Tonight on CBS NCIS: Los Angeles returns with an all-new Sunday, May 7, 2023, season 14 episode 19 called, “The Reckoning” and we have your weekly NCIS: Los Angeles recap below. In tonight’s NCIS Los Angeles season 14 episode 19, as per the CBS synopsis, “When four people, including a CIA officer, are shot and killed in broad daylight, the NCIS team suspects the attacks have something to do with DRONA. Also, Pembrook meets with Callen and gives more insight into his past.”
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In tonight’s NCIS: LA episode, Leah Novak was transferred to a rehabilitation center. She’s been showing signs of being aware and the doctors believe that meant she’ll be coming out of her coma soon. Leah was one of the victims of the Drona program. It’s a program that tortured children to determine their potential in the governmental jobs.
Like the CIA, the FBI, and even NCIS. Callen was one of the victims as well. The kids from this program are all grown up now and they wanted to come together to bring a lawsuit against the man that tortured them. They wanted to take down Pembrooke. And one of the victims didn’t want to be beaten to the punch.
Anthony Beltran started targeting people in the lawsuit. He wanted to have Pembrooke all to himself and so he killed people. He also shot Leah. He just didn’t kill Callen when he had the chance. Callen was right in front of him. He could easily have killed him. He chose not to because Callen was never a part of the lawsuit and because Callen understood the need to kill Pembrooke. Most of Pembrooke’s children wanted to kill him. He had a program in Russia doing the same thing for them that he did in the United States.
Pembrooke was the psychopath that created Katya. Katya was now dead. She was killed by Joelle only Katya tried to get to Pembrooke first. She tried to kill him. She was killed right outside of his hiding spot. Pembrooke went into hiding right after that. No one could find him because he was a well-trained spy himself.
He went into hiding. The investigation into him stalled and then Leah was transferred. She was being transferred by the CIA when her ambulance escort took a detour. They stopped to meet up with a group of allies and someone began picking them off one by one.
Four people were killed. There was just one person that got away and he drove Leah away from the scene. The people that died were all CIA Officers. Pembrooke had trained them too. The CIA sent one of their own to deal with the fallout. CIA Officer Raphael Cortez came in to oversee the investigation. CIA also wanted NCIS to get involved, but Cortez personally didn’t want Callen anywhere near the case. He thought he’d be compromised. He tried to order Admiral Killbride into recalling Callen back to the office and he refused to do so. He knew Callen had to see through this to the end.
Callen went to the scene with Kensi. They determined that someone had shot the four people from the rooftop. They somehow found out that this group were meeting up and they tried to kill all of them. Beltran was also back in the country. Cortez mentioned he was seen reentering the country with several Russian operatives. These operatives held no ties to FSB. Cortez didn’t think that was going to be a problem. He still thought Callen was the problem. He especially felt that way after Pembrooke contacted Callen.
Pembrooke led Callen all around the city to the point he lost comms with his team. He then abducted Callen by gunpoint to finally explain. Pembrooke was genuinely sorry for what the program did to Callen as a young boy. Back then, he thought he was helping. He thought he was creating the perfect spy. It wasn’t until he put together a team of his “kids” that he realized he made a mistake. He created violent psychos. Beltran only wanted to kill him now because he had joined Pembrooke’s team as an adult. And he quickly took over the team.
The psychos were taking money for hire. They killed a candidate along with his whole family to throw an election. They have no morals. No conscience. They were monsters. Pembrooke had turned them into monsters and he tried to stop it. He tried to stop Beltran. Beltran then tried to kill him and a lawsuit with Pembrooke would have brought his own crap to the light. And he was getting help from inside the house. Fatima found proof that Cortez lied to them. Beltran didn’t come with Russians. He came with Americans that were all a part of the Drona program.
Cortez knew that because he was secretly another victim of the Drona program. He was running Black Ops with Pembrooke until Beltran went rouge and everyone decided to turn on Pembrooke. Cortez tried pulling a gun on the Admiral. Fatima stopped him by alerting the rest of NCIS and Cortez was killed. He had the chance to give himself up only he preferred death. Either way they still got his phone. They found out he was messaging Beltran. He was keeping tabs on the investigation to pass to his friend.
Callen meanwhile was getting answers from Pembrooke. Pembrooke regrets what he did. He’s secretly tries to help the kids he tortured and he was so ingrained into the system that long after Callen killed Beltran and one of his men – the story about Drona was going back to being buried. Pembrooke was getting off with no charges. He also revealed to Callen that Hetty pulled him from the program. She regretted ever putting Callen in the program in the first place. She loves Callen as a son. And that’s why she’s been trying to protect him all these years.
Pembrooke also gave a file he collected on Callen to Callen. It was Pembrooke’s idea to pair him with Sam. He thought Sam would make a great friend and he wanted to show Callen that he could open himself up to others. Pembrooke was trying to repair some of the damage he caused.
THE END!
