'NCIS: New Orleans' Season 6 Episode 9: Justice for LaSalle leads to cult-leading druglord who lands the team in grave danger
This article contains spoilers for 'NCIS: New Orleans' Season 6 Episode 9 'Convicted'
The quest for bringing deceased agent Christopher LaSalle's murderer to justice takes our 'NCIS: New Orleans' team to walk down dangerous, murky roads with the risk of being tricked or ambushed aplenty. But as our team of experts dig deeper into the prime accused, Eddie Barrett, whom they just can't seem to be able to convict for the murder, they realize he is more than just LaSalle's murderer. Turns out, leading a cult and managing a drug business are also some of Barrett's fortes.
In the pretrial, Barrett, who was accused of shooting LaSalle, suddenly comes up with an alibi. The eyewitness is willing to testify that they saw him out on the water, in a boat during the assault on LaSalle. With the risk of charges on Barrett being dropped, the team began getting a little frustrated within days, Barrett could walk. Desperate to seek justice for LaSalle, Pride got his team to dig deeper for evidence and look for anything at all that they could pin against Barrett and incriminate him for if the murder charges don't work out.
This new angle of investigation, however, proves to be extremely beneficial. Turns out, Barrett began his career as a drug kingpin back when he was in prison. He was notorious for picking up traits and behavioral tidbits from people in prison — a talent he crafter by carefully watching people, studying them, and beginning to impersonate them. His cellmate revealed that Barrett took all the "best" traits from the people he met in prison and copied them until he became them, but his prime source of influence for the drug business was a physician assistant who was ready to be Barrett's supplier. But before the team could hound this assistant for further information on the now released and somehow disappeared Barrett, the team finds two bodies — the physician and the eyewitness.
Talk about a standoff. How do you think this will play out? #NCISNOLA pic.twitter.com/tTOmKKHik2
— NCIS: New Orleans (@NCISNewOrleans) November 27, 2019
It becomes obvious that Barrett is taking out loose ends to keep his trail clean, which means his next target would be Sue-Ann, the woman who ambushed LaSalle after tricking him into the woods. She didn't know that the one bullet she sustained as LaSalle was protecting her when he took the fatal shots, was actually intentional. It is only when the team informs Sue Ann of the full length of what her boss had planned for her, that she cracks.
In a fit of emotional outburst, Sue-Ann reveals everything about Barrett and his not so squeaky clean affairs. In her recount of the vicious Barrett, Sue Ann talks about how he rose to the ranks of a miniature cult leader, luring people into his regime with promises of a better life. He 'collected' these 'lost souls' and renamed them as his own children.
Barrett's recruits were troubled, young people whom he would promise 'salvation', explained Sue Ann. She even explained to the team what this 'ashram' like a compound that Barrett lived in looks like, but sadly, when the team tried arresting him, they were ambushed by Barrett's people — something that was not at all expected. So even as the team lurks on the threshold of whether or not they will make it out of there alive, the only respite lies in knowing that at least LaSalle's killer was proven.
'NCIS: New Orleans' season 6 airs on Tuesdays at 9 pm only on CBS.