There’s a definite love/hate relationship with the Assistant Director, and his time on NCIS:LA can be broken down into three stages: Love to Hate, Love and Hate, and Hate to Love. Let’s start at the beginning.

Love to Hate.

You know what I’m talking about. The feeling of ire that comes over you when you see his face on the screen. That feeling that makes you want to snarl. Or huff in indignation. He started off on a bad footing, showing up and ‘kidnapping’ Hetty and proceeding to rip into the team about how poorly they were executing their job. There was much grumbling when he left, as he took their success with him, but the team was also relieved he was gone. But not for long; he continued to pop up and judge, criticize, and generally make himself unlikable.

Love and Hate.

This is the point where you found yourself begrudgingly admitting that maybe he wasn’t so bad. He was no longer solidly in the ‘villain’ category. You might have even smiled at his joke. This seemed to happen part way through 4×06 ‘Rude Awakenings’ when Sam was certain that Granger was going to throw him off the case and thereby put his wife in danger. Instead, Granger informed him that he was behind him and threw interagency niceties out of the window. His appearances after this point had you questioning his motives; it maybe seemed like he was going to step back over that line and make the team’s lives more difficult, but there were also moments where he genuinely had their best interests in mind…as long as they weren’t doing any extracurricular activities that were illegal.

Hate to Love.

It’s hard to admit it, but there’s a soft spot for Granger that has been slowly growing. He snuck up on you. Maybe you’ve had a similar conversation:

Me: “I kind of like Granger now.”
Friend: “Sure, now that you like him, he’s going to die soon.”
Me: “That wouldn’t be good…wow, never thought I’d say that. Also, that was mean.”
Friend: “Mwhahahah!”

You can probably even pinpoint the moment where your opinion turned. Remember the season 5 opener? From the start to the end he was doing everything he could to help save the whole team, whether they were a NCIS agent, LA detective, or former CIA agent. Before, the team would celebrate when he was gone at the end of the case, but now they were hanging out together after work. While he still maintains his gruff and grouchy exterior, it appears his bark is worse than his bite when it comes to the team. He’s even partnered up with some of them and no one has been fired.

Here’s to another season of questioning his motives and somewhat begrudgingly smiling, much like Granger himself, when he shows up.

With help from ChrisDaisy, Diane, Mary, and Richtsje.

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