NCIS: New Orleans season 5 episode 15 review: Hannah’s Victor Zelko crisis
After all, improving sea walls was the very basis for Jax Inc., who had an ambitious goal entering this episode: Trying to ensure that levees in the future could withstand flooding to prevent future disasters like Hurricane Katrina. As a tsunami survivor, the head of the corporation (Jax herself) had a personal connection to the case.
This is all positive and hopeful … but, this is a show with murder at the center of it! You had to expect that there was going to be some bad news a-coming, and it turned out that this happened when a number of people associated with the company were found dead at a work site. On the surface, it appeared as though these people died because of a potentially-toxic chemical within her seal-wall polymer. Yet, she insisted that it was safe! Was she set up? That was the indication, and soon after that, the team uncovered a very particular suspect: Norman Wong. This was an investor known for making the most out of companies he invests in … mostly to his own benefit. He doesn’t really care if they live or die; he just wants to turn the shards into quick cash.
What we realized as this episode went along is that Wong is a very bad dude. Seriously. This is someone who showed himself capable of just about anything as this episode went along. He was devious, crafty, and determined to get whatever he wanted. He threatened Hannah, for example, and he made good on it — exposing a past operation in Yemen to the public. He wanted to distract the public, and also jeopardize Hannah’s career, by exposing an incident that led to several dead bodies overseas.
While the NCIS team in New Orleans still worked to get to the bottom of what happened with Jax and the case, Hannah found herself derailed. Homeland Security arrived on the scene to interrogate her about what she knew about the attack — and whether or not she knew that they were dead bodies. The Zelko raid is one that will define Hannah’s life unless she finds a way to stop it. The question that defined this episode is simply this: Just how far would Dwayne Pride go in order to ensure that he could both help Hannah and serve justice?
Did the team solve Jax’s case?
This is where Patton and Sebastian went into tech overdrive. Consider this fighting fire with fire — he managed to set up Jax for what happened with the murders, so in turn, Pride used his experts to help derail Norman before he could get out of New Orleans and away from being stopped for good.
For a moment, though, it looked as though Wong was going to get away with his crimes, though — Pride was so intent on getting information on the Zelko raid and helping Hannah that he seemed willing to close the case against him. Yet, it was all a trick — in Pride’s own words, he pulled a rabbit out of a hat! He manages to deceive Wong enough to make him confess to committing crimes … while wearing a wire. He got the FBI involved and they arrested him. Jax is free to run her company once more.
So the good news is that Hannah Khoury is okay in the aftermath of this mission, and she has her job and her reputation back intact. The bad news is that Pride uncovered some pretty terrible information: Victor Zelko, the very man Hannah was targeting in that tragic raid, is still very much alive.
CarterMatt Verdict
Is Norman Wong one of the best villains on NCIS: New Orleans this season? In terms of being both powerful and intimidating, we’d argue so. He was a master of information and someone who, through most of this episode,
What’s coming next on NCIS: New Orleans?
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