‘NCIS: LA’ Boss on Kensi & Deeks’ Happy News and Callen’s Proposal
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the NCIS: Los Angeles Season 13 finale “Come Together.”]
Sure, there are a few loose ends when NCIS: Los Angeles ends its 13th season, but all in all, it’s a happy episode, one that features a couple of moments fans have been waiting years for.
First of all, soon after Kensi (Daniela Ruah) picks Deeks (Eric Christian Olsen) up from the airport, they find out they’ve been approved to foster Rosa (Natalia Del Riego) — and she can come home with them that night! Everyone gathers at the beach for a barbecue to celebrate. And it’s there that Callen (Chris O’Donnell) finally proposes to Anna (Bar Paly).
“In every aspect of my life, I didn’t know who I was until I met you,” he says. “You didn’t even know your first name,” she remembers. And while he’s worried that he can’t give her the normal life she wants because he’s “broken,” she reminds him she is, too. “That’s why we fit. Look, other people may never understand our normal, but that doesn’t matter. It just has to make sense to us, to you and to me,” she says. And after that, he gets down on one knee — Kensi is the first to notice and alert the others, including Anna’s father Arkady (Vyto Ruginis) — and proposes. Anna, of course, says yes!
Executive producer R. Scott Gemmill breaks down those happy moments in the finale.
Congratulations on the renewal!
R. Scott Gemmill: Oh, I know. Thank you. That was a nice surprise.
This was such a feel-good finale, somehow topping even last year’s.
Yeah, I think partially because we didn’t know if we were going to be renewed. So with that in mind, we really wanted to leave the characters in a good place and hopefully leave the fans in a good place if by chance, that was our final episode.
Sonja Flemming/CBS
I like the undercover callbacks — yes, Switch, but also Mr. Carl was so much fun.
That’s sort of our main goal really is we try to have fun and entertain people and we have a good time doing it. We’re very lucky.
Kensi and Deeks’ journey to become parents has been a long one — they’ve come so far from when they first started talking about kids. When did you know that this was going to be how it would go, with them becoming parents to hopefully two teens, assuming it works out with Pilar as well?
We put things in motion and a lot of times we have a plan on where they’re going to go, but we don’t hold onto that too rigidly just in case delightful things happen along the way that change how you want to tell the story.
With Kensi and Deeks, we decided just from everyone’s personal experience, of knowing people who have done this or have gone through this themselves, where just because you decide to have children, it doesn’t always happen to work out the way you had anticipated. So we thought that would be a good story to examine for those two, because a lot of people struggle with that. I think it was really when we did the episode with Rosa, “A Land of Wolves,” we really liked Natalia Del Riego. It just seemed like a natural sort of progression because you have in addition to this couple who are trying to conceive and have had a lot of difficulty and have talked about the possibility of adoption, to suddenly then have this young woman put into their lives, who is struggling to find her own way and doesn’t have a family ultimately as we find out and the risk with her is that because she doesn’t have a family, she no longer has a sponsor and will be sent back to Guatemala. So it seemed like for them, it was sort of fate. We played it as fate was sort of making them have to make a decision where they might have taken longer to do.
It also is kind of scary for them because it’s not what they had anticipated in terms of when they did think about adoption. Most people do think of adopting a child, whereas as anyone who’s gone down that road or is familiar with the adoption process, there are a lot of teens who are in the foster system who don’t find families because people are always looking for younger children. It gives us a chance to explore a bunch of story areas that we normally might not have.
How much will we see them trying to balance their home life and work? That’s also come up — the fact that their job is dangerous — in the past.
Yes. That was sort of the reason why having them adopt someone like Rosa was a good solution because if they are at work, it’s not like we’re wondering who’s looking after this infant at home. Rosa is 16 years old. She’s quite capable of being home alone. So we sort of hedge our bets a little bit by doing that so that it’s not as if we feel like they’ve adopted a child and then just abandoned them at home because they’re a young person and there’s a line — it’s not like they adopt her until she’s 18 and then she’s on her own. This person, this young woman is going to be in their lives forever as a daughter, so it’s something that they have to learn to live with and make those sacrifices.
CBS
Callen finally proposed, which I’d been waiting for. We’ve known about that ring for a while. Talk about figuring out how that would happen.
Yeah, that was another one of those things where you can slow roll these things for a certain amount of time, but at some point, I think you owe it to the characters and also to the audience to make a move — even though some people have been in extremely prolonged engagements, it’s not necessarily going to go three years. So we just decided, at some point we have to do something, either put an end to it or move forward. And I think, because of where we were, because not knowing if this was our last episode, that probably forced our hand a little bit in terms of making that leap because it just seemed like a good way for them to end if this is the last time we ever saw them. Now we will have to follow through with that and we still have that to figure out ourselves, what’s the best way to tell that story. We’ve had one wedding on the show and that was really fun. And who’s to say, we can’t do another one?
And this one will have Arkady involved, which of course has to be fun.
Yes. Vito’s so much fun to work with. And that’s one of the great things about being so blessed to be on the show this long is that we can bring in characters and actors and have a lot of fun with them and continue to bring them back, whether it’s Arkady or Sabatino [Erik Palladino], there’s a long list. We have sort of a very big standing cast in the wings waiting to come in and have fun with us. That’s a real treat for us.
NCIS: Los Angeles, Season 14, TBA, CBS
Conversation26 Comments
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Comments are closed on this story.
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O
I’m thrilled with the ending! It’s about time we have some positive forces. Although we do miss Hetty being in the fold!!
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G
Callen asking Anna to marry him is okay, BUT get a different person to play her.
Bar Paley is not the right person for this character.
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G
I love all of the characters in NCIS: Los Angeles
especially Eric Christian Olsen aka Marty Deeks and Daniela Ruah aka Kensi Blye
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O
I have been waiting for years for Callen and Anna to make it official! I love Bar Paly as Anna. She gets Callen totally! Thanks NCIS:LA for finally getting these two together!
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P
Y'all are crazy. Its the interpersonal relationships that makes the show work for me. I like Killarney. I'd like to see him spar with Getty. And I like Fatima. I like Roundtree. I like Arkady. Its not the best show but it's worthwhile watching.
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P
I wish they had photoshopped Hatty some way/
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O
That is just sad
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C
I think this even tops Deeks and Kensi's wedding. I LOVED the episode. Very light hearted and fun ending. Could watch it again and again. Finally a finale with 2 happy stories!
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C
it was the dumbest season final tptb should listen to their fans all of them not just the few selected ones that say what you want to hear ,why you keep anna i don't know she is still cost you viewers and now he propose to her...there is absolutly no chemistry between her /actress herself and the rest of the team the whole story even makes g look like a fool and get stamped on she even brings cods acting down ...he is broken yes...she is not she is daddies little spoiled girl . you may for the next season start get all the writers on the same page or next season more people will leave and please rosa gives me woody allen vibes make densi husband and wife again instead of workingpartners and don't promise hetty when you know she ain't comming back oh yeah 20 sec🙄
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J
The writers don't write based on fan preferences. TV isn't a "choose-your-own-ending" kind of thing. They do what they want.
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R
Put this old dog out of its misery!
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O
Many thanks to R. Scott Gemmill for a bad season and the final makes up for it. What if the series still made sense instead of just frosting everything? I don't know of a single crime/drama series where the relationship between two people is discussed so often. Children? At this job? And now a girl
that ran away. Marrying is nice, but marrying a woman who is lying is not a good choice. Also, it's time to replace the bad actors. Bar Paly doesn't get the role of Anna across. She turns Callen into a stupid idiot who was once a good agent.
Fatima is arrogant and doesn't fit the role either. Many of the fans are no longer watching. I also don't watch it anymore because I can't stand scenes with these actors. I have a desire to be entertained.
It's a shame about the series and I hope that you can see some of the good actors in other projects again. But this is a telenovela/soap opera and doesn't deserve the name crime series.
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T
Most, horrific finale I've ever seen. You have all this and don't even bother to include the very person who made the team? Every person who approved this needs to be fired!!!!!
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G
You’re REALLY annoying. Just shut up and let us enjoy the show. Linda is clearly tired of working on the same show for over a decade and she has ever right to.
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T
Telling me to be quiet doesn't work like that. And if you're really that intimidated by what I say, then maybe you shouldn't be on internet message boards
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O
Get it through your thick skull that Linda Hunt obviously couldn't be there! You claim that the show disrespects Hetty, yet you disrespect Linda. Her health/safety is more important than your selfish desire to paint Hetty as someone infallible saint. She's not evil but she's made mistakes and has kept secrets from Callen that she had no right to keep. Callen's feelings are 100% valid and justified!
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T
I feel like I want to cry in a corner forever because of how much I'm hurting right now, and you want to attack me like this? I'm hurting!! The person who made this team possible has basically been forgotten about, and I'm being disrespectful by mad about all of this?! Put yourself in my shoes and see how you feel. Callen needs to forgive her, because he loves her and she loves him!
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R
Then go cry in a corner forever if that makes you happy.
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O
I don't get that upset over fiction. As for the disrespectful part, you act like they don't want the character around despite knowing why the actress can't be there. And if the show is "hurting" you so much than maybe you should stop watching it.
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T
You don't know anything. She is the team's mother and she deserves 10000000000000% better then everything about these last few Seasons! And if someone you oved was being treated like this, I'm sure you'd be fuming as well!
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O
You do know that Hetty is not real? Right?
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R
You do realise that the reason why Linda is not there is likely because she is not physically able to be there? The show is having to manage her lack of availability, hence the series of disappearing Hetty storylines. Other shows would have killed the character off or recast the part but they are obviously trying to work with Linda to utilise her when she is available. Also the whole thing about how she groomed Callen is not new and was implied at the end of the Raven and the Swans episode back in Season 4.
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T
Except at the end of that episode, Hetty said that she did what she did because she wanted a family, it never said that Callen was one of those orphans. What this whole Season has done is completely retconned what we already knew about when he first met Hetty, and it's very wrong! Fans who have stuck with this show for so many years knows that she would never hurt Callen, and these pathetic retcons should never have been okayed to begin with!
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E
It's just a TV show. There are reasons beyond the show's control as to why she hasn't been a part of the show for most of the past 2-4 seasons.
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O
Hefty is in another part of the world. G doesn't know how to contact her and anyone who knows won't help. No invite by G.
K and D didn't know they would be approved until the morning of and Kilbride didn't plan the party until K and D was at the office and then they didn't exactly announce it. Kilbride said earlier he has no way of contacting Hetty and K and D didn't know about the party so no invite by any of them.
How would it be explained when Hetty showed up ready to party?
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T
Kind of makes you wonder how she made it home at the end of last Season, doesn't it?
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