#peter cambor

I didn’t have time to try and brighten these a bit, but nevertheless: I’ve been thinking about G in this scene for a week because it was so good. Sad, but good.

G tends to keep the wall up and keep people at a distance. He’s started to drop the wall with Nate earlier in the ep and continues to do it because Nate makes it very clear he’s only there to help and listen. And he doesn’t just write what he says off -- he’s the first to truly entertain what Callen is thinking instead of just telling him to ignore it. He knows that Callen can be obsessive, but he doesn’t just get obsessive over anything. Everything he fixates on is important to him for multiple reasons even if it doesn’t make sense to others, especially others who are just like, “Move on.” 

Callen was forced to move on from and shrug off pain throughout his childhood, and so much of his life was not in his control. He thought it was just the foster system, but he’s learned as more has come to light that even more people were pulling strings during his very painful childhood, and, when you flashback to being in helpless as a child, you become that child in those moments again. 

And you start to see that child came back out along with the manic G Callen that has always been brimming at the surface, teetering on a time bomb for spiraling. When he shows Nate, the mania seems like glee because of the excitement level and raised energy. “See? See?” He wanted Nate to see what he was seeing because he was right. He found a piece of the puzzle. This was it. But behind his voice there is the hint of begging. And then Nate doesn’t buy in. He is so very delicate with how he does this, but you can see the concern and a little sadness in his face. He doesn’t tell G, “No, definitely not.” He tries to leave some room open, but G knows he doesn’t think so. You see G switch to disappointment, and the emotions become more mixed. 

G’s let his walls down. If he’s not trying to keep the wall up and if he’s trying to convince someone he’s right and they don’t seem to be biting, it’s usually aggression. (Which makes sense considering how little he was probably listened to as a child.) But this is the G we don’t usually get to see. It’s not aggression, it’s desperation. There’s something very vulnerable, and you can see him start to bottle it up again before Nate leaves.

We don’t get so those cracks often, and it’s long overdue. G is a character that requires a special kind of restraint and reigning in to stay true to him, and so Chris O’D doesn’t often get to show extra emotion and vulnerability, and I hope the plot sees more of this, more spiraling, because we’re overdue. 

Now your real training begins