NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 episode 3 review: Sam’s new boat (and his mission)

If you’re looking for crazy introductions to a given episode of the show, we absolutely feel as though NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 episode 3 delivered. We started off this episode with a powerful Navy Lieutenant in Naomi Elder being killed by a sniper, right while a poor guy was doing everything that he could in order to ask her out on a date. It was a strange case, and the more that we found out about the victim the stranger things became. She was a woman with a rather nomadic habit of traveling from one place to the next, and seemed to be carrying with her some big secrets. One of these was uncovered in form of a chip that contained some classified intel.

Elder hiding intel in a portable-game console was interesting. Meanwhile, using her Instagram comments within her operation was something new entirely. She had an interesting way of doing things, and right when the team started to find one possibly connection to her they learned moments later that said connection was dead. Basically, this was a situation where it was hard to track what Elder was up to just because leads kept disappearing.

Yet, whenever there’s a will, there’s a way. With the help of Deeks and Kensi Sam and Callen were able to eventually confront their target, an incredibly dangerous man who Callen was eventually forced to kill. What was eventually unearthed was that Lt. Elder was involved in a massive investigation with international implications. The problem now is wondering if she was the only person involved or if there is a larger operation that will make itself known in due time.

Is this a cliffhanger? We’d say so, but we would also note that the case wasn’t as exciting throughout as it was during the beginning.

A few humorous notes

NCIS: Los Angeles wouldn’t be the show that it is without a little bit of humor, right? We had that tonight in a couple of different forms.

First and foremost, we got a chance to see some of that in the form of Deeks and Kensi, who found themselves with a little bit of “conflict” as Kensi learned that Deeks saw their child as a girl. Meanwhile, apparently Kensi was envisioning that they’d have a boy. Meanwhile, there was some fun Eric/Nell story this week in how one of them liked Mosley whereas the other one liked Harley.

A personal note on Sam

Early in the episode we learned that Sam was selling his old house with Michelle, and he opted to get a new lease on life in the form of a boat. He’s going to live out on the water and try something else out for a while. He’s naming the boat after Michelle, and eventually he is planning to take her with his kids to dump his late wife’s ashes out by Carmel.

CarterMatt Verdict

NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 episode 3 provided a case with a few interesting twists and turns, but beyond that, a good bit of humor as well. We do miss Hetty still, but what we did like about this installment was that the story never got too weighty. That’s good given that we had some pretty heavy ones as of late.

Where are we going moving into NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 episode 4?

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