NCIS: New Orleans - The Last Stand - Review: “Following Orders”
3.16 - “The Last Stand”
Directed by Sharat Raju
Written by Greta Heinemann
Reviewed by Kelly Anne Blount
This week’s episode starts with a man walking through the woods (or is it a bayou) with a shotgun. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, there’s an alligator too? Well now, that’s just plain terrifying! Uh oh! There’s someone else out in the woods and he or she has some major camouflage going on with straw and all sorts on. The man with the gun looks nervous. He should be! Shots are fired and we see the man fall to the ground while the camouflaged killer watches his victim die.
Pride is showing off his piano skills over at his bar. He has a friend keeping him company and a lady watching from the bar. She even buys him a drink. Will Pride find a new lady friend before Gibbs? Or does she just need help with a case and is buttering him up, so to speak? When he goes over to thank her for the drink, she says, “Thought you could use it.” She tells him to lighten up on the keys. Dannnnng!
Ah, so he does know her! They used to make music together over twenty-five years ago, he’d play the piano and she’d sing. Rita just moved back to New Orleans and is recently divorced.
Pride cuts to the chase and asks if, “Everything’s alright?” She responds, “No, no it’s not.”
Gregorio and Sebastian are in the kitchen at HQ. Gregorio finds lipstick on a glass and she shows Sebastian. Gregorio thinks Pride had a lady visitor last night.
YAY! LaSalle and Percy walk through the door. I love when the whole crew is together!
The team tells Gregorio that, “Pride is married to his work.” She bets them twenty dollars that she was right. They take her on!
Pride interrupts and tells them they have a case. JAG Lawyer Noah Sandler, who prosecutes highly classified cases for the Navy has gone missing. Pride’s friend, Rita Devereaux, also a JAG Lawyer, says that he called to tell her he needed to talk to her about sensitive information. She hasn’t been able to get a hold of him since. Pride and Rita went to Sandler’s apartment the night before. There were no signs of a crime or Sandler. Well, almost! Sandler’s computer was wiped clean. Sebastian and Patton are on the computer, while LaSalle and Percy are tracking down his last known credit card uses, and Pride and Gregorio are off to Belle Chasse to find out more about the classified cases that Sandler was working on.
Gregorio is grilling Pride, but he’s on to her. Ha ha! Pride is so funny!
Rita has gone through Sandler’s caseload and she hasn’t found anything suspicious. His computer at the office hasn’t been wiped and his last act was setting up a meeting that he wanted to have with Rita tomorrow morning.
Gregorio thinks Sandler’s disappearance could be more of a personal matter, due to his home computer being wiped, but his work computer was left untouched.
Rita says that he spent a lot of time at Fort MacArthur, “a private military academy outside of the city.” A school for troubled youth. Rita tells Gregorio and Pride that Noah went to school at Fort MacArthur, which led him to joining the Navy.
Rita tells them that Sandler volunteered a lot at the military school. Gregorio thinks it’s more than volunteering, he has school schedules, blue prints of the school, etc. She thinks it looks more like he was investigating something.
Sebastian has something. Pride says, “Noah’s computer was erased remotely,” but they were able to recover some data.
The team meets at the spot where Patton and Sebastian last tracked Noah. It’s not looking good. LaSalle points out buzzards in the sky. EEK! They find his body surrounded by alligators. LaSalle scares them away. Pride thinks they’ve found Noah and he has two bullet wounds. Looks like this missing persons case is now a homicide case.
Sebastian gives the autopsy report. Noah was shot twice in the back, once through the heart. According to Pride, that’s called a, “kill shot.”
The team thinks the murderer would have gotten away with it, if Rita hadn’t come to Pride. Patton and Sebastian aren’t able to pull anything from his home computer. Someone did a good job covering up the evidence.
Rita shows up at HQ. Pride breaks the bad news. He asks if she’s figured out what Noah wanted to talk to her about, she says she thinks it had to do with Terrance Lewis. Noah was mentoring Terrance at Fort MacArthur. Noah wanted to know more about Lewis’ criminal background, so Rita thinks Noah reached out to her to open up his juvenile record. Rita thinks Lewis killed Noah. Pride tells her to slow her roll. He assures her that his team is on it and they will figure out who killed Noah. Rita says, “Okay, but if you don’t, I will.”
Pride, LaSalle, and Percy head over to Fort MacArthur. They talk to the man in charge, General John Walsh. He reports that Lewis has been missing for three weeks and that this isn’t the first time he’s run away. Pride tells the Walsh that Noah Sandler was murdered and that Lewis is a person of interest in the case. Pride tells him that Sandler was investigating the school. General Walsh agrees to let them speak to Lewis’ Commander. He also tells them that he wants to be the one to break it to the boys that Noah was murdered, as it is going to hit them hard.
Over at the morgue, Sebastian visits Loretta. He’s adorable and still trying to, “find his way.” Loretta tells Sebastian that, “Noah’s body was dragged post mortem.” The killer brought Noah’s body to the water after he shot them, most likely with the hope that the alligators would eat his remains. Ha ha ha ha! Loretta tells Sebastian to go back to the scene to find the bullets. Sebastian is convinced he’s going to get eaten by an alligator!
Back at Fort MacArthur, the team meets with Cabral, Lewis’ Commanding Officer. He reports that Lewis was assigned to his squad three months ago. He says that Lewis was a, “tough recruit.” Cabral says that Lewis hit JAG Noah three weeks ago after Noah offered to help Lewis with something. He says that was the last time they saw Lewis.
Aw, poor, Sebastian! He’s back at the bayou and looking for bullets. Nice! He found one! Hope he doesn’t find an alligator as well! Wait, he found two bullets! His metal detector continues going off, is there more evidence? OH MY! There’s another dead body in the bayou! Could it by Lewis? I’m not going to lie, I totally thought an alligator would pop up and scare Sebastian. Did you?
Loretta and Sebastian report that the body belongs to the missing cadet, Lewis. He was beaten before he was murdered. He was beat with soap, “soap hazing,” which according to Pride has been outlawed by the military for a long time. Gregorio wonders, “Was it hazing gone too far?” Loretta reports that a blow to the back of the head killed Lewis, she’s trying to figure out what was used to hit and kill him.
The team thinks that JAG Noah might have been trying to help Lewis. He might have found out where Lewis’ body was and died while investigating his disappearance and murder.
Rita is pissed. She’s unsealed everyone’s juvenile records and throws the rap sheets on the table in front of Pride. He tries to talk her down. She says that she wants to search the entire academy. Pride tells her the boys need a second chance. She disagrees and tells Pride that she’s getting arrest warrants.
Pride, LaSalle, and Percy head back to the academy. Pride wants the logs of everyone who was off campus the nights of the murders. LaSalle and Percy are checking everyone’s weapons to see if they can find a match to the bullets Sebastian found in the bayou.
Cabral looks nervous. Someone comes to give him special instructions in Latin (I think that was the language?). Cabral sends another cadet off. Percy knows something is up and she tells LaSalle.
What the heck is going on? A bunch of cadets are pulling ammo and guns out of a storage locker. Sebastian reports that the bullet LaSalle just tested from Cabral’s weapon are a match to the bullets found at the crime scene.
An alarm sounds, the academy is on lock down and General Walsh did not order it.
OH MY GOODNESS! Cabral and his men point their weapons at Percy and LaSalle. He tells them, “Hands up!” According to Cabral, he’s protecting the academy. What in the world?
The cadets take LaSalle and Percy into the cafeteria. They are holding them at gunpoint and they take their weapons. Pride calls LaSalle’s phone. Christopher tells Cabral to answer it, another recruit tells him no and says, “We’re under strict orders!”
Oh no… Rita called SWAT. Chaos is breaking out across the academy. Captain Dorsey, General John Walsh’s assistant, says that he doesn’t know what’s going on. He said that he only told Cabral that Walsh wanted to speak with him. THAT’S A LIE!
Things aren’t adding up. Why would Cabral give his weapon up freely if he knew the bullets would match the bullets found at the crime scene.
Rita is on the scene and things are completely out of hand. Dorsey approaches her and asks if he can go talk to Cabral. He says that he is his commanding officer and that Cabral will listen to him. Does anyone else think that Dorsey is the murderer?
Loretta found a sliver of wood that’s over 200 years old in Lewis’ skull. There are old guns in General Walsh’s office that could possibly be the murder weapon, but one of them is missing. He says that he, “never even noticed it was gone.”
Cabral and his second in command are talking in the mess hall. The second in command says that, “Maybe we should listen to them (Percy and LaSalle)?” He says that they were only following orders when everything went wrong, they were told to haze Lewis. Cabral says, “We follow orders, period!”
Pride finds Rita. She’s all, looks like I was right! Pride’s all, NOPE! He tells her he doesn’t think any of the cadets killed Noah or Lewis. Pride asks if they’ve seen Captain Dorsey. Rita says, “We just sent him inside.”
Dorsey heads into the mess hall. He is mad at Cabral for not “containing the situation.” He says, “With me,” and they head out of the room.
Rita has royally messed things up. She wants to know why the boys would take hostages. Pride tells her that they are following orders without question, “to put the academy first.”
Sebastian tells Pride and Rita that Dorsey was up for a big promotion, he applied to take over the school, but didn’t get the job. He had several reports in his files that he used excessive force and that he encouraged hazing.
Pride says that it sounds like Cabral is following Dorsey’s orders. He sends Gregorio out. Hopefully it isn’t too late!
Percy and LaSalle are trying to talk to Cabral’s second in command. Dorsey is yelling at Cabral. He admits to killing Lewis and JAG Noah, he says that he had to do it to fix Dorsey’s screw ups. Cabral points his weapon at Dorsey. Gregorio gets there just in the nick of time and shoots the weapon out of Cabral’s hands. LaSalle and Percy run around the corner and point their weapons on Dorsey.
Rita is surprised that Pride was right. She sucks. Pride is always right, why don’t people just understand that?
Back at Pride’s bar, Gregorio is telling the team that she thinks Pride is a catch. LaSalle says that Pride isn’t in a hurry to get in another relationship. He says, “He’s just happy being King.” Everyone wants Gregorio to pay up, they think she’s lost the bet. Gregorio just smiles, she asks if she lost the bet, then why did Rita just show up at the bar?
Rita and Pride talk. Turns out that Dorsey was trying to make Walsh look bad, so he could take over and run the academy. Pride forgives Rita and she says that the boys, “deserve a second chance.”
Pride starts playing the piano and invites Rita to sing. He plays, “It Had to Be You.” Aw, Pride joins in and starts singing. I don’t like Rita, but the duet is adorable. As the team watches, Gregorio says, “Pay up!”
*******
My Thoughts:
Another great episode! I love that Pride saved the day before anything that couldn’t be undone happened.
I think Gregorio’s toned down attitude is fitting in really well with the team. How about you? I also think if she would have started out like this, I think the uproar and loss of Brody would have been a lot less severe.
Do you think Pride and Rita will have a future? I hope not… She made a lot of mistakes and showed her true colors. She was willing to take down the entire academy before she had all of the information and she jumped to some major stereotypical conclusions. Pride doesn’t need that in his life.
What did you think of the episode? Leave me a comment below!
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