shallowness

Love, Lies and Records Episode 2

Another full day for Kate, registering at and officiating a marriage, registering the death of the young mother she’d just married, resigning from her promotion because BLACKMAIL, but getting asked to reconsider, the numbers of people at home surging and lowering as her daughter bunked off school/ran away. And that’s about half of it.

Her partner, whose name is not Brian from Teachers, was in the dog-house for not ever saying over the last fourteen years, or when she proposed, that he was still married to his ex. Rick, his rival at work, was doing the puppy eyes thing at Kate, now that he knew she wasn’t actually married and having moments at the wedding. And she does put on her best face at work, being empathic with the public. No wonder most of the staff members with more than two lines threatened to resign if Judy got the temporary promotion back – a wrinkle she hadn’t thought of. And as Kate got some material on her, they seemed well matched for battle.

It still exudes this warm vibe, even though this episode featured a dead Slovenian, leading to some dread about Kate opening her mouth about What She Saw At The Police Station to some dodgy people, and getting them interested in her (complicated) personal life. WHICH INVOLVES A LOVE TRIANGLE. I’m generally opposed to them. The guy she’s committed to isn’t perfect and quite bad at communication, and I get that having someone younger think you’re wonderful must be nice, but the rivalry with Judy is far more interesting.

I think the young lady who was hanging around and talking intently to Rick, making Kate jealous, may have a connection to the PO, who I keep thinking as ‘him off The Bill’.

I have been doing stuff of a Monday night, so I’ve had to catch up with NCIS: LA

4.22 The Ravens and the Swans

I mostly liked it, although I thought the main emotional through-line was just a weird restatement of what should have been obvious already about Hetty taking orphans under her wings and then letting them out to a very dangerous world to carry out dangerous missions for her. But when Grace (whom, like Kensi, I liked very much) turned up, Callen got a bit jealous that his mother figure had even more ducklings/cubs (or cygnets to use the show’s bird of choice) and upset because of the pattern he should have seen before. Again, not new, but it required Chris O’Donnell to act emotional, which…ah, well.

I have no idea how Hetty thought telling the team to look into the case (that she ordered them to find the identity of the gunmen is a minor distinction) would keep them away from finding out about Grace. And Callen was blind to the fact that he was keeping as many secrets from Sam and thus doing what Hetty did that was so enraging to him. Also, it took Hetty to raise her voice when Callen had been all shouty to get Kensi and Deeks to notice they were fighting?

Maybe they’d been bantering. The whole I had a high school band thing, (surely Kensi should also have threatened to tell Eric and Nell who would be far more likely to find the footage we all wanted to see) and honeymooners/bed fights were tremendously entertaining.

AND NELL GOT TO GO OUT ON A MISSION. Nice moment, that, balanced out with Eric getting more air time. I could have lived with seeing them all dressed up for the fancy dress party – were Kensi and Deeks also going as students? And there were a couple of references to Callen as a werewolf.

So, basically, all the shenanigans and some of the plot were very entertaining, but we have seen the Hetty-Callen stuff before, and I say that as someone who hasn’t seen all the eps of the show ever.

4.23 Parley

The set up in the openin tag seemed familiar, girl gets shot at and then chased down a pavement I’m sure they’ve used before. The twist was when she decided to kiss her saviour before they were home safe (SO SMRT). The big reveal was that her saviour is Deeks.

So, he was in absentia for strained working out=sex banter between the other three, where Eric and his robot dancing made Callen not the biggest idiot of the scene.

And so the team found out that Grainger had sent Deeks undercover, while Kensi found out about the kissing.

We then had Kensi in Deeks’ ear, not at all jealous, no, making him laugh with her laugh and snark, while Monica was still a bit stupid about what she’d done.

We had more banter (generally stuff within CO’D’s wheelhouse) and I was aghast at Callen laughing at what T’Chaila meant to Sam. (Please let T’Chaila being richer than Tony Stark be a thing in the MCU.)

They were pushing hard on the price of going undercover to one’s integrity/sense of self with Deeks. (Sometimes, like with the banter, there was strain on that.)

Oh fancy that, towards the end of the season, there’s a link with Syderov.

I am glad the team considered that Monica was a likely target for shooting (I was thinking sniper) and gave her a vest, even if they tried to tease the audience).

ECO did a very good job of showing Deeks’s vulnerability at the end (Ruah was quite good) and Kensi and Deeks were their usual ridiculous selves about their partnership, which was shown to be different from Sam and Callen’s.

And then Hetty made her move, which okay proves Hetty knows everything and is a probable Kesni/Deeks shipper or embodies the fact that the show ships them. It wasn’t likely to be another job offer in the message for Deeks, given that Deeks’s mission was all Grainger’s idea. But it’s a bit !!?? if you think about it that Hetty knows everything.

Admission: every time I see the trailer for Battle of the Sexes it is at the point that I see ECO that I think 'oh, maybe I will go and see it then'.