S01.E09: Impostor

[thewhiteowl]

The team investigates a cold case involving WWII era bones on the 80th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombings.

[Driad]

As to whether a 10-year-old should know about the history -- George Takei was 5 years old when his family was interned. His parents, hoping to spare him, would not talk about why they were in the camp.  George figured they were in jail and decided that it must be his fault.  A terrible burden for a young child.

[Crs97]

This show is really growing on me.  I am shocked that I am becoming more invested in the Lucy/Whistler relationship.  I also love Lucy knowing uniforms because she found out Coco Chanel designed some.

A 4th grader is not too young to know the world can be bad IMO.  She has already been through active shooter drills in school for goodness sakes.

I like how they honored Pearl Harbor in a way that seemed very authentic, though I don’t think they would really plan for a man suffering dementia to give a speech.  Well done regardless.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Crs97

[Raja]

1 hour ago, Crs97 said:

This show is really growing on me.  I am shocked that I am becoming more invested in the Lucy/Whistler relationship.  I also love Lucy knowing uniforms because she found out Coco Chanel designed some.

A 4th grader is not too young to know the world can be bad IMO.  She has already been through active shooter drills in school for goodness sakes.

I like how they honored Pearl Harbor in a way that seemed very authentic, though I don’t think they would really plan for a man suffering dementia to give a speech.  Well done regardless.

Letting Captain "Ito" speak  would be like the last Tony Bennett concert as they hoped for the best. 

I was ten when the world was much closer to the war with Japanese Americans being the local minority group just about all my friends parents were interned during the war. I also was at the beginning of knowing what was going on with US politics around me and also the daughter was too old for that storyline to play true. I had a teacher telling of his service in a "Colored" Engineering battalion and being a POW for a short period in 1945 Philippines. I would guess that even living in Pearl Harbor she was shielded from Ben Afflack's movie when it rotated onto TV.

The case of the week was easy enough to predict the final outcome. That the caregiver turned blackmailer being able to find R.O.T.C. achieves that needed a staff professor  to access and then had spare getaway cars  and ultimately some sort of secret identity to get off of an island with the loot  was the come on he has to be a mastermind for the plot part.

That they used Agent Tara for the explanation dump nerfed her somewhat. Maybe the modern audience doesn't remember, since the franchise is so old now. But from the beginning on the JAG backdoor pilot, before the Los Angeles spinoff NCIS has been portrayed as spies and cops and you would think a spy/cop even one who has only been on the cop track would know of the O.S.S.  being the wartime predecessor of the C.I.A. 

[Crs97]

10 minutes ago, Raja said:

The case of the week was easy enough to predict the final outcome.

I had assumed from the beginning that real Ken Ito was a spy and our honoree had killed him in self defense after discovering he was a traitor.  I was pleased it resolved in a way that made them both heroes.

I did have a problem with a top secret military operation being uncovered via a tiny Manila folder archive, but I liked the episode enough to let it go.

[Raja]

8 minutes ago, Crs97 said:

I had assumed from the beginning that real Ken Ito was a spy and our honoree had killed him in self defense after discovering he was a traitor.  I was pleased it resolved in a way that made them both heroes.

I did have a problem with a top secret military operation being uncovered via a tiny Manila folder archive, but I liked the episode enough to let it go.

The real world politics are wrong for that. There is no way a show would have a Japanese America be a spy for Japan, even if another Japanese American was the hero as that would seem to justify the internment. Now films made in 1942 did just that.

[milkyaqua]

2 hours ago, Crs97 said:

I am shocked that I am becoming more invested in the Lucy/Whistler relationship.

I know.  I'm not a procedural show 'shipper but compared to the other NCIS/FBI, L&O, Chicago shows.  I'm okay with this.  They don't work for the same organization so they're not co-workers, there's no subordinate/supervisor dynamic, they don't seem to be dating/married to other people, one or the other doesn't appear to be a spy, so sure show go ahead, though I'm not expecting anything great regarding the writers dealing with a same sex relationship.

1 hour ago, Raja said:

That the caregiver turned blackmailer being able to find R.O.T.C. achieves that needed a staff professor  to access and then had spare getaway cars  and ultimately some sort of secret identity to get off of an island with the loot  was the come on he has to be a mastermind for the plot part.

Exactly but TV/movies always want us viewers to suspend our disbelief...

As for Tennant wanting to spare her daughter the ugly side of racism, yes, she's old enough to know.

Edited December 7, 2021 by milkyaqua

[MissLucas]

Tennant trying to shield her daughter from the dark sides of history and the present was a rare parenting mitake. But it was put to good use for story-telling reasons and it makes her less perfect and that's a good thing too.

First time I bought into Whistler-Lucy - color me surprised. 

Glad to see Aunt Maggie again and I'm starting to like this show's take on the quirky M.E. trope: knee-deep in mythology, the reference to Tellus was a nice touch.

[HurricaneVal]

I really like the actress playing Aunt Maggie.  I've seen Julie White in so many things, and I just think she's great.  Ever since she played the neighbor/friend in Grace Under Fire, I wanted her to be my neighbor/friend.

[Rickster]

To nitpick a bit, I doubt someone hit from a distance by a Japanese Zero cannon or machine gun would have a head wound that could be mistaken for an ordinary murder.

[blackwing]

I enjoyed this episode, even if everything was obvious from the beginning.  As soon as we saw that old photo, it was clear that the real Ken Ito was the dead guy and that the civilian on the right was the fake Ken Ito.  And that the caregiver was the one at the archives.

I do think that a 10 year old is old enough to learn about racism, and I agree with the brother that Jane shouldn't have tried to shelter her from it.  It's entirely conceivable however that as an Asian-American living in Hawaii, that the daughter hasn't really experienced racism.  It was the same for Kai.  I chuckled when Kai said he went to the mainland and people thought he was Mexican.

I liked what Jane said to her daughter at the end, and I appreciated her acknowledgement of how she looked different and how she dealt with it.  I really liked how her son said that she was a hero, being the first Asian-American head of NCIS at Pearl Harbor.  Now I'm curious about Jane's ex and whether he is Asian or white.  Vanessa Lachey herself is half-Filipino.  The son looks 100% Filipino and the daughter looks mixed race.  I would imagine that the dad is Asian, because the son seems to identify as Asian and not mixed race.

[Raja]

14 hours ago, Rickster said:

To nitpick a bit, I doubt someone hit from a distance by a Japanese Zero cannon or machine gun would have a head wound that could be mistaken for an ordinary murder.

Defiantly not the cannon. Like the British the Japanese used a light/medium machine gun while the Americans generally used  heavy .50 cal machine guns but not cannons. One round from the Zero's 7.7mm machine gun would be like a hit from a rifle from there I would leave  it to forensic specialist.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Raja

[blackwing]

14 hours ago, Rickster said:

To nitpick a bit, I doubt someone hit from a distance by a Japanese Zero cannon or machine gun would have a head wound that could be mistaken for an ordinary murder.

 

23 minutes ago, Raja said:

Defiantly not the cannon. Like the British the Japanese used a light/medium machine gun while the Americans generally used  heavy .50 cal machine guns but not cannons. One round from the Zero's 7.7mm machine gun would be like a hit from a rifle from there I would leave  it to forensic specialist.

I agree... the force of the gunfire was enough to knock the real Ito into the water.  I didn't think that shot to the head would look like a regular gunshot wound.  I would think his skull would have blown more apart on at least the exit wound.

I'm also curious as to how the body ended up in the cave and wasn't discovered for 80 years.  I guess there was a high tide and the body was deposited into the cave and then the waters receded?  But really, nobody had explored that cave in 80 years?

And why wouldn't Fake Ito have ever said anything about his friend's body?  I get that Fake Ito was a Japanese citizen and was in the country illegally, but show said that the OSS was ok with the name change and him assuming his friend's identity so he could be used as a spy against Japan.  But why wouldn't he have said anything back then to the extent of "hey do you think it's possible we can try and find my friend's body".    They could have examined currents and wave patterns and determined where the body would likely have washed up.  At the very least shouldn't there have been something written in an OSS file which documented the events?

[Raja]

4 hours ago, blackwing said:

 

I agree... the force of the gunfire was enough to knock the real Ito into the water.  I didn't think that shot to the head would look like a regular gunshot wound.  I would think his skull would have blown more apart on at least the exit wound.

I'm also curious as to how the body ended up in the cave and wasn't discovered for 80 years.  I guess there was a high tide and the body was deposited into the cave and then the waters receded?  But really, nobody had explored that cave in 80 years?

And why wouldn't Fake Ito have ever said anything about his friend's body?  I get that Fake Ito was a Japanese citizen and was in the country illegally, but show said that the OSS was ok with the name change and him assuming his friend's identity so he could be used as a spy against Japan.  But why wouldn't he have said anything back then to the extent of "hey do you think it's possible we can try and find my friend's body".    They could have examined currents and wave patterns and determined where the body would likely have washed up.  At the very least shouldn't there have been something written in an OSS file which documented the events?

I would submit that until August of 1945 everyone was busy fighting, not trying to recover remains

[secnarf]

This was the first episode where I genuinely liked and was interested in the show. Still can't remember all of their names, but hey, we are making progress.

NCIS has always done cold cases very well, as far as I can remember, anyways.

[Daff]

On 12/8/2021 at 11:54 AM, blackwing said:

They could have examined currents and wave patterns and determined where the body would likely have washed up.  At the very least shouldn't there have been something written in an OSS file which documented the events?

The US had just, just, suffered a shocking, totally unexpected, devastating attack! It’s obvious the OSS used this victim to further their goals. Even “ Foyle” would have been focused on the main event at that point! (For a very interesting perspective on just this question-should people get away with murder in wartime, check out an excellent series called “Foyle’s War.”)

[Daff]

On 12/8/2021 at 11:54 AM, blackwing said:

  But really, nobody had explored that cave in 80 years?

I think we’re supposed to believe that no one DUG in the cave in all that time, but I do agree, the skelly wasn’t very deep!

[Daff]

This was an excellent episode, and I truly appreciated the angst of the investigators and family. I kept hoping for the twist in the story because I didn’t want it to be another “stolen valor” plot. I do think that not enough forethought went in to the telling of it, regarding the “dementia” issue, however. Forcing someone with dementia to acknowledge the truth of the past doesn’t automatically “free” them from the affliction, and I find it hard to believe simple denial of past events drove him to ignore the real world in his Zen garden, no matter how much his children enabled him to do so. 

[StarBrand]

On 12/8/2021 at 10:44 PM, secnarf said:

This was the first episode where I genuinely liked and was interested in the show. Still can't remember all of their names, but hey, we are making progress.

NCIS has always done cold cases very well, as far as I can remember, anyways.

Yes, they have...who can forget the "body found in an old elevator shaft" episode, and what that led to...

Edited September 23, 2022 by StarBrand