Team as family
I have just got out of a rabbit-hole of sorting out my icons, motivated by the fact that i. Poldark is coming back this weekend (I appreciate their wanting to avoid Victoria, but couldn’t they have waited for Agents of SHIELD to finish? Perhaps it’s not an obvious overlap to the schedulers, but it includes me, and the way AoS is currently firing on many cylinders and its fight scenes will make me choose that first.) ii. I have stuff to say about NCIS: LA, so I’ve got icons and iii. I have more icon slots than I thought on LJ!?
I’ve been continuing to mainline the top and tail of season 3 of NCIS: LA. I may have been too harsh on Eric, although I’d always favour Nell over him.
I find much of what our heroes do so dodgy when I’m not playing the ‘car chase/gunfight/combo’ game. What is the rationale for nearly always going for the kill-shot, guys? That person could have given you intel and gone to court! Even allowing for the fact that they mainly kill henchmen and baddies, it’s a high number.
And then there’s when they ignore orders from the organisation at large, or from any other organisation. Quite often, it’s out of loyalty to the team, which we the audience are invited to collude in (as we are meant to with the made-up geopolitics of convenience of the show) because anyone who is a threat to the dynamics (hello, Hunter, splitting up the two established partnerships in ‘Backstopping’!? ) is a threat to what we are enjoying about the show.
And of course there’s their/Callen’s automatic loyalty to Hetty, even when she’s with-held the truth from him/them. The show veers between emphasising the family side and showing Hetty conditioning her agents to fear her like a cult leader. But then she does stuff that makes you fine with it all.
It’s a shame that the weakest actor of the regular cast is playing the main character, because O’Donnell, bless him, can’t manage the complex emotions required. Is he cross or constipated? All that is part of why I’m less interested in the arc of Callen’s history than lighter standalone episodes - laughing at Deeks for trying to be the alpha male around Sam in ‘Backstopping’ when I don’t think he’s the dominant one in his partnership with Kensi most of the time, as observed by Callen and Sam when the others were learning to dance, which did not observe the rules of Chekhov’s gun (i.e. that they had to dance undercover) but was rather slasher-baiting and one of Hetty’s out-there training methods.
As for Kensi/Deeks I sometimes think you ship them despite what the show is showing. There’s usually shipper catnip mixed with whatever the opposite of that is. Deeks can be a sleaze, while Kensi gives off very mixed signals. I end up wondering if they’re aged about 12? And I don’t even know with Eric and Nell (I was so disappointed she pulled a Cher Horowitz and sent herself flowers). Partly it was because she sent them, when she could have just bought them and owned it.) In the last episode I watched, Nell, with reason, said that he was about 8.
And when it's on, the banter is great, but it teeters into 'bantz' which is less successful and then into bullying (especialy of Deeks?)
I’m amused by how snotty they (especially Callen) get if their case doesn’t have the potential to destroy LA. And yet, I used the word ‘mainline’ on purpose.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/283386.html.
I’ve been continuing to mainline the top and tail of season 3 of NCIS: LA. I may have been too harsh on Eric, although I’d always favour Nell over him.
I find much of what our heroes do so dodgy when I’m not playing the ‘car chase/gunfight/combo’ game. What is the rationale for nearly always going for the kill-shot, guys? That person could have given you intel and gone to court! Even allowing for the fact that they mainly kill henchmen and baddies, it’s a high number.
And then there’s when they ignore orders from the organisation at large, or from any other organisation. Quite often, it’s out of loyalty to the team, which we the audience are invited to collude in (as we are meant to with the made-up geopolitics of convenience of the show) because anyone who is a threat to the dynamics (hello, Hunter, splitting up the two established partnerships in ‘Backstopping’!? ) is a threat to what we are enjoying about the show.
And of course there’s their/Callen’s automatic loyalty to Hetty, even when she’s with-held the truth from him/them. The show veers between emphasising the family side and showing Hetty conditioning her agents to fear her like a cult leader. But then she does stuff that makes you fine with it all.
It’s a shame that the weakest actor of the regular cast is playing the main character, because O’Donnell, bless him, can’t manage the complex emotions required. Is he cross or constipated? All that is part of why I’m less interested in the arc of Callen’s history than lighter standalone episodes - laughing at Deeks for trying to be the alpha male around Sam in ‘Backstopping’ when I don’t think he’s the dominant one in his partnership with Kensi most of the time, as observed by Callen and Sam when the others were learning to dance, which did not observe the rules of Chekhov’s gun (i.e. that they had to dance undercover) but was rather slasher-baiting and one of Hetty’s out-there training methods.
As for Kensi/Deeks I sometimes think you ship them despite what the show is showing. There’s usually shipper catnip mixed with whatever the opposite of that is. Deeks can be a sleaze, while Kensi gives off very mixed signals. I end up wondering if they’re aged about 12? And I don’t even know with Eric and Nell (I was so disappointed she pulled a Cher Horowitz and sent herself flowers). Partly it was because she sent them, when she could have just bought them and owned it.) In the last episode I watched, Nell, with reason, said that he was about 8.
And when it's on, the banter is great, but it teeters into 'bantz' which is less successful and then into bullying (especialy of Deeks?)
I’m amused by how snotty they (especially Callen) get if their case doesn’t have the potential to destroy LA. And yet, I used the word ‘mainline’ on purpose.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/283386.html.