Tonight on CBS NCIS: Los Angeles returns with an all-new Sunday, April 23, 2023, season 14 episode 18 called, “Sensu Lato” and we have your weekly NCIS: Los Angeles recap below. In tonight’s NCIS Los Angeles season 14 episode 17, as per the CBS synopsis, “The NCIS team must investigate when a Navy reservist is stabbed and his lab full of pesticides and insects is ransacked.
Also, Kilbride offers Sam the interim operations manager position and Rountree thinks about his future.”
So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back between 10 PM – 11 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 was sent to assist with a gun smuggler’s case. The job was in San Diego. Callen was going to be away for a while. It’s while he’s away that Admiral Killbride thought it was time to finally address something. He wanted to promote Sam to interim Operations Manager.
He’s been watching Sam for weeks and he thought Sam would do well in a leadership role. But Sam wasn’t really a desk guy. He hated paperwork. He hated missing the action and so he liked his current job just as it is. He wasn’t looking for anything else. He tried to tell the Admiral that and the Admiral mentioned that the role has to go to someone. It could be Sam or it could be some newbie that won’t give them the free reign they’re used to.
It was after he heard the last part that Sam agreed to think the job over. He wasn’t going to turn it down right off. He was going to think about it for now and he doesn’t have much time to do so because they caught a case. Naval Reservist Darryl Howard was almost killed at his laboratory.
He was a professor at a university in the city. He was what some might call a bug scientist. He studies bugs and the harmful effect that pesticides have on wildlife as well on humans. Someone broke into his lab. They stabbed Darryl. They left him for dead and they took something.
They took his pesticides. The ones he was using to test on animals. Everyone figured that the person responsible wanted to use the pesticides to make a bomb. This current situation was very similar to another robbery at another university lab. This other lab was robbed of its pesticides and then they were used to kill six people in a bombing. Only Darryl’s hard drive was also taken. Darryl was in no position to talk to anyone because he hasn’t woken from his coma and so they asked his former girlfriend, Layla.
They figured she would know him best. Layla and Darryl had a commitment ceremony twenty years ago. They stopped being together five years ago. Only they continue to talk every once in a while. Layla said Darryl was consumed by his work and so they asked her about his research.
She said Darryl was studying the harmful effects that pesticides have on other life uniforms. She also said that Darryl had became paranoid lately. He said someone keeps following him from lecture to lecture. He said he was being followed. He thought someone was trying to kill him and the best suspect for that was someone from these pesticide companies.
Darryl recently published a paper that said pesticides from a certain company was changing the lizards on a cellular level. As in it could potentially carry harmful effects on adults. Darryl went ahead with this theory. He printed it in several academic journals. He also got a lot of flak because of it. There were a pesticide company that had lost a lot of money after Darryl said what he did. One woman from the company had to be dragged out of Darryl’s lecture because she kept yelling at him “CHECK YOUR FACTS”
NCIS track down this woman. They questioned her. She claimed that Darryl was paid to say her pesticides could be harmful on humans and she had an alibi for when he was attacked. Except the same people that tried to kill Darryl would go on to abduct Claire Winchester. She was working with Darryl on a secret project for the DOD. They were working on genetically modified moths. One that could potentially replace all pesticides. It can also be created to poison live stock and every food source America has.
Someone could start a plague. Only how did they know about the research. They would have needed an inside man to tell them about the DOD project. They abducted Claire for reason. They knew she could recreate what they wanted and they were going to try and use her to their ends. Who are these evil people? Well, their spies from China. They only found out about the research because Darryl’s research assistant sold the information to them. His name is Arjun. Arjun was arrested by NCIS. He was questioned. He said things were spinning out of control. No one was supposed to die or get kidnapped.
Arjun was approached by the Chinese. They offered him a lot of money to turn over the research, but Darryl was standing in the way of that. Darryl refused to take the money when his new research could save lives. The Chinese then fell back on their spy days. They attacked Darryl and stole his hard drive. They abducted Claire to bring the research to life. And they were transporting her to a secret airport when NCIS stopped them.
They saved Claire from them and they arrested every spy involved in this.
Kensi and Deeks later had a date night, but Sam was beginning to reevaluate his goals and where does he want his career to go.
THE END!