NCIS: Los Angeles - Matryoshka, Part 2

I am a bad fan.

I had a lot of assignment-y-type things due on Tuesdays through February, and as a result I would procrastinate and be doing them at the last minute. So I kept missing NCIS: LA. And then, when I got behind, I was just like 'ehhh I'm too tired to blog about it and catch up.' Bad. Shame on me.

So I'm gonna attempt to marathon all the things and catch up and yeah. (Even though I have a class presentation tomorrow, and one the day after that, and an assignment due the day after THAT.)

Anna is flirting with some dudes in Russian, in a bar. And then when she switches to English, she no longer sounds Russian. As per usual.

She lures one of the guys outside and then pushes him into a van, which just so happens to contain Sam. Hey this prison guard guy they kidnapped looks slightly like San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey! I'm gonna call him Russian Buster from here on out.

Real Buster has nicer hair, though. 

Everyone back at Ops (except Granger and Hetty) are super-worried about the risks being taken by Callen and Sam in Russia. Granger's all 'meh who cares if they die they die' and Hetty's like 'my team is invincible, what are you talking about'.

Someone sneaks up on Anna and she whips out her gun, but it's just a Hetty iPad attatched to a Segway.  Which is totally necessary. You know, she couldn't just use a phone or something. or Skype. Hetty would never use such a plebian method of communication.

I'm inclined to point out that Sheldon did it first. And better. 

Anna refuses to refer to Arkady as her dad. Oh good! She has daddy issues! Something else for her and Callen to bond over!!

Back at Ops, Eric and Nell run some simulations of the plan, and Nell delivers some badass wisdom on Granger when he says 'life isn't a video game'. Cos "In a video game, you get to start over."
Hey Granger, when have you ever played a video game?? They're fun. You hate fun.

For some reason, Anna is wearing a blanket, over her regular clothing to sleep - and then she falls asleep on Callen's shoulder like two sentences in to his description of the plan?? How ridiculously contrived is that?

For some reason there's some sketchy guy they need to investigate, and Granger decides to send Eric out in the field. ERIC?! And how dare you, sir, tell him to put on pants! He's clearly allergic to fabric beyond knee-length!

HAHAHA WE GOT ERIC FLEXING AND WEARING COMBAT PANTS AND OH MY GOD

Anna asks Callen what he 'thinks of her'. And he gives the only correct response - "That's... kind of a... broad question." Blah blah blaaah, bonding over absentee fathers, yadda yadda 'maybe broken is normal'... Gag me with a spoon.

The guy Deeks and Kensi were going to talk to does indeed start shooting, and Eric freezes up, but then he plays the hero, pulling out a flashbang that dazes the guy long enough for Deeks to shoot him. The others are impressed with his strategy, meanwhile I'm impressed with his aim! I think I kinda like Badass Beale.

Oh my god, they block the transport carrying Arkady and the CIA guy with a COW hahaha that's definitely something I've never seen before.

Nell is really proud of Eric for what he did earlier - and he looks at her with super-honest eyes and says he was scared that he - DAMNIT GRANGER YOU HAVE THE WORST TIMING, THEY WERE HAVING A MOMENT HERE!!!!

Granger, interrupting ALL your personal conversations.

They can't get out of Russia because the CIA guy is hurt so that would attract suspicion. He says he knew Callen way back in the day. He gets them to a safe house (which has a weirdly cryptic walkie talkie on the side of the road that claims to have an IED planted under it if he doesn't give the password. There's an old man at the house who has a meaningful look at Callen.

Callen finds a bunch of nesting dolls at the house, and one of those coins that his father had handed out to refugees in an earlier episode.

They have no choice but to leave on horseback, which Arkady is none too pleased about.

Callen and the old guy have a deep conversation without saying much at all. And then they get interrupted by the folks who are there to help them escape. DANGNABBIT! What's with all the interruptions?!! He says "I'll tell you another time". But you won't see him again!

HOLY CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!!

CALLEN HAS A FIRST NAME

IT'S GRISHA

AND HE HAS SOME MIDDLE NAMES TOO

You know, I'm not gonna lie, it's not the kind of name I would have expected for him. I was expecting something tough, like Gregor or Gabriel or Gryffindor.

But Callen will be Callen and he will be a badass no matter what his name is. I'm just so glad he knows! (But really, wouldn't that reveal have been best saved for like, a season finale or something?? I mean it's the ONE big mystery this show's had since Day One...)

NCIS: LA - Chernoff, K.

Lots of 'previously seen on'. Lots of shooting.

Pew pew pew! 

The bad guy is in the wind, along with Anna. Turns out the guys shooting at our guys in the opener were not Karposev's men, but a hit squad sent to kill him. Fun.

'A little less conversation, a little more information please' is Hetty Lange's new Elvis parody. Catchy, eh? She won an apartment in Moscow in a poker game in 1992, because why not. Hetty's a badass.

Anna decides to pull a gun on Sam, because that seems like a good idea - also, she doesn't have a Russian accent. I don't know what kind of accent that is, but it's very faint and it's not Russian. She denies being Arkady's daughter, and has killed Karposev because he wanted to 'keep her like a pet'. Ew.

Deeks shoots a guy, saving Kensi's life, and she is less than grateful. Literally all 'Damnit, you killed him!'

Seriously, what's with this Anna chick?? Apparently she worked at one point for Chicago PD, and her accent is more French than anything... good grief.

Callen has questions about his father, and Arkady has a somehow-related history lesson about an espresso machine. The guy Arkady thinks was Callen's father was sent to the gulag but somehow escaped, and OH HEY! Now we know what he looks like! Kind of!

Callen looks just like him. 

I really hope Anna is not around for much longer. Her accent is terrible. Also the guy Deeks shot was a member of ISIS - why?! Why do all the evil plots in the world have to do with ISIS?!

There's a meeting of all the people who bought the oil, so the team needs to infiltrate it for some reason. You know stuff's getting intense when Kensi takes her hair out of her ponytail. Also Callen could get Eric in trouble with the Russians for snooping around to find out more information about Callen's father. But of course, Eric be damned! Our hero needs to find out his identity!

Sneaky Kensi steals a guy's car and 'secures' the buyers from Cameroon. Computery stuff is computery, and suddenly Kensi is taking Nell's place in explaining all the tech stuff.

Arkady doesn't sing. I'm so confused about all this running around and beating people up. It is NOT HELPFUL when you stress out Eric when he's working, guys. NOT HELPFUL. Yet again, TV criminals demonstrate how unoriginal they are by driving a black van. Anna kicks the crap out of a guy, and Arkady is shot. Damnit! I liked him! Why couldn't the damn girl have died, she of the inconsistent accent?!!

The police are approaching, Arkady tries to be a hero and distract them, and even though she supposedly hates him, Anna offers to stay with him. Hetty insists that's not a good idea, so they all leave. And in the next scene, we find out that Anna has disappeared and Arkady is still alive somehow. Callen wants to stay behind and track him down, but Hetty says no.

Hetty was married?!! In Russia?!! As a part of an undercover assignment? For some reason it's significant to her, even though the man didn't mean anything to her. Hetty found out information about the name Callen's dad took on after he escaped the gulag. Konstantine Chernoff. Hence the episode title. And he died in 2008. Poor baby Callen, he's so sad! Especially considering he was actually in Moscow for years before his father died. So he goes and stands around the cemetary, and the cafe, and a bunch of other landmarks, with Sam just watching over his shoulder. Sam waits for hours (I assume) before saying anything, which is "Let's go."

And then JUUUUST when we think the episode is over, an old man comes in and orders an espresso at the cafe. AND HE HAS A COIN!! IT'S HIM!!! Of course!!

So that's all for this season, I am so relieved they got renewed, and I can't wait to see what happens next time! Until then, toodles!

NCIS: LA - Beacon

Not going to lie, I definitely read the title as 'bacon' when I first saw it. Probably as a result of the bacon I just had for dinner. Nom.

Oh look, Arkady is back! Oh look, he's wrestling with someone. Oh look, an explosion! Oh look.. I'm pretty sure he's dead.

Thank you for the re-enactment, Jon.

Callen is dropping off his lady friend and she's all skeptical about whether he'll actually be around that evening like he says. Makes me wonder what exactly these people do on their days off. Work out? Target practice? Sit around practicing their quipping? She says "I'm still getting used to this". You've had four months lady! Why is this complaining only happening now? Also where the heck have you been for the last four months?!

MISSING: Have you seen this woman? Oh, nevermind. There she is.

Granger doesn't want Kensi and Deeks in the field together. Because they have fun when they're together, and Granger is against that. (Just kidding. It's actually because of that LAPD investigation about him. That hasn't been mentioned for weeks, I'd almost forgotten about that). Hetty says Callen is sad not because Arkady was his friend, but because he was possibly the last link to his father and his family. *Cue the sympathetic tears for the misunderstood orphan hero*

Callen finds a pocketwatch from the KGB on the body, which apparently Arkady always carried with him. He also looks at the burned body and says "There's no way of knowing who this is." THAT'S BULLCRAP. BONES WOULD HAVE IT DONE IN FIVE MINUTES. Actually, Angela would probably scan the head and be like "well various parts of the face burn at different rates so I reverse-burnt them and here's his face."

Not that Angela isn't a genius, but COME ON WHERE IS THE REALITY?!

Apparently Eric has taught Callen that origin stories tend to disappoint. He's not wrong. But Callen likening himself to a superhero is so cheesy... Ugh. Also, apparently Callen has been to Arkady's house a few times. Because "he has a nice pool". Suuuuuuure Callen.

Deeks found some fingerprints and ran through a crime scene scenario. Which Kensi finds pretty hot. I concur, Kensi. Also pretty observant of him. He and Kensi found a deed to a yacht hidden in a frame.

Eric is a little resentful of Deeks and I don't know why... Apparently he's jealous of his hair. But Eric has nice hair too!

Be proud of your hair, Eric. Actually, be proud of your face, too.

He and Nell figure out something smart and then Eric says "I love you!" OH MY GOD. Which obviously was because of how excited he was about her idea, but then he covers it by saying "By that, I mean your mind. Your beautiful, gorgeous mind." AWWWWEEE!!!! And then he makes it creepy/weird again by saying he wants to take some of it home with him and she says that's like a lobotomy and he realizes she's right and I am still squealing internally because THIS IS THE ERIC AND NELL BANTER I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR ALL SEASON!!

I'M SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!!

Callen is eating tofu. Voluntarily. That's weird. Apparently it was Joelle's idea. And he actually listened? We finally address the stuff Callen does on his day off, and I was right, it is all work-related stuff. He has no hobbies. And he also sleeps on the floor. What a weirdo.

After Eric has freaked out about the person they discovered in the video footage - we cut to Callen and Sam and Arkady walks up to them all casual and says hi. Which I totally called. Clearly he's alive. It's right in the episode description that a 'murder victim shows up alive and asks for their help.' SHOCKING!

Arkady is funny. He wants bagpipes for his funeral. And the guy in the car is the guy we saw him struggling with at the beginning of the episode, he ended up shooting that guy with his own gun. AND his car was already rigged to explode. What the shit?! Who does that?!! What if he accidentally hit that button on the remote? What if someone rear-ended him?? That is insane.

Arkady is not being helpful, he doesn't want to be in the interview room, he wants coffee, he calls kayaks 'canoes'. But seriously, the boatshed is nice. The Coast Guard finds that the yacht might actually be a cargo ship, because it has a transponder.

Arkady is worried about a random girl who's on his phone, and admits that he set up a deal between American people with ships, and Russians with cargo. Also the guy whose fingerprints were in Arkady's ransacked house was a suspended LAPD officer who now works for the sketchy shipping company. He was the one who Arkady shot and then blew up, but he was working with another guy, also an ex-cop, who they can't find.

Deeks is all sad and sighing and gloomy and Kensi asks him if there's anything bad that IA might find, and he doesn't know how to answer that. Sad Deeks face.

Arkady tells Hetty that's it's 'nice to see her again', and she responds "I wish I could say the same, but my mother raised me not to tell lies."

Haha so witty Hetty. Although that in itself was a lie, because she lies all the time. PARADOX ALERT!

The ship was full of oil. 100 million dollars' worth of oil, to be exact. HOLY SHIT. Damn oil. Apparently that's enough to start a war. No kidding.

I'm sorry, did someone say 'oil'?

The sketchy siblings who own the sketchy shipping company are stereotypically sketchy to the max. And the bad cop who Kensi and Deeks were tailing is on his way to meet them. For some more sketchy dealings, no doubt. Turns out the bad guy is not the one who they were looking for, he's dead and in the trunk of his own car. But they go into the stairway so naturally that concrete interrupts their radio and Callen and Sam can't hear them. Somehow yelling 'gun' and causing mass panic lets all the civilians know who the BAD guy with the gun is... No one ducks and runs from Sam. He didn't even try to shoot Arkady, he just shoots the shipping company owners. And then Sam shoots him. He was a Russian contract killer.

Callen returns the pocketwatch to Arkady and they exchange Russian phrases. Yaaaay symbolic gestures! And Arkady calls Callen 'my friend' as he leaves, so THEY TOTALLY ARE FRIENDS.

Hetty has a feeling that 'the day is not yet over'. And Nell says that the tanker is not where it's supposed to be. So now Hetty wants to talk to Arkady again, but that's gonna be easier said than done.

I really wish there'd been more resolution to the Nell/Eric awkward cuteness, but hey, those few scenes we had with them were a lot more than we've had in recent weeks. I'll take it!
Also, someone give Deeks a hug.