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Fans of two-time Teen Choice: Action Actress (and Academy Award) winner Linda Hunt will have to wait a while longer to see Hetty back on NCIS: Los Angeles.
As the COVID pandemic raged, Hunt only made a handful of appearances last season, including in the finale, which marked series vets Renee Felice Smith and Barrett Foa’s final episode.
Ahead of Season 12, showrunner R. Scott Gemmill had explained to TVLine, “We’re doing everything we can to keep everyone safe, and Linda (now age 77) is a little extra special in terms of how we have to look out for her.”
At the close of Season 12, Gemmill acknowledged, “Linda was away a lot more this season because of COVID and us trying to keep her safe…. And then finally, Linda had both her vaccines, she was feeling great, and she came back [for the finale]. And she was so happy to be back. She had been gone for so long and hadn’t really interacted with anyone, so she was just so thrilled to be back on set.”
This season, though, Hunt appeared only in the premiere, before Hetty informed Kilbride that she needed to return to Syria, where she spent much of Season 12 and apparently left things in a bit of disarray.
Speaking to Parade.com, Gemmill avowed that Hetty’s “story continues,” though it won’t do so on-screen until this fall, at soonest.
“She was in at the beginning of this season and then we had her disappear. The plan is to follow that up next [season] with some reveal,” he said.
NCIS: LA planted many seeds over the past year suggesting that Callen still doesn’t know the sum total of how he was groomed as an orphan to become a spy, and whether he was a special project for Hetty or merely one of many. “We’ve pitted her a little bit against Callen in terms of what he went through as a child, so that’s something we’re very eager to explore and have fun with,” Gemmill told Parade.com. “That’ll be focus for us in Season 14 when we come back.”
NCIS: LA, like mothership NCIS and the new Hawai’i flavor, was renewed for the 2022-23 TV season earlier this month. Episode 300 airs Sunday, May 8.
Want scoop on NCIS: LA, or for any other show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line.
We all know she’s really in Hawaii.
No reason to bother watching the last few episodes then, they already look bad anyways. Hope this showrunner is real proud of himself for making yet another forgettable confusing season!
I guess you’re not REALLY the Ultimate Fangirl.🤷♀️
It’s good that they want to protect Linda Hunt from COVID, but I can’t help wondering if there may be more to her extended absence than that. They could at least get some solo scenes with her to use during the season even if they had to be shot at her home. It all just doesn’t quite add up.
Seems to me. Of all the shows in the NCIS universe. Covid protocols has affected LA the most. It did not help they had their little scare right before Christmas, but show has been affected its cohensiveness. Characters off in their little pairing pods, away from the rest of the cast. And some of the stories are being paced way too long. I understand Linda’s advance age affects what they can do with her, but there is no reason to bring up Callen’s story if they cannot conclude it this season. The show has been on for a long time. Callen deserves some final answers.
Also remember that she had a significant car accident prior to the pandemic, thus making her absence/scarcity even further extended.
That’s ok with me. As long as both Hetty/Linda Hunt are healthy I’m more than willing to wait as long as I know the character/actor is out there somewhere. Her well being is far more important than my need to see her.
Same here. I’ll be happy to see her back next year, but my love of the character is not something she should risk her health for.
Why do they think we want to see Callen pitted against Hetty? It hurts both characters. And I’m way over needing answers about Callen’s past. I wish they’d filmed a few short satellite scenes with LH this year as they did last year. They could have sprinkled those shots in throughout this season.
IKR?! Their mother/son like relationship has always been my favorite! And seeing them in this stupid tiff, which is over rewritten junk about his past not only really hurts, but is also really stupid! Anyone whose gotten through over 200 episodes of this show knows that Hetty did what she did with him when he was a kid was for good reasons, not these supposidly nefarious ones.
I’m hating this new back story. They’re making it look like Hetty was a monster, not someone ho tried to help him.
I get why they are so mindful keeping her safe. It’s great that they prioritize her health.
But…hard to fathom why she isn’t appearing sporadically via video or “coded messages”. Outside of offhand Kilbride comments, its a complete no-show. Disappointing.
In July 2018, People magazine reported that she was involved in a multicar accident in Los Angeles. The accident resulted in Hunt taking most of a year off from NCIS: Los Angeles.[
Yes, ~four years ago:
https://tvline.com/2018/11/19/ncis-los-angeles-where-is-hetty-linda-hunt-car-accident-recovery/
Recovery from the accident and then COVID. That’s not an unusual situation.
Ok. I’m all for making sure Linda Hunt IS safe, that’s 1st and foremost!! Hetty is back bone of the LA squad so I hope she’s alright next season when we FINALLY get to see her. As for the storyline of G vs. Hetty….I don’t like it. Plus the whole digging into G’s past AGAIN is getting tiresome. They need to hurry the hell up and be done with it!
Yes. They’re dragging it out so long that I no longer care about his past.
This show isn’t the same without Hetty; and I also miss Renee Felice and Barrett Foa. Don’t care at all for the new agents, especially Namazi. The portrayal of her character is completely ridiculous…starring in a reality series and driving a Porsche? Seriously? This show has become a parody of itself. Wish they had cancelled this show and continued with NCIS: New Orleans!
I think it’s better without Renee and Barrett. Their characters were becoming obnoxious. The replacements are better if you ask me.
It’d be nice if the showrunners and producers knew when and how to end storylines instead of dragging them out for 2-4 years.
It would be nice if ION TV paid attention to there customers and let NCIS:LA stay right where it was. Very angry about this.
I miss seeing Hetty, but, I understand why she’s gone. I also don’t understand why they are creating this Hetty vs Callen fight. Like other people, I was under the impression that Hetty saved Callen all those years ago.
I’m really over the “Callen’s mysterious past and how Hetty is connected to all of it” line. Really, I’ve been over it for about 5 years now. I really want to like NCIS: LA, but it’s a one-trick pony whose writing has downgraded significantly (Kensi spent about 3 years being punny for no good reason). And the very obvious parade of “throw something at the wall & see if it sticks” Eric/Nell replacements (the assisting NCIS agent from earlier in the season, Kilbride’s assistant, wasn’t there someone supporting Fatima in Ops in the back half of last season?) is old, too.
They badly need to tighten up the cast/characters and the writing.
From the way the show speaks of Linda, if she was up for being there, they’d move heaven and earth to make it happen. So, it seems apparent that it’s a personal choice that the showrunners are respecting.
That said, do I wish they’d stop dragging out this storyline? YES. Let Hetty retire and have a nice resolution to the character, then she can pop in randomly as she’s willing/able (like they do with Ducky on the mothership).
Have her pop up on NCIS Hawaii.
I agree with all who say they want Linda safe! However, the biggest problem I have with this is that in the same interview Gemmill gave last year about how they kept Linda safe during COVID, etc. He ALSO said we would see a lot more of Hetty/Kilbride this season AND that the team would get pulled in to Hetty’s Syria mission. NONE of that has happened yet and if Linda isn’t on, I’m sorry but I won’t watch. My question to the show runners would be, do you know how many people you are losing because of storylines that take forever to resolve and inerrant info/spoilers?? If Linda is not well enough to come back, that’s completely understandable…but just say that vs dragging everyone along. So sad…this was always my favorite show and now I can’t even watch.
Hetty is the best thing about that show. Without her it’s just a bunch of people shooting at each other.
I love NCIS LA because I live close by…and I know the cities and streets of LA…
Just hoping that when Hetty returns it will be less dramatic appearance than her appearance at Kensi’s and Deek’s wedding.
Show a little more respect for Linda Hunt. I assume your intent was to be funny, but listing her Teen Choice Awards first and her Oscar as a parenthetical afterthought doesn’t work for me. She’s a great actress and I do miss her being on NCISLA. I prefer her to Kilbride any day. But I’m beyond tired of the continual rewriting of Callen’s past. He found his answers, let’s move on. Pitting him against Hetty and dragging this story line out for another season is a bad idea. I want the writers to focus on Callen’s future with Anna instead of this obsession they have with his past.
He just won’t let it go will he? He never had a family. They were killed it’s done move on. He wants to know the why though. Why??? Because they were spies and their cover was blown. It could happen to him whether he knows it or not.
Sheesh!!! She’s retired!!! Don’t you guys want to retire someday at deadline??? Nothing lasts forever people don’t get that anymore. She’s gotten older since the show started and wasn’t exactly young either. Working 16-18 hour days days a week or seven at her age. What do you expect. It’s like that song” It’s tragedy for me to say the dream over”
“And I never will forget the day we met.”
“Hetty I’m gonna miss you”…
NCIS Los AngelesS13 episode 18 was absolutely great..this show continues to touch my heart and keep me interested
I don’t mind Callen having his backstory explored. Problem is they constantly Retcon for whatever whim of TPTB’s. So all this with Hetty is eyeroll inducing.
Love everyone on this show. Thanks for keeping Hetty safe and congratulations on another season.
the last show I saw Hetty on she was in another country…she is awesome and the team all love her and respect her…please let her come back