[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for NCIS: Los Angeles Season 14 Episode 3 “The Body Stitchers.”]
When we consider NCIS: LA, we consider explosions. But with an ongoing case — first launched in Season 9 and continued within the newest episode — the one phrases we will use to explain all the things that’s taking place are very disturbing.
As launched in “The Monster” in Season 9, there’s a community of serial killers who chop up our bodies and stitch the elements again collectively in a twisted Frankenstein — and folks pay to attend the unveilings of the “art.” What’s worse: The crew is continually one step behind them. The newest episode once more ends with (a few of) these killers nonetheless on the market and planning one thing a lot worse sooner or later.
So a lot concerning the case is totally different than what we’re used to seeing on the CBS drama, which is partly why we will’t assist however be hooked. Here’s why the case is working so effectively:
Cliffhanger After Cliffhanger
In Season 9, the crew realized that the killers had been truly folks they’d spoken to in the course of the course of their investigation, they usually had been nonetheless on the free when the episode light to black. Now, in Season 14, the crew does find yourself with a type of folks in custody, whereas one other slits his personal throat and a 3rd is shot by, on the time, an unknown particular person. The fourth remains to be free.
And now “The Body Stitchers” ended with Sam (LL Cool J) realizing that FBI Forensic Psychologist Mark Collins (JD Cullum) from the BAU is definitely “Vincent,” the “Master” of the community … nevertheless it was too late. Collins was already planning the subsequent steps for he and the others, and it seemed like each NCIS and the FBI will solely have the prospect to catch them once they make their horrifying return.
NCIS: LA has had investigations that stretch throughout a number of seasons earlier than — bear in mind the mole and the CIA? — however there’s one thing about this one, one thing that appeared prefer it ought to have been a one-off case however as an alternative is one thing that locations the crew on shaky floor (and haunts them), that makes the truth that it does so stand out above these.
Michael Yarish/CBS
It’s Unsettling
Crime scenes can get bloody, watching crew members — together with Sam, Kensi (Daniela Ruah), and Deeks (Eric Christian Olsen) — get tortured throughout circumstances is hard, and Kessler’s (Frank Military) sickening threats could make us need to look away, however none of that has something on the visuals from the Body Stitchers. From the stitched-up our bodies to only excited about what these killers are doing, there’s a purpose why Kensi stated, “sickest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, put all of us in a very dark place,” upon listening to they had been again in “The Body Stitchers.”
Even the Predictable Takes a Turn
Honestly, there was one thing off about Collins from the start and sufficient moments sprinkled all through that the reveal that he’s “Vincent” wasn’t shocking. However, we weren’t anticipating simply how twisted he was. As Sam realized the reality, we noticed Collins speaking to Albert “Al” Barrington (Rob Nagle) — the one one from Season 9’s group to nonetheless be free — and Michael Jeffries (Derrick A. King) about his plans for his or her return to the highlight.
Because of Collins’ place within the investigation, he was in a position to manipulate Barrington’s profile as to the place he can be heading. “We did good. Got rid of the idiot amateurs who were going to get us caught,” the psychologist stated. (He was the one to kill one in every of their very own.) “We’re going to lay low for a very long time now. … Eventually, when we do come back together, I’m thinking that we stop making conventional bodies. I mean, why make a body with two arms when you can make one with five arms? Three legs? Maybe a head growing out of a stomach? Think about it. What would Picasso or Dalí do?” (We’re each trying ahead to and dreading what’s arising subsequent with them after that.)
Familiar Faces for Us to Worry About
Not solely are the killers acquainted — “The Body Stitchers” left one from “The Monster” in custody, that means we may see Cindy Ferguson (Teya Patt) once more earlier than Vincent and the others’ “eventual” return — nevertheless it additionally brings again longtime franchise vet Alicia Coppola (who performs FBI Senior Special Agent Lisa Rand and was Lieutenant Commander Faith Coleman on JAG, then NCIS). And we’ve got to confess: We’re glad that proper now Rand can come again once more as a result of we positively anxious that at one level, one in every of her physique elements would find yourself in one of many Stitchers’ artworks — although that would nonetheless occur.
NCIS: Los Angeles, Sundays, 10/9c, CBS