NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 episode 6 review: Deeks’ big episode and a Hetty update

There’s a part of us wondering if the start of NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 episode 6 was meant to be a Stranger Things homage with some children wandering around speaking about creepy things in the woods. They did hear gunshots, but that’s clearly a little bit different from the sort of stuff that the characters on the Netflix show came to see.

After this creepy intro, we eventually moved into what was the primary story of this hour tonight: Deeks being called in by Detective Whiting to look into what’s happened with his old partner Bates, a man who may be in the process of training dirty cops and leading some dangerous operations (the key word here being “may”). Whiting felt as though Deeks is one of the only people who could get through to him. As a result of that, she basically blackmailed him in order to ensure that he went in on the case.

The bad news for Deeks is that almost immediately after he got involved, Bates pulled a gun on him and forced him to drive, diverting the cops and putting Marty in all sorts of danger. This led to Callen and Sam teaming up with Whiting in order to try and figure out the truth behind what happened here.

Bates eventually led Deeks to a secure location, where he told him that “sometimes you have to do a bad thing to convince people to listen.” He was keeping a hostage, a valuable engineer with key information. The guy feels a little bit like a reject from HBO’s Silicon Valley, but in actuality he’s a man who accidentally created a plant virus that could wipe out the entirety of the food supply. He gave the virus to his superior and, in turn, wonders if this superior is someone working with bad people. Bates may not be dirty after all!

Sam and Callen paid a visit to the agricultural company, where in turn they were able to identify a suspect who seemed to run away very quickly from the scene the moment that the NCIS team arrived. The man who escaped ended up going to Deeks and Bates, where he claimed that he was making an exchange with the virus in hand in order to arrest the bad guys. It’s too bad that their place was surrounded by a bunch of bad guys with guns and this led to a pretty crazy shootout.

Eventually, Sam and Callen did bring in Deeks and Bates’ target in order to get some information on when the drop was meant to take place. They got the information, and from there they had to navigate what was a game of hot potato in order to find the person really behind the trade. They succeeded in their quest, Bates found himself vindicated, and Whiting had to eat her words.

All in all, a great day for Deeks! He got to stick it to Whiting and save the day in the process.

Your Hetty update

Who is the man claiming to be Hetty’s former colleague Harris Keane? She’s still trying to get answers in Vietnam on that. Also, she still found herself trapped in her cage trying to get some more information on Operation Sunset/Sunrise or whatever else you want to call it. Her struggle was accepting the fact that this man was Harris Keane, and he tried to prove it to her with some serious scars on his back reminiscent of Jamie Fraser from Outlander.

In the closing minutes, Keane made it clear that he never sought out help from anyone mostly for one reason: Revenge. Unfortunately, both parties now found themselves in a position where they were at the mercy of others, and their captors were ready to trade of Hetty for a rather hefty ransom.

CarterMatt Verdict

A really good episode of NCIS: Los Angeles that felt somewhat old-school — we had more Hetty than we’ve seen in a while, and also a really good case that gave many of the main characters some cool stuff to do.

What’s coming next on NCIS: Los Angeles season 9 episode 7?

If you do want to preview the installment ahead, be sure to head over to the link here right now!

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