Game for Game: Personal Vs Professional, Deeks Vs Hetty

Beginning of the End or End of the Beginning! 

Granger: Beginning of the End?
Hetty: No. End of the Beginning.

That was Hetty getting Deeks message. 

The End of Profanity
The End of Indecisivness
The End of Beating around the Bushes
The End of Hide and Seek
The End of How it Began. The "This Thing" "No Thing" "Our Thing"
Its the Beginning of serious commitment - Its a Love Story
Its the Beginning of serious consideration.

You might have noticed that there is an increasing distance between Deeks and Hetty from 5x14-War Cries. All we can see is a boss and subordinate relationship from 5x14-War Cries onwards. At first Hetty distances herself from Deeks. Hetty becomes pronounced as a tough boss from 5x17-Between the Lines. And by 5x19-SpoilsOfWar, Deeks does notice himself being singled out from the rest of the Kensi Search and Rescue Mission. I have traced this in each of the episodes so far. While Hetty relented to Deeks rebellious seeking of his partner in 5x20-Windfall, who would have suspected that she had plans of making a mockery of Deeks personal relationship with his partner, to her professional use of having a breakthrough to another NCIS Agent Paulo Angelo going rogue. It was downright making it public and that too in a demeaning way, like a commodity available for trade. She used Densi relationship for her professional gain and she justified as it being okay. Perhaps, these are the unforeseen ugly consequences of falling in love with partners at work places. Others making a joke or game out of it. What follows is an humiliated and outraged response from Densi, especially Deeks, as he can see where this is all leading to. And he makes a decision. Perhaps, Hetty can let Kensi and Deeks work together without worrying. But can Hetty be sure that, her relationship with Deeks is still intact. Would he be able to see that, by taking that extreme step, perhaps, she might have protected him before, it became more ugly?!!! We cannot tell. We have to wait.

One might wonder, what I am rambling about. Well..I am rambling about, why Deeks felt outraged coming out of the Boatshed Interrogation of Paulo Angelo, and how he felt like taking a shower. And how what he did in the end actually is his step to protect his third heart. Hetty asked Deeks in 5x05-Unwritten Rule, "How's your emotional Center?". And Kensi asked in 5x21-ThreeHearts, "What does your Third Heart say?" A long journey indeed for Deeks to learn that one can be exploited even by the persons you trust most. It is perhaps too early for me to even say this, but one cannot ignore the vibes we get. Hard as it was for Deeks to break away from Kensi, but he just got his personal dignity back by securing his Third Heart. 

How did Deeks come around this decision? or rather how did the writers take him there?

The Fight between Being Professional and Personal

It was Deeks all over again, with his Love Story in EP 5x21-ThreeHearts. A repeat of 5x16-Fish Out of Water mental state leading to 5x19-Spoils of War vulnerable state, seeking a release from the 5x10-FrozenLake. Can he be patient with Kensi? He can be provided Kensi wants to. Is Kensi serious enough about him. Yes. To the point of her letting him go to protect him. What does Deeks do? Take the plunge. He lets her go and do whatever she wants to do with him. He will wait for her.

In 5x16-Fish Out of Water, Joe Sachs weaves a story for Densi and Deeks, with the serious side of the “Love Story” coming up for the first time after Frozen Lake. The complication of two working partners falling in love and what implications each can have regards to his or her career is touched upon through the Guest character DEA Agent Talia. And yet by the end of the episode, Deeks is adamant about what he wants. If he fell in love with his work-partner and it has become a purposeful and meaningful existence for him, makes him a better person, he would fight for all of it, and be ready for any kind of fight he has to take up with his authorities. The simple human reason being, how can falling in love be demeaned as complicated if one can be reasonable enough to work it out. 

For all of these arguments, there are consequences and the persons, who ask these sort of questions get charged of breaking the law, like Paulo Angelo, but in the end, their question is valid enough for us to put our thoughts to amend a wrong. We can see that the emotional meltdown that Deeks goes through in 5x16-Fish Out of Water consequences both professionally and personally, he starts to fight for his own individuality, his beliefs, all that his existence is made of in the subsequent episodes. It starts becoming a fight between him and authority as represented by Henrietta Lange and a fight between him and professionalism as represented by Special Agent Kensi Blye. In 5x19-SpoilsofWar, Deeks disproves Hetty that he can let his emotions get in the middle of the rescue operation. Even if he loses himself briefly, Deeks finds his ground and is instrumental in rescuing all the others.

When Kensi is back, she is not allowed to work on field with Deeks. Nell is asked to work with Deeks and Kensi is asked to help Eric Beale in Ops Room. Can Densi and Neric take all this? Neric take it professionally. Deeks though disappointed that he did not get Kensi's company even when, she was there, he still manages working on a good footing with Nell. He continues mentoring Nell as Senior to Junoir and supportive and appreciative of her skills on the field. In contrast, Kensi miserably fails to work with Eric Beale. After watching Nell and Eric make her feel totally incapable as them, her spirit just kicks in honestly to be humble enough to approach her boss and ask her to allow her to get back to “Agent-ing”. It was a big step for Kensi. Like in 5x02-Impact, Deeks came back to form at the carrot stick of Hetty having to find his replacement for Kensi’s partner, Kensi in 5x20-Windfall, feels the jolt of not being able to work with Deeks and that too someone who replaced her in a better way on the field and in the Ops Room where she was assigned for the day. Why this is important is because, Kensi has gone back to her shell and has grown comfortable in her inner pain by not reigning in her emotions. She also has stopped being responsive to Deeks as someone who loves her to infinity. But being left alone, with no partner, makes her kick herself alive. And then comes her possessive response about losing Deeks to someone else. The return and the punch.

All of this is being favourable and understanding to Kensi. But the wait is getting longer for Deeks. Who is taking care of him for his fallout in Afghanistan? Apparently no one. Not only had Deeks seen his Third Heart with regards to vulnerability caused by his feelings for Kensi, Deeks also had to see the revelation, that in Kensi's heart, Deeks had never been able to make a place for him in last 3 years, that Jack Simon had in Kensi's heart apparently gone missing and presumed dead from last 9 years. While Deeks sees Kensi as his soul mate and home, apparently Kensi does not see him that way.

He starts to fight for his own survival and standing and negotiates clearly with his boss and his love interest, what he considers as professional and personal boundaries. He starts questioning in talk-back style. For the first time. And he sends his message across rightly to Hetty and Kensi, both professional par excellance.

Deeks waited for 5 months for Kensi to be back. And he complainingly asks Hetty to give him back his partner in 5x20-Windfall. It takes a loving boss to take Deeks demand kindly. Otherwise, Deeks tone to Hetty is rebellious and demanding, when he asks, “I want my partner back”; just like it was in 5x03-Omni when he says,”Ask me tomorrow” when she asked him if he was back. Shows his losing his edge, trying to find a meaning, why would Hetty not trust Kensi with him?! Is he not capable of taking care of Kensi?! more than anyone?! that seems to be his questioning as against Hetty’s administrative and qualified judgement call to detain Kensi from going on field without making her feel responsible enough on how serious she has to be while at work now. His whole attitude about questioning Hetty, is if she is ready to trust him. There is clear articulation of Hetty remarking on Deeks questions, "yet you question about my judgement".

Hetty in her official capacity and also in personal capacity; does relent by the end of the episode that, she or for that matter anyone else other than Deeks cannot assess Kensi's true emotional condition after her stint in Afghanistan. If she must have her Special Agent recover quickly from a traumatic experience, she would have to entrust Kensi to Deeks care. There is no doubt about it that Kensi will not open herself to anyone else. The only person, close enough to break her walls has been Deeks. And Hetty is well aware of it. Hetty remains impartial in this decision from administrative point, Hetty employs Eric Beale and Nell Jones to come to this decision. She trusts Neric as friends of Densi and yet quite capable of deductive reasoning much needed on the job. After speaking to Eric, Hetty is able to table it in her official assessment that Kensi is bored and restless when not in the field and appears totally stable emotionally to him. She informs Kensi, that she is allowing her to work on the field as she has come to an understanding that, if she is kept apart from the field or Deeks, revelations would not happen about her emotional state.

And after working a case together, Deeks goes for another rebellious questioning with Kensi and shows her what he thinks of her personal investment towards him. That's in 5x21-Three Hearts. Kensi's indecisiveness towards their relationship, Deeks sees it as a professional affront to his capabilities as seen through her personal and professionally critical eyes. She goes at length at protecting him before Angelo, which kind of puts Deeks in a bad light, as if he cannot manage himself. Could be true. But if Kensi was really professional, she would not have bothered to cut into Deeks negotiating style with Angelo. She would have had that trust on him both personally and professionally and they could still have their private thing going on. By protecting Deeks, Kensi exposes herself too. She forgets that Deeks has raised himself, is a negotiator by profession and would know how to manage interrogation. Its pleasure seeing someone going at length to protect you, but then it also means that the other cares about you in wholesome manner. Can Deeks be sure of that now? After what he saw in Afghanistan? Is Kensi protecting her work partner or protecting him for other personal reasons? Then it just remains for Deeks to take care of the fact that she need not get protective on him when working. Remove his "emotional center" and end the bother. 

So just by being a good work-partner to her, he lets go off the personal dangling "thing" between them, showing Kensi that if she prefers professionalism, then so be it until they both are ready to handle their personal versus profess He breaks away from her. Its slam dunk case he makes for himself against two judging women against his professional integrity. One has to either trust or distrust. One cannot be in perpetual doubtful state of "is he going to be one of us or be the weakling or a traitor, just because he is good at his undercover persona or wears his heart on his sleeve." Deeks neither can let Kensi become the DEA Agent like Talia, who can go ahead and dump him; nor can let himself get turned into Paulo Angelo the "doubted" as the NCIS under Hetty make of him. Slam Dunk rebellion of the Crass Distrust and the mockery that Hetty makes of his Love Story by sending him into the Interrogation Room to question Angelo, something that was so personal to him treated as a commodity by others.

That was Deeks point of view. What is Hetty's point of view? And how do they hash it out?

We see that even Hetty goes through a Fight between Personal and Professional desires. Her personal desire is that she wants Deeks and Kensi get to together. And she has helped them a lot from last 4 seasons. But then there is that professional side of hers, that also needs to assess the partners in love, dedication and objectivity towards work. It would have been easy for us to manage her two loved team members. But as fate would have it, she has a friend in Afghanistan, Jack Simon; who is in trouble and needs her help. Coincidentally, Jack Simon is also Kensi's Ex-Fiance, whom Kensi believes as dead. Hetty has to make the tough choice between her two personal wishes of seeing Kensi with Deeks, but having to send Kensi for rescuing Jack Simon. Its a tough call, but more on the professional lines, she decides to send Kensi to Afghanistan, well aware of the repercussions it may have on Deek's budding Love story with Kensi.

I am sure Hetty might have started feeling heavy about this. And thus she starts distancing herself from Deeks. This is where I started with the post above. How did then Hetty's decision affect her personally by affecting both Deeks and Kensi?  The answer is that, both Kensi and Deeks get to their Third Heart, that part of them that is so vulnerable that they cannot ever let it seen by others and have to always gaurd it. Both Kensi and Deeks lose stability when in Afghanistan. Its good and bad that they have seen what can happen to them. But what is the fallout?  The Fallout is that, its a step back for The Love Story. Kensi can see, that in her heart there was still Jack Simon. And until she flushes him out, she cannot let in Deeks. And Deeks, sees for himself, that he could go to a dark place for Kensi, but its not worth at all, because Kensi does not love him. She might care for him a lot, they have their Thing going on, but definitely its not the kind that Kensi feels for Jack Simon.  Hetty is all aware of this fallout. This is her personal loss. But first things first, she needs to get back her Special Agent Kensi Blye into shape, even if that means; having to exploit her other skilled team member Deeks closeness to Kensi. A Manager indeed!