Two funny episodes in a row? Is that allowed?
That’s debatable, but a fun time was had when the OSP team threw in with two reformed British criminals and a former North Korean spy on NCIS: Los Angeles Season 11 Episode 6.
When the Brits are played by well-known scenery chewers Steve Valentine and Vinnie Jones, you know you’ll have to listen closely if you’re going to keep up.
Like much of British humor, it was all about the dialogue, some of which doesn’t translate well into American English.
No wonder Sam and Callen were grousing when Deeks and Fatima got into the act.
I enjoyed that myself. Fatima had a flawless accent, but Deeks, as always when he’s in character, exaggerated his accent.
The episode read “caper” right from the very beginning, when Frankie and associates robbed a criminal of his gold bars, then sent those to California in a military coffin for Ricky to pick up.
Related: NCIS: Los Angeles Season 11 Episode 5 Review: Provenance
The vibrant place and name labels only added to the comic-book feel. The episode could have used subtitles so Deeks didn’t have to translate. But where’s the fun in that?
Of course, those labels tapered off once NCIS got involved, as it was time to get serious.
Not only had Ricky’s daughter been kidnapped but there was a stolen experimental weapons system as well.
Ricky got forced out of retirement after his daughter Angela got kidnapped by people unknown, who demanded his help moving the stolen weapons system.
Where the gold bars came into it, I’m not so sure, as it wasn’t easy to follow Ricky’s Cockney exposition.
But the whole opener made for an enjoyable visual, so just roll with it.
In typical NCIS fashion, their first lead McMillan ended up dead, but at least his GPS helped them track his movements.
McMillan was a gambling addict frequenting an upscale poker game at Super Fat Willie’s mansion.
Frankie was a card sharp so he was a natural choice to get in and ferret out who may have been responsible for McMillan’s death.
It didn’t make sense that after he said the team members couldn’t pass as British, he worked up elaborate backstories and looks for each of them. How does that overcome the lack of a passable accent among them?
Fortunately, poker is a game in which hand signals can be used for communications, so they didn’t have to talk much.
Especially since all they did was pick off two crooked dealers and then take them into custody. With all the memorable card-related stings through the years on film, that seemed like kind of a waste.
It didn’t help that Frankie couldn’t resist old habits and started cheating and got caught. So much for the subtle approach.
And Ricky, as with many of Jones’s characters, didn’t do subtle, but kicked ass instead.
So, yeah, that undercover operation fell apart in short order. But it did get them where they needed to go, eventually.
It helped that neither of the dealers was terribly bright.
Results: Watch NCIS: Los Angeles Online: Season 11 Episode 5
They gave up their DNA after a taste of quality whiskey. Then, when the quickie DNA “results” established their guilt in McMillan’s murder, one of them fessed up to helping out North Korean spies under duress.
Now the squad had a reasonable suspect interested in acquiring the weapons system.
That also gave them an excuse for bringing back Jennifer Kim for the first time since NCIS: Los Angeles Season 9 Episode 15, even though her father Granger is no longer with us.
It’s nice to know such a character can still be utilized either though she no longer has even a tenuous personal connection to the team.
Jennifer willingly came out of hiding to help identify a sketch of the North Korean leader, who was a vicious one.
Fatima quickly found a possible location for the spies and their engineers who were reverse-engineering the weapons system.
Unfortunately, Ricky made up his own plan in a misguided attempt to protect Angela, offering to trade Jennifer for her to the North Koreans.
Not at all nice to do to someone who was already risking her life to help out. But, as Frankie pointed out, that warning call did endear the North Koreans to Ricky.
After hearing Ricky sweetly talk about Angela, Jennifer agreed to go along with his harebrained plan, even though she knew the North Koreans would try to kill her.
The squad still managed to get set up for the exchange despite arriving late. Naturally, while Ricky and Jennifer both got shot, they were wearing Kevlar.
I was expecting more sniping about Deeks’ bar from Frankie and Ricky, but apparently it met their standards.
Since Callen was pushing for Jennifer to get Witness Protection, we won’t see her again until North Koreans are the villains of another episode, in probably another season or two.
But let’s add Frankie and Ricky to the ever-increasing roster of recurring characters. I don’t have any idea how they could be worked in again organically but they would be fun.
I enjoyed having Fatima filling in in Ops again. It was amusing how the two Brits thought that she was a supercomputer even after they saw her live on the screen.
Related: Get CBS All Access via Amazon Channels for Hit Shows, Exclusive Originals & Live TV!
But while Eric was supposed to be gone for six episodes, I figured Nell would be running Ops every episode, with Fatima or someone else helping out occasionally until Eric’s return. It was disappointing she was gone as well.
And while Hetty’s whiskey was also short and potent, I’d really rather have her there instead.
To play “Where’s Hetty?,” watch NCIS: Los Angeles online.
How did you like Frankie and Ricky?
Did you enjoy seeing Jennifer again?
Do you appreciate the lighthearted episodes?
Comment below.
———————————————
Editor’s Note: Our system got updated! Now, you’ll be able to scroll through many articles at once. That required a bit of a change to the comments, though, and now you have to click the blue “comments” bar at the bottom of an article to access them.
There are also two segments to comments now. You can either comment using Facebook or Disqus. Either way, you can SEE both types of comments. We hope that will be more inclusive of our community at large and that the conversations will grow as a result.
Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.