NCIS: LA Director Daniela Ruah talks about reviving the Deeks family’s tragic past and lightly teases NCIS crossover

NCIS: Los Angeles Original cast member Daniela Ruah returned behind the camera to direct this Sunday’s episode entitled “Flesh & Blood.” airs at 10:30/9:30 a.m. on CBS.

In Ruah’s latest directorial effort, the NCIS team is tasked with investigating when a woman is seen fleeing her husband’s crime scene. Elsewhere, Roberta Deeks returns to town to meet Marty and Kensi’s daughter, Rosa, while Callen shares his most honest feelings about their upcoming nuptials with Anna.

TVLine spoke to Ruah about the specific topic brought up in this episode, Kensi and Deeks’ recent disappearance act, next year’s threesome NCIS crossovers and more.

TVLINE | That’s what, your fifth or sixth directing job…?
This would be #5, but #6 is also coming this season. episode 14

TVLINE | What challenge did this episode pose for you as a director?
What challenges me the most to this day, and I’m very transparent, is probably the stunt sequences because the logistics require you to be very specific and very careful, especially when there are explosions or people are falling or people are being shot at. It’s very important to be extraordinarily prepared for these days and ready for any changes, like, ‘Oh, we explored the location, but now that we’re here, it wouldn’t be cool to do that Miscellaneous Thing.” Our stunt coordinator, Troy Brown, and our special effects supervisor, Donnie Frazee and his son [Terry], are so insanely good at their job. During the prep, if you suggest something like, “The guy throws the bag and shoots it and it explodes in the air!” he’ll build this whole think-of-everything contraption. He has this amazing workshop and he sends you different versions of things to show you what would be most effective. And then our stunt doubles make us look good.

TVLINE | Is there a particular tone in this episode that you may not have encountered?
I don’t know if it’s as much about the tone as it is about an actual theme. In this episode we dealt with the topic of domestic violence. Our [person of interest] — played by Marnee Carpenter (Clarice), who is an exceptional actress, is a victim of domestic violence from her husband, who is in the military, which is why we finally got involved. because he turns up dead. This allows Deeks (Eric Christian Olsen) to connect with her through his own experience of domestic violence. His father abused him and his mother, which then brings in Pamela Reed (as Roberta), who is always a wonderful addition to our show. In between [Eric and Pamela], there’s this nice balance of telling a tragic story, but then they can kind of morph into a sense of humor. We also address parenting [in a scene] between Mama Deeks and Kensi, and we see her impact on that.

Chad Mazero wrote the episode and there is such a high level of emotional intelligence that he is really able to bring it into his scripts. So we have an emotional journey in this episode, and we’re really going big with the action too.

TVLINE | Yes, the scenes between Eric and the guest star and then Eric and Pamela are Fantastic.
They are amazing. Especially the ending scene where he says “how did you deal with that?” and Roberta makes a joke but then he really wants to know….

TVLINE | What developments on the Callen/Anna wedding front can you foresee?
So Anna (Bar Paly) keeps trying to set a date for her wedding, and Callen (Chris O’Donnell) seems to avoid it at all costs. First, as an audience, we’re with her and we’re like, “What’s going on?” And then he finally reveals what the real problem is, which is that Hetty isn’t there and he’s still very attached to her. Callen is an experienced, intelligent, independent agent who has gone rogue multiple times, but there’s just something about Hetty that holds that umbilical cord together, and the fact that she’s gone makes it very difficult for him to live with, not everything to know about yourself.

TVLINE | What parenting challenges await Deeks and Kensi beyond this week’s episode?
I don’t know what the authors think about this, but I do can saying that I’d like to see Kensi settle in a bit and be a little less nervous, “Is everything alright? Am I doing enough?” As a parent myself, I’m definitely going through it. I’ve had phases where, as Mama Deeks puts it best, “Do you worry every day that you’re not doing enough, but then you wake up exhausted every day because you’re doing so much?”

TVLINE | That was a Great Line.
It’s a great line, obviously written by a parent. Chad has two young children, and that’s just the way it is. I can confirm that. So it’s about finding the balance and also just understanding that pink (Promised Land‘s Natalia Del Riego) is a teenager who possesses a measure of independence. she can be Herself. she can communicate if something is wrong. Raising a child from birth tells you all about them, their likes or dislikes, the milestone experiences that define who they are, but when you have a teenager in your life, you Not Getting to know each other from birth is already more difficult, because this is a full-fledged human being. So I’d love to see Kensi settle into parenthood and be less nervous about stepping on eggshells, which Rosa doesn’t even ask of her, right? Rosa is just thankful to be there and loves Kensi and Deeks.

TVLINE | I have a reader asking, “Where was Kensi and Deek’s last episode?” Does the show no longer throw us a line of dialogue to explain a character’s absence?
This is a showrunner question and a writer question. What audiences probably don’t know is that each of us [on the cast] is now four episodes per season. It’s just a structural, logistical thing that our show is doing now. So, sometimes in the beginning it’s, “Oh, they had to take Rosa somewhere” as justification, but that’s basically why there will be episodes where some characters just aren’t there.

TVLINE | Will you be in the big threesome in January NCIS Crossing?
Yes.

TVLINE | OK….
Obviously I can’t talk too much about the crossover, who goes where, but yeah I think we’re all in those episodes. These crossovers are Not episodes where someone [from the NCIS: LA cast] is off. You know how we were just talking about us having four episodes each season? These crossovers will not be one of them for anyone.

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