NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 spoilers: Nia Long joins as series regular
The recent Empire actress and Third Watch alum is going to be the show’s new executive assistant director Shay Mosely, replacing Owen Granger (the late Miguel Ferrer), who held the position for many years. She’s described as an “experienced Washington insider” who has experience working with the Secret Service and many other political figures on the east coast. She’ll have a vibe that could actually be reminiscent of an NCIS character, so we wonder if this could make the show feel almost like a crossover episode on a fairly regular basis.
Based on what showrunner R. Scott Gemmill said in a new statement confirming the casting of Long, signs point towards this being a role that was written entirely for her in mind, and they’re very glad to have her on board in it. She’ll be a big part of the ninth season (she’s not guaranteed for every episodes, but the same could be argued about any character), and with new people does come a new energy and some new conflicts that you can see play out amongst the team. Sam, Callen, Deeks, Kensi, Nell, Eric, and Hetty have all worked together at this point for an extremely long period of time. They know each other well, and can often even go so far as anticipate what each other is going to do in a given situation.
When you consider all of this, it’s almost essential to have some new blood in there every now and then to mix things up! As long as the show finds creative ways to integrate the new character into the cast, there is a lot to be excited about here. They can be a nice compliment to the cast and maybe allow the show to take on some interesting challenges that it was not taking on beforehand.
This news comes as the entire NCIS: Los Angeles prepares to start the season leading up to the show’s airing debut a little bit later this fall. Production is starting a little bit later here than some other shows that are on the CBS fall schedule, but they’ve clearly got something worked out in advance schedule-wise to allow this to be so. (NCIS and some of its off-shoots do have a history of starting filming a little later than some other series out there. With that, you cannot be all that surprised by this … even if NCIS proper did start filming a little bit earlier than we expected it to this year.)
What do you think about this Nia Long – NCIS: Los Angeles casting news? Be sure to share some of your thoughts in the comments!
Meanwhile, head over to this link in the event you do want some additional news and insight when it comes to the show. We’ll have more updates throughout production, so stay tuned. (Photo: CBS.)