S12.E14: The Noble Maidens

[thewhiteowl]

Callen and the team discover that Anna is being held by a group with ties to Anna’s upbringing and must rescue her before she is forcibly returned to Russia. Also, Admiral Kilbride makes Nell a serious offer.

[mertensia]

This school sounds like a cross between the one the Black Widow was trained at and the one in Gail Carriger's Finishing School series.

[Maverick]

 So they did like a six episode arc about Katya's revenge...without Katya.   Ok.

 I'm assuming Callen just feels bad for Joelle.  If they seriously try to put him together with her again that's such bullshit.

 Well somebody finally said it:   Hetty's hasn't been running things for a long time and she's not coming back (and yay, it came from straight talk McBride).   I don't know how much time is supposed to have past since the season premiere, but everyone was acting like Nell took this job on last week.  I don't know that there was ever a good explanation as to why she left NCIS in the first place but I'm not sure why she would want to come back full time now.

[wlk68]

8 hours ago, Maverick said:

 So they did like a six episode arc about Katya's revenge...without Katya.   Ok.

 I'm assuming Callen just feels bad for Joelle.  If they seriously try to put him together with her again that's such bullshit.

 Well somebody finally said it:   Hetty's hasn't been running things for a long time and she's not coming back (and yay, it came from straight talk McBride).   I don't know how much time is supposed to have past since the season premiere, but everyone was acting like Nell took this job on last week.  I don't know that there was ever a good explanation as to why she left NCIS in the first place but I'm not sure why she would want to come back full time now.

All of this plus ... wow, they killed Anatoli Kirkin. I always thought his crush on Deeks was cute. 

[HurricaneVal]

Aw man, they killed off Kirkin!  Even Deeks shed a tear at that, after all, in a way, they were friends.

Callen has the big, dramatic scene of "I'll see you at home" with Anna, with all sorts of weight and importance put on the word "home" and Callen apparently spends the night at Joelle's bedside?  Huh.  Whatever.  Neither one is right for him, both have betrayed and played him.  I don't understand how he could ever trust either to have any sort of good relationship with them.  I'd like for the poor little lost boy to be happy, but neither of these superspy women are his happily ever after.  Callen won't be happy with a little woman who waits for him at home, he needs someone up to his skill level, but he really needs someone who won't play or betray him.

I did like Nell and Eric getting the band back together in Ops and settling into their old groove like an old comfortable sweater.

The unsettling parallel between the whole "Noble Maidens" indoctrination spy school and Hetty's manipulation of Callen's foster youth years was too long in coming.  Like, all this time, Hetty has been like Dumbledore, sending The Chosen One to his death in her long game.

[Linda956]

I adore Linda Hunt and the Hetty character, but after 3 seasons, this has to end.  If she can't be on the show more than once or twice a season, bring in someone new to run the team and have her show up as a special guest star occasionally. It makes no sense to have an absentee boss like this.  Also, can I just say it's bad enough when Ne;ll wears jumpers, but these Amish/Little House On The Prairie dresses have got to go.  I keep asking myself, "What woman wears this type of clothing and more importantly, where do you even buy it?"  Unless she's making them herself.

[MissLucas]

1 hour ago, Linda956 said:

I keep asking myself, "What woman wears this type of clothing and more importantly, where do you even buy it?"  Unless she's making them herself.

If you google pics of Renée Felice Smith you'll notice that Nell's style is not that far off from her private style. Though I doubt she's making them herself. The show's rarely featured on those sites that identify fashion worn on tv but the few instances it did Nell's clothes came in all sorts of price ranges from eyewatering Nordstrom price tags to cheap Zara stuff.

[RobertDeSneero]

15 hours ago, Linda956 said:

Also, can I just say it's bad enough when Ne;ll wears jumpers, but these Amish/Little House On The Prairie dresses have got to go.  I keep asking myself, "What woman wears this type of clothing and more importantly, where do you even buy it?"

I'd imagine a more mature version of Billie Eilish.

I get the sense that Katya is going to be involved somehow in Hetty's arc.

I've greatly missed the Nell-Eric dynamic.  That's been my favorite interaction of the show.

[LittlePeas3]

It's been ever so long since there's been reference to Hetty and Callen's upbringing.  I wonder where this is going?  Is this so the show can come full circle and end?  The storylines of late have been very ordinary.  They no longer seem to have a tenuous link to the Navy.  The OSP seems to have gone "rogue" and no wonder TPTB seem pissed at them all the time. 

Why do I get the feeling that we won't see Hetty again? Was this the writer's way of covering the fact that Linda can't be on set anymore and just can't work anymore?  

It was good to have the band back together, they worked as a team, for a change. and solved the issues super fast.  I wonder if they are heading down a spin-off route, Nell in charge of OSP with a new crew, Fatima and Roundtree, with some input from the originals from time to time? Back to basics and back to the Naval roots?  

[123BP]

Even though the episode had some issues with continuity, I liked it. I liked Callen in this episode a lot, but what was Sam's problem? The guy was pissed at Callen when he should have been a lot more supportive. Nell was good & seemed more like her old self. Not too much of Fatima & Rountree, but that was okay. Beale was back & not acting weird, so that worked. I didn't give jack about Kirkin dying, but I did NOT understand why Callen was in Joelle's room. Why can't Gemmill & company give Callen & Anna a break? C'mon. I do wonder if we'll see Hetty again (I'm sure we will), but I think it's time for her to retire even though I love Linda.

Edited April 7, 2021 by 123BP

[ymeagain]

An interesting review, especially the comments about Hetty and Callen and his "training."

https://ncislarandomthoughts.blogspot.com/2021/04/episode-14-season-12-noble-maidens.html

[CheshireCat]

Uh, maybe I spoke too soon about the admiral. But I think he's wrong about Hetty being the cause of NCIS LA not working under the radar and efficiently. I think they did until Granger became a regular and even more so, when Mosley arrived. (Which makes sense because if you want someone to work under the radar and efficiently, you want as few rules and accountability as possible so that there is little paperwork and the least amount of red tape to cut through possible. The more paperwork and red tape, the less effective someone or something is going to be).

Nell is great leader? Unless I missed something she never led anything until recently, so how would they know that? I get that Chris O'Donnell may not have wanted Callen to get the job and that they wanted someone from the team to take over for Hetty but I'd appreciate if they didn't make Nell into something that she's never been. She's never led a team, I never felt that she was in charge of ops and she's never had to come up with a plan or anything, so how would she know how to lead/be a boss? I thought how they wrote it, that the team was without guidance and she didn't know what to do, was realistic given her lack of experience and I'm not sure what the brass expected if someone who's worked in ops for so long was put in charge. (I'm also surprised that none of the agents is the least bit bothered by it, to be honest. Nell does barely have any field experience and all of a sudden she's supposed to tell the people who are out every day and have done this for years, how they're supposed to operate?)

I also thought she wasvery wrong about needing Sam to get on her team. She's the boss and a boss is supposed to give orders and lead. It doesn't matter how capable the team is, they need someone who's in charge and guide them.

Yeah, and Sam is the last person in the world who has the right to go off on everyone for going rogue. Callen is usually acceptable and ends up taking down whoever he chases with the team whereas Sam is the one who loses his temper and thinks he's got superpowers. And since when do they apologize for going rogue? Is whoever wrote that new and has never watched an episode and didn't show the script to anyone?

I liked Nell and Eric working together again. The scene was short but it felt Nell was certainly right about them working best when they work together.

I also liked the acting of O'Donnell and Paly and this and the previous episode. I thought the looks they gave each other were very convincing and real as were the emotion they both portrayed when they found Anna. I'm really hoping that they don't split them up because they seem to genuinely care about each other and Callen especially seems to care about her like he's not cared about anyone else before. He'd deserve to be with the woman he loves.

 

[maggiemae]

I've never been fond of Joelle or Anna.