Anna Kolcheck has been a recurring character on NCIS: Los Angeles since Season 6. Anna was introduced as Arkady Kolcheck’s daughter and romantic interest of G. Callen. Despite appearing in only 24 episodes over the last seven years, Anna has made an indelible impact on the show — which makes her absence from the current Season 13 all the more surprising.
Anna has her own storyline separate from Callen and the Office of Special Projects (OSP) team. Anna’s storyline has seen her go to prison, escape and then have her record wiped clean — all in the interest of catching Katya (Eve Harlow), her former cellmate who turned out to be a Russian spy. Anna herself was born in Moscow but grew up in Illinois, where she became a member of the Chicago Police Department but left to work in the private sector, mostly for Russian corporate interests. She has frequently collaborated with the OSP on cases, making use of her law enforcement and covert ops experience… until recently.
After years of false starts, it seemed like Callen and Anna were finally going to settle down together at the beginning of Season 12. While Anna was away volunteering in a town devastated by the California wildfires, Callen decided to visit and ask her to marry him; however, he was surprised to find that the rebuilding project didn’t exist. Anna resurfaced later in the season and explained that Katya had returned and she had to leave to keep both of them safe. When Katya kidnapped Callen’s ex-girlfriend Joelle Taylor (kidnapping is a common in the NCIS universe), Anna stepped in and took Joelle’s place. She hadn’t been seen since the OSP team rescued her from her nemesis’ clutches — until the latest episode.
Fans worried that Anna had permanently disappeared off the show like some other procedural characters can rest easy. Last year, NCIS: Los Angeles showrunner Scott Gemmill confirmed to TVLine that the writers were still interested in keeping the Anna and Callen relationship alive. Gemmill explained that Callen was “still romantically involved with Anna and thinking about how their future might look,” although they had no definitive plans for their relationship. “We haven’t resolved how we want to end that. We have a few irons in the fire,” he said. “With those sort of relationships, sometimes we give ourselves some options, play out the season and see what feels right.”
Since she hadn’t been seen, there’s been a lot of speculation about where Anna has been during the first half of Season 13. In the Season 13 premiere, Callen learns that Hetty left to take care of a problem of her own making in Syria — leaving fans to wonder if Henrietta Lange has left the show for good. Since Anna worked for Hetty in the past and has experience in the world of espionage, one possibility was that Anna had secretly been working on Hetty’s team in the Middle East.
But Anna’s hiatus just came to an end with the latest episode of NCIS: Los Angeles. In the previous episode “Where Loyalties Lie,” a mysterious figure used deep fake technology (similar to what Disney did with Luke Skywalker) to imitate Callen’s voice in order to send a message to Anna. Then, in “All The Little Things,” Anna comes face to face with Callen, while also seemingly on the phone with him. Katya has access to this kind of advanced technology, making it probable that she’s trying to lure Anna out of wherever she’s been secluded. This means Anna Kolcheck is back, and the stakes have never been higher.
