wonder what that looks like for her. What does that mean for her?” And we’ve gotten to see that now, between her joking about a baby tiger, and her reaction and now her assertion with now flirting with Deeks has so radically changed since the beginning of the series that you can see her reaction is different and now his reactions are different, to the point where he doesn’t have to pull any punches- I can’t believe I just brought up the word “punch” [Laughter]- but he doesn’t have to be fearful that he’s going to say something and what the reaction is or is not going to be from her, that they can both get away with just about anything now, and that has to be a level of freedom for both of them, that’s just a relief that they didn’t have in the past. So I am super glad that my girl has come into a whole new level.

Lindy: I think it just shows their commitment to one another, and I think that scene where he asks for forgiveness, I think the line that’s really important for him is when he finds out that she knew and she still supported him, he says, “Do you know how much I love you right now?” That was very meaningful for him, because I don’t think he thought she was going to forgive him.

Randy: He might have been thinking, yeah, she’ll forgive him, but he was going to have to work at it. He was going to have to make promises, and bow at her feet and kiss her toes and do all that stuff, and it wasn’t there, it was automatic. It was, “We’re in this thing together and it’s all in, the good and the bad. We both have secrets but we’ve chosen to trust each other this much.”

Karen P.: I think Kensi’s an incredibly loyal person, as loyal as Deeks is. I see that as both of their strongest qualities, and I think once she’s all in, she is all in, and we’ve been seeing that throughout this whole season, and I think Deeks just… it needs to sink in a little bit, because he’s always doubting himself and whether he’s worthy of her. He might need to see if for a little bit longer before he really, really believes that she’s going to support him no matter what.

Lindy: And maybe we’ll get that the week after next when he confronts Jack.

Karen P.: Yes! I hope so.

Lindy: Fireworks! Fireworks! [Laughter.]

Diane: Hey Gayle, before we end, you had wanted to ask that one question about the seven day schedule?

Gayle: Oh I almost forgot. I went back and looked at all the production calendars for the whole season, and they were pretty much all on eights through October, and then starting in November they switched to seven day shoots. So I just wonder the why, and exactly what kind of new pressure that’s putting on both the cast and the crew.

Karen P.: I think the why is to save money. I think that was in the works from last year. When I went to collect our autographs for Pets of the Homeless, John Scott Mills mentioned that they were switching their schedule. But it’s interesting because I would have thought it would maybe tamp down the number of big stunts… I know we haven’t had a lot of car chases this year, but if anything I’m maybe happier with that because I think they’re maybe spending a little bit more time with character development because it’s cheaper, so it might have a nice unintended consequence.

Tess: They’re still blowing things up a lot. They’re very good at that.

Karen P.: They are.

Karen S.: Although the Christmas episode, when they went to that house, I kept waiting for it to blow up and it never did, the one that had the gas leak. I was like, “OK, where’s the explosion?” and I was surprised they didn’t blow it up.

Lindy: I guess they didn’t want to be predictable. [Laughter.]

 

End

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We hope you enjoyed our mid-season discussion.  Please leave your comments and join in on all the talk!  See you back here this summer for another wikiDeeks team Roundtable Discussion!