'NCIS: New Orleans' Season 6 Episode 14: Pride's dreams about the man in a red suit finally make sense
Spoiler alert for Season 6 Episode 14: 'The Man in the Red Suit'
After weeks, practically months of teasing the man in the red suit, 'NCIS: New Orleans' Season 6 finally reveals the identity of the mysterious man haunting Pride's dreams.
We know Agent Dwayne Pride hasn't been able to get a good night's sleep for a while as the titular red suit-clad man kept popping up. We have known the connotation behind his appearance wasn't anything positive. We knew this man probably has to do with some dark, repressed memory from Pride's past. But Episode 14 of this season finally helps Pride learn the mystery behind the man's appearance in his subconscious, and it was one of the most emotional moments on the show so far.
After trying to indulge in therapy sessions where Pride was put in a trance through psychedelics, the team leader of our New Orleans' group of experts is able to travel down the memory lane and identify this older man he keeps seeing in his dreams. Turns out Red and Pride's mother had an affair when he was a child and his father Cassius was in jail. When Cassius heard rumors of this affair, soon after he got out, his vicious, abusive self threatened a then very young Pride to spill the beans on it. Pride wasn't able to hold the secret from his violent father for long and ended up telling Cassius everything, which resulted in Cassius using the information to track down 'Red' and eventually killing the man in front of Pride's own eyes.
Thus sparked off a cycle of guilt and conflict within Pride as he kept blaming himself for 'Red's death. He thought it was his fault for telling Cassius everything, and as a coping mechanism for the guilt, he began repressing the memory, hiding the life-altering moment ever since he was a boy.
The guilt resurfaced once Pride was able to dig out the memory and as he spiraled under the long-buried guilt. It is Loretta who comes to his aid in his time of need. At the end of the episode, as Pride still blames himself for Red's death, Loretta is able to help him understand how the incident shaped him to be the man he is today. Loretta tells him that because he couldn't save Red, he is out in the world trying to save everybody else and that makes him the genuine gem of a person he is today. This helps Pride overcome the feeling of guilt he has been trying to cope with since he was a kid. Talk about best friends.
'NCIS: New Orleans' Season 6 airs on Sundays at 10 pm only on CBS.