NCIS: LA - Black Wind

Some dudes didn't stop at a border checkpoint, one of them ran away and the other one is 'bleeding' from the nose... Green. Green blood. Didn't CSI do an episode about green blood??

Deeks is going all environmentally-friendly. And not letting them flush their pee. I'm with Callen, that's hella unsanitary. He got stabbed in the butt by a cactus. And no one will help him remove it.

Apparently it's something to do with anthrax. Uh-oh. Hetty has also surfed every corner of Mexico.

Hetty is not impressed by your beach-bum ways, Deeks!!

Marty shouted 'Morgan Freeman' when Kensi pulled the cactus out of him. I'm not sure whether that was a reference to the 40-Year-Old Virgin chest-waxing 'Kelly Clarkson!' thing, or....

Maybe Deeks was just taking the name of the Lord in vain?

5L of anthrax is enough to take out most of southern California. Does that scare anyone else? Scares the hell out of me... Although I don't live in California, so I think I'm safe.

Callen and Sam go to meet with Agent Fuentes, who I thought was the dude from their first Mexican adventure, but apparently not.. Because it's a girl. Who kinda looks like Cecily Strong.

I think Mexico brings out Sam's inner calculator - as he and Callen bond over knowing the exact tax percentage on something.

Then they start arguing (rather adorably) about the proper way to cook something. Some sketchy police officer comes along and tries to bribe them into 'renewing their license' until some construction guy who also conveniently works on the health department steps in. And he tells them they should 'pay for some protection'. That doesn't sound creepy at all... BUT THAT'S OK BECAUSE HE'S THIS GUY:

How about a member of a gang? Do they call you that?

Kensi and Deeks (who I'm pretty sure are wearing matching couple outfits) find the driver of the truck from the beginning, the passenger was his son. He shoves some pipes onto them and Deeks gets grass stains catching him (poor baby) and then proceeds to ask him a bunch of plumbing questions.

This is not the first time Eric has magically been able to find people, but how the hell does he know that one dude eats lunch at the same place every day? Said dude is a scientist who works with pesticides. He tells Sam and Callen that you do not 'congregate with groups of Americans'. Well ok then.

Apparently there's a tunnel that's used for drug smuggling, which is how the father and son at the beginning got into the country. Deeks cracks wise and Granger gives him a blank face.

Callen and Sam go to move their truck - and then the truck won't stop moving. They try putting it in neutral, turning off the ignition, everything - EXCEPT FOR THE DAMN EMERGENCY BRAKE WHICH CALLEN ONLY USES AT THE VERY LAST SECOND. Like c'mon guys, that would have been my first instinct. I'm just confused about how you can disconnect the ignition so it turns the car on, but then the car continues running even when you try to shut it off.. But oh well, I never claimed to be a mechanic.

They get into the tunnel and someone shuts off the power and then starts shooting at them. The father gets hit, then refuses to go to the hospital (where his son is, isn't that counter-intuitive?!) Then we're treated to a rare moment of Granger sass - Deeks tells him 'control the bleeding!' and he retorts with 'control the shooter!'

Not bad. But we all know who the sassiest Granger of them all is...

Granger also tells them not to do anything stupid, which they take to mean 'go on ahead and attempt to shut down a factory full of ANTHRAX and who knows how many armed dudes on your own'. Ugh. They also find the body of the taxi driver that was working with Agent  Fuentes - although they'd have no way of knowing who he is. As soon as she finds out, she feels all guilty, and then 'the show must go on' and Kensi & Deeks show up and they do the whole 'split up and search for clues' thing.

O-ho, the 'no congregating with Americans' guy is dead. Raise your hands if you saw that coming.

CHILDREN!! I told you to stop watching this show!! Isn't it past your bedtime?!!

Kensi and Deeks get safely to the family of the anthrax victim, and even though the little boy is scared, Deeks bonds with him over Mighty Mouse.

Cartoons are the perfect way to calm down a scared child right before they're attacked.

But then Eric and Nell call to say that the scientist guy just crossed the border - a little odd because they're looking at his body. Apparently his car had some kind of special clearance with the border, because that's not a glaring hole in national security. With the touch of a button, Eric Photoshops the fake facial hair off photo of the guy crossing the border, and...

DAMMNIT ESTEBAN!!!!

And I'm confused, aren't dangerous drug-smuggling Mexicans dangerous enough? Why do they have to be linked to middle-Eastern terrorists as well?? And why did this dude not use the readily-available smuggling tunnel to smuggle the anthrax?? Why risk being caught with it at the border??

"I only have two left" - Oh sure, NOW Callen's gun has a limited supply of bullets...

Callen can count! Archer would be proud!

CALLEN AND SAM JUST MADE A GHOSTBUSTERS REFERENCE YOU GUYS LIKE A LONG ONE AND IT WAS REALLY OBVIOUS AND I AM SO FREAKING PROUD OF THIS SHOW!!!!

*SOB* Weird timing, too, because I watched Groundhog Day today.

Then Homeland Security arrives and is mean and takes away the grandfather and everyone's all sad and the little boy yells and Deeks that he's 'supposed to be the good guys'. Oops. No amount of retro animation is gonna fix this one.

But good-guy Granger to the rescue!! And so Deeks hugs him. Awwwe. Plus the cactus blooms, which is.. important, I guess?

BTW, my reference game is on FIRE today. 3 TV shows and 5 movies. *self-five*

NCIS: LA - Black Budget

It's a really odd and unfortunate coincidence that there are two of my shows which revolve around mass shootings this week, following the shooting in Ottawa last Wednesday - last night, preceding the new episode of CSI, CTV actually aired a modified warning that 'in light of recent events, this episode may be disturbing to some viewers'. I know it's pretty irrational (especially considering I'm from Canada), but mass shootings are one of my biggest fears. What a depressing world we live in.

Callen and Sam have to go to Mexico to find an accountant guy who managed to escape the shooting at his office, and then fled the country for some reason. And I love it when Hetty calls Eric and Nell 'you two', it's almost like she's their mother.

Such cuties. They're definitely the 'children' in this weird NCIS family.

Literally right after they pull up in Mexico, a bunch of gang guys come out of nowhere and steal their guns and keys and phones. Now that's just bad luck. HAHAHA it's ok, he's actually a DEA agent and he doesn't want the boys to compromise his operation, but at least he gives them some crappy 'untraceable' revolvers to use, and a lemon of a car.

Well, ok. It wasn't as bad as this one. Theirs had windows.

Kensi is capable of translating Deeks' words when he has food in his mouth.That takes some skill. I'm not sure I could do that.

Sam is capable of coming across as insanely creepy when he's 'in character'. Callen is a little surprised by this. And I don't think Sam pulling his gun at the obvious bad guys who just walked into a bar is really the BEST idea he's ever had... Not to draw attention to yourselves, or anything. Somehow they manage to miss him with their semiautomatics, but he has no luck with his revolver either (that's a new one).

One of the girls from the bar/brothel (barthel? Using that word now) was harbouring the escapee (Milton, what a typical accountant name) at her sister's house. And they tell Callen and Sam that he's engaged to the sister, and Callen gets extremely sarcastic, which is one of my favourite things ever - he even sounds a little like Shawn from Psych.

Girl: "He's my fiance. We're going to be married."

Callen: "Yeah, that's usually what 'fiance' means." Sarcastic Callen is the best Callen.

The girl he rescued from the barthel starts hitting on him once she finds out he's never been married, and Sam starts laughing. The accountant guy is still really suspicious of Sam and Callen.


Deeks tickles Kensi's 'conspiracy bone'... Which is an odd way of phrasing things.

The bad guys from the barthel naturally show up at the house - in big black SUVs, the obvious car of choice for bad guys. They've cut the phone lines and toss in a walkie for communication. Sam thinks they're the delta unit that Milton had figured out stole a lot of money from the government. Which is why they wanna kill him. And they have the typical military pissing contest of 'our guns are bigger than yours mwahaha'.

Conveniently, Hetty and the others at Ops manage to figure out the bit about the stolen money at about the same time as Granger figures out that the team in question is in Mexico. He pulls out some bureaucratic language on an uncooperative army sergeant, and then demands for a helicopter to Mexico.

Deeks knows a lot of words beginning with 'L' and he manages to act like a game show host/infomercial guy while talking about prison. But he and Kensi determine that Milton was actually working WITH the bad guys.

Deeks would make an even better salesman than this dude.

The mother of the two Mexican girls thinks Sam is sexy and asks 'who am I, Zorro?' when she's given a machete to defend herself. YES. BE ZORRO. ZORRO IS AWESOME.

When I was a kid, my Dad was Zorro for Halloween. His sword was a stick covered in tinfoil. True story.

Callen has a touching moment with the one girl, whilst the house is surrounded with bad guys. Now is totally the time for that sentimental crap. And then Callen and Sam reach the same conclusion as Densi - a moment too late cos Milton has a gun aimed at them.

Then the girls' grandmother pops out of nowhere and hits him over the head with a frying pan, because old ladies are badass.

I couldn't resist.

But even though the bad guys wait patiently outside while they tie Milton up and the girls kick him a few times for double-crossing them, the bad guys still want them to send him out. For some reason. And Sam tries to talk on the walkie-talkie in Spanish, as though the Delta guys wouldn't be able to understand him - c'mon Sam!! Use your head!!

OK I'm confused now. If Milton was working with the bad guys, why did he take off? Did he double-cross them? And if he didn't, and he just fled the country with his money before he was implicated as a thief, why did the bad guys come after him?? [Edit: it's later revealed that he was the one who transferred the stolen money, so they wouldn't be able to access it without him] Apparently Delta operatives are even scarier than Navy SEALS. Although I gotta say, the name 'SEAL' (even though I know it's an acronym) has never been the most intimidating word...

I MEAN LOOK HOW CUUUUTE!!!

Sam manages the shoot the ONE guy they sent to go through the door, and the girls throw homemade Molotov cocktails at a few more. And then the mother proves she is, in fact, Zorro (or at least has seen Friday the 13th) and takes another one of them out. Sam and Callen decide to have some playful banter in the middle of a firefight about who's the better shot, because that's what they do best. And I thought they'd be faster at reloading their weapons.

'Sexyman' (the mother's words, not mine) takes the machete so he uses Milton as a hostage and then just when things get tense - BAM! Granger shows up at just the right time, and the last guys are dead. Because the REAL Delta team showed up and killed them. One of them looks like Ryan Reynolds. I approve. You know, I should have known they were impostors when they had such bad aim at the barthel. And none of them had beards.

The Mexican girls (apparently not caring that their house had been DESTROYED) keep flirting with Callen and say that Sam informed them he was a very lonely man. I concur. But Granger cuts in and says Callen needs to get back to the States right away. Because he just wouldn't be Granger if he didn't suck the fun out of everything.

Granger's here to do two things: Kick some ass, and ruin your fun. And he's all out of asses to kick.

Also, that should be his catchphrase. Someone put that line, with his face, on a T-shirt.