NCIS Los Angeles review: Cash Flow

Photo credit: @NCISLA

Here’s my review of NCIS Los Angeles season twelve episode “Cash Flow.” Please note that this isn’t a recap of what happens. I’m assuming that you’ve already seen the episode. There are spoilers in this review.

“Cash Flow” was an uneventful episode. I don’t know how else to say it. The case was mediocre and the personal stories were mostly lacking. It wasn’t an awful episode but it certainly wasn’t very memorable either.

I must admit, about halfway through this episode, I forgot what the team was even investigating. They were searching for the killer of the guy who turns up dead in the opening scene, but I didn’t find the mystery very engaging at all. In fact, thinking back on it now, I don’t even remember what the motive ended up being for his murder.

I’m probably the first to admit I don’t watch NCISLA every week for the cases. But it’s usually better when they’re more interesting. And I believe this boring case was probably the biggest thing bringing down this episode.

On the other hand, I enjoyed the episode’s lighthearted tone. One of my favorite scenes was the group Zoom workout. In a more typical year, we’d see them all exercising together at the office gym, but this year requires alternatives. Despite everyone being separated, the scene was fun to watch and contained a lot of the banter I love to hear. It felt like a way to bring together more of the team than we’ve been able to so far this season.

Plus, the reveal of Anna listening in the whole time while playing video games was pretty funny too!

Speaking of Anna, it was nice to check in on her character and get an update on what she’s been doing and how her relationship with Callen is going. Now that many of Callen’s long-running storylines have wrapped up (finding his name, finding his father), his romantic life seems to be the next thing for the audience to focus on. We’ve seen this relationship with Anna develop over several seasons now, and this episode seems to set the stage for how it will continue to develop this season. Anna will be away again volunteering, but Callen doesn’t seem like he’s looking forward to the distance again. Once again the writers are using these early episodes to plant the seeds for things to come later.

I think this episode tries to plant some seeds for Fatima and Rountree too, though not as effectively. Since they’re the newest characters, the audience doesn’t know them as well. This episode gives them a little more screentime, and they get to bond a little over cars and talking about their time before working with NCIS. But until either of them get an episode that really lets us get to know them, they’re not going to grab the audience’s attention as much as the long running characters.

I really like both Fatima and Rountree, but I need them to actually do something eventually. Hopefully that’ll be sometime this season!

Overall, this was a very relaxed, low stakes episode. I enjoyed it but I don’t feel the need to rewatch it again anytime soon. It still feels like we’re in that early part of the season where the writers are setting things into motion for later. They’re still planting seeds, but eventually they’re going to have to start letting those seeds grow.

Notes from the Boat Shed

• I’m not even going to talk about the subplot of Deeks and Kensi buying a house because it’s super random and makes their characters seem fiscally irresponsible.
• This episode gives us the first mention of COVID-19. Apparently in their world, the pandemic is already over and everyone’s just picking up the pieces.
• I’m offended they brought Agent DeChamps back and she barely did anything! I think she’s a character with a lot of potential who unfortunately doesn’t get developed enough. Still, it was nice to see her again.
• Why does the writing staff hate young people so much?? The interrogation with the Rachelle girl was absolutely grating. This may come as a shock to the writers but not all young people are ridiculously disrespectful.
• I wanna know more about Kensi’s time as a bouncer!

So what did you think? Like it or hate it? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.