‘NCIS: New Orleans’: Some Fans Think It’s Time For Pride to Chill Out For This Surprising Reason
The season 6 fall finale of NCIS: New Orleans aired and fans are still talking about it. A lot went down since the death of Special Agent, Christopher LaSalle (Lucas Black), including some disturbing events with Dwayne Cassius “King” Pride (Scott Bakula). Here’s why fans think it’s time he chills out and takes a breather.
[Spoilers from the season 6 fall finale ahead]
Dwayne Pride has been through a lot over six seasons
To say Dwayne Pride’s NOLA journey has been tough is an understatement. He lost his dad, worked to take down Apollyon (an underground spy network), was kidnapped and drugged with LSD, and recently lost LaSalle. It’s a lot.
At the end of season 5, Pride had moved to Regional Special Agent In-charge (SAC) while Hannah Khoury arrived as his replacement. Executive producer, Christopher Silber told Parade the intent was for Pride to tale it easy.
“We’ll see that Pride, at least on the surface, is trying to maintain a better work/life balance, take more vacation time, take more me time as it were, but we’ll also realize pretty early on in the episode that he is not being completely honest with people about the trauma that he is experiencing.”
He added that Apollyon is [supposedly] gone for good, which should let Pride and his team relax. Too bad writers introduced the storyline which got LaSalle’s brother, Cade (Clayne Crawford), killed. In searching for the murder, it also led to LaSalle’s death.
The fall finale, broken into two parts, revealed a reckoning. Pride and the crew hunted down LaSalle’s killer, Eddie Barrett (Eddie Cahill). Some say Pride went too far in his quest for revenge.
It’s all taking a toll on Pride
Pride underwent a few traumatizing experiences over the last few seasons. However, it was his kidnapping and being drugged and interrogated that have really affected him. Pride’s daughter, Laurel, (Shanley Caswell), tried to get Pride to take a break from the demands of the NCIS job. But, he can’t seem to.
Add the stress of his father and Loretta Wade’s (CCH Pounder) kidnapping in season 5, and the daily demands of the job itself, and Pride is clearly at his limit.
Silber explained, “He’s suffering from insomnia, he’s getting very vivid nightmares that are disturbing to him.”
He went on to say that season 6 will take a closer look at “what the trauma is, and actually pulling up something from his past that will reveal the origins of Pride’s character as someone who feels like he needs to be a savior, as someone who really tries to stand up for what’s right.”
Why do fans think it’s time Pride takes a break?
It’s obvious Pride would do anything for justice to prevail, including put himself in the line of fire. He killed Eddie Barrett and continues grieving the loss of LaSalle, so fans are concerned.
At the end of the fall finale, Pride wakes from a bad dream and goes to the kitchen where he hallucinates a man in a red suit. The two share an intense staring contest. This isn’t the first of the hallucination, some suggested. Others think the man represents Pride’s conscience. Whatever went down before Eddie Barrett’s death wasn’t shown, and there were no witnesses.
“He is not okay. He needs to get some help and now that this chaos is over, he needs to get some rest!” a fan said.
“Seriously, whatever happened to the quiet, more family-oriented season? Hasn’t Pride had enough?” another said on an Instagram post.
“Though Eddie Barrett has been shot dead something is telling me this saga with getting Christopher justice is not over yet,” another fan tweeted.
The point is, Pride’s been through a lot, especially if the man in the red suit is symbolic in any way. Maybe Pride should chill out and take a break for the remainder of the NCIS: New Orleans season. Bakula concurs, saying there’s one thing he’d like to see Pride re-focus his energy on while recovering from the emotional and mental trauma.
“I’d like to do a little bit more music,” he said. We didn’t do a lot of music this year. I miss that.”
NCIS: New Orleans returns in February 2020.
