Tonight on CBS NCIS: Los Angeles returns with an all-new Sunday, October 10, 2021, season 13 episode 1 called, “Subject 17” and we have your weekly NCIS: Los Angeles recap below. On tonight’s NCIS Los Angeles season 13 episode 1, as per the CBS synopsis, “Callen suspects Hetty of keeping secrets about his past; Joelle surfaces in her quest to capture Katya; the team must track down an informant whose life is in danger; Kensi and Deeks work to expand their family.”
So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back between 9 PM – 10 PM ET for our NCIS Los Angeles recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our NCIS: Los Angeles recaps, spoilers, news & more, right here!
Tonight’s NCIS: Los Angeles recap begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates
In tonight’s NCIS Los Angeles episode, Callen broke into a locked cabinet in the archive room. It had been Hetty’s and Callen had been too curious to ignore it. He turned off security cameras. He broke into the cabinet and he found something. He found a file on foster kids. The kids were put through profiling experiments and they had cognitive tests run on them.
But the most important bit was the fact Callen found a file on himself. He found out he was listed as Subject 17 and that he had been one of the kids experimented on. Callen later called Sam. He told him what he found and Sam was worried. Not about the file. He was more worried about what Callen did to get the file than he was about what’s in the file and so Callen told him that he found himself listed alongside the other children. They were run through more severe cognitive tests than the admittance to the Navy. And that reminded Callen of Killbride.
Admiral Killbride once told Callen that Hetty hired Sam but she created Callen. It was the word “created” that was now sticking out to Callen and so Callen suspected he knew Hetty longer than he thought. He thought she should take an interest in him as a troubled teenager. He’s now learning that she might have been spying and experimenting on him since he was seven.
Callen believes he’s Subject 17. Sam however thinks it’s a coincidence. He told Callen that Killbride could have simply been talking about the major role that Hetty took in Callen’s life and that Subject 17 could be someone else. Sam didn’t want to jump on any conspiracy. He said half the country was already doing that and that they were too smart to let it happen to them.
Anyways, a case came up. The Russian spy known as Zasha Gargarin was seen getting into a fight in a public place and in the nearby vicinity there was Joelle. Joelle was following Zasha. She had probably already collected her and was getting as much information as she could from her, but Callen knew things wouldn’t end there because this was Joelle and Joelle wanted something.
She wanted revenge. Joelle was kidnapped, tortured, and permanently disfigured by former Russian spy Katya. Katya is still at large. Joelle wants revenge and the best person that could help her is now Zasha. The team wanted to find Zasha before Joelle because there’s no telling what Joelle would do to her.
But as they were investigating the case, Callen kept talking to Sam. He confessed to Sam that he had to do several tests as a kid that his teacher explained was for his dyslexia and that he now remembers involved assembling a fake gun. Callen hadn’t thought much of it at the time. It was only looking back as an adult that he realized how disturbed it was and so he sought out Killbride.
He showed Killbride the file on the kids. He demanded answers to his question and he wasn’t going to get it. Not from Killbride. Killbride said he gave orders. He doesn’t answer to them and not from Callen anyways. Killbride told Callen to go to the source. Callen went looking for Hetty and he found her burning files because she was about to go undercover again and she couldn’t afford to leave certain information out.
Callen added his file to the burn stash. He had already made a copy and so he told Hetty she better get rid of every bit of evidence. Callen also demanded to know if he was Subject 17. He pushed and pushed until Hetty admitted that “yes” he was in fact the child in the file. He had been experimented on. He had been run through the tests to see if he would make a credible agent and he passed.
There’s no telling what would happen if he failed. There were also no answers as to why. Callen’s case took precedence and he managed to get Joelle to come to him. He threatened to talk to her family. Joelle came to the boat shed and it was confirmed that she found Zasha and kidnapped her. She was recently torturing Zasha for information on Katya when Callen called.
Joelle came to the boat shed. She demanded that Callen back off and he told her he couldn’t because Zasha is their informant. He told her that she needed to hand over Zasha to them. She refused and so Callen brought out the big guns. He threatened to tell Joelle’s family that she’s still alive if she didn’t back down. She tried to pull a gun on him.
Both Callen and Sam pulled guns on her and they reminded her that she was drawing down on federal agents. Joelle couldn’t depend on the CIA. They would disavow her. She couldn’t risk going to jail because then her family would find out she was alive and so the two sides were at an impasse when the internal alarms went off. Joelle had been followed. The guys grabbed Joelle’s gun from her during the confusion and they fled the building by swimming out through the hatch.
Joelle never noticed the guys following her. She was too set on kidnapping Zasha and creating an international incident. The guys made her give up the location where she took Zasha. They went to the scene where they found the Russians kidnapping Zasha. They called in reinforcements and they were told by Killbride to use non-lethal measures.
So, Fatima used to shock and awe by driving Sam’s car through the building and they drew their weapons on anyone left standing. Joelle was also shocked when she couldn’t get away. She was captured. Callen warned her away from Zasha and he said he’d help her find Katya but not like this and he really would tell her family she’s alive if she crosses the line again.
Zasha was freed. She was also burned and so now she’ll be hunted for the rest of her life. Joelle got to walk away with charges. Kensi and Deeks also got a laugh before they had another conversation about adopting a child and they realized Hetty hadn’t been trying to hurt them when she suggested someone else sponsor their adoption application. Hetty suggested it because she had to go.
She went to Syria on a classified mission and Callen wasn’t going to let that stand. He still needed answers. He asked Zasha to go to Syria to spy on Hetty for him. He told her he would get her papers if she does this for him and ultimately she had no other option because now the Russians wanted her and they would either kill her or wait until she was back in Russia to kill her.
THE END!