During a recent interview with TVLine (in which “NCIS: Los Angeles” star Daniela Ruah discussed her work as a director within the series), Ruah explained that her mysterious absence from “Dead Stick” was simply a logistical choice by the showrunners. “What the audience probably doesn’t know is that every one of us [on the cast] is out of four episodes a season now,” Ruah revealed. “That is just a structural, logistical thing that our show is doing now. So, sometimes in the beginning, it’s like, ‘Oh, they had to take Rosa somewhere’ as a justification, but that’s essentially why there are going to be episodes where some characters are just simply not there.”
Ruah’s comments certainly make it seem as though her abrupt disappearance from Season 14 Episode 4 is actually par for the course within the series — and is related more to scheduling than to anything else. Although some fans might be reassured to know that Ruah’s absence was not anything to worry about (especially considering the high amount of cast turnover in “NCIS” and its various spinoff series), others might be shocked to learn that each cast member is actually expected to miss four episodes a season.
In any case, it appears as though there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for Daniela Ruah’s absence in certain episodes, as well as the absences of other cast members throughout Season 14 of “NCIS: Los Angeles.”
