Tonight on CBS NCIS: Los Angeles returns with an all-new Sunday, May 1, 2022, season 13 episode 18 called, “Hard For The Money” and we have your weekly NCIS: Los Angeles recap below. In tonight’s NCIS Los Angeles season 13 episode 18, as per the CBS synopsis, “NCIS investigates the murder of a woman employed in the Navy’s missile defense program and its connection to stolen Navy missile technology.
Also, a strict social worker stresses out Deeks, and Sam debates selling his boat, on the first of back-to-back episodes.”
So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back between 9 PM – 10 PM ET for our NCIS Los Angeles recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our NCIS: Los Angeles recaps, spoilers, news & more, right here!
Tonight’s NCIS: Los Angeles recap begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates
In tonight’s NCIS: LA homeless man found a body at the beach. The body was identified as Petty Officer Third Class Nikki Lee. Lee appeared to be strangled and so her death was sent to NCIS. Hetty’s team caught it. But once again, Callen has to sit this one out. Callen wasn’t allowed back out into the field until his situation with deep fakes of himself had been cleared and that was only going to happen if Katya was killed or captured. With her still being out there, Callen was forced to watch the investigation from the sidelines. He even had to watch as Admiral Kilbride brought in Sabatino of all people. Sabatino had left the CIA. He was now the Special Deputy U.S. Marshall. And he was going to be paired up with Sam for this investigation.
Sabatino said Lee was a research project. She was helping to build a new missile system. It was considered that she was targeted because some foreign country wanted to use her to steal information about that new missile system. Sabatino also mentioned that he happens to be a part of a joint task force looking into Libya. Libya had been accused of stealing American naval tech in the past and so he was there to see if they had anything do with Lee’s death. Sabatino was paired up with Sam. Something that both Sam and Callen resented. But they were forced to go along with it because Sabatino now gets to openly carry a gun in the United States. And they needed the backup.
Kensi also couldn’t work the case. She was giving a deposition. She was going to be away for a while and her husband Deeks was overseeing construction at their house so the team needed as many hands as they could. Sabatino was in. Callen was out. Callen was even advised to take a few days off to get his head right. As ordered by the Admiral. The Admiral had everyone else looking into Lee and they realized she might not have been killed over espionage. Lee has had domestic issues with a past boyfriend. It got so bad that the police were called. Afterward, Lee found out she was pregnant. The boyfriend wanted nothing to do with the baby.
The now ex-boyfriend even moved away. Lee had to go after him for child support. She also moved on with her life and everything was going normal until the boyfriend moved back into the area. He sorta had to because he got in trouble with the law. He needed to stay close to his probation officer. But he didn’t kill Lee. He had an alibi for the time of the murder. He was with his P.O. volunteering at a rehab. He couldn’t be the killer and he seemed to be angrier about the continuing child support than he was about Lee’s death. The ex-boyfriend was out. He was fully out once the team realized that Lee went to the Sky West Beach Club on the night she died.
Something must have happened. Either in the club or right outside because that’s where Lee left her car. The team later spoke to the guy who ran the club. Someone known as Big Wes. Wes was involved in a fake island festival scam and he was also suspected of being involved in numerous other scams all targeting rich people. Big Wes has managed to escape from several charges of everything from Fraud to Rico. Nothing sticks when law enforcement comes after him. Which posed a problem for the team because both Sam and Sabatino believed Big Wes had something to do with Lee’s murder.
Big Wes wasn’t cooperating. He didn’t want to give them footage from his surveillance cameras inside of the club and he didn’t even want to hand over a client list of everyone who was there that night. But they got some footage of outside the club. They found Lee in one of them. She was arguing with a man in a giant cowboy hat. She was in his face when a car pulled up alongside her and pushed her into the back of the car. The team didn’t know who she was arguing with or why that person didn’t call 911 when someone was literally abducted right in front of them, but they kept digging and they later found some promotional photos of an event at the club that night. And they found the person in the giant cowboy hat.
That person was Navy Petty Officer Gary Hudson. Hudson was Lee’s boss on the missile project. They found him as he was trying to flee town and so they brought him to the boatshed. It didn’t take long for Hudson to crack. He said that he went to the club. He has a problem and he always liked how willing the women there were. But it became expensive. He ran up a debt by putting everything on his tab and that’s when Big Wes approached him with an offer. The guy had been prodding Hudson for his stories in the Navy. He was looking for information. Something that Hudson provided as long as he kept being allowed to come to the club.
Hudson was more afraid of Big Wes than he was of NCIS. Even after he was busted, Hudson hadn’t wanted to talk against Big Wes and only did so because he wanted to avoid a murder charge. Hudson told them that Big Wes convinced him to steal the schematics to the new missile system. Big Wes was going to sell it to someone overseas and whoever it was – Big Wes was afraid of them. Hudson said that was the only time he saw Big Wes afraid. He stole the information from work and he gave it to Big Wes that night. Lee found out about it. She confronted him. And the next thing he knew she had been grabbed by Big Wes’s people.
Hudson didn’t know when the sale was going to happen. The team looked into Big Wes and they noticed he turned off his cell phone. A sure sign that he was trying to hide something. They tracked his movements and they later were able to prevent the sale of their new missile system to a private contractor. The contractor got arrested. And so did Big Wes.
Big Wes was facing a murder charge as well as treason charges. Sabatino and Sam did great work. They made a good team. They might even become friends now.
As for Deeks, he had a run-in with a social worker. It left him so depressed that he visited the office and he had an honest conversation with Admiral Kilbride. He might have convinced the Admiral to reach out to his son.
And Callen’s few days out of the office were used to track down Katya
THE END!
