Action: Luther, Murdoch Mysteries & Luther
A storm is heading towards the NCIS: Los Angeles team and it’s one they may not all survive.
NCIS: Los Angeles Season 8 Thursdays (from 23 March) M-Net (*101) 19:30
Things are going from bad to worse very quickly in the all-new eighth season of action series NCIS: Los Angeles (2009- current). But it’s not terrorists and criminals threatening to tear the close-knit special investigating team apart. Instead, the rat is coming from within the NCIS ranks… well, the mole, to be exact. And after two seasons of pulling strings here and there (the mole first popped up in season 6 in 2014), the time might be right for their plan to play out…
INSIDE THREAT
“The mole storyline is off and running from the very first episode,” teases Eric Christian Olsen, who plays LAPD senior detective and NCIS associate Marty Deeks. “The State Department Intervenes and their team investigate everyone in order to find the mole. It gets very real, very quickly.” Eric adds that the first three episodes are like an out- of- control freight train and “it affects Hetty Lange (Linda Hunt) in a big way in episode 14 [22 June] – she’s taken hostage and thrown in a cage”. “It’s zoo-worthy,” jokes LL Cool J, who plays special agent Sam Hanna. “She’s literally locked in. It’s a trip. It’s freaky.”
Lead star Chris O’Donnell, who plays special agent G Callen, expects audiences at home to be as surprised at the mole’s identity as he was when he read the script. “I think it’ll be a shock for fans [when they see it in episode 15, on 29 June]. There are twists and turns that you didn’t see coming. I didn’t see them coming! And I work here!”
CUPID HITS HIS MARK… AGAIN
Even the show’s romance storyline is getting a dramatic twist. Deeks and his fiancée Kensi Bley (Daniela Ruah) start the season with a rough patch when Kensi’s mission to Syria leaves her in a coma. When she wakes up – surprise, surprise: she can’t remember anything before her mission… including Deeks.
FALLEN HERO
Put those agent-issued firearms aside for a few minutes and grab tissues. Episode 15 is also when viewers say goodbye to Assistant Director Owen Granger, who’s in a coma. In real life, actor Miguel Ferrer passed away in January 2017 from cancer.