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NCIS: Los Angeles Season 13 Rewatch: “Live Free or Die Standing”

The basics: When a whistleblower is chased by the drug cartels and a DEA Agent is killed, the team and Talia Del Campo start the search.

Written by: Eric Christian Olsen co-wrote "Mother" in season 11.

Directed by: Daniela Ruah directed "Russia, Russia, Russia", "Lost Soldier Down" and "Pandora's Box".

Guest stars of note: Mercedes Mason returns as DEA Agent Talia Del Campo, last seen in "The Guardian", part one of the three-part season 10 finale/season 11 premiere. And since we're talking about the three-parter, who killed Ellie Simms? Duncan Campbell as NCIS Special Agent Castor, back from “Hard for the Money”. Brian Leigh Smith was Bomb Tech Aaron Roberts, a role he played in “Mother” but he also appeared as a police officer in "Overwatch" and was a wingman in "The Bear" season 12 premiere. Rick Pasqualone as Martin Henderson, Goya Robles as Miguel Flores, Dan Gauthier as Carlyle Huntington, Larry Herron as DEA Agent David Ramirez, Carolina Gutierrez as Emma Ruiz, Alicia Urizar as Isabella Cruz, Pam Trotter as Loretta Dawson/Desk Clerk and Sheila Wills as Thelma.

Our heroes: Try to save a marked man.

What important things did we learn about:

Callen: Not here. Sam: Teamed with both Fatima and Rountree during different parts of the episode. Kensi: Teases Deeks about a mancave. Deeks: Looking to spend their money on a welcome to the family package for Rosa or Pilar. Fatima: Tackling gun runners. Rountree: Never saw “Top Gun” but knows Goose dies. Kilbride: Filled with righteous indignation.

What not so important things did we learn about:

Callen: Absent. Sam: 15-minutes early or you’re late. Kensi: Likes the mindful breakfast. Deeks: Jacks down a breakfast man-shake like a Neanderthal. Fatima: Etsy fan. Rountree: Man-shake fan, too. Kilbride: Voted red since Coolidge and has lots of guns.

Where in the world is Henrietta Lange? Who knows but she should check in soon – Eric Beale is mailing out checks.

Who's down with OTP: Kensi and Deeks were great if a little forced.

Who's down with BrOTP: Not Talia and Rountree. Those scenes were not great.

Fashion review: Sam is wearing a long-sleeve black tee-shirt has he has for a lot of episodes this season. Kensi is wearing her white sweater with the thin blue stripes. For Deeks, a royal blue henley. Fatima has a multi-color quarter zip zipped all the way up under a dark blue jacket. A long-sleeve green tee for Rountree. The Admiral is in a dark blue suit, white dress-shirt and an aquamarine tie.

Music: No.

Any notable cut scene: One. In the retirement home, Rountree and Talia are going to speak to a Wayne Brown. Brown bought several weapons. Banging on his door and not getting a response, Rountree wonders if Brown is at the gun range. Talia shoots back debating if he’s “tossing his hot dog down the hallway.” Rountree thinks Talia is an HR nightmare. As a diligent federal agent, Talia thinks they should be checking to see if Brown is “shampooing the Wookie.” Brown’s nurse brings the sleeping man to his apartment in a wheelchair. He’s sound asleep. Calling Rountree “Rounbush”, Talia thinks Brown can only butter his own buns.

Quote: Anything from an angry Admiral in this episode. From interrogation with Huntington, to yelling at the team to save Henderson to cursing at the gods for the system’s decision to bury Henderson’s video – this was a great episode for the Admiral and Gerald McRaney.

Anything else: A shootout is happening in the dark. Two men are running upstairs. One says “Please God help us.” They make their way to the roof of the building. With just a chair to barricade the door, one man, armed and who looks like law enforcement says he’ll watch the door. The other man goes down the fire escape to get away from the shooters. Before he starts down, the man at the door says “Don’t trust anybody. They’ve got people everywhere.”

With the fellow climbing down the fire escape, the man at the door tries to reposition himself. He’s been shot. Gun drawn, he waits for what’s on the other side of the door.

As the other man gets to the street, he pulls out his cellphone and tries to get it to work. Before he can, the headless body of the man barricading the door lands at his feet. The people in the street start screaming and running. The survivor is covered with blood spatter.

At 7:58AM, Kensi and Deeks arrive at the office. They are greeted by Sam’s “It’s about time.” Deeks points out they are actually two minutes early to work. That makes them 13-minutes late is Sam’s world. Deeks likes being early too but Kensi has the “clock management skills of a tree sloth.” Kensi likes a mindful breakfast while Deeks inhales a “man-shake” like a Neanderthal.

Looking at an envelope on his desk, Deeks thinks it is a Dear John letter from Eric Beale. Sam and Kensi both have an envelope as well. There are instructions on the envelope that nobody should open theirs until everyone is present. Sam says “we” have been waiting for Kensi and Deeks to arrive. Deeks asks who is we? We includes Rountree at his desk, drinking his own man-shake. Inspector Deeks just learns about the desks by the old wardrobe.

Sam, Kensi, Deeks and Rountree open their envelopes to find a $10,000 check for each of them. Eric writes that in Silicon Valley, success is confused with happiness. Eric is sharing some of his success with his friends and hope it makes them happy. Deeks thinks Eric was inspired by Gibbs (great call-out show). There is also a $10,000 check to each of the team member’s favorite charities. Eric’s only stipulation is that the gift has to be spent – no putting it in the bank.

Rountree finds Eric to be a modern-day Robin Hood. Only if the Sheriff of Nottingham is riding on a Segway talking Klingon Sam adds. Deeks would strap on some green tights and be Eric’s Merry Man for $10,000. The Admiral makes a note of that offer and adds it to the growing list of things he can’t unsee now that he’s with OSP. They have a case. Deeks asks if the Admiral got a check. He did. And he’s ordering noise-canceling headphones and soundproof glass for his office. Deeks giggles all the way to Ops.

In Ops, Deeks tells Fatima to check her desk. She already has and has been “doom scrolling” on Etsy until she heard from a very special guest. Talia Del Campo pops up on the big screen – she’s on a plane and opens with “Welcome Avengers.” She wishes she was there to give everyone extra gluten muffins and Deeks a long and inappropriate hug. That gets a “Yes please” from Deeks and laughs from everyone else.

All was well with Talia until 24-hours ago when the DEA lost contact with one of their agents who was on a protection detail with a cartel whistleblower. The DEA Agent was the man barricading the door – David Ramirez. There are some really terrible headless photos on the big screen – don’t do that show. Sam offers condolences. Worried about the whistleblower, Talia turns the briefing over the Fatima.

The missing man is Martin Henderson, a 20-year Navy veteran who retired to work in sales and distribution for a firearms manufacturer. Henderson found that straw buyers were being used to make weapons sales and those weapons were being shipped to the cartels in Mexico. Mexico has one legal gun shop in the whole country and they sell about 10,000 guns a year. These straw purchases are moving 250,000 guns illegally into Mexico each year.

Fatima asks her little “Norwegian Weasel” if he has any guesses why there isn’t a crackdown on this. He doesn’t have an answer. Since nobody wants American guns in the hands of Mexican criminals, the Mexican government is trying to crackdown by suing the gun manufacturers the way the parents in Sandy Hook did. Martin Henderson was supposed to testify about the gun sales. Talia expects to arrive in 30-minutes. She has two addresses for the team to check out. With the clock ticking, Sam knows there will be six different body bags for Henderson if the cartels find him first.

As Deeks drives, he is looking for an update from Fatima. Henderson has not contacted his family or the DEA. The addresses Talia sent was the only leads. One is connected to Carlyle Huntington, Henderson’s boss. Fatima sends a photo that Kensi considers a “hard swipe right”. Huntington has a clean record and a lot of money with homes in LA, Manhattan, ranch house in New Mexico and a penthouse in Mexico City. Kaleidoscope caught him entering a restaurant called La Bocca Felice, which impresses Deeks. Sam and Rountree are on their way.

Feeling he lost a bet, Deeks asks why are they going to Lancaster. There is an address that is the last thing Henderson sent out before disappearing. The address is a large ranch house being remodeled. Sam is worried – nobody knows what is in Lancaster so he wants Kensi and Deeks to be careful.

During the drive to Lancaster, Deeks asks Kensi if she has any idea what they should do with their $20,000. Kensi thinks put it back in the house. Make the garage a staycation paradise, maybe get a pool table. Deeks is intrigued. Get a flat screen TV, a minifridge and a golden shark. Deeks laughs and calls her cruel and heartless. Kensi laughs at how the joy in his eyes all melted away. Deeks is offended she’d use his golden shark to trick him. He’d also like to know what are they going to do with the money – “for real.”

Since they’ve been busy and it only just happened, Kensi doesn’t really have plans. Deeks does. He’s thinking satellite phone, iPad, monogramed towels. Kensi says they have all those things. They do but maybe for Pilar or Rosa. Deeks has been reading and part of adopting a teen from another country after making them feel safe and loved is giving them the opportunity to stay in contact with their extended family. Kensi loves Deeks and thinks it is so thoughtful. But since she brought up the golden shark, why not a pinball machine?

Blowing right past the parking valet, Sam and Rountree walk into La Bocca Felice. Huntington is having a meal with a female friend. As Sam and Rountree go to Huntington, two bodyguards try to stop them. They are not good bodyguards – they are in handcuffs in short order.

Walking up to the table, Sam notices Huntington is drinking an expresso martini at 10AM. “Well, I don’t do coke anymore.” He also denies that the bodyguards were with him – he’s never seen them before. With his date leaving early, Huntington is willing to talk to Sam and see “how poorly our tax dollars are spent.”

On the phone, the Admiral is exasperated. Nobody got Henderson’s testimony in writing. Anything would be better than nothing and the way things are going, they have nothing.

Kensi and Deeks pull up to a house under construction in his truck. Deeks has been watching the show. He can’t understand why they say “federal agents” since everyone either runs away or starts shooting. God bless you Martin A. Deeks. He thinks they should yell Jonas Brothers and honestly, I’m, not 100% on board for that. Kensi still says “federal agents” as they kick in the door. The house is empty but under construction.

Fatima calls. There is video of Kensi and Deeks getting out of the truck and going into the house. NCIS’s threat management team picked it up on the internet. They’re being watched. Since they’re in “frickin’ Egypt” there is no time for back-up. Kensi asks could the footage be from a hacked surveillance camera. She and Deeks hid near the windows, gun drawn. Fatima can see them in the house in the video. They are right outside of the house. Deeks finds this all a bummer, he didn’t plan on bleeding today. Kensi thinks the $10,000 shouldn’t go to hospital bills. Going outside, everyone is gone. All the construction workers are gone but their trucks and equipment are still there. They wanted Kensi and Deeks to know they were being watched.

In interrogation, Sam finds it interesting that Huntington didn’t ask why he was being brought in. Huntington isn’t interested in acting oblivious. He knows Henderson is missing. Sam asks for a reason Henderson would be missing and Huntington snarks about a second family. He knows about Henderson working the DEA and NCIS dropping by his “brunch with benefits” confirms that. Huntington finds it odd that Henderson’s ex-wife and daughters haven’t approached him. He has contacts all over the world and they didn’t ask for help. They didn’t ask for help because Henderson is working against him. Selling guns and ammo isn’t for everyone. Henderson obviously became “allergic” to his great salary and hefty 401K.

Pushing back, Sam thinks Henderson learned about the straw buyers. Saying his company is bulletproof (pun intended), Huntington invites NCIS to get a warrant and look thought all of his paperwork, they haven’t broken a single law. The ATF is in Huntington’s offices right now looking around. They aren’t going to find anything. Huntington does tell Sam and Rountree that the two bodyguards at the restaurant really weren’t working for him. Now, if someone really believes that guns purchased from Huntington’s company are smuggled into Mexico, the cartels have a good reason to keep Huntington safe. Leaving interrogation, Rountree tells Huntington that he doesn’t like him. Huntington tells him the night is still young.

In the main room, the Admiral doesn’t like Huntington either. Fatima pops up on the plasma, she has over 100 gun purchases coming from a single address with the names of multiple buyers. Talia has arrived and is looking for “a wingman to be her Goose.” Rountree asks “who’s Goose” and it is hard to tell who is more offended, Sam or the Admiral. Sam can’t believe Rountree never saw “Top Gun”. “Of course he hasn’t, unless it’s in 30-second clips on TikTok or they’ve made it with vampires.” Rountree gets to work with Talia today while the Admiral tries to work on Huntington. As he leaves, Sam tells Rountree that Goose dies in “Top Gun”. Rountree is not pleased. The Admiral is going after Huntington.

Walking into interrogation, the Admiral is greeted by Huntington with an AARP joke or “Bring Grandpa to work day.” The Admiral admits he’s 74 (when the episode was filmed, so was Gerald McRaney). He should be living on a beach in Costa Rica, reading a cheap spy novel and drinking an expensive single malt. Instead, he’s in LA. He goes on a long tirade about LA types.

Moving to the wrong side of the table, the Admiral needs a name of someone who can find Henderson. Huntington replies “Keyser Soze.” That gets a chuckle from the Admiral for being clever but look where clever got him. Huntington thinks clever got him a lunch date with a woman half his age and twice as hot.

Getting serious, the Admiral explains that if Henderson is caught by the cartels, he’s getting a Columbian necktie and the Admiral goes into great detail on how that happens. Touching the Admiral’s suit, Huntington asks if that would be considered business causal. The 74-year old Admiral takes Huntington’s hand, turns his wrist and has him face down on the edge of the table. Asking one more time, the Admiral wants a name. Huntington blurts out “Miguel Flores”. As the Admiral leaves, Huntington said he didn’t see Kilbride as a “smug, anti-gun snowflake”. He’s not – he’s voted red since Coolidge and he’s got more guns than Huntington has empty bottles of Viagra. This is about choosing financial gain over human decency.

In the main room, Sam is impressed. The Admiral admits having not made a move like that since BUD/S. Fatima is back on the plasma. Miguel Flores is an immigrant who became a US citizen after spending 10-years in the Navy. Now, Flores crosses the border daily with handipainted tiles. Fatima can’t find a brick and mortar address for Flores but he has a boat near Sam’s and two expensive vehicles – a Raptor and a Ducati.

As Sam is about to go to the boat alone, the Admiral reminds him they work in teams. Fatima is out of Ops and working with Sam. The Admiral wants blood, answers or both. He’d really like both.

Clearing the perimeter of the house, Kensi arrives at the home’s garage where there are three additional locks. Deeks finally gets in by doing a crane kick and they find the expensive Raptor with handmade Mexican tile.

Screeching to a stop, Talia jumps out of her Honda and apologizes for being late. She makes several In-n-Out jokes and Rountree isn’t there for it. Approaching the front desk of this retirement home, Talia introduces herself and Agent Squaretree. When Rountree corrects her, the two bicker and the desk clerk is not amused. Fatima wants a list of residents, some have purchased over 100 guns. The clerk gladly turns it over with a warning that if they are going to talk to anyone, knock hard. It was water aerobics day and after 10AM, that place becomes frisky. Rountree could have lived without that image. As Rountree and Fatima walk up the stairs to find the residents, a younger woman – obviously not a resident – walks down.

Exiting his car, Sam talks about spending the $10,000 as an extension of your happiness. Sam would take a family vacation, maybe help Kam with a car down payment. Fatima asks as a millennial, should she stop buying useless items from Etsy. Depends, Sam tells her. “Do they spark joy?” Coming across the Ducati, Sam asks for Miguel Flores, who is working on his boat. Sam goes “federal agent” and really should have gone Jonas brother. Flores takes off. Sam chases while Fatima goes around. When Flores goes where Fatima stationed herself, she blocks him into the water.

After examining the truck, Kensi finds it squeaky clean. Thinking that moving Mexican tile doesn’t pay for expensive trucks and a fancy motorcycle, Deeks uses a broomstick to try to get into a strange spot in the ceiling. Deeks is a fan of the home repair shows and Zillow porn surfing. Climbing into the overhead, Deeks is walking around when he finds a dead body when he falls through the ceiling.

In handcuffs, Flores says he doesn’t live in the house. He just drives the tiles back and forth. Fatima promises NCIS can help him but he thinks he’s dead man walking. His family – mom, dad, two little brothers – all depend on him for money. If the cartels learn he’s talking to NCIS, the family will be killed.

A woman named Thelma invites Talia and ”Agent Rounleaf” into her apartment. They think Thelma is a straw buyer but she has guns. They are old fashion rifles. Thelma hasn’t bought any of the guns no the list. When asked about her ID, Thelma tells them there was a robbery in the building so the front office keeps the IDs safe. The desk clerk collected the IDs. When Talia and Rountree go back to see the desk clerk, her throat was cut.

In the boat shed, Huntington’s lawyer arrived. She tells the Admiral that Huntington is returning to New Mexico on a six o’clock private flight so she wants to wrap things up.

The bomb squad checked out the house. No bombs. The bad news is their sub-surface tech found something in the walls of the house. While Kensi is asking how they can look into the walls, Deeks just busts one up. There are guns all through the walls.

In an NCIS-style Zoom call with the faces on the plasma, Talia and Rountree matched the out of state IDs with the purchases of the guns. The desk clerk was the straw buyer. Lawyer Deeks says even if they can connected the guns and Loretta to the cartels, that doesn’t give them anything against Huntington’s company. Sam doesn’t want to get caught in the weeds – Henderson can make all those connections when they find him. They have to get either Huntington or Flores to flip. The Admiral will start with Huntington.

With his lawyer in interrogation, Huntington waits. When the Admiral walks in and tells him he can go but not before calling him a few names. More than a few. The lawyer doesn’t thinks they have to listen to the Admiral. Huntington gets off a few shots at the “Captain”. Saying that the country was born in genocide and hasn’t had a good war since the Great War. When Huntington finishes, the Admiral says he was a solider who fought for Huntington’s right to be a jackass.

Huntington continue to talk about soldiers fighting because big business wants them to. The Admiral calls Huntington a war profiteer who can sleep at night because of the distanced between him and the bodies his weapons killed. Huntington replies about drones killing children and calling it diplomacy. When the Admiral talks about a particular atrocity committed by the cartels, Huntington says that means there are less mouths to feed. “Does your dead mother in heave know what you’ve become?”

Standing, Huntington’s lawyer wants them to go. The Admiral talks about Huntington’s mother, a church secretary and a middle school teacher. She made people’s lives better and is crying in heaven because “what you are is an abomination.” Huntington breaks – he could tell every the Admiral every straw buyer, every cartel person who gets a gun but nothing will happen because of the corrupt lawyers and lobbyists and judges. Pointing to his lawyer, Huntington says he didn’t hire her, the cartels did to keep the system safe. She pulls out a pen and asks him to get up and go. When Huntington is about to give up Henderson’s location, the lawyer stabs Huntington in the neck with the pen. Huntington is dying. While tending to Huntington, the Admiral calls for Castor to arrest the lawyer. Huntington is foaming at the mouth – there was poison on the pen.

Stopping LAPD before Flores is put into the back of a black and white, Sam begs Flores to help them. Fatima says NCIS is ready to get his family from Mexico and bring them to the US, granting them asylum. Flores turns them down. His family will be dead before the agents get there. Sam understands that the cartel helped him get to the Navy, get dual citizenship. With the power to save a man’s life, Flores can strike down the monsters who own him and his family. Flores asks for his phone. Sam says the right thing to do and the hardest thing to do are the same thing. Flores finds out Henderson was found – he’s in a warehouse in Culver City.

Sam and Fatima are five-minutes out from the warehouse. If he survives with a speeding Talia, Rountree things he’s seven-minutes out. The Culver City PD is ten-minutes out and the building is on fire. Sam and Fatima do not have full face respirators to go into the fire – budget cuts. Fatima found something to buy with her $10,000. Rountree and Talia have them. The Admiral orders, “Sam, save this man.”

As they get to the warehouse, Sam and Fatima are immediately under fire. The Hellcat and the gunmen get shot up. Taking some deep breaths, Sam runs into the fire. In the warehouse is the woman Rountree and Talia passed at the retirement home. She’s shooting at Sam while everything is on fire. Sam follows her. In the middle of the warehouse with flames around him, Sam finds Henderson covered in his own blood.

As the woman who Sam was chasing before finding Henderson is about to flee, she is stopped by Talia. Talia warns her to drop the gun. The woman would “rather die standing.” Talia tells her to shut up and drop the gun. The woman asks if Talia believes in the devil. Talia does. When the woman brings her arm up to shoot Talia, Talia shoots her on the spot. “Tell him I say hello.” The woman tries to take Talia out before dying. She is killed.

Sam runs out of the burning building with a dying Henderson in a fireman’s hold. Getting into the ambulance, Sam tells the EMTs that Henderson must live. Rountree sees Henderson was holding onto his phone. Looking at the phone, he sees that Henderson was recording. Asked what to do with it, Rountree is told by Fatima to send it to the office and hope it was worth the lives of two good men.

The Admiral is arguing with someone on the phone because while the video can’t be used as testimony it could be used for probative value. The Admiral gets a text – Henderson died going to the hospital. Livid, the Admiral says he will bury the video. Kensi and Deeks arrive and the Admiral is screaming in frustration in his office. Deeks notes the soundproof glass has not arrived. The Admiral marches to Ops, telling Kensi and Deeks they weren’t in the office, they saw nothing. Deeks thinks murders often make that statement.

Kensi is willing to spend her $10,000 to buy a time machine so they can go back. They can do this case again only smarter, faster, so Henderson survives. Deeks wouldn’t mind not riding the “corpse coaster” from the ceiling. Kensi’s phone buzzes, so does Deeks. A blocked number sends a message to over 200 NCIS staffers. Putting it up on the bullpen’s plasma, it is Henderson’s video. The guns were marketed to Mexican cartels using quotes of Mexican heroes on the guns slides. Everyone knew they were sold to straw buyers. Henderson said he can’t look another atrocity committed by the cartels and know that he played a role in this – he didn’t want to be a whistleblower but now he is.

Kensi and Deeks watch from the bullpen. Rountree watches with Talia in the warehouse parking lot. Sam is watching in the ambulance with Henderson’s body. In the video, Henderson talks about being the father of two beautiful girls, spending 20-years with the Navy defending his country and 10-years selling his soul. He knew what he was doing was wrong. It ate away at his soul. “Speak the truth and the dawn will come.” He says goodbye to his daughters and is shot. “I love you so much.” The woman Talia shot kills him, complete with the line about believing in the devil.

Kensi and Deeks looks up and sees Kilbride at the top of the stairs. They all know what he did.

What head canon can be formed from here: This should have been a better episode. Parts of it – where they weren’t overdoing the comedy, were terrific. The goofy physical humor with Deeks, the bad behaving Talia to Rountree – who has done nothing to earn her dismissive attitude – was all just a bit too much. It works so hard against the amazing work in the dramatic scenes.

Based on the show’s history, wouldn’t Kensi inhale a shake for breakfast while Deeks have a mindful morning meal?

For those wondering, a gift of $10,000 is not a taxable event and will not trigger an audit. That number has gone up recently but $10,000 is the commonly thought threshold. Eric talked to a good tax lawyer.

Episode number: Episode 299 overall, the 19th episode of season 13.

#NCIS: Los Angeles Rewatch #NCIS: Los Angeles #NCIS: LA #NCIS Los Angeles #ncis la

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