NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 episode 2 review: Counterfeiting conflicts

John M. Jackson

Tonight on NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 episode 2 (which was originally supposed to air last week), counterfeiting was really the name of the game. All of the teams worked in collaboration to take on a large-scale operation, though every one of them had a different role in it.

Take, for example, Deeks and Kensi spending the vast majority of the episode in an interrogation room with the apparent daughter of a counterfeiting czar trying to get information out of them. What they realized soon after that was that interrogating her was harder than they had thought — she wasn’t willing to bite, and at one point she tried to turn Kensi rather than give up any information … until Deeks and Kensi started to piece together clues. They had figured out that she was not the counterfeiter’s daughter at all, but rather a rags-to-riches story, a woman who found her way into the business and came up with the story to get power and influence right away.

While Deeks and Kensi handled this part of the case, Sam spent the better part of this hour undercover as a financier. He had a more directly-dangerous position in the case and he certainly felt it by the end when you consider how he had so many different guns pointed in his face. Somehow, though, the NCIS: LA team managing to survive people with guns pointing all around them is one of the things that this team is good at. we also saw it later with Anna and Callen as these two went to the streets for their part of the investigation. It ended in a shootout, but before that the two characters went undercover at a clothing store in one of the most ridiculous scenes of the entire episode.

This counterfeiting operation was, in the end, shut down and the team can breathe a little easier — and the same goes for the city of Los Angeles.

What’s happening with Hetty?

Remember her old friend from Vietnam and the helicopter crash? She believed herself to be the only survivor, but that doesn’t exactly turn out to be the case. We’re starting to get a sense now as to what her story overseas is going to be about, and revenge seems to be a key part of that. Hetty ended up making an enemy just because she didn’t check to see if a man in her team was actually dead. Now, she finds herself halfway around the world without much help, separated from just about everyone. Nell and Eric are looking for her, but they may not be able to find her before anything else happens.

CarterMatt Verdict

One of the things that we did appreciate about this episode was how we did see the death of Michelle Hanna addressed — the show is not just sweeping everything that happened to Sam under the rug like it’s not altogether important to the story. Aside from the case (which was solid, if not super-memorable), the night’s other best moment came in seeing how Anna relaxes from work: Xbox. Basically, she’s like the super-agent version of us except with a different gaming system.

What’s coming next on NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 episode 3?

Well, you are going to be seeing an episode that you were originally supposed to see tonight! Be sure to head over here to get more news about it.

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