Episode
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5x19 - Spoils of War
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War and Torture. A place we give for our rage. Its not what we do to them whom we at war with. Its what it does to us. How it changes us dehumanising us, removing all our compassionate elements. That was last week Jack Simon talking about Futility of War for the Afghanistan Story. And this time it is Sergeant Rabee Makar explaining it to Deeks. Both men out in Afghanistan. having seen the war and torture...
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Writer
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Frank Military - LA Story
R S Gemmill - Afghan Story
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Frank Military always writes serious part for his characters, taking them intensely into their psyche and what they are made of. He gives his characters the opportunity to make of the situation and themselves as they want to. One can incline into any way he wants. He took us close to Sam and Deeks in previous stories and even in today’s story he took us close to them. But also he took us close to Callen, Granger, Sabatino.
R S Gemmill, concludes Afghanistan story written especially for Daniela Ruah’s pregnancy by making it a comment on War on Terror and Interrogation Techniques. He has been laying emphasis on what happens after war and torture to soldiers, rebels and civilians. The casualties are telling. There is PTSD to deal with for soldiers and prisoners alike. There is that interrogation techniques that change the interrogator’s character and perception of what a human being is and what is pain. And between all this, there is profiteering by private corporations who thrive on waging wars.
Together, Frank Miliatry and Gemmill have shown in their stories of Seasons 5, Torture(5x01-Ascension), PTSD (5x02-Impact), Private Contractors (5x02-Impact and 5x14-War Cries), Money Laundering (5x13-Allegiance), Prisoner Interrogation (5x01-Ascension, 5x14-War Cries and 5x19-Spoils of War) and the Civilians who just get caught up in a war with no vested interests whatsoever (5x13-Allegiance and 5x19-Spoils of War).
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Director
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Frank Military for LA Story
John Peter Kousakis for Afghan Story
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This is Frank Military’s first time direction...and I must say I liked his direction. I could see the episode in a running format without any complaint. All my attention was into the dramatic action.
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Editor
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Edward Salier ACE
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Liked the Editing. Did not feel any disconnect anywhere.
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Episode Summary
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Search and Rescue Mission for Agent Kensi Blye.
Nell calls and orders(briefs) Callen, Sam and Deeks to head out to Afghanistan to get back Agent Blye who has been supposedly been held captive by the Taliban. Agent Blye is gone missing for 72 hours whereas Granger has gone off the grid from last 12 hours.
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While Nell does the briefing, Hetty had gone for arragement of $ 1.5 Million as expendable money that can help getting Kensi back. Hetty had all along known that White Ghost Mission was about Jack Simon, Kensi Blye’s ex-fiance. He is her friend and had asked for help. So she has sent Kensi taking her chances with Granger and preparing Kensi to suspect everyone so that she cannot kill Jack when she sees him. The Search and Rescue Mission is accomplished through the team work of Callen, Sam, Granger, Sabatino and Sajjadi on the ground, however has a positive end with leftover team members, Deeks for LA team and Sergeant Rabee Makar going to rescue not only Kensi Blye and Jack Simon, but also, Sam, Callen, Granger and Sabatino, who are actually outnumbered by the Talibans, on their suicidal mission. My recommendation is for everyone to watch how all of that gets narrated and expressed in terms of action.
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Afghan Story
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Afghanistan: Owen Granger and Kensi Blye, Taliban and Jack Simon
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The White Ghost Mission concludes.
In Kensi’s words, she was sent by CIA on White Ghost Mission to execute Jack Simon, who she knew him as a Good man. And she went dark, to find out the truth.
In Granger’s words, The White Ghost story is not what it seems as per Intelligence reports and that much of it was falsified information. He like Sabatino also had gone dark to find out the truth and get away from CIA’s misleading Intel Reports.
In Sabatino’s words, there is no White Ghost. It was all made-up. Jack worked for the US & CIA. His only mistake was he ended up knowing the identities of half a dozen of CIA assets. Jack wanted to stay in Afghanistan and only problem was CIA could not have Jack live in some hut, knowing their names and faces. Sabatino wanted to get to Jack first and convince him to leave for US so that this execution could be avoided.
Jack Simon was the best...not telling us anything about what is the White Ghost Mission for him. Apparently, in Hetty’s words, Jack reached out to Hetty, his friend; to help him as he found that CIA wanted to execute him.
As envisaged by the writers, the Afghanistan story plot serves two purposes:
1) A perspective on War and Torture in Afghanistan, with the War between Taliban, US Army and CIA running the operations and missions. Read Write Section above.
2) A way forward to deal with Densi story after their kiss in 4x24-Descent last season. Its puts a brake on Densi Love story’s accelerated drive. Read Love story section below.
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NCIS Personnel Highlights and Bull Pen Fun
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Nell
Hetty
Deeks
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Nell is promoted to be the Ops Boss in Hetty’s absence.
Deeks is always going to be the outsider for the elite NCIS LA Team. He is not an Agent, not a soldier and can be separated from the team where important action happens for which Deeks may or may not be ready.Not my view. That’s Hetty’s perception.
Hetty - She knows everyone. She knows everything. She even knew Sam, Callen, Granger cannot rescue Kensi from the Taliban and so she sent Deeks to oversee the rescuing of both Kensi and Jack. Now this is my perception.
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Ops Manager
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Hetty Lange
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The world is so small in NCIS LA World for Hetty. She knows everyone and everything about them. What can I say…???!!!!
She knew Jack Simon, because he was her friend in CIA. She never told Kensi about him but found Deeks for her, promoted their love story, used Kensi anyways to save Jack from CIA, used Deeks again to save Kensi from Taliban and also rescue Jack as part of the whole deal. Feels good when the pieces arrange themselves in their regular places as she moves the Chess Board. Time for well-deserved Scotch!
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Partnership 1-
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G Callen & Sam Hanna
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Scallen. No Banter. Callen is the pessimist, trying to be his pessimistic self and yet becoming relentless in completing the mission successfully. However for a team lead, Callen was not quite the leader of the team. Sam was more poised as the Navy Seal on the field living the mission like his Seals Motto. Hetty trusted Sam more than Callen.
Sam has all the necessary training to deal with war like grim and dark situations. And yet Sam is having a toll on his body and soul with all these experiences. Military showed us in 2x06-Little Angels, traumatic experiences affecting Sam when he was buried alive in Bosnian War. And Military shows the same state of mind for Sam in 5x02-Impact and in this episode. Sam cannot hear for a while after the explosion on 5x19-Spoils of War.
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Partnership -2
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Marty Deeks and Sergeant Rabee Makar
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This was the crucial partnership to the story. While the dramatic action and story telling was on the side of the rest of the characters, the partnership of these two is what gives us the crux of Spoils of War. Their partnership is a commentary of what War, Torture and Casualties does to us. Both Gemmill and Frank Military show us the emotional rage and angst one goes through at helpless situations at hand when our fellow brothers die before us, or when we are caught in the grip of power. Its like Heart of Darkness revealed to us through Deeks’s sense of pain, anguish, extreme stress he lives through from the time he gets to know of Kensi’s MIA and losing it at the news of Kensi’s supposed death.
Their partnership is like debate that starts with proclamation of presence of ethics and morals in Americans represented by Deeks and going through a cycle of helplessness stranding, repressed emotions bursting through dehumanizing rage as depicted in justification of questioning techniques being used on a blind old man, who is a priest; and finally coming to the edge of his conscience where Deeks recognizes the human values that he was ready to debase. Had he not stopped himself, Deeks case could easily have become a war crime and violation of human rights.
Deeks means of questioning are questioned by Sergeant Rabee Makar. Its 48 hours for Deeks to be staying out of action, aside from SCallen and Granger and having no news about Kensi being found. For 48 hours he has been questioning Mulla Muhammed to give any information that leads him to Kensi’s whereabouts. By the end of 48 hours, Deeks starts to lose the point of his questioning as he too knows like Sergeant Makar that the priest is not going to give away any kind of information. But he keeps passing his time to kill his thoughts racing through his mind about Kensi. And the moment he gets the picture of Kensi’s lying in a pool of blood, Deeks just funnels his emotional suffering into uncontrollable and irrational rage where he starts suffocating the old man with wet cloth and further smothers him with cold water, making him totally breathless. Sergeant Makar is terrified of Deeks having tried several times to stop him losing it.
After showing us what War and Torture is all about, the rest of the partnership is devoted for the two partners to talk intelligently...they discuss strategically what the old man might have wanted to mean and could not. Towards the plot’s resolution, Makar and Deeks figure out and plan the rest of search and rescue mission, take a chopper, go to the Taliban leaders who are fighting Scallen, Granger and Sabatino, accomplish the Prisoner Exchange - the Priest for the Americans (Jack and Kensi).
I liked Makar’s character….very much and for the obvious reasons. :) Nicholas Guilak acted the role of Sergeant Makar.
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Ops Room Partnership
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Eric Beale- Tech Operator
Nell Jones - Intelligence Analyst
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We get it now, why Eric Beale was made the Smart Boy in the previous episode. Because Eric does not have any stuff to do in this episode.
Nell gets to be the boss. Gemmill keeps promoting her the Ninja like Hetty. Nell is the boss.
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Love Story
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Densi - Deeks and Kensi
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Deeks almost loses himself to rage when he is forced to accept the possibility that Kensi could also lose her life. Those are his raw passions, emotions engulfing, taking away his rationality and taking him close to see his heart that is also filled with Darkness. His partner on the mission Translator Sergeant Rabee Makar shows him how much rage he has inside of him and Deeks has come out in the open that Kensi is the only thing he cares about on this planet...She is his Sunshine.
Finally Densi meet...And Kensi has not anything left to offer Deeks. And it Deeks musters up to say honestly what he feels about the situation. First things first. "I am glad you are alive". And Kensi slips into his arms unburdening her heart.
"Zippo. Seems like Densi was never there." That was my last week’s comment after watching Kensi. This week after watching Kensi with Jack, I see her cut up to see Jack all alive and having moved on with a with a wife and daughter, away from her, whereas she still feels for him. Now its time for Kensi to move on, now that she let him go away from her.
This week after watching Deeks and Kensi together, I see that the love story is serious for Deeks. It was a Deeks love story to begin with and we still do not know like him what had been Kensi’s answer to, Deeks Kiss, Deeks’s asking her out and that she is still figuring it out. All that Deeks knows for a fact is that Kensi does not hate him. And he really feels a sense of home when they are together. So is Deeks a sunshine to Kensi. He has warmth and understanding of a friend and partner that even Kensi cannot resist going into his arms to get comforted.
As for the dramatic plotline about Densi Love story for the procedural, we still have hope like always. They are work partners, friends who understand and trust each other. The work and subtle shipping in story-telling will continue without any kind of conclusion of get together, because as shown in “5x16-Fish Out of Water” two work partners cannot fall in love as it gets complicated. The procedural drama cannot have romance shown, so instead by adding Kensi’s baggage of past love story through Jack Simon mellows down the love story for Densi and instead adds emotional depth to their relationship as partners, friends and family minus the typical relationship words of the couple in the form of “Girlfriend and Boy Friend”. There is no love story. It was made up so far...like the White Ghost. But it certainly has a home. “We are going home. I got you.” Says Deeks as Kensi sobs into him her heart-break.
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Others/GK
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1) Malala Yousufzai
2) Afghani Translators in US Army
| 1) Deeks mentions it in passing reference...Important and contexual though..
2) Sergeant Rabeen Makar works as Translator for the CIA team. There were lot of Afghanis employed by US Army who could speak English language. There was a report recently after Obama announced retreat of US Army from Afghanistan, that these translators now fear for their lives when they are left behind. |
Daniela Ruah 
TV Guide 
Michael Ausiello 
