Review: NCISLA “Asesinos” (S10E06)

Hey everybody! Thanks for dropping by to check out the review for “Asesinos”, which was written by R. Scott Gemmill and directed by Terrence O’Hara. We have the regular characters with a returning Arlo Turk (and his dog) along with a new set of cartel bad guys for the team to take on. The DC investigation crew is still hanging around which should give Director Ochoa another headache while dealing with a missing in action Mosley.

I’m doing things a little different this time around; I’m writing the review as I actually watch the episode, pausing to jot things down, and giving you my reaction as the story unfolds. After that, I’ll tell you my final thoughts.

Hang on and let’s see how it goes.

So, it appears that we are sticking with the Mosley storyline that will not seem to go away, no matter how many characters are killed off or how many laws and policies are bent or outright broken. I was hoping that we would have a quick resolution to the cartel hit teams and move onto the fallout from the fiasco that was the Mexico trip. But alas, we will apparently keeping this alive for as long as possible, while hiding Hetty away wherever she is while Mosley continues to put the team in unnecessary danger.

I simply cannot understand what Mosley is up to: instead of using the VAST resources that are available at OSP, she is radio silent, taking on bad guys on her own (without backup), even letting one take her back to his room (really?), and then fighting him to the death, hand-to-hand. She was lucky that … one, he was alone … two, he did not shoot her the moment she opened the door to the bedroom and … three, that the corkscrew landed where she could get to it. Did she already know who and what he was down in the bar or did she have to wait for him to pounce before knowing for sure? Was she trying to get intel but had to kill him when he attacked?

Callen living in the boatshed was kind of silly (they are not the only team at OSP) … I mean what happens when another crew needs to use the building but have to wait for him to get out of the shower before they can do their own thing. Sam is justifiably concerned and letting Tom slip away with Derrick with no idea where they are was a good plan. Except that Mosley is in touch with him and will of course be tracking him … along with the Cartels if she isn’t careful. I was a bit taken back by Callen’s response to Hidoko’s death and I felt like his writing her off felt a little cold considering the way they had reached out to her mother in a previous episode.

Nell and Eric bickering about pets was cute, even though I do not like them as a couple. It seems like OSP has become the “Dating Game” and I’m dreading the next couple that they will form up … Sam and Mosley … Hetty and the admiral … Callen and the cleaning lady. What happened with the ant farm? Did she set them free to explore? Ugh, hopefully it was outside. The sea monkeys made me laugh. Eleven generations? Wow. Yes, Nell … that’s weird.

And now Mosley is wanted for a homicide. The BOLO would have gone to every law enforcement organization … FBI, LAPD, DEA, and considering her security clearance, NSA … not really staying under the radar.

I am loving Director Ochoa (Esai Morales), as he brings confidence but also the authority of command and control that he uses when sparingly. I think he sees a bad outcome for this team if the Mosley situation is not resolved soon and is doing what he can to help them rather than simply feeding them to the wolves from DC.

Sam says that Mosley is too cautious for this to be a mistake (see my earlier comments about the outcome at the hotel) and I had to do a double take. She wasn’t cautious or careful … she was lucky. She’s hunting the cartels but is now being hunted by the local LEOs who do not know her or her game plan. This could turn messy if the good guys approach her at a critical moment and get themselves hurt in the middle of another one of her ‘off the books’ operations.

And the director drops the mike with the intel on the cartel. Yeah, I’m really starting to like this guy.

“Unleash the beast”. I think that will be one of my favorite lines from this season or maybe even all of them. Telling Deeks to drag out an interview is like telling Arnold Schwarzenegger to go pump some iron; he will be completely in his element and put all challengers to shame. Even the stenographer stopped writing. When he started answering questions by asking the same question, he channeled Kensi there for a moment, leaving them totally flummoxed. H-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s.

What salon is that? Those women looked dangerous and ready to do whatever was needed to protect their charge. I didn’t buy for one moment that Mosley was selling out Callen and the team. It came across as contrived and a bit over the top for trying to protect her and her son.

The drones were really James Bond and again displayed all the resources that Mosley was not utilizing in her quest. It did give us some comedy with Sam and Callen’s back and forth but it went on for almost two and a half minutes! After a while, I felt like Eric; frustrated and wanting it to end. I’m glad that the taxpayer funded research and development was taken into consideration while the guys got to play ‘squish the expensive tech’. Of course Eric had to step in and save the day. Thanks Beale!

Sam and Callen buying that Mosley was selling them out was not believable. She is part of a vast spy network with years of training and experience; she could have disappeared after Mexico, never to be seen or heard from again. The cat and mouse was great but having the team fall for it as well felt forced to me.

I liked the cartel guys shooting while throwing Molotov cocktails to keep their heads down. When they torched Sam’s car … oh boy, it was on then! Uhhhhh … driving blind through a residential area with pedestrians jumping out of the way? Sam, what planet are you on? I guess the rules about possible injuries to innocent civilians goes right out the window when you’re trying to save your own ass. Geez guys, give me a break. I’ll give kudos for driving into the car wash, but still … running over little ole ladies and kids crossing the street kind of erases that out.

While I enjoyed Deeks’ scenes delaying the prosecutor, by now, it’s feeling like it was simply a way to give ECO some screen time without him actually being with the rest of the team. Sam was right … they needed the help.

I do actually like Turk (played by Max Martini), and his dog, and hope that he is a new recurring character since we haven’t seen some of the others in some time. But his introduction so late in the show did not really add anything from his character. If he had been presented earlier, then the danger to the character would have felt more plausible. The plan to get the cartels to fight each other sounded good but they are always killing each other and would probably realize that they were being played. Why not just grab Mosley and use her for leverage against the team?

While the cartels are shooting holes in each other and the team dances away without a scratch (again), Mosley is back in the wind to do her own thing. And where in the heck was the DENSI? I mean, come on! Did Kensi and Deeks even share a conversation at all during this episode? She called him on the phone but she never spoke directly to him. For two people about to get married, they acted like they barely knew each other.

Now, my reaction to this episode and I’m going to be honest in how it made me feel.

Meh.

Not horrible but not all that memorable either. I’ve gone from “Die Anna, die!” to “Could we please have Mosley just disappear, never to be seen or mentioned again?” While the storyline was decent, none of it felt ‘real’ to me. In order for the viewer to believe the story, we must understand not only what the characters are doing, but also why they are doing it.

Mosley wants the cartels to cancel the million dollar hit on her and her son … got that part. But selling out her teammates and basically committing treason to do so, I did not buy for a moment. The danger presented by the hit was never really shown to be all that great with the team taking out the first crew and Mosley getting rid of the guy in his hotel room. Her motivation to make such a drastic move was not strong enough for me to believe she would actually do that. If I don’t believe anyone is really in danger, why would I care?

In last week’s episode, “Pro Se”, we had a few recurring characters that were placed in danger, primarily Tiffany, her mother, and Detective Whiting. The tension in that episode felt real because there were characters that we knew and (somewhat) cared about that could been injured or killed during the story. Even if they took out Detective Whiting, it would have been an emotional moment, either in relation to her death or how this would affect Deeks and his undercover operation for Internal Affairs.

I knew that Callen, Sam, Kensi, and Deeks were not in any real danger … but Tiffany, her mom, and Whiting could have taken a hit at any point. The drama stayed with me until the final scene as I kept waiting for some wild shot to hit Tiffany and give us an emotional Deeks being comforted by Kensi.

Now that was a good episode.

That’s why Asesinos gets a “meh”. Getting Mosley to the place where she would sell out her teammates was not presented in a way for me to believe she would do this. In the opening scene, if there had been an attempt on Derrick with Sam and Tom fighting off a hit team, then it would have been motivating enough to get Mosley to a much more desperate place emotionally. We would relate to a mother’s protectiveness for her child and could understand her turning traitor to save his life. Without that emotional jump, her immediate bargaining with their personal information felt contrived and forced in order to simply move the story forward without a true motivation behind the character’s actions.

This is an awesome show but sometimes it tries to take us on a ride that is ineffective. We might get lots of action,with explosions and shootouts, but without getting the viewer to care what happens to the characters or believe that they are actually in any kind of danger or that they would actually do what they did … it does not draw us in and hold our attention.

Now about the total lack of DENSI … what the heck? When Kensi was talking to Ochoa about her relationship with Deeks and she said that they had called it off before they went to Mexico, the episode made it look like they had done just that. There was nothing to show that they even liked each other, much less are engaged to be married.

Now, I’m not one for the endless smoochy-smoochy, but give us some soft touches, or some silent communication with just their eyes to show us that they are together. Kensi spoke more to Ochoa than she did Deeks and they never once even acknowledged each other’s presence. If I had never seen an episode of NCIS: LA and watched this one … I would not think for a moment that these two characters were in a relationship with each other.

Well, those are my thoughts and reactions to Asesinos and while I do think this season is off to a good start, this one fell a little flat for me. But don’t take it too hard … it’s still my favorite show! Let us know what you think about the episode and the start of the season in general.

Semper Fi