S01.E11: The Game

[thewhiteowl]

Evidence to put away a drug kingpin is stolen. Lucy struggles when Whistler's  ex girlfriend visits.

[Raja]

A goofy undercover all top off by an out of nowhere break up for Texas Cinderella.  Well we have a soft reset of the reoccurring cast for the second half season.

[milkyaqua]

The epi would've been fine without the love drama with Lucy and Whistler and frankly, didn't need Ernie and his lovesick detective either.

I get this was Lucy's first undercover op but why wouldn't take the napkin with the note and oh, I don't know, put it down your cleavage like some women have been known to do?

I knew the judge had to be dirty based on recognizing the actor from a number of guest roles and he was one of the only actors I recognized. 

[HurricaneVal]

2 hours ago, milkyaqua said:

I knew the judge had to be dirty based on recognizing the actor from a number of guest roles and he was one of the only actors I recognized. 

Yup.  As soon as I saw those ears, I knew he was the bad guy.  Usually he plays a nice guy, so this must have been fun for him!

While I cringed at how badly Lucy screwed up her first undercover gig, I can surmise she was off her game because of the shock of her sudden break-up.  The team was already invested in her going UC, it wasn't like she could go "Oh, hey...yeah....about that?  I'm just really not at my emotional best right now and I might make a stupid mistake so, could we do this next week?"  I think that poker game would have gone very differently, and probably less successfully if one of the guys had taken her place.  Part of the reason it worked was because the Texas Cinderella character was so distracting and potentially quite the mark to fleece so the rest of the table was going to cut her some slack.  Putting one of the guys in her place would not have worked, no way the paranoid kingpin would hand his phone over to one of them to use, only Lucy's ditzily disarming character could have made that work.

That said, even if she was a little off balance, why oh why oh why did she grab the doohicky out of her garter while essentially standing in front of an open door to the hallway, fully visible to anyone walking that same direction?  Yes, leaving the napkin with the message was stoooopid, but that whole bit with the device and her anxious self-narration was just way, way, way dumb.

I'm really digging the banter between Kai and Boone, that back and forth stuff carried from episode to episode really cracks me up.  The detective recounting the whole plot of Dirty Dancing as her backstory with Ernie was priceless.  I nearly died at how she sold it so sincerely.

[jabRI]

I didn't get the Whistler breakup.  They've been on what, 3 dates?  Girl doesn't owe you her life story.  But yeah, she should have broken it off with Cara, whom I find it hard to believe flies literally across the country to just show up?

[HurricaneVal]

I think it was three official dates, but it was a long slow burn before that.  A long slow burn we joined while already in progress.

[Raja]

12 hours ago, milkyaqua said:

The epi would've been fine without the love drama with Lucy and Whistler and frankly, didn't need Ernie and his lovesick detective either.

I get this was Lucy's first undercover op but why wouldn't take the napkin with the note and oh, I don't know, put it down your cleavage like some women have been known to do?

I knew the judge had to be dirty based on recognizing the actor from a number of guest roles and he was one of the only actors I recognized. 

My first thought was sure Commander Turner could be a judge by now. But JAG/NCIS doesn't really do shared universe franchise stuff. So I was also waiting on a bad turn

[Grizzly]

Only in NCIS-world is it a successful mission when none of the bad guys face justice because they are all dead.

[milkyaqua]

23 hours ago, HurricaneVal said:

That said, even if she was a little off balance, why oh why oh why did she grab the doohicky out of her garter while essentially standing in front of an open door to the hallway, fully visible to anyone walking that same direction?  Yes, leaving the napkin with the message was stoooopid, but that whole bit with the device and her anxious self-narration was just way, way, way dumb.

Yeah, I did think that was dumb as well (the bathroom didn't have a door with a lock?).  But would the bad guy have even followed her if she hadn't left that napkin behind for him to find?  I also don't buy that she was so shaken up by her Whistler drama.  If she's going to do this job she needs to get her head out of her butt.

4 hours ago, Grizzly said:

Only in NCIS-world is it a successful mission when none of the bad guys face justice because they are all dead.

Ha!  Standard NCIS procedure and NCIS: LA is especially egregious about this...

[blackwing]

On 1/18/2022 at 4:29 PM, jabRI said:

I didn't get the Whistler breakup.  They've been on what, 3 dates?  Girl doesn't owe you her life story.  But yeah, she should have broken it off with Cara, whom I find it hard to believe flies literally across the country to just show up?

I think when the show premiered, it seemed like they had already spent a night together, but that was it?  The show started with the two of them already in some kind of rocky patch.  I agree that it's way too early for Lucy to be all jealous, but I also don't understand why the ex-girlfriend would just show up.  Did Whistler say she didn't know she was coming, or that she was taken by surprise and couldn't say no?  Someone is going to fly 10 hours from DC to Hawaii without any advance notice?  What if Whistler was out of town?

I think Lucy was stupid to leave the napkin, you'd think that'd be the first thing even a first time undercover operative would know.  She should have just used it to wipe her mouth and then crumpled it up.

I recognised the judge immediately as one of the commanders from JAG.  He doesn't look like he's aged much at all.  But I too knew he was bad just because he was a somewhat recognisable actor as opposed to the rest.

[Maverick]

19 hours ago, Raja said:

My first thought was sure Commander Turner could be a judge by now. But JAG/NCIS doesn't really do shared universe franchise stuff. So I was also waiting on a bad turn

 Mac, Harm and Chedwiggen have been on NCIS LA in recent seasons so they do acknowledge the connection.  But then all the NCIS shows have been fairly disconnected since the second season of NOLA.  

 The Lucy/Whistler thing seems to be proceeding at a Telenovella pace.  At this rate, by the end of the season they'll reconcile, get engaged, break it off again, get back together and in the finale one will run off as the Wedding March plays.  There also may be a bought of amnesia and being chased through the woods by a rabid cougar in there somewhere too.   

[Tom Le blanc]

I just want to know what kind of bottle tannant shared with lucy in the breakup-endscene... help me out!

[Raja]

On 1/19/2022 at 9:42 AM, milkyaqua said:

 

Ha!  Standard NCIS procedure and NCIS: LA is especially egregious about this...

Well as an undercover unit you could almost say that they are encouraged to go death squad so maintaining a cover is easier. On Miami Vice Crockett and Tubbs didn't even have to change up their Burnett and Cooper identities.

[StarBrand]

On 1/18/2022 at 6:41 PM, HurricaneVal said:

I think it was three official dates, but it was a long slow burn before that.  A long slow burn we joined while already in progress.

Until we learn a little later, that is was not quite that either....