Tis not the season, but I don't care
Aug. 22nd, 2017 07:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessNCIS: LA 4.10 Free Ride
Hark, a Christmas episode! As a British viewer, I wouldn’t know what to do with an American Christmas episode around the Christmas holiday.
To be fair, this was quite good, or entertaining, certainly. Nell trying to get Eric to dress up was the silly festive stuff, but they had a properish case, with the tension of being away from home in the run-up to Christmas and possibly Christmas day itself, especially for Sam. Lots of gifts for viewers on the relationships front. Probably best of all was Sam grabbing and carrying Hetty in his excitement – an ‘I didn’t know I needed that’ moment of pure delight.
Also, surely Chekhov’s mistletoe is listed somewhere on TV Tropes.
Deeks was back and loud and obnoxious, but Eric Christian Olsen’s reading of ‘you suck’ (I bet the script just said ‘Deeks realises what he’s said’ as a direction for his reaction) was excellent. And after being away last episode, he was mainly the smitten kitten, despite flirting with the liaison (and there was this nice moment where she hid a grin, showing he’d got to her, or certainly amused her), to wit the walking into something when he saw Kensi touching her tall, young, hunky naval officer. Of course G and Sam saw this and easily wound him up – I count their relationship as one of the strengths of this episode, the back and forth about memory, the timing of the two actors (yes, even O’Donnell) and Sam sharing his serious concerns about his wife as the show Remembered That Plotline.
But to go back to Deeks (yes, I know I have feelings there) and all the ‘I am a detective who does detecting’ stuff (and he did do some useful detecting until he forgot G’s strictures to be careful), apart from being a non-Navy type on a big Navy ship, I suspect it was related to whatever he was actually doing in the previous episode. Ah well, he nearly got to take Kensi (and her mother) snowboarding, and if he’d seen how worried she was about him…
The line about Kensi being like a marine, but not (I thought yelling about leaving the evidence alone was a giveaway) was good. And wasn’t Jack a marine?
When we saw The Bad Guy strangling Deeks, I wasn’t sure who he was – turns out he was the supervisor of those delightful guys who beat up Deeks (I know he was annoying and doing something that appeared wrong, but shouldn’t they have taken him to senior officials, not beat him up? Let’s pretend it was the cocaine poisoning that made them fall below the high standards etc etc. But I was very sarcastic about the XO who threatened Callen and ignored facts. Yes, you should be in charge of weaponry like that and all those 19 year olds, 'sir'. Sure.)
Back on home soil, I spent most of the episode crooning at how Nell has Eric wrapped around her little finger. I don’t actually suspect her of faking being sad or of dressing up like a sexy elf entirely to get him to do her bidding, but definitely of taking advantage of the situation. And was that their first kiss onscreen? Aww. (You could have so much fun with that height difference.) It has been building up, and, again, he was nice about making up for the lack of real and surrogate families. This all may or may not have implications for an outfit-related fic I may or may not be writing.
On the other hand, I personally keeping zooming in on Nell’s wee pony tail and snickering.
Hark, a Christmas episode! As a British viewer, I wouldn’t know what to do with an American Christmas episode around the Christmas holiday.
To be fair, this was quite good, or entertaining, certainly. Nell trying to get Eric to dress up was the silly festive stuff, but they had a properish case, with the tension of being away from home in the run-up to Christmas and possibly Christmas day itself, especially for Sam. Lots of gifts for viewers on the relationships front. Probably best of all was Sam grabbing and carrying Hetty in his excitement – an ‘I didn’t know I needed that’ moment of pure delight.
Also, surely Chekhov’s mistletoe is listed somewhere on TV Tropes.
Deeks was back and loud and obnoxious, but Eric Christian Olsen’s reading of ‘you suck’ (I bet the script just said ‘Deeks realises what he’s said’ as a direction for his reaction) was excellent. And after being away last episode, he was mainly the smitten kitten, despite flirting with the liaison (and there was this nice moment where she hid a grin, showing he’d got to her, or certainly amused her), to wit the walking into something when he saw Kensi touching her tall, young, hunky naval officer. Of course G and Sam saw this and easily wound him up – I count their relationship as one of the strengths of this episode, the back and forth about memory, the timing of the two actors (yes, even O’Donnell) and Sam sharing his serious concerns about his wife as the show Remembered That Plotline.
But to go back to Deeks (yes, I know I have feelings there) and all the ‘I am a detective who does detecting’ stuff (and he did do some useful detecting until he forgot G’s strictures to be careful), apart from being a non-Navy type on a big Navy ship, I suspect it was related to whatever he was actually doing in the previous episode. Ah well, he nearly got to take Kensi (and her mother) snowboarding, and if he’d seen how worried she was about him…
The line about Kensi being like a marine, but not (I thought yelling about leaving the evidence alone was a giveaway) was good. And wasn’t Jack a marine?
When we saw The Bad Guy strangling Deeks, I wasn’t sure who he was – turns out he was the supervisor of those delightful guys who beat up Deeks (I know he was annoying and doing something that appeared wrong, but shouldn’t they have taken him to senior officials, not beat him up? Let’s pretend it was the cocaine poisoning that made them fall below the high standards etc etc. But I was very sarcastic about the XO who threatened Callen and ignored facts. Yes, you should be in charge of weaponry like that and all those 19 year olds, 'sir'. Sure.)
Back on home soil, I spent most of the episode crooning at how Nell has Eric wrapped around her little finger. I don’t actually suspect her of faking being sad or of dressing up like a sexy elf entirely to get him to do her bidding, but definitely of taking advantage of the situation. And was that their first kiss onscreen? Aww. (You could have so much fun with that height difference.) It has been building up, and, again, he was nice about making up for the lack of real and surrogate families. This all may or may not have implications for an outfit-related fic I may or may not be writing.
On the other hand, I personally keeping zooming in on Nell’s wee pony tail and snickering.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-23 02:28 pm (UTC)I think that happened with Downton Abbey here one season. They started airing it in January so the Christmas episode aired in June or July. :-) Just try to get into the holiday spirit I suppose!
no subject
Date: 2017-09-04 07:58 pm (UTC)Because I watch so much US TV, I'm used to it, but it does lend a certain distance from the festive mood there episodes tend to have when you're not in the middle of the build-up.