NCIS: Hawai’i 2×11 “Rising Sun” is about family, and how even if you weren’t lucky enough to be born with a functioning one, or if you’ve lost them, that doesn’t mean you cannot find your place in the world …and your people. It’s also about Kate Whistler, and about how hard it is to understand that you belong when you’re so used to having to get through life alone.
Of course, Kate isn’t alone anymore, but it’s different to enter into a romantic relationship and expect that person to have your back, to be there, which Kate does, than to understand that people you are not romantically involved with will have your back, no matter what. And it’s especially hard for Kate coming into a situation where she feels like these people, this team …it’s Lucy’s, not hers. She cannot intrude on that, and they could never really care for her as Kate, they just care for her because she’s Lucy’s girlfriend.
This is, of course, not the truth. Kate Whistler is someone worthy of love, worthy of a family. And it is possible for these people she works hand in hand with, to care for her outside of Lucy. And though I miss Lucy Tara desperately, and would love for her to come back like yesterday, if there is one good thing to come out of this Lucy storyline, it had to be Kate finding her own place in the team outside of Lucy.
Kate Whistler isn’t Marty Deeks, but there’s a comparison to be made here to the outside liaison that became part of the team in such a way that it’s now hard to imagine NCIS: Los Angeles without him. We’re only in Season 2, but Kate Whistler feels as much a part of the team as Marty Deeks did for all those years before he actually became NCIS. And though the career trajectory of Kate Whistler might not look the same, the fact that she´s FBI doesn’t make her any less part of this NCIS team.
The rest of the episode takes some time to advance the Kai/AJ storyline that we know will get its own episode at some point, and it does so by focusing on family once again, this time the one you are born with. Kai isn’t to blame for his father’s decisions, of course, but there’s a level of accountability that he needed to take in that relationship. He did run away. He did distance himself. And that accountability is sometimes the best first step toward…something more. Something better.
Family – of all kinds. It’s complicated sometimes, but what would life be without them?
Things I think I think:
- Are you still reading Harry Potter to your kids, Jesse? In this economy?
- Deep undercover and …three days. Typical Pike.
- AJ is getting to Kai.
- Ernie, why you trying to scare Pike?
- Please tell me that, in real life, no one would have let anyone go into a meeting in the circumstances Pike went into. At least not someone like him.
- Whistler being like “can you be this dumb?” to Kai is perfection. Sibling’s vibes on point.
- I MISS LUCY.
- But I do appreciate we’re getting more Kate with everyone else.
- Look, Ernie, I knew you liked Pike.
- This feels like one of those the least suspicious person obviously did it kinda episodes. Except it isn’t. Or maybe it is.
- Fielding ideas, HA.
- “You´re not alone.”
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of NCIS: Hawai’i 2×11 “Rising Sun”? Share with us in the comments below!
NCIS: Hawai’i airs Mondays at 10/9c on CBS.
