mh1974

I stumbled on Butterfly one night before moving on to the show I was looking for. What I saw did intrigue me enough to come back. The story centers around David Jung (Daniel Dae Kim of Lost and Hawaii-50 fame) who faked his own death nine years earlier only to learn his daughter Rebecca (Reina Hardesty) is working for the same organization he did and sets out to rescue her.

Butterfly is not something I have seen before in any action thriller made in the 1980s. Guy fakes his death, then comes back to save his loved ones who are being preyed upon by the people he is running from.

Dae Kim is finally stepping into the lead he was always destined to play. I didn't watch Hawaii-50, but I remember Dae Kim's performance in Lost. Dae Kim's Jin-Soo Kwon started as an antagonist but ended the show as a hero. I knew he had the chops to play the lead in his own series and displays it well here.

I vaguely remember Hardesty from her stint as the Weather Witch on The Flash. Here she takes on a very complex role of an abandoned daughter who was raised to be an assassin by the very people her father is running from. Hardesty plays Rebecca as an angry daughter one minute and an amoral sociopath the next. I honestly hope the show is renewed for a second season just to see how Rebecca develops in time to come.

The biggest twist is that Butterfly is not set in the U. S. but in South Korea. This is where the thriller really sets itself apart as Dae Kim's David is caught between two different cultures and has to balance them both. A word to the wise: the Korean dialogue is subtitled so pay attention or you will miss something.

During NCIS' golden era, fans became so emotionally invested in the will-they-won't-they relationship of NCIS special agent Anthony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) and Mossad liaison officer Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) that the pair were nicknamed "Tiva." That ended when de Pablo left the show in 2013 (Weatherly left the show in 2016).

Now de Pablo and Weatherly are back in NCIS: Tony & Ziva, the latest spinoff in the NCIS franchise. Five years have passed since Ziva came back from the dead and reunited with Tony and their daughter Tali (Isla Gie). Tony runs a global security company Salus Mondiale and Ziva runs a language school. Both live in Paris and share custody of Tali. Tony and Ziva are forced to go on the run when they are framed for a crime they didn't commit.

When Tony & Ziva was first announced I expected it to be modeled in the style of the old Nick and Nora movies. What I and the rest of the audience received was a Ziva David who is still suffering from the trauma of almost dying and having to leave her daughter at the age of two and a Tony, who has poured all of his energy into his company daughter.

This undoubtedly ruined a lot of expectations of "Tiva" fans, but it portrays real-life concerns of people who had dangerous jobs and are readjusting to life outside of their former lives. According to the producers, there are no plans to bring back any of the characters from the original NCIS, however, since only two of the characters that would have worked with Tony and Ziva are still on the show, it wouldn't matter much.

The original NCIS used to be my go-to show when I was down and don't really care for all of the cast changes so Tony & Ziva is a chance to welcome back old friends.