After a brief altercation at a nightclub, a man crashes a car into the club, killing himself and Petty Officer Mostel Renney, and almost hitting a stripper. NCIS must look into the lives of all the involved parties to piece together the larger picture of what happened.
“Breach” struck me as the most seamless episode of NCIS: Los Angeles so far. The larger plot unfolded at the right pace; I watched out of natural curiosity and didn’t see anything coming. The man who crashed the car turned out to be friends with Moe, a boy Sam brought back from the Sudan. Moe connected his friend, Deng, to Safar Jaddalah (Henri Lubatti), an Islamic fundamentalist.
More of Sam’s backstory was revealed by his conversations with Moe, but “Breach” had plenty of other character moments, too. Callen bonded with the stripper, Katya, getting her to admit the nightclub owner had video blackmail footage on several high-profile patrons. Going undercover at the club, Callen stole the footage, which eventually showed Safar having sex. Sam and Callen reasoned that if this got out, Safar’s devout reputation would be shot: enough motive for him to order Deng to crash into the club.
NCIS used the footage to lure Safar out of hiding, but the more shocking revelation was that Moe himself was involved with Safar. On a second viewing, I picked up a glance between Safar and Deng before Deng crashed into the club. Even if I had seen it first, I wouldn’t have known enough to predict anything.
The only flaw I picked up was that the dead petty officer’s name changed from Renney to Bronson halfway through the episode. There may have been others, but for the most part (and for the first time on NCIS: Los Angeles), I was able to forget these were actors and there was a plot moving forward. That, to me, makes the best television.
