Villainess Review: Andrea Pacheco (NCIS: Hawai'i)

When I learned about a fourth NCIS series debuting, I was elated and also decided that I had to watch this as it aired. I, like many other TV watchers, am immensely familiar with the phenomenon known as NCIS. Despite its' immense prominence, the original series started as a spinoff of another CBS series--JAG--before going off on its own in 2003. The original NCIS is in its nineteenth season, while its first spinoff, NCIS: Los Angeles, is in its thirteenth. NCIS: New Orleans (my favorite of the group) actually ended its run after seven seasons, but prior to its end came the announcement of this installment: NCIS: Hawai'i. One of the reasons why I dove in to this is because of the show's lead, Vanessa Lachey, as I'm a fan of her work--which now includes her role in this series as the lead agent, Jane Tennant.

The subject is the episode, "Recruiter," which centered on the sudden murder of Miles Hayward, a Petty Officer who was shot and killed in the episode's opening. Prior to his murder, Hayward was shown with Brad Pacheco, with the progression revealing his ties to a gang known as the Oania Boys, which actually ended up making Brad a primary suspect. Brad was later interrogated, but it was halted and interrupted by the appearance of Brad's mother, Andrea, who took her son out of the room and even lashed out at Jane in response to her voicing her efforts to help Brad--even going as far as accusing Jane of labelling Brad due to his connection with the gang.

Speaking of the gang, the episode saw Kai Holman go undercover as a gang member as part of the investigation, which later saw the gang's founder/leader/namesake, Sunny Oania, interviewed. Regarding Sunny, money transfers connected to him were uncovered, but in a surprise, it was Andrea receiving the funds--as Sunny was actually Brad's father and he was paying child support. Sunny also had another son in the gang, Lee (Brad's half-brother), and he ended up interrogated by Kai and Jesse Boone as a suspect.

As for Andrea, Jane approached her and mentioned that Lee was being interrogated--while also revealing Lee and Brad's familial connection to Sunny. Lee denied killing Hayward, as well as the implication that Sunny put him up to it, and Lee's reason: Sunny wanted Brad out of the gang life and had ordered his boys to not hassle Hayward. So if Sunny didn't want Hayward dead, that only left one other possibility: Andrea.

Andrea invited Jane to her house for tea, but it was there that Jane received a message stating that Andrea was Hayward's killer. The scene also saw Andrea slowly begin to reveal her true villainous demeanor as Jane deduced a motive: which was Andrea's obsession with wanting to have Brad to herself. Hayward was an obstacle; he was recruiting Brad for the Navy, so Andrea killed Hayward to prevent that from happening. After Andrea accused Hayward of trying to take her son from her, she took out a gun and attempted to kill Jane, who knocked the weapon from Andrea's possession. Brad later arrived and fired the gun into the air, and ignored his mother's pleas to give the gun back to her. He lashed out at Andrea for her actions, doing so while pointing the gun at Andrea, only to be successfully talked down by Jane, resulting in Andrea's arrest.

"Recruiter" was the third episode of the series, airing on CBS on October 4, 2021. The episode featured Lydia Look as villainess Andrea Pacheco, and if the name and face is familiar to Lifetime film fans, it should be: Lydia Look played Hannah Armington--the titular Mistress Hunter--in the 2018 film. I remember watching that movie when it aired and seeing the huge tease regarding Hannah being a possible villainess. While that film gave us a different villainess, it was really nice to see Look playing an immensely twisted villainess in the form of Andrea Pacheco. Andrea was your typical obsessed mother; she had to have Brad all to herself, as he was all she had due to Sunny being incarcerated. Even so, Andrea's murderous actions proved that she wasn't the caring mother she portrayed herself to be.

Brad was on his way to making a better life for himself--even his gang leader father and gang member half-brother didn't want to get in his way. Andrea, however, was all too willing to prevent that from happening. She was willing to commit murder to make sure that Brad stayed with her, even though it would also include continuing to remain in the gang. That truly showed how self-serving Andrea was, and regarding Look's performance, she acted out Andrea's portrayed concern well, but her shining moment was Andrea's reveal, as it saw Look give a terrific performance while acting out Andrea's deranged and callous demeanor.

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Click here for Andrea Pacheco's profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!