“What’s going to wear against them is their past,” Olsen tells THR about Kensi and Deeks’ bumpy road ahead.

It’s the best of times and the worst of times for Deeks (Eric Christian Olsen) on NCIS: Los Angeles.

In Monday’s crossover episode of the CBS procedural, NCIS’ Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) drops by and needs the team’s help in tracking down a missing suspect before Gibbs (Mark Harmon) gets wise to the situation.

Read more LL Cool J on ‘NCIS: Los Angeles” “Tough” Sam Storyline, Falling for On-Set Pranks

Olsen tells The Hollywood Reporter that Deeks may face a bit of competition from DiNozzo for Kensi’s affections.

“He partners up with Kensi and I, and he’s flirting with her, and she’s flirting with him and then he’s kind of flirting with Deeks,” Olsen says. “Of course, Kensi has a crush on DiNozzo, so it plays out well.”

The episode, which Olsen calls the series’ funniest yet, also involves a questionable sartorial choice from Deeks. “At one point, [DiNozzo] comes to our boathouse, and I’m dressed in the Bruce Lee yellow one-piece Kung-fu outfit,” Olsen says, which can be seen in the image above.

However, the good vibes won’t last long, as a different episode set to air in the near future will involve Deeks getting arrested by internal affairs. The episode will explain the full backstory of the situation, along with featuring key scenes between Deeks’ mom and Kensi.

“This is probably the biggest season so far for Kensi and Deeks because the relationship has really come to a place where it’s solidified between the two of them,” Olsen says. “Now, what’s going to wear against them is their past.”

“There’s tough moments [for Densi], but just like life, when the difficult obstacles are overcome, you have the best moments of that relationship,” he said, promising that the couple will experience some “amazing moments” as well.

NCIS: Los Angeles airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on CBS.

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“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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Now that Kensi Blye (Daniela Ruah) and Marty Deeks (Eric Christian Olsen) have decided to take the plunge into a full-fledged relationship onNCIS: Los Angeles, the next step is navigating the waters. And perhaps the most important question is this: What impact will their coupling have on their approach to cases?

“Everybody’s kind of waiting to see if our work is jeopardized by the success of the relationship,” Olsen told TVGuide.com during a recent set visit. “Now you have two characters that are obviously meant to be together, together under the most dynamic and terrifying of circumstances. When things go wrong, is it going to be the fault of that relationship?

“We make decisions based on being a good agent,” Olsen continues. “We make decisions based on what’s in the best interest of the country or the mission, and everything kind of flies out the window when you become so emotionally invested in your partner. … Now [Deeks] has this realization that [Kensi] is the most important person in the world to him. And I think it’s going to be the catalyst for a lot of mistakes.”

Other complications arise from the couple’s reluctance to share the news with their colleagues – who, let’s face it, have their suspicions already. “I think eventually the team’s going to have to know what’s going on between Kensi and Deeks,” Ruah tells TVGuide.com. “I don’t think it’ll be a surprise for any one of the other characters, especially not Hetty. I think she could see it coming a mile away.”

In exploring a new side of Kensi, Ruah says she drew from her own experience with her now-husband, David Olsen (Eric’s older brother, who sometimes acts as a stand-in on the set of NCIS: LA.) “I went through a similar situation when my husband and I started dating,” she admits. “There was this, we’re not ready to tell people yet. We’re not ready to make this a thing for other people to deal with. And then eventually you get comfortable.

“Very few people manage to hold a balance when something so big transitions in your life. … A part of me feels like she’s going to be better at hiding it than him,” Ruah says of her character. “I think she’ll almost go the opposite side of the pendulum. Instead of giggling and whatever when nobody’s looking, I think she’s probably going to almost keep her distance more. … My husband would talk to me less on set when we started dating than he did before we were dating. It was like, ‘I’m going to be so pretending this is not going on that I’m going to ignore you completely, instead of being normal around you.’ I think people react in different ways.”

Despite the fact that NCIS: LA has moved to 10 p.m. this season, fans shouldn’t expect a lot of hot and heavy Densi scenes. This is, after all, still a police procedural.

“They have to keep it serious and professional at work,” Ruah notes. “There’s not a great, if any, distinction in the scenes that we did prior to dating officially to post-dating officially. Their professionalism and their banter and their looks are pretty much similar or the same. It’s just in these little wonderful tidbits that the writers drop for us, such as scenes where they find themselves alone or on a date or whatever it is.”

And of course, it won’t all be smooth sailing from here on out. Future episodes will explore “navigating a relationship with just the lack of communication skills these two characters have, and their struggle to kind of make anything work,” Olsen teases. That includes (spoiler alert) the couple’s first argument, in the episode airing Feb. 23.

But even Olsen and Ruah admit they’re not certain about where the relationship is heading.

“I don’t get the scripts until a couple weeks before you guys see them on TV, so I’m just as emotionally invested in this relationship and where it’s going as the audience is,” Olsen admits. “Will they, won’t they –I thought that would go on for 10 seasons. So, when they decided to pull the trigger, the thing everybody else felt watching the show is the same thing I felt reading the show. Like, oh my god, now what? … All the questions as an audience, they’re asking, I’m asking the same questions.”

Adds Ruah: “It was a surprise to me when they wrote that Kensi had that conversation in the Christmas episode with Deeks. I didn’t think it was going to happen for a while, so much so that in interviews they kept asking us, ‘What would you like to see happen?’ And I was like, ‘Well, I don’t think they should get together yet, otherwise there’s nowhere to go.’ … And then all of a sudden, they threw us this curveball. I’m very curious to see where they’re going to take this and what obstacles they’re going to throw in our way, because they have to. They have to throw some sort of obstacle, because it can’t just be smooth from now on. It can’t. … Even I’m excited to see where this is going to go.”

NCIS: LA airs Mondays at 10/9c on CBS.

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Sam Hanna (LL Cool J) finds himself on the wrong side of the law on Monday’s episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, when he’s arrested and charged with murder.

The victim is a woman who has a connection to Sam’s time in the military, but as Callen (Chris O’Donnell) and the rest of the team work to clear his name, they uncover some tidbits about Sam’s past — and start to question if it’s possible that he’s not innocent after all.

“We say, ‘There’s just no way,'” O’Donnell, who directed the episode, tells TVGuide.com. “But then, as they take him away and we start to investigate, we find out that his DNA is all over the crime scene and there’s a lot of evidence pointing in his direction. Obviously this becomes very personal for the team, trying to defend one of our own.”

For O’Donnell, stepping behind the camera came with its own challenges, but was an opportunity he embraced.

“For me, it’s such a great way to mix up the season,” he says. “To suddenly get involved behind the camera and work with half of our crew who I don’t see on a day-to-day basis — the people that are building the sets and scouting the locations and that sort of thing — that’s great. And I particularly love the post-production aspect of it, getting into the editing room and being able to have an impact on making sure that the beats that were important to me when I read the script, and that I think helped to tell the story, get in. … It just gives you great appreciation for how hard everyone’s working, because it’s really easy sometimes to sit back as an actor to sit back and think, ‘Well, why am I waiting? Why aren’t we rolling right now?’ It’s like, well, you know, a lot of people are working on this and a lot of things had to come together for this to work so smoothly. It’s easy to take that for granted.

“I love having an episode that has to do with Sam stuff as well,” O’Donnell adds, “because it just gives me a chance to boss around [LL Cool J] all day, which is really fun for me.”

Though he assures that fans shouldn’t be concerned about Callen and Sam’s friendship being in jeopardy, O’Donnell says the incident does make Callen see his partner in a new light.

“Hetty and Sam are really the only family that Callen has in the world,” he notes. “Having that companionship and having someone who is busting your chops and you can give a hard time to all the time, it’s a great friendship. And when somebody you’re that close to is brought up on charges of murder and you start to investigate and look into the evidence, and it’s all pointing to him, and it’s stuff that’s hard to refute, it’s DNA, it really challenges your level of trust and your belief in whether or not someone would be capable of doing something like that.”

The episode also features an intense fight scene involving Sam that O’Donnell calls “one of the best ones we’ve ever done, in kind of an unusual location, to say the least.”

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This Monday on NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS, 10/9c), the episode title – “SEAL Hunter” – could not be more apt, as Sam is arrested for the murder of a woman, the deck improbably stacked against him. Will Callen & Co. be able to salvage their colleague’s good name? Chris O’Donnell spoke with TVLine about directing this intense episode, which features one of the high-octane series’ most unique fight scenes, as well as shared his thoughts on the NCIS crossover he’d most like to see.

TVLINE | Talk about the set-up for this episode. What’s the main narrative thrust?
Sam has been taken in, accused of murder, which has left the team in disbelief. And as we investigate it, his DNA is all over the crime scene, everything is against him…. Needless to say, it makes it a very personal episode for everyone.

TVLINE | Well, it was good having LL on the show all these years. He had a nice run.
[Joking along] It was nice. I thought he would stay for a little longer, but we got five-and-a-quarter seasons out of him. [Laughs] But no, there is something bigger and more ominous at play, and it ends up with one of the best fight scenes we’ve done thus far on the show, and in an unusual location, which was kind of fun. Todd [aka LL Cool J] just nailed it, which was great.

TVLINE | And Callen is partnered with Granger during the investigation?
Yes – and you know, I don’t get a ton of scenes one-on-one with him in general, and I really enjoy Miguel [Ferrer] personally. He’s also such a talented actor, I relish any chance I get to spend time interacting with him. I spend so much time with Todd every day — and I love him, he’s my man — but it’s fun to mix it up and have scenes with Linda [Hunt], and Miguel….

TVLINE | That was actually my next question: What are your favorite dynamics to play on the show?Between the Lines
I really enjoy the scenes with Linda, with the whole exploration of Callen’s family history. Hetty seems to definitely know more than she lets on, and this thing has agonized Callen his whole life, the struggle to understand his background. And though you will read a script and hear the words in your head, you can never guess how it’s going to come out of [Linda’s] mouth. She has such a command of the language and a unique spin on things, so that’s always a pleasure. And the scenes that are my bread-and-butter, of course, are with Todd. We sit there on set just busting each other’s chops all day long, so then to get in there [and do a scene as Callen and Sam]…. It’s not too far-fetched from what we’re doing anyways!

TVLINE | What was the most interesting challenge in directing this particular episode?
The most daunting thing was trying to coordinate this big fight scene. We had a huge day filming, outside, with 100 extras. And then at the end of that day, after Todd had already had a big day of filming, he had to do this massive fight sequence, and he rose to the challenge. I always said, “Once we get through that day, this episode’s a piece of cake,” and that kind of was the case. I’ve learned from directing in the past that so much of it is your prep work beforehand. The more work you out in those eight days of preparation, the easier it is when you get on the set.

TVLINE | TV is seeing some truly great stunt work these says, on shows such as Arrow and Banshee, and NCIS: LA obviously films a lot of great action sequences…. What do you find is most integral to capturing a fight scene?
We have a terrific stunt coordinator, Troy Brown; I’m actually surprised he doesn’t get more recognition. But there are guys that have worked on the Batman films I did, everyone we bring in is the best… But like anything, it’s about the preparation. I remember when I was doing Three Musketeers, there was the repetition, day after day, going through these sword fights with Bob Anderson, who did the Stars Wars movies and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I think [a fight scene] is Todd’s favorite thing to do, because of who is and his physicality. Me, I would much rather have a five-page scene with Linda Hunt, but Todd really relishes it. I’ve had to do it a couple of times, but boy, you don’t want to be opposite Todd even for a staged fight! He is very physical.

TVLINE | What I like, especially from a close-quarters fight, is a variety of camera angles, so I can appreciate what exactly is going on. I need to see limbs flying, have a sense of who is where.
Wait until you see this one – we have a couple shots that are anything but tight, because the setting was so unique and beautiful.

TVLINE | The NCIS franchiseNCIS Season 12 Weatherly Re-Signs is a bit crossover- happy these days, and Rocky Carroll’s Vance even returned to LA earlier this season. Anybody else you’d like to have swing by?
We’ve got to get [Michael] Weatherly over. It’s funny: When we were filming this episode, he was driving down the street randomly. We were at a deli on location, and all of a sudden this [SUV] pulls over and it’s Weatherly. It’s kind of like your long-lost cousin you haven’t seen in a while! He came in like, “I’m coming on this year!” I was like, “Great, let’s do it!” I just enjoy him as a person. He’s very quick-witted, so it’d be a lot of fun.

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NCIS: Los Angeles is known more for being a high stakes/action-packed drama than a comedy.

But after my recent chat with stars Renée Felice Smith (Nell) and Barrett Foa (Eric), it was easy to see that the intensity of the job is not following these two off the set when they’re doing a full day of press side by side.

Trust me, their collective bubbliness was a very good thing for a lively chat to talk not only about what we’ll see in NCIS Los Angeles Season 6 Episode 4, but also to show just how much fun they’re having working on the popular CBS series.

The twosome talked about Nell’s road to recovery from her first kill, how Nate Getz’s return will stir things up and whether we’re going to be seeing any movement in the Nell/Eric relationship. Let’s see what they had to say…
Nell Needs Help – NCIS: Los Angeles

TV Fanatic: Nell is in such a fragile place. Can you talk about what we’re going to see her go through?

Renée Felice Smith: Basically, in the last episode she had to defend herself and she had to shoot one of our baddies and we’re going to see her grapple with that decision and she’s really on the fence about returning to work and whether this is the line of work she wants to be in. So she’s in that fragile, shaken state and…

Barrett Foa: And you know it’s serious because she’s not picking up the phone when Eric Beale calls.

RFS: That’s right! In one of the scenes, Eric leaves her a voicemail and she won’t even pick it up so things are rough for poor Nell but Nate Getz, our good friend and psychologist, comes in to assess her and sees if she’s up for it. And eventually Hetty has a conversation with her about her future at NCIS.

TVF: Do you think what she’s going through is like a rite of passage for anyone in that job?

RFS: I would think so! That’s all I can do is put myself in the character’s shoes so I would say that would probably be the biggest hurdle in your line of work and see if this is really something you want to do and if you can handle it.

TVF: Barrett, what is Eric’s piece in this?

BF: [Nell is] on her own and he’s kind of holding down the fort alone and he’s trying to be there for his friend and co-worker but he’s getting some radio silence so he knows it’s pretty serious.

TVF: Do you think Eric understands what she’s going through or is this foreign even for him?

BF: It’s absolutely foreign territory for him, certainly, but he’s seen the other agents go through it and now he sees his closest friend at work going through it so I think that affects him at an ever deeper level. But it’s high stakes and we’re defending our country and defending our lives so he knows it’s all a risk. As we’ll see down the line in a couple of episode, Eric has to defend himself. Our headquarters is infiltrated and there’s a mole inside the office…and not the animal kind!

RFS: These people are under high stress situations at work, which is something we normal folk really have as a luxury! These people are really doing amazing work for our country.

TVF: Nate is back and we know he has a history of some kind with Nell but how does Eric feel about him being back?

BF: Eric doesn’t like it!

RFS: Eric’s jelly.

BF: Eric is a little jelly. But Barrett is happy because we love Peter Cambor…

RFS: We love Peter!

BF: But as much as I like [Peter] I think Eric gets a little p.o.’d because Nell and Nate have a little bit of a past and we don’t know how much or how little but Eric has been jealous in the past. Nell has gone so far in the past to tell Nate that they have kissed.

RFS: I will say this – whenever Nate Getz does come back we bring the apple crates out for me to stand on because he is the tallest guy on Earth!

TVF: With Nate back, are we maybe going to see Eric make some overtures that the audience has maybe been waiting for him to make?

BF: I think that’s imminent. It’s definitely imminent. I think it’s going to kick some things into high gear.

RFS: We just did an episode where Eric and Nell come to blows with one another. [laughs]

BF: You really only fight with the people you love the most.

RFS: Nell has to kind of slap him back to reality!

BF: That was a rumor! Don’t read too much between the lines but let’s just say my cheek was red!

RFS: Whoa!

BF: Not that cheek, Jim! [laughs]

TVF: The episode this week is also a lot about Hetty being questioned and the Department of Justice in the office going through all the files. At this point, can our team trust anyone at this point?

RFS: Everyone’s in question and I think that’s what this is all about. It’s all a mystery.

BF: What’s so cool about this team is that we play by the rules but we also go rogue a lot. We do not play by the rules and we dodge the parameters of what is by the book and I think that makes it exciting. We have to make sacrifices for what we think is right and a lot of that has to do with loyalty and friendship and our love for the team.

RFS: Love the team and love the game, baby! [more laughs]

TVF: Moving forward, is there a storyline or guest star you’re excited for fans to see.

BF: Well, Meryl Streep…

RFS: …and Carol Burnett. They’re playing our Moms in a coming episode. But that’s old news.

TVF: Is that something you two are writing? Sounds like something you’re creating.

RFS: We’re going to pitch it!

BF: I do love that John Heard has been on the show as a recurring guest character.

RFS: From Home Alone! We also have Aisha Hinds, who plays one of our investigators at the DOJ and she’s going a great scene with LL Cool J coming up where she kind of confesses her interest in him.

TVF: Barrett, when I talked to Shane Brennan a few weeks ago, I urged him to have you sing on the show if he could find a way to do it.

BF: It’s been hinted at a few times…

RFS: Actually he did sing a bit of the National Anthem at the end of one of our scenes but unfortunately it was cut due to time.

BF: And it was pretty brilliant! [laughs] Always humble Barrett Foa! But [Eric] has been in the choir so they’ve been dropping little hints of it in so I’m waiting for that.

RFS: If my Dad gets his wish we will be dance studio owners and partners in an upcoming episode where we’ll both be able to sing and dance.

BF: It’s what we do. It’s what we love.

NCIS: Los Angeles Season 6 airs Mondays at 10/9c on CBS.

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