NCIS: LOS ANGELES Gets Backstopped

Marine Staff Sgt. Nelson Marcos, a combat engineer specializing in demolitions, is driving on the freeway in an SUV when pursuers in a blue sedan remotely set off a car bomb, killing him. The OSP team investigates, but not before Agent Hunter (Claire Forlani) arbitrarily decides to partner Sam with Deeks and Callen with Kensi.

Hunter gave no reason for the shuffle, but again this week, most of the team respected her authority. Callen still didn’t trust her, but his mistrust was based only on a gut feeling. I had been looking forward to “Backstopped” for the character experiment it presented. I wondered what Deeks and Sam, Callen and Kensi might bring out of each other that their usual partners do not. As it turned out, neither new partnership revealed much of anything. The shuffle was played mostly for humor.

Sam and Deeks visited Marcos’s house in time to see a very tall man run out of a backyard shed. They stopped the man, and just as they asked him why he ran, the shed exploded. Brought in for questioning, the man identified himself as Charles Redman (Ethan Wilde), bouncer at a nightclub owned by Calvin Winslow (Andrew Elvis Miller). Winslow’s name was also on the registration of the SUV Marcos had been driving. Redman eventually admitted that Winslow had hired Marcos, on Redman’s recommendation, to make five bombs.

Sam explained that each bomb’s detonation could be rigged to set off the next bomb, and the resulting chain explosion could level a city block. At Hunter’s suggestion, Sam went undercover as a potential replacement for Marcos to discover what Winslow’s target was.

Rather than something related to national security, Winslow’s target was a rival nightclub set to open in a few days. Realizing Sam wasn’t who he claimed to be, Winslow managed to set off a smaller explosion, but unlike Sam, Callen, and friends, Winslow was not able to escape the explosion himself.

The stakes seemed a let-down, and Callen said as much to Agent Hunter. I was ready to call the episode a let-down until, in the final moments, it was revealed Hunter used the entire case to bolster, or “backstop,” her brand new cover identity as Winslow’s mistress. Hunter had given Callen and Kensi the name of Winslow’s mistress earlier in the episode, and they followed it to a vacant apartment, a dead end. I almost guessed Hunter’s role at that point. Callen knew Hunter was playing games with the team, giving them the runaround, but he conveniently did not put everything together until the end.

I liked how the episode turned out, but the title “Backstopped” made no sense until the end. I would have used another title altogether, to throw viewers off from Hunter’s motivation. Hunter disappeared, leaving Hetty in her place. This reminded me of Hunter’s assuming the identity of Elena Vadim in the season premiere. I bet we’ll see her again.