Drama
VisionQuest
Vision is alive again—or as much as the AI synth ever is—in Disney+’s ‘VisionQuest.’ Though violent and profane, the show itself returns close to ‘WandaVision’ form.
Special Agent Sam Hanna is a big deal in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
Never mind the fact that the guy is physically imposing: Sam has been at the job for two decades (not including an additional two decades as a Navy SEAL before that). If there’s a crime involving a U.S. military service member, you can bet that Sam has his finger on the pulse of the case.
Sam spent quite a bit of his NCIS tenure in Los Angeles—and lately, he’s been working cloak-and-dagger solo missions overseas—but something’s been drawing the Brooklyn native back home to New York.
Tragedy, unfortunately, is what pulls that trigger. Jack Halloway, who Sam has known since Jack was a child, has turned up with a bullet in his head. The police suspect his death was a suicide, but NCIS has other ideas. And since Jack was a Navy reservist, NCIS has jurisdiction over the case.
Fellow New Yorker and NCIS special agent Nick Schaeffer joins Sam on the case as team leader. Nick’s a man who values a work-life balance, but he values the work he does even more. His team comprises of Wyatt Sellers (who was recently dumped by his fiancée), hacker-turned-agent Sean Sullivan and Addy Ross, a tough woman seemingly atoning for the sins of her felon father.
Under the orders of NCIS director Robyn Wells, Nick’s team will help Sam figure out what happened to Jack—and maybe convince Sam to stick around after.
In 1995, NBC launched a series called JAG. It was a legal drama that focused on lawyers who prosecute and defend criminal cases involving U.S. military servicemembers. NBC cancelled JAG after just one season; however, CBS picked it up as a midseason replacement and ran it for an additional nine seasons until 2005.
Before JAG concluded, though, CBS used it to premiere the backdoor pilot of a little show called NCIS.
NCIS, as you might know, is now in its 24th season, the third longest-running live-action series in network television history. It’s spawned a large number of spin-offs itself, including NCIS: New Orleans, NCIS: Hawai’i, NCIS: Sydney, NCIS: Origins, NCIS: Tony & Ziva and NCIS: Los Angeles—that last one serving as the direct prequel to NCIS: New York.
Viewers pretty much know what to expect from these shows, and New York is no different: Every week, the protagonists track down a new bad guy, catch him and arrest him (or kill him). Sure, along the way, you might get a season-long plot arc, but those plots aren’t what drive these shows. The characters are.
Some characters are more flawed than others, but generally, the reason audiences keep coming back season after season is because the good guys really are tryingto do and be good.
Justice isn’t always clean though, so viewers should expect some bloodshed and the occasional profanity. The threats agents deal with generally loom much larger in the NCIS sphere since the franchise deals with federal crimes more than local ones. As such, we’ve seen episodes dealing with terrorism, espionage, weapons and drug trafficking, cyber warfare and more.
Now, I can’t speak into every episode of NCIS: New York since the show has only just begun. But the first episode uncovers a murder staged to look like a suicide, so it’s a pretty safe bet that this spin-off isn’t going to deviate much from its predecessors in terms of content.
For some, New York may be a nice addition to a beloved franchise. For others, NCIS just won’t serve up enough justice to justify the content concerns.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Sam travels to New York to investigate the alleged suicide of a friend, but the people he winds up working with may convince him to return to a team setting.
Several fistfights and gunfights take place throughout the episode. Nick’s team kills several mercenaries during one such fight. Wyatt disarms one guy and tries to get him to surrender, but when the man goes for his gun, Wyatt shoots him. Elsewhere, a merc pins an agent to the ground and tries to kill him with a very large knife. He’s nearly successful, but another agent arrives to save the day. Sam very likely kills a man by stabbing him in the neck with a pen (in self-defense). During a fight, someone tosses some flash-bang grenades.
Hired killers shoot a limo driver. They then kidnap one of the passengers as she and her friends scream in fear. The woman is tossed over a man’s shoulder and eventually tied up and gagged. She’s used as leverage against her wealthy father, and Nick’s team emphasizes that the killers will shoot her if they suspect they’ve been had. (We hear that the kidnappers’ leader was kicked out of the military and served jailtime for executing a translator while on a mission in Afghanistan.)
We see Jack with a bullet in his head and a gun in his hand. It appears to be a suicide; however, Jack’s team uncovers evidence that reveals it was a murder. We hear that Nick lost his dad and two uncles (who were firefighters and cops) during 9/11. Someone mentions the passing of Sam’s wife (a reference to an NCIS: Los Angeles episode, where she was killed by kidnappers). A man believes his girlfriend has been kidnapped after someone sends him a picture (which we see) of her crying and tied up. Sam slams his hand down on a table several times, and someone suggests he might rough up a guy.
Characters drink in several different bars. Several young women drink champagne in the back of a limo.
During a mission, Sam uses a 3D printer to create a fake fingerprint that he places over his own. He sneaks into a man’s room and uses the fake digit to open a biometric lock and steal a briefcase. Sean, we learn, would be in jail if it wasn’t for NCIS: He hacked into the police pension program, but since he didn’t steal anything, they’re allowing him to reform himself by putting his talents to use for NCIS instead. We hear that Addy’s dad is a felon. The team’s investigation reveals that someone is smuggling mercenaries into the country. The perpetrator attempts (and fails) to frame someone else for his crime.
A woman sobs as she grieves the recent loss of her husband. Nick gets upset when his boss calls him into work on his day off, but he doesn’t express his frustration to his boss: He simply tells her that he serves his country and “it’s an honor to serve.”
When a recently dumped guy tries to pawn the engagement ring he had given to his ex, he’s mocked by his friends and the pawn shop worker for the small size of the ring’s diamond. Several characters joke about how big of a guy Sam is. Nick jokes about all of his coworkers at NCIS. Some characters display bad attitudes. There’s a mention of absentee fathers. A man learns he has been catfished and manipulated by mercenaries.
Someone compares serpents and dragons, noting that serpents have a biblical origin, whereas dragons are mythological.
We hear a smattering of “a–,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name also gets misused a few times.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
Vision is alive again—or as much as the AI synth ever is—in Disney+’s ‘VisionQuest.’ Though violent and profane, the show itself returns close to ‘WandaVision’ form.
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