Its Kensi, Eric and Dom who get their due attention after last two episodes. Last two episodes, the stories has Scallen Partership solving the cases. Kensi and Dom just seemed running errands with Eric just doing things that are not even worth mentioning. All that is reversed, they get meatier stuff to play in this episode.
We also have in this episode the insider life of these Agents and Operatives and their challenges of the job that they handle without any complaint except for a bit of sarcasm and small paybacks issued. For them, being an Agent or Operative is not in the least glamerous profile.
Episode
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1X03 - Predator
| Predator - what is it ? It is a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) used by US Air Force and CIA. Read about UAV technology and Predator here. |
Writer
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Dave Kalstein
| Dave Kalstein in Season One is working the capacity of the Story Editor. That would mean the entire story arc for Season One is known to him. On Individual writer level, Dave Kalstein is a Lover of Martial Arts. He is trained in Blades for Sayoc Kali. Is member of Forge Fighting. He is a violinist also and had been Hollywood Script Writer before joining Shane Brennan’s team for NCIS Los Angeles. He is NCIS LA’s master backstopper for personal stories of its characters. He is the resident expert on Kensi’s character portrayal. He calls her his alter ego. And true to that, the episode starts with teasing on Kensi’s dating life in Bull pen. And later on we have Kensi going on undercover as Razor Mantis. Dave Kalstein also focuses on Eric Beale in this episode. Other than these two highlights, we have Dom and Kensi’s partnership taking a more serious role in solving the case apart from Scallen partnership. |
Director
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Tony Wharmby
| I liked the attention on how the characters were performing under stress. Each one of them were handling stress and yet doing their job, keeping a check on their emotions while their colleagues were being supportive of each other. |
Episode Summary
| A US predator control is hijacked by a hacker in a Camp Pendleton joint exercise between Marine Corps and US Air Force. Captain Marks Holden Briggs was operating the Drone and the misfire kills Marine Corp Michael Hazlett. | Didn’t like the story much, but nevertheless it exposed the UAV technology’s usage by US military as possible to be taken hostage by computer hackers and what a haywire mess it can be. The investigation leads from one angle to another angle and ultimately we have the story together. A military Drone(predator-UAV) is hijacked by AJ Concept Solutions owned by Arthur Jansen with the help of his extremist Muslim employee Yusuf Kaleem who sends the vehicle to Jansen’s hide-out location. They were helped by a young hacker Joel Hardy who hacked into US military system and got it for Jansen. However, as he was reckless enough to post the video online, he is killed by Jansen’s brother-in-law Hamzi Khan. The motive is avenging Rifka Khan’s death, who is Rebecca Jansen; sister of Jansen who was married to Hamzi Khan and died in Afghanistan Drone strike. She was a teacher and died along with her 8 students. Jansen and Hamzi Khan plan to strike a High school in LA. However NCIS LA’s timely detection and through Eric Beale’s hacking skills are able to ask Captain Marks Holden Briggs to take control of the missile (when controlling the Drone fails) to evade the disaster. As that effort ensues, Sam, Callen and Kensi find the yacht from where Janse and Hamzi Khan are controlling the rogue Drone. They take control of the laptop aiding Briggs to control the rogue Drone and have the missile dropped into ocean. The whole story is about racing against time. |
| NCIS Personnel Highlights | Its Kensi, Eric and Dom who get their due attention after last two episodes. | Last two episodes, the stories has Scallen Partership solving the cases. Kensi and Dom just seemed running errands with Eric just doing things that are not even worth mentioning. All that is reversed, they get meatier stuff to play in this episode. We also have in this episode the insider life of these Agents and Operatives and their challenges of the job that they handle without any complaint except for a bit of sarcasm and small paybacks issued. |
Ops Manager
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Hetty Lange
| Hetty shows her yet another facet - the feminine side and also that can be deadly side. She supports Kensi’s woes with Dating, that it is not her that is bored and that it is indeed those men who cannot handle independent women who just want to have fun and not be emotionally supportive in motherly fashion to these men. She advises Kensi on the art of seduction as she got it first hand when she was working in Hollywood. She is confused between George Hamilton and Frank Sinatra, as to who might have given her the advice of “What men really love is a woman hard to get.” The episode starts with her distributing Sexual Harassment Guidelines to her Agents and yet it is Hetty herself who asks Kensi to use her assets (bosom) to catch the hacker and it is Hetty who calls Kensi a “Tootsie” warning her not to damage her crocodile stilettoes that she was wearing for her undercover work. And other than this Hetty appeared pretty much stressed with damage about the wardrobe, the backstopping arrangement she had to take care of her for Kensi, the Information Intel arrangement she had to provide for Sam and Callen by leveraging her vast network of contacts at right places and finally being teased by Sam and Callen over Nepal thing. She seemed to be running out of peace and poised frame of mind for herself throughout the episode. These are the lines I liked from Hetty in the episode - George Hamilton once said to me, “What men really love is a woman hard to get.” or Was it Frank Sinatra ?! - She is upset that she forgot who it was. When Sam’s shirt is damaged with blood; “Can we bill em ?” “Idiot Hackers” to Eric , “These are crocodile stilettos. You Scruff them tear them and I will end you, Tootsie” to Kensi. Here is Idiot Hackers Video. The George Hamilton and Tootsie video can be watched in my post on Hetty Videos. It can found on the characters Menu. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlkHHOJ64SU |
Bull Pen Partnership -1
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Callen/Sam
| Bromance but Sam cannot take Callen’s tease in this episode. Its like Callen is getting on Sam’s nerves and Sam is just about to burst. We get to know that Sam knows Arabic. Hetty gets a bargain deal for Scallen by leveraging her score with an FBI/DOD/CIA-agent who tells Scallen that Drone exercises at Pendleton were being breached. Later they keep teasing her to tell Nepal story. Scallen share the solving of the case along with the others, Kensi, Dom, Nate and Eric, who all work in individual capacity to race against time to get back the Drone. |
Bull Pen Partnership -2
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Kensi/Dom
| Its Dave Kalstein and so it beyond doubt that we get a peep into Kensi’s emotions. The episode starts with discussion on her dating life where Kensi declares that she is just first time dater as she is interesting only on the 1st and can never be fun for the second one. See here watch this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaJnLfptw_M For the case, Kensi is posing as Razor Mantis; the Guest Lecturer to catch the Hacker. RM is an Ex-DOD Hacker and doing lectures instead of jail teaching the subject Perils of Cyber Crime. She paints her lips in red lipstick and looks all seductive, independent and hot to handle to get to the hacker as quick as possible. And all this backstopping is created by her boss Hetty. Its a funny scene when Kensi prides on herself that she has an IT background in IPSEC Architecture (and yet Jordana Lewis Jaffe made the mistake of forgetting all that for Kensi in Big Brother). She thinks she is quite smart, but Nate cautions her that the hackers have invented all that. Its another funny scene when Hetty calls her Tootsie about warning her to keep the crocodile stilettoes safe when throughout the day, Hetty has been supporting Kensi for her independent ways. Look on Kensi’s face is cute to watch. Kensi is tired of all the comments on her that she has to deal with while on the job and while playing her undercover character. Towards the end of the episode when Callen teases her, she is frustrated and says, “Hop on Kensi Abuse Train while there is room onboard.” Dom witnesses death on the job and he is affected that Joel Hardy the hacker got killed and he couldn't do anything. Kensi and Nate ask him not to feel responsible for it. Nate even offers a counselling talk to get him out of his guilt, but stress of the mission remaining unaccomplished makes Dom focus on work at hand and instead work on Captain Briggs to help them out to get back the control on the rogue Drone. Dom’s state of mind can be understood by us as this is his first job and he is just getting exposed to everything. |
| Ops Room Partnership | Eric - Tech Operator Nate - Psychologist | We have a lot of attention on Eric Beale and his work in this episode. Even he is also stressed out in this episode working on the mission objective, so much that even Nate psychoanalyzes him and Eric doesn’t even realize that. We are informed that Eric is a surfer and uses a lot of surfer lingo that others cannot much understand. He dresses in beach-casuals. But that is just him and his looks. But his work shows him as him being the best at his work. He is a Hacker himself and he works against the rogue hackers in his job. He helps Kensi get on with guest lecturing the superior hackers, and he also hacks into Joel Hardy’s laptop to know whereabouts of the rogue Drone. He explains two NCIS technologies that they use vastly - The FacialRecognition software search and the Kaleidoscope Search which is a visual search that scans live feeds from traffic cams through inputting of search parameters. Nate psychoanyalizes that Eric is a person who would keep pressing the elevator button just so that it would come down faster. It is the moment when Nate observes Eric being totally edgy with impatience at the kaleidoscope search not giving him fast results. And finally we have Nate, who gives his psychoanalytical profiling inputs over Briggs, Kaleem, Joel Hardy to reach to Jansen as being the culprit. He also tries to take care of nervous edginess of all his colleagues by talking to them. He does with Kensi, Dom and Eric, tries to do it with Sam and fails. |
Others/GK
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The Thing
| The Thing is introduced through Joel Hardy character when he says “I got a Thing”. And Dave Kalstein took it to even Season 5. :) |
Crew for The Predator
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Writers
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Dave Kalstein
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Writer's Assistant
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Gregory Weidman
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Directors
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Tony Wharmby
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First Asst Director
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Eric Pot
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Second Asst Director
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Ellie Smith
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Story Editor
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Dave Kalstein
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Executive Story Editor
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Speed Weed
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Consultant
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Tim Clemente
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Co-Producer
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Rick Tunell
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Producer
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David Bellisario
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Consulting Producer :
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Matt Pyken, Gil Grant
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Supervising Producer :
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Lindsay Sturman
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Co-Executive Producer :
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John Peter Kousakis
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Executive Producer :
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R Scott Jemmill
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Assistants to Executive Producer :
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Erin Boradhurst, Chad Mazero and Dana Scanlon
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Production Designer:
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Thomas Fichter
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Director of Photography :
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Victor Hammer
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Editing :
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Roy C Poole
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Music :
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James S Levine
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Unit Production Manager :
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Rick Tunell
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Casting :
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Suzanne Bluestein. CSA and Jason Kennedy CSA
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Casting Associates :
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Anthony J Kraus and Meredith Forney
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Costume Designer:
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Darry Levine
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Art Director :
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Mathew Jacobs
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Set Decorator :
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Peter Gurski
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Property Master :
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Steven B Melton
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Make-up Artist :
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Trefor Proud
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Hair Stylist :
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Brooks Stenstrom
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Production Coordinator :
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Russell Dague
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Assistant Prod Coordinator :
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Laura Starks
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Production Accountant :
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Mathew Klipper
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1st Assistant Accountant :
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Dana Micahaelsen
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Location Manager :
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Tony Salome
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Stunt Coordinator :
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R A Rondell
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Special Effects Supervisor :
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Don Frazee
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Production Sounds Mixer :
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Mark Weingarten
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Construction Coordinator:
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Mike Brooks
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Transportation Coordinator :
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Dave Bassett
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Script Supervisor :
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Diana Valentine
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Script Coordinator :
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Jimmy Donchey
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A Camera Operator :
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Russell McEllhatton
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B Camera Operator :
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Fred Iannone
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Post Production Supervisor :
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Christopher J Molnar
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Assistant Editor :
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Eric J Lucas
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Post Production Coordinator
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Chris Tracy
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Music Editor
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Mark Wiki
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Theme by :
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James S Levine
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Multi Media Coordination :
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Justin Maradiegue
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Specialized Imagery, Software and Promotional Consideration :
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Lockheed Martin Corporation and Pictometry International Corporation
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Publicists -
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John Mills 
