“In the blink of any eye,” NCIS: Los Angeles showrunner Shane Brennan marvels, the NCIS offshoot has arrived at its seventh season, within which it will mark its 150th episode.

With the Season 7 premiere airing tonight (CBS, 10/9c), TVLine presents our complete Fall Preview Q&A with Brennan, who surveys Callen’s polarizing decision, “serious” matters for Kensi/Deeks, Eric’s brave new world and more.

TVLINE | If I’m Callen there at the close of the season finale, am I believing what Hetty has said about my father?
At this point, what Callen knows is that his mother’s dead and his father’s dead. That’s what he believes. But what the audience knows is… it looks like his dad is having some coffee at the shop there. [Laughs] That chapter in his life, while Callen thinks it may have concluded, the audience knows there’s a little more to come.

The first episode of the season isn’t a straight follow-up — three months have passed and Callen finds himself in a very difficult situation with Hetty and Sam, because he’s not telling them what he’s got himself caught up in. We discover that for the last couple of months, he’s been doing his own little investigation into something. When Hetty and Sam find out, he won’t tell them what it’s about and that creates a lot of tension. In fact, this will be as bad as it’s ever been for Callen and Hetty, and certainly as bad as it’s ever been for Callen and Sam. They’re both frustrated that he’s not telling them what he’s involved in. And for Hetty, who took this young man under her wing and has guided him through his entire adult life, it’s very painful.

TVLINE | Oh, I’m sure that once his motivation is revealed, they’ll all hug it out.
It’s revealed, but it’s not resolved. In the great tradition of this show we plant the seeds of something to come, and it has a fairly major impact halfway through the season, in a pretty large double episode. Look, this is going to be a really fascinating season. We’ve got it all mapped out and we have so much story [that] it is like two normal seasons — and that’s saying something, because this show doesn’t tend to dawdle, it doesn’t tend to go slow. We always have our foot on the accelerator, but this season is jam-packed.

TVLINE | And you have Episode 150 somewhere in there, right? Anything special planned?
It’s a normal episode, and actually a very funny episode. It puts Kensi and Deeks together in an undercover operation, as a kind of protection detail. It’s got some great guests in it, and it’s one of those shows that will be memorable.

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