We open on a couple "glamping," which is one of my least favorite words ever. The girl is into it, starting a fire and breathing in the fresh air, and the dude is insufferable, wearing about a gallon of hair gel and complaining about lack of WiFi. She needs to dump him.
They see a rocket taking off in the distance, but when they stop to admire it, it explodes and rains shrample down on the forest all around them.
And roll credits!
Deeks and Kensi arrive at the office arguing about Deeks' taste in movies. Deeks enjoys spending his free time watching low-key, calming shows as a nice break from their crazy fast-paced life. Kensi thinks that's boring. That's another tally in this season's scoreboard of Kensi/Deeks conversations about how crazy their lives are.
Eric calls them in to discuss the rocket explosion. It's worth mentioning this is the happiest he has ever been, ever, about any case, ever, EVER. Turns out the rocket was carrying a top secret payload and the DOD has launched an all hands on deck search and rescue mission. The payload landed somewhere in the national forest where our glamping friends were hanging out.
Callen and Sam have already been sent to search the area on foot, and even though Eric really, really wants to go investigate the launch site in person, Mosley lets him down easy by telling him that they think it's sabotage and they already have a suspect - the woman who actually launched the missile. Well, that was easy. Eric reluctantly joins Kensi and Deeks at the boat shed to interrogate the suspect.
Cut to Nell, Callen, and Sam in the forest, all decked out in their nicest hiking gear. Nell's outfit makes me realize I've never considered how people with bangs wear hats. Loosely, apparently. Anyway, the trio go into the tent that the search party has already set up and a really nice woman whom I've definitely seen before in about 100 shows welcomes them to the party. The tent is full of all the technology Nell could possibly need, and within about 13 seconds the petite agent is in charge of everything and they've figured out that the secret payload is a satellite. The only problem with this sweet set up is that they lose power from time to time, but that doesn't phase Nell at all.
She sends Callen and Sam out and gives them a search grid and satellite phones for easy communication. I swear, Nell for President. This chick can resolve any situation and then still be home by dinner. They discover that part of the search party has lost contact with the base and decide to investigate that before looking for the satellite.
Meanwhile, Hetty is visiting the home of her old friend Keen. The place looks as trashed as Deeks' did when he was recovering from that torture, and Hetty's eye is drawn to a pile of handwritten letters in beautiful script sitting on the table. But Hetty is more concerned with the blood trail that she follows to find Keen, passed out on a chair with a bloody hand wrapped in a rag. It looks like he cut it on a glass? Unclear. Honestly, he looks a little like Steven Tyler on a bender.
"This is not atonement," declares Hetty. "This is punishment!" Her brooch is on a different side of her jacket today and it's really messing with me. Keen says his sins are all he has left, which is sad, but at the same time... What did we expect? He's been gone from his real life for so long that he doesn't really have a "real life" to return to.
(Also, I recognize that this is a serious issue that can't be fixed overnight and there's no easy solutions... But I hope we eventually one day get to see a happy, smiling Keen with a girlfriend and a dog or something.)
Hetty's ready to begin step one of the healing process - she's brought Keen a suit and she drags him to a cemetary. They visit the VERY OBVIOUSLY CGI'D headstone of their former teammate George Nelson. She tells Keen that his graveyard is in Wyoming, but it's empty. "You may not want to die, Keen, but you don't want to live either," Hetty says. She feels that she owes him a life, and he quickly absolves her of that debt, but Hetty's insistent. "I need to make this right with the time I have left."
... Is something happening with Hetty? Is she sick? Is she leaving? Or is she just speaking in general, I'm nearing the end of my life, terms?
Back to the boat shed, Kensi and Deeks are interviewing the woman who launched the rocket. Chelsea is sobbing because she swears she worked unbelievably hard for this on five years and would never want to ruin it. I instantly believe that she's innocent.
Helping this belief is her boss Donald, watching the interview with Hidoko. He is a) an absolute, complete moron, b) trashing everything about Chelsea's character, c) soundly throwing her under the bus. I instantly believe that he's the actual guilty party.
What's that, you say? Get back to the show? Gotcha. So Hidoko slams Donald on the table and calls him pathetic - somewhat because he made the rocket explode, but mostly because he deserved it. They pull the idiot into the interrogation room where he starts sweating and being an all around pitiful excuse for a human being. Kensi and Deeks explain that they know about his $75k in gambling debts (daaang, dude), casually mention that whoever sabotaged the rocket is now an accessory to murder, and Donald starts singing like a canary.
He explains that he was approached my loan shark Franco Martinez, who offered to pay off his debt if he simply wrote the code to make the rocket explode. Sure, why would you ever question a proposition like that. Mosley thinks the best way to close this case is to get Donald to arrange a meet with Franco, which everyone else thinks is a terrible idea. But it's happening, I guess.
At the meet up with Franco the Loan Shark, Donald is quickly overpowered by Franco's persuasive nature. He says if Donald has something to say about the deal, he can take it to the big guy, flashes his gun, and pulls him into the nearest car. Kensi and Deeks follow him to a driving range, which is apparently the favorite spot of loan sharks to do business? These guys seem very comfortable running the place.
Deeks starts working on his swing - in white pants and popped collared shirts, like he just drags those around with him everywhere he goes?!? - and Kensi changes into a standard black vest/white t-shirt bartender combo and slips behind the bar. I missed the fact that these agents drag suitcases full of clothes around with them everywhere they go. The big head honcho who orchestrated the rocket sabotage shows up to be unbelievably condescending to Kensi, then throw Deeks' clubs off the balcony. That'll be the first guy she chokeholds when the fighting starts.
Head Honcho wants to have a quiet moment with Donald without these strangers interfering. It turns out, he really just wants to threaten him, since he knows Donald talked to the authorities that morning. So they dangle Donald over the ledge on the putting range, but Kensi and Deeks fight back. They rescue Donald - pity - and Deeks gets in a fight with the bad guy. They swing golf clubs at each other and that just HAS to hurt, but it's worth it for Deeks' punchline about ironing things out.
Quick jump to the office where Eric and Mosley have gotten some details about the satellite: Iran is likely the party behind the sabotage, and thus the ones searching for it. The satellite is capable of unmasking any satellite in violation of the US/Iran nuclear deal, so recovering it would be huge win for Iran.
Back in the woods, a voice comes over the walkie talkies. Callen, Sam, and Nell listen to Vanessa - our girl from the opening credits - say that she found something in the forest, and proceeds to describe the missing satellite. I guess she just found their radio channel? I missed that explanation. Another voice jumps on the channel to ask for Vanessa's location so he can come find them. But it's not Callen or Sam - it's the bad guys! Callen, whose eyes are unbelievably blue in this scene, jumps on to tell Vanessa to leave immediately and not trust the other voice, but Vanessa isn't sure who to trust.
But her boyfriend, whom I mentioned earlier is a complete moron, has no problem risking their lives. He just wants his WiFi. He jumps on the walkie to share their exact location. Gosh, he's absolutely awful. The theme of today's episode is there are a ton of stupid guys in this world, apparently. Maybe one of the writers for the episode was going through a breakup or something.
Nell is guiding the guys to Vanessa's location via satellite, but the power dies again so she loses her surveillance. But it's fine, since Vanessa stumbles into Callen and Sam's path - she took their advice and ran with the satellite. Everyone's happy until they get a call on the walkie - the bad guys are back at the camp with Vanessa's absolute waste of oxygen boyfriend, and they're holding him hostage for the satellite. I say keep the satellite, take the loss, and we all move on.
But apparently Sam and Callen are much better people than I, as they don't see that as an acceptable loss. Well, that's probably because they haven't seen his hair yet. They return to the campsite and take out the bad guys pretty instantly. The boyfriend, instead of thanking everyone for saving his life, or apologizing for not trusting them to begin with, immediately starts complaining and saying that "this is why" he hates camping.
Oh, I'm sorry. Are you often help hostage by Iranian terrorists when you go camping? Is that on your list of reasons why camping is "the worst"? How does that list go, exactly: 1. No WiFi 2. No mirrors to fix hair 3. No running water to wash hair gel off hands 4. Always getting kidnapped by terrorists.
While comforting her soon-to-be-ex, Vanessa silently rolls her eyes and mouths "thank you" to Callen, which confirms that their relationship is not long for this world. Apparently Sam and Callen agree, as they observe that you never really know a person until you take them camping.
As everyone is wrapping up the case, Callen comments to one of the guys in charge that the entire thing was too easy. Nell suspects that the power outage was too conveniently timed to be an accident, so she goes out to investigate and stumbles across a bomb. She yells for everyone to clear the place and it explodes!
Well. That was unexpected.
There's a moment where we're all a little concerned - the tent where Sam and Callen had been is now in flames, and Nell starts crying as she stares at it. Fortunately, the panic doesn't last for long, as they walk up, just fine. But they quickly realize that the satellite is missing and that the explosion must've been a diversion. Everyone's accounted for except Gates, the really welcoming woman from the beginning of the episode!
She doesn't get far with the satellite though, as everyone pulls a gun on her car before she makes it 5 feet.
Back at the office, Keen is sharing a drink with Hetty and basically just getting the DL on Granger's crazy life. The whole team returns and asks Keen to join them for a drink now that the case is closed, but neither Hetty nor Keen take them up on the offer. Hetty remarks that it's good to see the team happy. "They've had a rough couple of years," UNDERSTATEMENT, "but they look out for each other." So it seems like it's time for Keen and Hetty to look out for each other. And Keen's first step to looking out for himself is to call up the psychologist Hetty recommended - Nate!
