In an obvious attempt to fill the void left by the conclusion of the Hawaii Five-0 reboot, CBS launches a new spin-off the NCIS franchise set in the Hawaiian islands. Vanessa Lachey stars as Jane Tennant, the first female Special Agent in Charge of the NCIS: Pearl. Alex Tarrant is Kai Holman, the youngest member of the team, an island native returning home after working for the Navy abroad, whose estranged relationship with is ailing father appears to be an ongoing storyline.
The rest of the team includes easily my favorite character in junior agent Lucy Tara (Yasmine Al-Bustami), the still yet-to-be-developed second-in-command Jesse Boone (Noah Mills), the quirky cyber specialist Ernie Malik (Jason Antoon), and intelligence liaison officer Kate Whistler (Tori Anderson). Enver Gjokaj is given the recurring role of the commander of the Pacific Fleet and a possible love interest to Jane (complete with a disdainful meet-cute followed by a better understanding between the pair). I’m not sold on the complete cast of characters just yet, but there’s enough here for me to give the show a little time to see what develops.
In the “Pilot” the team investigates the crash of an experimental aircraft leading to the uncovering of a spy ring working on the island. In “Boom” the team searches for a trio of former soldiers working together to stage explosive robberies which leave local patsies either dead or left to hold the bag for the crime. The plot of the “Pilot” episode is a bit too twisty for its own good while the more straightforward second episode allows time to explore the characters a bit more and see various relationships taking shape. Two episodes in, the definitely seems to be a H50 feel to the newest NCIS show, include two characters going McGarret and literally jumping off a cliff after a suspect. The volatile Lucy/Kate relationship is more interesting to me than the amount of time spend on Kai’s relationship with his father, but sadly it gets far less screentime.
