NCIS: Los Angeles - Forest for the Trees - Review: "The Fake-Out"

This was a pretty routine week for “NCIS: Los Angeles,” except for the fact that Sam and Callen were kidnapped by ISIS. That is definitely not routine. But the episode itself didn’t showcase as many great scenes as we’ve come to enjoy in the series. The action and plot took center stage over the characters this week. As good a job as “NCIS:LA” does with the plots, these are never my favorite episodes. For me, they just don’t compare to the character-driven episodes.

“Forest for the Trees” begins with Sam and Callen meeting up with an anonymous tipster who claimed to have information on a missing NSA agent. Of course the meeting takes place on a secluded dirt road. But it turns out to be a set-up. The bad guys set off a smoke grenade and shoot the NCIS agents with tranquilizer darts. Sam and Callen wake up on the floor of a machinery room somewhere in a forested area. But it doesn’t take long for Kensi and Deeks to notice they are missing. As the team tries to track down their whereabouts, Sam and Callen attempt to escape. In the process they come upon another man who claims to be the NSA agent. But we soon learn he is not the real agent. Just when you want to yell at your TV screen to let them know, it seems Sam and Callen knew the truth about his identity almost all along. That means they are one step ahead of the man. Not only do they save themselves and the real NSA agent, they also keep an ISIS informant safe and take down the real ISIS insurgents in L.A.

Sam and Callen

Sam and Callen make the best of their situation as they work to get out of the machinery room. Finding a trap door in the floor, they use a convenient tool kit found in a hole in the wall to pry open the panel. (I’m assuming the tool bag was left there on purpose to help them escape so they could run into the fake analyst??) The trap door then leads them to a tunnel underground. Sam isn’t too happy about being in the tunnel. He doesn’t want to be reminded of movies where people die in tunnels, and he can’t disguise his annoyance with Callen when they get to the end and need the screwdriver but Callen left it behind. Fortunately Callen can just go back and get it. Sam’s annoyance was entertaining, though. And so was Callen’s amusement at it. Callen was the ‘glass half full’ guy while Sam was his ‘glass half empty’ counterpart.

Once they are out of the tunnel, they find themselves surrounded by trees – and a man who shows them his NSA identification. He helps Callen escape a trip wire, so the men trust him. I liked how the show’s writers accomplished this entire plot reveal. They kept throwing us off. I liked that you didn’t trust the guy until they found his badge. And then I liked how the audience was let in on the secret of his identity when the NCIS team looks at his real picture back in Ops – and you realize that’s not the same man with Sam and Callen. While the audience is in on the secret, Sam and Callen are clearly in danger but they don’t seem to know it. But these two are smarter than that. After they head back to the main building and Sam finds the real NSA agent, you still don’t suspect that Callen knows anything is amiss until the man goes for a gun – and Callen is suddenly holding a gun on him. That was a great moment because Callen’s knowledge was a surprise to the audience.

After that, you still thought ISIS had the location of Granger’s meeting with the ISIS informant. But Callen comes to the rescue there, too. Callen gave their fake NSA guy bad information on the meet-up to pass along, so ISIS went to the wrong location where the Feds showed up to arrest them. Later we learn all the details of how Sam and Callen figured out the truth. Sam’s knowledge of the NSA building didn’t jive with something the man said, and Callen then found their own guns and phones and got a message to NCIS about the wrong location so the Feds could step in. The way everything unfolded was fun. I was first surprised they let the audience in on something the team didn’t know, but it turned out that the team knew much more than us after all! I enjoyed the fake-out.

Deeks and Kensi

This week Deeks was on a “clean food” kick, eating healthy food from a food truck he loved. But Kensi (or “Negative Nelly” as Deeks calls her) tears him down by letting him know the food is frozen. Beyond that, she also knows that the wonderful Italian meal Deeks painstakingly cooked for her recently was not homemade. She knows he didn’t slave away in the kitchen – she found the fast food wrappers in the trash. Deeks tries to squelch this interrogation, but it doesn’t work. Kensi knows his interrogation tactics. There is no way out - he is caught. Nice try, Deeks.

Later Kensi and Deeks go find a man who had sold the explosives and weapons to the terrorists. Kensi uses the food incident from earlier to make Deeks go after the man while she stays in the car. As the man runs into a creek, Deeks at first doesn’t want to jump in because the water looks cold. But he can’t avoid it and jumps on the man in the water. I loved how that wasn’t the end as the man keeps going and Deeks decides to tackle him again.

Deeks also had my favorite quote of the episode as he posed as a cook at the informant meeting (and Kensi posed as a waitress). His cook cover was perfect for what they had been talking about earlier in the episode. So after Granger reports that “the cook sucks,” Kensi is more than happy to let him know. But Deeks gets the last word when he tells Kensi, “You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna make you some homemade alphabet soup so you can eat your words when you taste my real cooking.”

However, it turns out his real cooking isn’t too good after all. Earlier Hetty told Granger that Deeks’ Swedish nachos were a hit at the holiday party. But we learn the truth in the last scene when Deeks whips them out again and no one wants to eat them. They’d all told him they were good, but they were lying. They didn’t want him to feel bad but the truth is out now. Deeks can’t cook. But Granger has heard great things about the dish and excitedly wants to try the nachos and be a part of the group since he wasn’t invited to the holiday party. The joke was on Granger – except somehow he likes these gluten-free snacks. I guess he and Deeks are on the same page.

Other Thoughts

- I liked how Eric revealed that Sam had gone home the night before to watch a documentary on Afghanistan’s sport of choice: Buzkashi. Nice tidbit about Sam. I could totally see him doing that!

- It is a good thing for us that Sam is into pumping iron! That exchange made me smile.

- I enjoyed how Kensi and Deeks wanted to go after Sam and Callen, but listened to Granger when he said he needed their help. They had to put the safety of the country first. For once, Granger was right.

- Sam was pretty smart when he turned on the electric fence again to catch the fake agent. You knew that was coming, but it was still entertaining.

- I liked how Sam enjoyed the “Laurel and Hardy” references because in the films, “The big guy is smart.”


What did you think of "Forest for the Trees?" Did you enjoy the plot twists? Did you want more character scenes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

About the Author - Tonya Papanikolas

Tonya Papanikolas is a entertainment journalist who loves covering her favorite TV shows, including "NCIS: Los Angeles." (She's a big fan of Kensi and Deeks!) She spent more than 10 years as a broadcast news anchor/reporter and now does everything from hosting to writing. She writes reviews and feature articles for SpoilerTV on a ton of great shows.