How ‘NCIS: LA’ Simply Set Up Kilbride’s Reunion With His Son

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for NCIS: Los Angeles Season 14 Episode 13, “A Farewell to Arms.”]

In case you’re trying ahead to Retired Admiral Hollace Kilbride (Gerald McRaney) reuniting along with his estranged son Alex (Christopher Gorham, visitor starring this season), the most recent NCIS: Los Angeles episode reveals that you need to thank his ex-wife Elizabeth (Marilu Henner).

When she’s on the town — after the exes spend the evening collectively — the 2 reminisce about when Alex was born, and he or she recollects Kilbride combating to remain awake whereas holding him. On the time, Elizabeth thought he’d at all times be there for his or her son. However now, “you let me down, Hollace, however extra importantly, you let Alex down, too,” she tells him. She waited to deliver it up till she knew he’d modified. “Alex is an grownup. He made decisions — decisions that left no room for me and I attempted to assist, many instances, however he simply minimize me out of his life,” Kilbride argues.

However as Elizabeth sees it, now he has an opportunity to struggle his means again into his life. “The previous few years have been very laborious on Alex, however he’s clear now, and I fear each rattling day that that’s going to vary. I’m uninterested in worrying alone,” she admits. Alex is in an outpatient remedy program; she’s going to household teams and needs her ex-husband to point out up for his or her son. “He doesn’t need me there,” Kilbride says. “However he wants you there. Look, I’m not even saying it’s a must to soar on a airplane tonight. You don’t even have to present me a solution now. Simply promise me you’ll give it some thought,” she urges … after which, to her shock, Kilbride agrees!

“He turns into very stoic at first when speaking about our son, after which you may see his options change as he and offers in to me, and I’m shocked by it, too, so I do know that I’ve actually touched a nerve,” Henner tells TV Insider of that scene. “We shot that first and I used to be actually glad they shot that first as a result of we might take extra time with it. We simply thought, ‘let’s actually get into the nitty-gritty of the essential scene.’”

And sure, Elizabeth “completely” anticipated a struggle from Kilbride there. “She thought, ‘man, the intercourse and the wine actually helped. And the flowers,’” Henner says. “And I believe it’s not simply her victory and, in fact, Alex’s victory, it’s additionally Hollace’s victory as a result of she might inform that he’s modified, too, and that he’s extra open to having a relationship along with his son.”

That, in flip, makes it so much simpler for Elizabeth to have the ability to really feel like she has a accomplice in it along with her. “We made this youngster collectively, and we each should take accountability for what’s occurring now, and the one means the entire household’s going to heal is that if all three of us are concerned,” Henner factors out.

However how concerned precisely would possibly Kilbride and Elizabeth be going ahead? Spending the evening collectively whereas she’s on the town doesn’t essentially imply they’ll get again collectively. However would possibly they’ve a future? “I don’t know,” Henner shares. “I’d prefer to assume that possibly he’s a little bit extra open to seeing the place it goes, spending extra time as a household and with one another. Generally you meet up with individuals that you simply knew at a distinct time in each of your lives, and it’s an entire completely different relationship, so there’s undoubtedly a chance.”

Earlier within the episode, we study extra about their historical past, together with when she stabbed him within the thigh with a king crab lab in Atlantic Metropolis. And so when he comes house on the finish of the episode, she’s nonetheless there — and had groceries delivered — and has dinner ready for him: crab legs.

“How nice?” Henner laughs. “It’s humorous as a result of we now have that dialog [earlier] whereas I’m unpacking groceries, proper? And I assumed she ran out once more for crab legs as soon as he introduced that up. It was nice.”

She sees that as simply one other instance of their bond. “Once you belief someone, you’ve gotten a shorthand. You would inform these two have an actual historical past. I beloved that they performed into that, and it was nice that you may see him, and he’s acquired that little smirk, and he nearly appears like he’s at work and feels a little bit nervous about it,” she shares. “And I beloved that he is available in and he can’t consider that I’m nonetheless right here.”

If this episode proved something, it’s that we will’t wait to see extra with Kilbride’s household. However we all know the subsequent reunion — along with his son — might be going to harm.

NCIS: Los Angeles, Sundays, 10/9c, CBS