NCIS: Los Angeles

About the series

Contains story spoilers.

NCIS: Los Angeles follows the Office of Special Projects, a branch of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service whose agents work undercover against threats to national security. Created by Shane Brennan, the series makes assumed identities and access to advanced surveillance central to its investigations. Chris O’Donnell plays G. Callen and LL Cool J plays Sam Hanna, with Linda Hunt as operations manager Hetty Lange. Kensi Blye, operational psychologist Nate Getz, rookie Dominic Vail and technical operator Eric Beale complete the early team. Their cases move between military personnel and civilian networks: drug operations, private security companies, stolen weapons and apparently ordinary businesses can all conceal a connection that brings the office into the field.

Callen returns to work after recovering from a near-fatal shooting, finding the team in new premises under Hetty’s management. His first investigation begins with a Navy commander’s body discovered in a van after a police chase. The commander’s execution threatens to expose a classified operation against Mexican drug cartels, while his niece is being held hostage. Callen and Sam infiltrate a suspect’s house, but the girl’s father is responsible and recognises a connection to the investigators through Kensi’s earlier visit. Dom helps Callen regain the advantage by prompting a deception that makes the father believe he is dealing with the commander. The agents defeat him and the child returns home. At the end of the case, Callen spends the night at the office rather than returning to a settled domestic life.

Sam’s military loyalties become a liability and a source of insight when a drug-house raid points to former SEALs. Security footage shows familiar hand signals, and he recognises Kurt Holgate. Another man, Timothy Jackson, is later found dead on the beach. The apparent story of trained servicemen turning criminal begins to change when the investigators learn that an LAPD detective, Grozen, may have shot his own partner. Sam persuades a surviving SEAL to reveal Holgate’s location by insisting that silence could leave another teammate in danger. After Holgate is arrested, Grozen threatens him for the missing money. The team watches remotely as the trap develops, Kensi and Dom stop a sniper, and Sam shoots Grozen after the detective wounds Holgate. The uniform alone has proved a poor guide to whom Sam should trust.

A different military threat starts with a drone that goes off course during a training exercise, kills a Marine and disappears. Recovering its video feed leads the team toward a hacker, but that trail produces further violence rather than the missing aircraft. Kensi works undercover at a college linked to the uploaded footage; the man she approaches is subsequently found murdered. The investigation connects the plot to AJ Concept Solutions and revenge for a woman killed by a drone in Afghanistan. When the stolen aircraft reappears over Los Angeles, a high school is in danger. Dom persuades its original operator, Captain Briggs, to help while Eric works on the controls. Callen and Sam confront the company’s chief on a yacht, but the missile is launched before they can stop him. Eric’s intervention lets Briggs steer it into the ocean.

Private security complicates the hunt for Walton Flynn, a former Marine accused of murdering Iraqi businessman Nasir Amini. Citdential wants to reach him too, and its armed employees pursue the case on their own terms. Callen uses a cover identity to approach a woman Flynn knows, while the team tries to recover information from a SIM card he has brought her. Flynn’s claim that he needs to cut the head off the snake becomes a clue when Callen connects it to the company’s logo. The agents arrive as Flynn aims a gun at Peter Caldwell and security officers prepare to fire back. Eric extracts video recorded by a camera mounted on Flynn’s weapon and displays it on a nearby billboard. It shows Caldwell committing the murder, reversing the accusation and allowing Callen to place Flynn in protective custody.

The murder of North Korean defector Daniel Su brings classified research and a longstanding pursuit into the same investigation. Su is an electronics engineer developing a communications system for DARPA; his business partner Sally Morris is also found dead. Assassin Lee Wuan Kai attracts the attention of director Leon Vance, but her involvement does not explain every death. Dom goes undercover to pressure Su’s brother Jimmy, only for Kai’s attempt to shoot him to interrupt the operation. Gunfire stops her car, yet she escapes and leaves enough blood to suggest a serious wound. Meanwhile, Abby Sciuto’s forensic analysis identifies marks in the blood pattern from Morris’s murder. That evidence helps Kensi obtain a confession from Jimmy’s wife Aimee, whose business motive makes the second killing distinct from the assassin’s attack.

An apparently suicidal Marine in another case turns out to have a broken jaw consistent with an assault just before his fall. His spending is equally suspicious: he has bought 160 copies of Guitar Hero and sold them online for less than the purchase price. The transactions used counterfeit notes, converting fake currency into genuine receipts from customers. His missing bunkmate Walder has staged a car’s plunge off a pier, but surveillance shows him walking away. He tells the agents that they found currency-printing plates in Iraq and brought them home. Kensi poses as Walder’s girlfriend and Callen as a supplier of suitable paper to approach counterfeiter Rick Pargo. The operation exposes a commanding officer’s plan to swap counterfeit cash for a real shipment; the murdered Marine’s premature spending had endangered that scheme.