Linda Hunt may have been absent from the season 14 premiere of NCIS: Los Angeles, prompting fears that Henrietta Lange had perished in Syria. But no need to worry, says executive producer R. Scott Gemmill, the resilient agent will be back.
When last we heard of Hetty, last season, the NCIS Supervisory Special Agent and Operations Manager of the Office of Special Projects was somewhere in Syria. In the premiere episode, a body was found with Hetty’s ID, but it turned out to be the body of a child, meaning Hetty had likely faked her own death. Classic Hetty!
Hunt has portrayed Henrietta Lange since the first season of NCIS: Los Angeles in 2009. Hetty is known for taking in orphaned children, including Chris O’Donnell’s G. Callen, and grooming them to become agents for the U.S. government. After 12 seasons, the now-77-year-old Oscar-winner’s role was reduced in season 13 amid COVID-19 precautions.
However, with Callen getting ready to tie the knot to Anastasia “Anna” Kolcheck (Bar Paly), there’s no way Hetty would miss that. But in typical Hetty fashion, no one knows what she’s quite up to at the moment.:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(999x0:1001x2)/linda-hunt-2-2000-07bc73159c174927b54d47ac549327c1.jpg)
“Hetty has been an integral force within the agency and an especially important part of Callen’s past,” Gemmill told Variety. “As Callen starts thinking about his upcoming wedding to Anna, he would want Hetty present. The plan is to go and rescue her at some point and find out what she’s gotten herself into in Syria, but we’re just trying to figure out when we can pull it off. The goal is to make it happen this season.”
Well, hopefully Hetty shows up in time for the massive NCIS-verse crossover airing in January.
