NCIS: New Orleans - Return of the King - Review: “You Said What?”

NCIS: New Orleans - Return of the King - Review: “You Said What?”
3.13 - “Return of the King”
Directed by James Hayman
Written by David Appelbaum
Reviewed by Kelly Anne Blount

“Return of the King” opens with a monitoring station. People are watching dozens of television monitors which are streaming live film. As they chuckle over one man’s struggles as he meets his first “working girl,” a masked intruder enters the building and shoots the three employees inside.

Meanwhile, back at HQ, Pride is woken up at 5AM by what he thinks is an intruder… Turns out that it’s Sebastian! Aw! He’s all kitted up! He’s an official NCIS agent!

Sebastian is nervous. Pride tells him, “You’re gonna do great!” He gives Sebastian his service weapon and promises to get a desk ready for him soon.

Pride gets a text with news of four dead bodies, one is sailor, Lieutenant Annabelle Shaw, a computer specialist. She and another victim were sent to install special software.

The building is a federal data sharing or server farm. Thousands of classified data files were stolen and there is a major security risk to the Nation.

Sebastian is adorable. He keeps interrupting, he’s trying to get the flow of an investigation down.

Gregorio and Percy are watching something that sounds like porn. They say it’s related to the case. Turns out there’s video of one of the NOLA councilmen spending time with a prostitute. The footage was just leaked online. There are eight additional videos leaked and each of the people involved are currently being investigated by the government.

Ha ha! Gregorio says, “Oh hey! It’s the new guy! I can say that because I’ve been here a week!” Loretta and Sebastian have found skin cells from the crime scene that belong to Ethan Beck. He is like a trumped up Anonymous, with the mission to expose corruption.

While Ethan Beck is super illusive, Patton was able to find info on a previous attack a few weeks ago. Someone is still using the IP address at the location, so King and Gregorio head over to investigate.

When they get there, they find someone unexpected! Pride’s buddy Elvis Bertrand is there! He says although it looks really bad that he swears that, “he didn’t do it!”

Pride tells Elvis about the murders at the server farm. Elvis tells Pride that he’s looking for Ethan Beck, the man who runs The Collective. Elvis created The Collective with Ethan, he’s pissed that Ethan has run his group off the tracks.

King tells Gregorio to bring Elvis back to HQ.

The Mayor freaks out and calls Pride. He is worried that hundreds of his private emails have been exposed. He says, “I’m screwed. I’m done.” He’s worried about the private lives that are being ruined by this leak. He says, “Let’s face this together.”

Sebastian fanboys when he bumps into Elvis at NCIS HQ. Elvis invites Sebastian to join him. He’s super stoked and completely adorable.

The Mayor allowed the NCIS crew access to city files, data, etc. Elvis and Sebastian work together to find the “low hanging fruit.” Sebastian calls LaSalle to tell him to check out the potential bad guy at a café before uttering, “This is great! Like Batman and Robin, but a cooler, Robin!”

The Mayor’s sex scandal has been exposed, he was sleeping with a friend’s wife. Yikes!

LaSalle, Gregorio, and Percy find The Collective’s possible agent. She runs away and hops on a skateboard. When LaSalle stops her, she punches him in the face. Gregorio and Percy take over. Poor, LaSalle.

Pride interviews the suspect. She threatens Pride, dares him to boot up her computer to access the hard drive. Too bad she doesn’t know that Elvis is right on the other side of the mirror.

Elvis lays the smack down. He gets her to cooperate. They want her to reach out to Ethan Beck. She gives Elvis her computer. He installs a program which is supposed to help him find Ethan. As soon as the program is running, the lights start to blink. The team runs into the main room, only to find Ethan on the TV. Elvis tells him that he needs to come in. Ethan, who’s wearing a creepy mask refuses. Instead, he calls Elvis a traitor and blows up everyone’s computers. Yikes!

Gregorio thinks that Beck’s current behavior and profile doesn’t jive with murdering people in cold blood. She thinks that they can track Beck with a special software.

Sebastian has the power back on and the internet back up.

Ethan is sending out emails on the team left, right, and center. He sends LaSalle emails from Percy’s undercover days at the ATF. Percy receives an email that LaSalle sent to Pride stating that he didn’t think Percy was a good fit for the team. Eek!

Loretta found traces of ink on the bullet that killed Lieutenant Shaw. She wants Sebastian to analyze the ink to find out more. She still doesn’t have a full-time replacement for him. Wonder who they will find to fill in his big shoes?

Yikes, Sebatian receives an email that Pride sent to the Director of NCIS HQ. In it, he expressed his concerns about Sebastian as a field agent. Poor, Sebastian!

Pride visits the Mayor. More videos have been leaked. He figures out that he is actively under investigation. The Mayor tells Pride that today has shown that, “Everybody has a secret, even you.”

Uh oh! LaSalle and Percy are pissed at Gregorio! She told Eisner that she thought they were linked to the cartel and that they might be sleeping together. EEK!

Pride joins Percy, LaSalle, and Gregorio. He calms them down, for a few seconds at least. Elvis says that he wrote the program that caused all of the mayhem with the emails, videos, etc.

They think Ethan is taking a boat. They head to the marina to go find him, with the help of a clue from Elvis. Looks like they are too late, there is a dead body on the boat with a needle sticking out of his arm. Gregorio finds a suicide note. Pride says, “Nothing about this seems right.”

Back at the morgue, Loretta tells Pride that Ethan had a large amount of heroin in his bloodstream, too much to shoot himself. Someone killed Ethan Beck.

Sebastian found out that the ink on Lieutenant Shaw’s body is tattoo ink. It’s a special kind of ink that should make it easy to track down.

Sebastian is still mad at Pride. Pride tells Sebastian he did send that email, but that he also said that he was willing to bet that Sebastian would succeed as an agent. Looks like whoever sent that email left out the nice part.

Pride and Sebastian head to the tattoo parlor with the special ink. Pride questions the tattoo parlor’s owner while Sebastian heads in the back to find the ink. There is a guy sleeping in the back, he’s acting weird. Sebastian spots a gun in the man’s belongings. The man punches Sebastian in the face and knocks him over before running out the back. Pride and Sebastian chase after him, but it’s too late.

Gregorio reports that the man is named Damon Yang and that he’s part of the Seven Equals Triad. The tattoo shop is triad-run, well, was triad-run. The triad leaders were shut down by the FBI last year, including Derek Yank, Damon’s father. Damon was a computer genius and the team thinks that Damon was part of The Collective.

Pride tells the team that they are a family and not to worry about the negative circulating emails.

Elvis feels bad that Ethan died. He blames himself for bringing Ethan into The Collective. He’s overwhelmed by the number of classified flies on Ethan’s computer and doesn’t know where to start.

Elvis doesn’t have anything on Damon Yang, but he does have info on Derek Yang. After the triad got busted, the CIA took Derek out of the country to work for him. Ethan had encrypted files with the name of the agent who handled his father’s case. Damon is going after Agent Jordan Harper, who lives in a cabin in the middle of the woods.

Pride and Gregorio head to Harper’s place. LaSalle and Percy pull off and hop on an ATV. They look awfully cozy on that ATV… Just sayin’!

Percy and LaSalle get to the ATV before the rest of the team. They find two dead troopers. Damon spots them and opens fire. Yikes, they are pinned down! Percy and LaSalle are in trouble!

Elvis steps in and helps. He blows the power at the cabin. Percy and LaSalle make their move. Damon runs away. LaSalle chases Damon while Percy stays with Harper.

LaSalle jumps on his ATV, not going to lie, this scene is intense!

Gregorio and Pride pull up just in the nick of time! Damon shoots at them. Pride returns fire and kills Damon.

The team is back and the Mayor is on TV. He’s apologizing for his sex scandal, but taking credit for helping NCIS with the investigation. What. A. Jerk.

Elvis says that he has to take off. He tells Pride that he sent his team a little something. I bet he sends them nice emails they have sent about each other. How about you?

Over at Pride’s club, the music is on point, as always. Sebastian is super pumped about closing his first case, while the rest of the team is still mad at each other.

The team all receive emails at the same time. They are nice emails. Aw! Elvis’ “goodbye present,” is awesome!

The episode ends with Pride and the team toasting Sebastian!

*******
My Thoughts:

Awesome episode!

The fighting between the team kicked this episode into high gear, as did Sebastian finding the killer and getting punched in the face.

I really enjoy Elvis’ character and hope he makes a few more appearances!

OOOOH! BEST. NEWS. EVER! There is going to be an NCIS and NCIS: New Orleans crossover episode! I LOVE CROSSOVER EPISODES!

What did you think of the episode? Leave me a comment below!

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