Why ATF SAC Kerry Adams From NCIS: LA's Season 14 Finale Looks So Familiar
It has been a long and winding road to the finish line for the CBS series "NCIS: Los Angeles," but the end has officially come for the long-running procedural drama. All in, the L.A.-set wing of the network's military-tinged investigative series aired a whopping 323-episodes over the course of its 14-season run, including the two part finale bringing the action to a close.
Titled "New Beginnings," and "New Beginnings Part Two," said episodes found the L.A.-based NCIS crew taking on one last case before riding off into that storied West Coast sunset. Said case partly involved the team helping Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms heavy SAC Kerry Adams investigate corruption suspicions surrounding one of her top agents. The facts swing pretty dramatically when the team finds out Adams herself is the dirty agent — and may have been using them as a means to flush out an informant — and yes, some vintage "NCIS: Los Angeles" fireworks result from that discovery, with Adams eventually being neutralized as much of the team more or less earns happy endings all around.
Adams was, of course, a brand new character to the "NCIS: LA" narrative. Still, it's a safe bet many recognized Liz Vassey, the actor who portrayed her on the show. Here's where you may have seen her before.
Liz Vassey played a young go-getter on Beverly Hills, 90210
The name Liz Vassey may not be widely known to the pop culture collective, but they've almost certainly seen her on the small screen. Vassey has, after all, been a regular presence in the television realm since her career began in 1989 with a small role on "Superboy." The North Carolina-born actor then spent the better part of the ensuing decade working on several of the best-loved series of the 1990s, including "Married... With Children," "Quantum Leap," "Home Improvement," and "Dawson's Creek" among others.
One of Vassey's bigger roles of the '90s came in 1992, when she booked a one-off guest spot on the era-defining teen drama "Beverly Hills, 90210." The actor turned up on the show during its second season, portraying Marcia St. Claire, daughter of a land developer looking to build a shiny new shopping mall in town. She was initially brought into the orbit of the Walsh family to get feedback from local teens about what they might want in the mall, and soon began a romantic tryst with Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestly).
The story took a dramatic left turn when it was revealed that Marcia's dad is looking to build the mall on the site of the gang's favorite dive, The Peach Pit. Soon, Brandon was throwing himself into leading a "Save the Peach Pit" campaign. Though it ended amicably, the pair's burgeoning relationship did not survive the fray.
ER found Vassey playing a doctor-obsessed patient
In 1994, Vassey could be seen on another decade-defining TV hit, appearing in the first four episodes of the medical drama "ER."
Although Vassey wasn't one of the central players on the series during its infancy, she did turn up in the pilot episode portraying Liz, a young woman making the rounds of the Cook County General Hospital emergency room looking for a little special attention from a doctor. As "ER" fans no doubt recall, the doctor she gets is Cook County rookie Dr. John Carter (Noah Wylie). It's clear early on that Liz has a lot more on her mind with Dr. Carter then just allowing him to treat the minor burns on her, ahem, posterior.
That relationship did indeed get hot and heavy over the course of the first four episodes of "ER," with Liz and Carter embarking on a (largely off-screen) magical mystery tour of delights. But that tour came to a swift, cringe-worthy conclusion when Carter realized things were a bit more casual than he realized, and that Liz may have given him a sexually transmitted disease.
Although things ultimately worked out as well as they could for Carter on that front, the predicament brought a close to Liz's time on the show.
On Brotherly Love, Vassey played a tough car mechanic opposite the Lawrence Brothers
While Vassey appeared on dozens of the biggest small screen hits throughout the '90s, she typically did so on a short-term capacity, with her episode counts rarely stretching past four or five. That changed in 1995, when the 1988 — 1991 "All My Children" star booked a lead role on the network sitcom "Brotherly Love."
Billed as a series uniting the oft-seen Lawrence brothers (Joey, coming of "Blossom" and Matthew, from "Mrs. Doubtfire"), it centered on a trio of brothers named Joe, Matt, and Andy Roman (they were joined by Andrew Lawrence, the youngest brother who at the time was just starting out in the industry) who help out at their father's garage after he passes away.
As for Vassey, she appeared in all 40 episodes of "Brotherly Love," as the garage's top mechanic Louise "Lou" Davis. Tough in spirit, great with tools, but an artist at heart, Lou was a main player in the Roman's various narratives over the show's two season run, and even tentatively had a relationship with big brother Joe late in the series run.
Ultimately, the underperforming sitcom ended with a Season 2 cancellation, so fans of "Brotherly Love" never got a chance to see if Joe and Lou could make their relationship work. Nonetheless, the show allowed Vassey to showcase both her comedic talents and the occasional moment of drama.
The Tick found Vassey playing a unconventional superhero
Though "Brotherly Love" didn't go the distance, Liz Vassey's comedic chops were on display again a few years later when she landed the role of Captain Liberty on the live-action, cult-beloved adaptation of "The Tick."
As created by Ben Edlund, the titular comic book character had made his first plucky, dim-witted appearance on the small screen with an animated series on Fox in 1994. That series aired 36 episodes over three seasons, expanding Edlund's cult base of fans; the irreverent, razor-sharp wit and unforgettable rogue's gallery of heroes and villains in the "Tick" universe would later be revisited again in a 2016 — 2019 Amazon Prime series.
But in between came a 2001 — 2002 live-action adaptation with "Seinfeld" breakout Patrick Warburton in the lead role. Expectations were high when Fox initially announced the live-action reboot, and Vassey joined the cast as new character Liberty, who served as both a spoof of iconic mainstream superheroes like Captain American and Wonder Woman, and a thinly-veiled re-configuration of the animated series' super-femme American Maid.
Despite hitting the airwaves behind a ton of goodwill from fans, "The Tick" never really found its audience, or its creative groove; it got the axe after airing just nine episodes, even if it is still fondly remembered more than two decades later.
Vassey was a fan favorite supporting player on CSI
Vassey spent the next few years working largely on the fringes of Hollywood, booking minor-but-notable supporting roles in the short-lived Ben Affleck-backed crime drama "Push Nevada," the Tommy Lee Jones-fronted big screen comedy "Man of the House," and Eliza Dushku's supernatural series "Tru Calling." But in 2005, she booked what would become one of her signature roles, portraying ace lab tech Wendy Simms on the hugely-successful procedural "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
"CSI" was already a well-established hit for CBS when Vassey joined the cast in the Season 6 episode "Secrets & Flies." She would go on to play the role for 77 episodes between Seasons 6 and 11, becoming not just a key member of the CSI team, but a romantic interest for main player David Hodges (Wallace Langham) and a legit fan favorite among the supporting cast. Fans were none too happy when it was announced the character would be leaving the series in Season 11, with some die-hards even circulating an online petition to try and convince producers to keep Wendy around.
Alas, their pleas were in vain; Wendy waved a fond, if teary, farewell to her "CSI" chums during the second episode of the season. Things have worked out just fine for Vassey, though, as the actor has been working steadily since her "CSI" tenure concluded.