The Reckoning
Season 14 • Episode 19
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for NCIS: LA Season 14 Episode 19, “The Reckoning.”]
“Grisha Callen, this is your life.” That is actually what Pembrook (Jere Burns) says to Chris O’Donnell’s character on the finish of the final NCIS: Los Angeles episode earlier than the two-part sequence finale.
Leading as much as that, members of DRONA (now in numerous authorities companies) had been killed by those that had been a part of this system and used (by Pembrook) in black ops. If you ask CIA Rafael Cortes, “Pembrook made monsters, including Agent Callen.” (Cortes, it should quickly be revealed, can also be DRONA.) Pembrook reaches out to Callen, who goes with him however doesn’t wish to hear something he has to say. At the time, Pembrook thought what he was doing to Callen and the others as kids had been for the better good, however he knew he was improper.
He reveals that Pembrook additionally is aware of every little thing about Callen as a result of he’s been watching him for 35 years. He says he tried to assist the kids who suffered probably the most. With the psychopathic DRONA members coming after them, in the event that they get out alive, Pembrook guarantees Callen his paper file with every little thing he’d wish to learn about himself, from his mother’s loss of life to the current day. “It has taken me years to trust any relationship I have gone from jobs at DEA, CIA, NCIS, all to distract me from having to face what you did. You broke in me the most elemental aspect of being human,” Callen says, refusing to just accept an apology.
A fast apart: We love how Kilbride (Gerald McRaney) handles Cortes. The CIA officer, pre-DRONA reveal, factors out that honesty isn’t precisely a part of his job. “I’m an aggravated old son of a bitch who knows how to shake the life out of a tree until it drops its fruit,” Kilbride tells him. Cortes wonders if the admiral will cease him with power when he tries to go away. Kilbride’s response: “Don’t tease me.” Don’t get us began on him telling Cortes he’s doing math, particularly geometric proofs, as soon as he and Fatima (Medalion Rahimi) notice the CIA officer is DRONA. Those two additionally workforce as much as take out Cortes ultimately.
Callen and Pembrook (with a gunshot wound) cover out in a server room after the DRONA members discover them. In there, Pembrook tells the NCIS agent that when Hetty (Linda Hunt) came upon what he was doing, she instantly pulled him from this system. “Blame me for everything, not Hetty,” he says. Staying alive places a pin in that dialog — in the meanwhile.
Michael Yarish/CBS
It’s later after the DRONA operatives have been taken care of and others (these in authorities companies) have whisked away Pembrook, that Callen will get that file. The two males do meet, and whereas the solutions Callen has wished could not come from Hetty, he does get them. Why didn’t she inform him she pulled him out of this system? “It’s not something you’d ever seen in her, but Hetty was consumed with guilt for putting you in the program in the first place,” Pembrook explains.
That’s not ok. “Her guilt doesn’t make up for it. I was used. She was trying to turn children into super agents,” Callen says. But Hetty put him in DRONA as a result of he was sensible, and he or she wished him to meet his potential, Pembrook shares. “Her version of my potential,” Callen argues. “She couldn’t teach you the violin. That world was all she knew. It’s all she had to offer you. It’s a mistake parents often make,” Pembrook affords.
Callen protests that Hetty’s not his dad or mum, however as Pembrook sees it, “You’re missing the most important part: Call her what you will; you mean everything to her. And you always have. …You are as close to a son as she’s ever had.” It seems Hetty and Pembrook have talked now and again. “I know you think you have been alone in this world all this time, but you have been far from an orphan. You’ve been loved deeply,” Pembrook tells Callen earlier than giving him the file on his life.
He additionally has one final piece of recommendation for the agent: “Don’t make your life be just about the past. Let it be about the present and now the future.” To that finish, he congratulates him on his engagement and needs him all of the happiness on this planet.
Callen’s emotional as Pembrook’s leaving, however the different man has one final shock for him: That file will reveal that Pembrook was the one to provide Hetty the file on Sam (LL Cool J). He thought he’d make an ideal accomplice — no, buddy, for Callen. “Despite everything, I tried to look out for you. I tried to make up for it all,” he says earlier than strolling away.
Can Callen be completely satisfied now? We’re optimistic.
NCIS: Los Angeles, Sundays, 10/9c, CBS