NCIS: Sydney Season 3 Episode 18 Teases Romance & the Return of The Collective

Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0

4

There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a wealthy, powerful man who feels he’s untouchable go down.

And NCIS: Sydney Season 3 Episode 18 delivered on that during a fun albeit convoluted case of dead soldiers, rough diamonds, and Blue becoming a relationship expert.

The fun, down-to-earth personal elements of the series were at their most entertaining, and then they left us with that ending just in time for the supersized finale.

Bob Prince was so obnoxious, and every time he called Mackey “Shelly,” I cringed. Even if he wasn’t directly responsible with one of the deaths, it was obvious that he was behind some other shady dealings.

And he spent decades being so powerful and well-known in Australia that he felt he was untouchable. Those are the worst people to have to go after and take down. Plus, it never bodes well when you’re on their radar.

Because it was obvious that anyone who dared cross him or pissed him off would fall victim to his revenge.

So we got a very case-heavy sort of case where there were a lot of names flying around and moving pieces. And at times, the hour was bogged down by all of these details.

Bob Prince was the man who had his hands in a lot of different jars, skilled in diversification, as JD called it. And that worked out for him because it meant he could do a number of shady things without people being none the wiser.

Or he could buy his way out of things or distract people from his worst dealings by hiding behind legitimate ventures.

Hand sanitizer companies and such were great for covering up the fact that he was mass-producing his own diamonds and dealing in and selling them.

And while rough diamonds don’t go for nearly as much as the real deal, he could still make a pretty penny of them, especially when people couldn’t tell the difference.

We got some gnarly bits in relation to that. Rosy finding the diamonds buried behind the victim’s eyeball was absolutely wild.

It’s that business that had a journalist looking into him before he sued her into oblivion, had her thrown in prison for six months under the guise of her being in contempt, and she died.

They claim it was by suicide, but also, the likelihood that Prince was behind her death was obviously strong.

We had Bonnie getting involved, and fortunately, JD was able to piece together that she was behind Holt’s murder and that she had a vested interest in taking down Prince, too.

Our squad managed to, which is great. But all the people who went to jail or ended up in a grave because of that man is truly awful when you think about it.

All of this, and there’s still a chance that Prince could buy his way out of this weapons-dealing case, which should be strong on paper, but you can never put anything past the rich and powerful.

But the fun personal elements of this case consisted of Blue using her certification in relationships to diagnose everyone and push certain agendas, and JD reeling from Mercedes dumping him.

It’s been great having more Blue again. She took such a backseat for most of NCIS: Sydney Season 3 ever since she returned, but she’s been getting to shine in the past two episodes.

I do worry what things will be like after this frustrating decision to cut down next season. With fewer episodes in this series, we won’t have quite as much time to really explore the characters, and I’d hate to see characters like Blue or even Trigger fall into the background.

Especially when episodes that centered them were among the strongest of the season so far. These are the things we miss out on with fewer episodes. It means we can’t have that rich character exploration that we once had.

But nonetheless, Blue had her amusing moments trying to crack certain people’s relationship troubles.

And despite my desire for the Blue/Trigger pairing, it seems she’s more of a shipper herself, and she’s pushing the Trigger/Evie agenda.

Whatever she explained to Trigger during his session, complete with graphics and more, his conclusion was that he and Evie need to stop dancing around whatever has been brewing between them and just finally “get it out of their systems.”

And Evie didn’t seem that put off by the notion, so that was interesting.

Whereas Blue’s assessment of JD was that he’s destined for solitude, and basically, he needs to get used to being alone.

Except, let’s be real, he’s never alone. As long as Mackey is there to give him the looks she’s struggled to hide this season, JD won’t be alone.

She was absolutely hilarious trying to get away from him in the opener as he tried to work through what the scissors emoji meant. It couldn’t be more relatable when she was trying to get out of dodge and avoid hearing all of this nonsense.

It’s largely because she clearly has feelings for JD, and hearing him talk about this other woman is hard. But it’s also been very clear that Mercedes is not a good match for JD.

A woman who communicates predominantly through emojis? Hell, I was also wondering how old this woman was!

The series has been doing a consistently good enough job with some of the pining, namely Mackey’s, that I’m curious whether the finale will deliver a significant moment where what’s unsaid finally comes to the surface.

It’s been interesting seeing how much softer Mackey gets when it comes to JD, the vulnerability she exudes, the genuine care she can’t even hide anymore, and how endearing it is that she calls him “Jim” more.

That’s a woman who is head over heels. It’s what made Blue’s assessment odd. She clocked Trigger and Blue, but hasn’t done that with JD and Mackey?

But the major development to come out of this hour was that an FBI agent slid next to DeShawn at the fun team debrief and warned him about Lee and The Collective!

It was so great to see Good Trouble‘s Maia Mitchell again. I’ve missed her on my screen.

She’s talking like she needs an inside man in all of this and implying that Mackey may be too close and isn’t cut out for anything. But I was too caught up in how she approached DeShawn.

Letting him know that she knows everything about him, where he grew up, and so forth is enough to immediately put flags up, and it doesn’t scream “Trust me!”

We knew things couldn’t possibly be over when it came to The Collective. It’s never that simple to take down a complicated organization with that amount of reach.

But this is why a lowkey hour like this is great. It lures you in before dropping the BOOM with what will likely be an explosive two-part season finale. And I’m excited about that!

Over to you, NCIS: Sydney Fanatics!

Where are you on this Macksey situation? Are you hype about revisiting The Collective again?

What are our season finale theories?! Dive into all things NCIS: Sydney below!

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