This week’s NCIS: Los Angeles poses more questions than answers, which becomes a personal mission for one agent. As the title of this episode suggests, Arkady Kolchek is the subject of the latest NCIS investigation, but this time around he’s not his usual charming self.
We knew Arkady’s bad deal with an oil tanker that broke U.S. economic sanctions against Russia would come back around. The bodies of the crew from that oil tanker have turned up on California shores, providing the first break in the case in weeks. Since the original brokers of that deal, Patrick and Elia Berkeley, were just killed, Arkady is the only person who can tell NCIS what’s going on. By the time Sam and Callen get to his house, Arkady has flown the coop. Luckily, his paranoia means he has a shady hidden vault with a missing passport, but that’s not Arkady’s most interesting secret. He’s also been trying to locate Callen’s father, a man who tried to help Germans escape during the war.
Arkady doesn’t get very far and tries, and fails, to sweet talk his way out of going with Sam and Callen. While the team lets Arkady sweat, they find a prison guard he paid to ask one of the dead brokers (when he was still alive) about a hidden laptop that had the location of the missing oil tanker. If half a dozen bodies didn’t scream “desperate” about this case, Deeks and Kensi’s car being hit head on while trying to recover the laptop should be a more obvious indicator. By tracking an associated hitman, they are lead to Ivan Karposev, a dangerous sociopath also trying to locate that oil tanker, who is the person responsible for all the dead bodies, and Kensi and Deek’s accident.
Callen sees that Arkady is desperate, and he admits he has an associate named Anna on board the tanker that he needs to get back alive. Callen is through playing games and agrees to a deal to bring Arkady to the oil tanker so long as the team receives the correct coordinates. Once the team finds the ship docked in San Pedro, the oil is gone and so is Anna. Arkady just about loses his mind when one of Karposev’s men says that Anna is on her way to Russia, and the team realizes Anna is Arkady’s daughter. NCIS needs the oil and Karposev, and Arkady wants his daughter, so the team will be heading to Russia next week.
Arkady’s biggest secret turns out not to be his secret daughter, but is one about Callen’s past that he is determined to track down. Arkady has a reaction when Callen shows him a coin he found in Arkady’s house, along with clues to Callen’s past. Callen matches the coin to an imprint on an article clipping about his father. The coins turn out to identify Russian refugees that Callen’s father helped escape. It’s clear Arkady knows more than that, and by next week’s season finale, Callen may finally get some real answers about his father, specifically settling once and for all if Callen has no more family left on this earth.
Tune in for next week’s conclusion to the Arkady/Callen association.
[Photo credit: Neil Jacobs/CBS]
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