NCIS: LA didn’t wait long to dive right into the Deeks (Eric Christian Olsen) and Kensi (Daniela Ruah) drama, and in this week’s episode adds more fuel to the will-they-or-won’t-they fire. While Hetty’s (Linda Hunt) getting grilled in Washington, D.C., the Department of Justice comes to LA to question the team in the form of Under the Dome’s Aisha Hinds, who rattles the usually unshakeable Kensi.
“She takes the bait and goes to an emotional place, because they’re essentially drilling her about Jack and about her role in Afghanistan and why specifically she was used,” Olsen tells EW.
After the interview, Kensi and Deeks will share a rare heart to heart—a scene Olsen says is one of his favorite Densi moments ever. “She has this incredible art of self-preservation and the biggest walls because of her failed childhood—same with Deeks, too,” he says. “So when these self-defense mechanisms crumble, which they do in this scene, the result is the most honest and kind of heart-breaking conversation that we have for these characters. It gets to a very real place.”
The duo will get a chance to work through their emotions physically, too. (Get your mind out of the gutter!) They have an intense sparring scene, which they filmed on a day when they didn’t have stunt doubles, so both Olsen and Ruah ended up black and blue. “It ends up with me on the ground and her on top of me landing a series of jabs while I talk smack about her being a pole dancer,” Olsen says.
Emotional and literal fighting aside, will we ever find out what’s in that box? You know, the one that Kensi gave Deeks for his birthday, but when he finally opened it, inside was… another box. Apparently, it will come back into play this season. “The only person that knows what’s in there is [Executive Producer] Shane Brennan, so I am as emotionally invested as everyone else,” Olsen teases, after describing an elaborate late-night plan to break into the studio in ninja gear to try to reveal the secret. “Because I want to know what’s inside the box!”
