NCIS: Los Angeles: “Pushback” – Review

A woman is murdered while conducting surveillance on a yacht. LAPD finds a miniature hard drive on her person containing photographs of Callen, among other people. Callen recognizes the murdered woman as the last person he saw before he was shot six months earlier (see the NCIS Season 6 episode “Legend”).

I’ve previously complained about how much NCIS: Los Angeles has relied on surveillance footage and loopholes in technology. “Pushback” put a clever spin on this in that the murdered woman was an amateur. The photos she took—that might have revealed too much of the plot too soon—were blurred. She left behind only enough clues to point to a ten-year-old joint operation, “Cossack,” involving an attempt by the Russian mafia to control the flow of Russian oil into Europe.

Callen was a DEA agent at the time, partnered with a man named Taylor, a CIA agent named Stanhope, and a KGB agent, Arkady Kolcheck. Discovering Stanhope and Taylor were killed on the same day he was shot, Callen decided to go after Kolcheck, who was still alive. Kolcheck (well played by Vyto Ruginis) told Callen he sent the Russian woman, Elena, to warn him the members of Operation Cossack were being targeted. Finally, Callen recognized Elena as someone from his childhood whom Kolcheck thought he would trust.

Because of its connections to “Legend,” “Pushback” might have made a good premiere episode for NCIS: Los Angeles. Once again, there was a good mix of old-fashioned deductive reasoning and undercover work. I have only three minor complaints: One, the opening camera angles deliberately did not show the face of the man Elena was watching. Some of these angles were not from the camera equipment Elena was using. This indicated that, Elena’s amateur surveillance aside, the show was cheaply hiding the man’s face. Sure enough, he turned out to be one of the members of Cossack, whom Callen recognized in the end. If the man really didn’t want to be discovered as the traitor, why not simply get a facelift?

Two, in the course of the investigation, Nate had to decide whether to let Callen continue working on a case so obviously personal to him. He went to Hetty for advice, yet another character in need of a heart-to-heart talk to do his job.

Three, Callen visited Elena’s house at the end and found evidence of the time he spent with her family. This was a powerful enough scene without the maudlin song played as accompaniment.

In all, though, a solid episode of the show.