NCIS: Los Angeles: “Random on Purpose” – review

After the murder of a submarine specialist leaves no forensic evidence, Director Vance sends Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette) to help the OSP team. Abby has a working theory that the murder is the work of a serial killer she calls The Phantom, who tries to make his killings seem random.

For me, this episode had two strikes against it from the start. One:  serial killers generally don’t interest me. Two:  part of the promotion for the episode revealed that Abby would be kidnapped by The Phantom. Without even watching the episode, I could have predicted Abby wouldn’t be killed. As a result, I felt no real suspense.

The OSP team did a nice job of deducing The Phantom was someone who read Abby’s blog regularly and who killed the submarine specialist specifically to draw Abby to Los Angeles. Too conveniently, though, they made these deductions just as Abby was being taken.

The episode featured too many quick cuts between suspects, too many between the OSP team’s brainstorming and The Phantom gloating over Abby. This was meant to tie the narrative together, but it felt rushed to me, sloppy.

The contrived suspense of identifying The Phantom and finding Abby was aided by undramatic computer searches. The episode’s only appeal was in seeing Abby interact in person with the OSP team, and of course, they all thought she was swell. There just wasn’t enough substance here. Vance sends Gibbs and his team to L.A., but, of course, they aren’t needed (or shown) in the end.

Summing up, I don’t think it was necessary to feature Abby at this point in NCIS: Los Angeles’s run. The OSP team had begun to develop on their own. I won’t go so far as to call this a setback for the new show. I think it was a cool-sounding idea that the writers thought they had to try. The results, unfortunately, were less than cool. Next episode, I hope the gimmick guest stars are gone, and the show can get back to business.

About Gerald So

Gerald So covers THE BIG BANG THEORY, BONES, BURN NOTICE, NCIS, NCIS: LOS ANGELES, and PSYCH each week for BSCreview. His personal blog is If You Want to Know About My Life.