NCIS: Los Angeles season 11 spotlight: The future for Sam Hanna
Sam is one of the characters who stands as the foundation for making NCIS: Los Angeles as a series work, and yet, here and there we do feel like he gets left out of the major personal storylines. We haven’t really seen all that much of his family in a long time, we’ve seen a little bit with him and his boat, but really, the larger season 10 story for Sam revolved around whether or not he was going to end up leaving the team to take on more of a series of missions on the road. He had an opportunity in order to do that, but for the time being, he opted to stick around Los Angeles.
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Could Sam leave in season 11? We certainly hope not, and there has been no word of LL Cool J even wanting to leave the show. Yet, that storyline is still lingering in the back of our head and we can’t forget about it because of that.
Luckily, we do know that there is plenty of stuff that could potentially keep Sam around the City of Angels for some time still. Take, for example, the work that he is doing with Callen and the remainder of the NCIS team. They are a family for him, even if he has lost some of his real family over the years and his kids seem to be off doing other things. The NCIS office is an established home base for him, and while we think he at times tries to push his feelings far into the back of his head, we really do think he appreciates them. As a matter of fact, we know that. We just had too many family moments of him with the other characters to think otherwise.
So where could the story go for Sam moving forward? Personally, we would like to see more of him and Nicole DeChamps together, mostly because it seems like something is being built towards a real relationship there. It’s still in the early stages, but that could absolutely be something that keeps him around Los Angeles for some time in the future. If he likes her, why ever leave? He deserves a chance to be happy, even though what happened in terms of Michelle’s death was tragic and incredibly difficult to get over.
Meanwhile, it would also be great to have Sam front-and-center for some action-oriented episodes, especially if we meet a particular threat who has a few different ties to his past. We’ve seen a lot of villains on NCIS: Los Angeles over the years, but we haven’t seen enough as of late that are directly tied to him (it’s happened before, but not for a while). We’ve gotten a little bit with Callen, but not so much with Sam. Season 11 could be a chance to change that and put this character back in the spotlight a little bit more with a threat that requires the help of his friends.
More than anything, we want to see Sam rattled out in the field. We want to see LL Cool J deliver some of his best emotional work we’ve seen in years. When you’ve got someone of his caliber in the cast, we really hope you embrace it and swing for the fences.
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What do you want to see for Sam Hanna on NCIS: Los Angeles season 11? Be sure to share in the comments, and check back soon for some other insight. (Photo: CBS.)