A Year of NCIS, Day 12: My Other Left Foot (Episode 1.12)

Episode: 1.12, My Other Left Foot.

Air Date:  February 3, 2004.

The Victim: We spend some time wondering about that, and eventually learn that the dismembered Marine leg that started this hole thing belonged to Marine Private First Class Thomas Dorn.

Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: Some hobo finds a dismembered leg, seemingly belonging to a Marine, in a garbage dumpster.

Plot Summary: The leg has a Semper fi tattoo and is “dressed” in fatigues/boots.  So our heroes get the call to rural West Virginia.  Ducky thinks the leg was severed post-mortem.  That’s all he has to offer, so he bails to go antiquing.  Tony and Kate note the victim’s tattoo, and begin a show-long dialogue over the nature and location of Kate’s tattoo.

Back to Abby’s lab, where Ducky explains for the benefit of the audience how gaseous super-glue can locate fingerprints, even on a leg.  Abby finds a partial.  She also begins look at a tree seed found on the leg in the hopes of tracing the body’s whereabouts pre-dismemberment.  Ducky thinks the Marine was dismembered with a power saw.  He did find a titanium pin in the victim’s ankle, the serial number on which can be used to trace the surgery, and the identity of the victim.

Kate calls to trace the ankle pin.  The manufacturer sent it to the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, MD.  Gibbs interviews Captain Brent Peters, the surgeon, who remembers implanting the pin in Marine Private First Class Thomas Dorn.  They talk a bit, and confusion ensues because Gibbs (via Ducky) believes the leg was severed within the last 24 hours, and Captain Peters says military records show PFC Dorn died two years ago.  COD: heart attack at 22. 

Back at HQ, Gibbs asks about the autopsy of the 2-year dead PFC Dorn and Kate remarks that there wasn’t one- the attending physician where “Dorn” died in Harmony, WV- signed a death certificate, but never did an autopsy.  Tony plays it off as small town medical practice, but Gibbs loses his mind (justifiably) and tells Tony and Kate to go interview the physician, dig up the body, and get it shipped back to Ducky.  He’s mad enough that they run.

Abby did not match the fingerprint on the leg in the military database, but she found regular old hay on the sock.  She also figures out that the seed on the boot is a sycamore tree. So far, we’re dealing with botanical evidence that lives exactly everywhere.

Kate and Tony drive to Harmony, WV to carry out Gibbs’s directives, and argue over whether country life beats city life, with Kate idealizing rural living, and Tony turning up his nose (I grew up in the country and will never go back, so I’m on team Tony).  They get to the doctor’s office, and meet small town doctor Dr. Sylvia Chalmers, who is older and looking to retire.  According to Dr. Chamers, “PFC Dorn” came into her office in distress from classic heart attack symptoms.  PFC Dorn collapsed, Dr. Chalmers tried to revive him, but he died.  Turns out Dr. Chalmers is the coroner too.  She did blood tests and found elevated levels of cardiac enzymes.  But she did not do an autopsy because PFC Dorn’s sister showed up to claim the body and said she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing PFC Dorn cut open.  Since the sister didn’t have the money to ship PFC Dorn home, she had him cremated and spread over the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Tony and Kate are, rightly, incredulous.  “You let her talk you out of [an autopsy]?” Kate asks.  But Dr. Chalmers makes continual reference to the lack of resources in a small town and her own sympathy for the sister and tries to excuse what she now acknowledges was a lapse in professional judgment.  Per Dr. Chalmers, that was when she decided she’d lost a step and it was time to retire.  Tony ends the interview by showing Dr. Chalmers the photo of PFC Dorn, but he’s not anyone she has ever seen before.  Meaning the man who died in her office wasn’t Dorn.  And since a sister wouldn’t misidentify her brother, something else is going on.

Abby determines that PFC Dorn, the real Dorn, the one whose leg she has, died of an overdose of a drug called digitalis- so much of it that she found the residue in the leg.  Gibbs wants to know if the drug could be used to fake heart attack symptoms, because he thinks the two Marine deaths are connected.

Tony and Kate make their report.  Gibbs asks if PFC Dorn has a sister on record, and he does have a half sister, Melissa.  Gibbs and Kate go to interview her.  Gibbs notes a sycamore tree in the front yard.  Turns out Melissa Dorn is a very friendly redhead, and Gibbs, ever the fan of redheads, turns on the charm.  Kate can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t, and how much Gibbs is acting.  But she searches the house anyway, while Gibbs and Melissa Dorn flirt in the kitchen.  This is a really well-acted scene, and you sort of think that Gibbs could really hook up with Melissa.  Kate rolls her eyes in the next room.  Gibbs collects some buds from the Sycamore tree as they leave, and Kate notes the presence of a barn out back (perhaps a source of the straw found on the leg), but nothing to give NCIS probable cause for a warrant- unless you can match plant DNA.

Which is exactly what Gibbs asks Abby to do when he gets back.

Tony finds a potential motive.  Turns out PFC Dorn took out a $750k life insurance policy with Melissa as the beneficiary.  So Tony and Kate surmise that they suckered some poor Marine into Harmony, WV, dosed him with digitialis in a town with one doctor and one ambulance, conned the old lady doctor into not doing an autopsy and cremating the body, and then collected the insurance. 

Tony and Kate go to talk to the adjuster who paid out on the life insurance claim.  En route, they discuss Gibbs getting his game on with the chief suspect, and Tony points out that Gibbs has been married three times, all to redheads.  Just like Melissa.  Just like the lady who picks Gibbs up at the end of episodes.  It’s a conundrum.  For now.

The adjuster remains suspicious of the insurance claim.  But it was cheaper to pay it out than risk a lawsuit and a jury trial.

Gibbs and Ducky talk out the case, which is a good way to summarize things for the audience.  The insurance scam theory seems solid.  But the question is who killed PFC Dorn within the last few days, and why toss his leg in a dumpster?  Gibbs asks Ducky who he’d get to pose as a Marine.  Ducky responds, “You.”  Gibbs laughs, but Ducky has given him an idea.

In her lab, Abby is comparing tree samples.  But she gets a negative.

Gibbs visits the base where PFC Dorn was stationed, and interviews Gunnery Sergeant Vestman, who actually remembers Gibbs as an MP at Camp LeJeune.  Sergeant Vestman got pinched for bar fighting, but Gibbs let them have smoke breaks on the work detail, so Sergeant Vestman remembers him.  They jaw some, and Gibbs asks about PFC Dorn.  The Gunny remembers him as a sandbagger and a cokehead, and assumes, per the official report, that he OD’d.  He also recalls that Dorn and a Corporal Morgan used to run together, and Corporal Morgan vanished around the time Dorn died.  Sergeant Vestman assumes he’s shacked up somewhere with Melissa, the foxy redhead they used to hang around with.  Gibbs enlightens the Gunny that Corporal Morgan’s fate is not so sanguine.

Gibbs joins Abby in her lab.  She’s matched the tree, but something something something blind test, and she’s annoyed at Gibbs.  I try not to be lazy when I do this, but I didn’t follow.  Point is, the test puts Dorn at Melissa’s house.  Which equates to probable cause.

The team re-visits Melissa, only with a warrant this time.  Tony works the barn, and finds the scrapes on the floor where the body was dismembered.  Tony jokes around so much that you sometimes forget he’s a good agent.  It’s counter-intuitively entertaining to watch him work alone, with no audience, and show off his skills.  Meanwhile Gibbs tells Melissa his theory, and then gets her fingerprints and DNA on a glass of water. 

Tony enters senses that someone else is in the house.  Tony and Gibbs go upstairs to check while Kate guards Melissa.  They find Dr. Chalmers in a closet upstairs.  Turns out she’s Melissa’s mother.  To her credit, Dr. Chalmers keeps up the act.  And she’s a lot smarter than Melissa in terms of being able to figure out what evidence NCIS does and doesn’t have (although the barn evidence would be tough to overcome- at least for Melissa).  Dr. Chalmers even tries to set up a scenario where Melissa gets nailed for insurance fraud, but nobody can be indicted for murder.  But, Gibbs says that chemical markers will enable them to trace the digitalis to Dr. Chalmers, and Melissa’s fear, love for PFC Dorn, and/or conscience finally gets the best of her. She accuses her mother of murdering PFC Dorn, and, this being a TV show, everyone confesses in the living room.

Back at HQ, the hunt for the rest of PFC Dorn continues to bear fruit in dumpsters all over rural West Virginia, Gibbs professes to know what tattoo is on Kate’s butt, Kate says he’s bluffing just like he did when he told Melissa and Dr. Chalmers that he could trace digitalis using chemical markers, and we call it a night.

Quotables:

(1) “I’ll tell you what, Gibbs.  You find me a liver in that leg, and I’ll estimate you a time of death.” -Ducky is tired of Gibbs’s bullshit.

(2) Gibbs:  What do you got.

      Tony: Six letter word for reason to commit a crime.

      Gibbs: DiNozzo!

      Tony: That’s seven letters.

      Gibbs: Works for me.

Time Until Sexual Harassment: 5:00.  Tony opines that a tattoo on a woman means she’s up for anything.  Actually, his fixation throughout the episode on whether Kate has a tattoo and where is over the line.  “Is it on your butt?” is not what most women want to hear at work.  Neither is “Which cheek is it on?”

Ducky Tales:  Ducky regales us with tales of his travels as a young Duckling- ladies, art, etc.  Gibbs really lets him go on for a while.

He starts a story about a thumb found in the coin return of a pay phone, but then, in a rare moment, loses focus.

The Rest of the Story:

-Apparently what’s good for the NCIS goose, is not in the least good for the local LEO gander.  Gibbs chastises a LEO for making fun of the way the dismembered leg landed, as if it were climbing a stair.  His own people have said way worse than that.  “Sailor on a half shell?” anybody?

-Abby mentions her little brother for the first time.  He’ll make an appearance down the road.

-While it’s not a numbered rule yet, Gibbs states that he does not believe in coincidences.

-Tony likes to drive fast.

-Gibbs mentions that he has no brothers or sisters,

-Gibbs’s redhead obsession is in full-effect with Melissa Dorn, and his coming on to her isn’t entirely an act.  Tony mentions that all three of Gibbs’s ex-wives are redheads.  Kate notes that the pattern holds with respect to the lady in the convertible.  In a few seasons, we learn the haunting, heartbreaking, almost pathological, secret of Gibbs’s attraction to redheads.

-Gibbs was an MP at Camp LeJeune and the Gunnery Sergeant Vestman remembers him.

-It’s left a little vague, but Tony appears to have located Dr. Chalmers in Melissa’s house by smelling her perfume.  He noticeably identifies it as Estee Lauder when they leave her office, and then mentions to Gibbs that she likes this perfume when they discover her in the upstairs bedroom closet.  Which means we can add super-sniffer to the 20/10 super-vision Tony showed off in Left for Dead (Episode 1.10).  Dude is like Daredevil or something.

Casting Call: Stacy Haiduk plays Melissa Dorn.  Her career involves an unusual mix of soap operas and science fiction.  Of the latter, she played recurring roles on Superboy and SeaQuest DSV back in the day; and, more recently, on Heroes and True Blood.  She also had a stint on Melrose Place.

Also, when’s the last time you heard someone reference Seaquest DSV?

You’re about to hear it again, since Bonnie Bartlett, who plays Dr. Sylvia Chalmers, also had a guest role on SeaQuest, among over one hundred other credits.  She kills it in this episode- her “lovable, absentminded old lady” bit is intentionally just off enough to make the viewer suspicious, and her heel-turn to criminal mastermind is actually more believable as a result.  It’s all just exactly over the top.  A very precise performance.

Dean Norris, who plays Gunnery Sergeant Vestman, played another military role when he served as a Colonel on The Big Bang Theory.  I assume it’s the guy who heads up the gyroscope project, but I’m not 100%.  Either way, his very brief interactions with both his “men” and Gibbs demonstrate excellent comic timing.

Man, This Show is Old: Kate likes small towns because there’s not a Starbucks or a Blockbuster on every corner.  Awwwww.   Remember Blockbuster?

Tony opining on attractive women being with unattractive guys isn’t anchored in a particular era.  Both Julia Roberts/Lyle Lovett and Christie Brinkley/Billy Joel are examples from well before 2004.  But, probably not too many people in 2019 naturally link Angelina Jolie to Billy Bob Thornton.  In early 2004, however, their divorce was less than a year old.

MVP: Gibbs. He keeps the train rolling, refuses to take no for an answer, thinks of the botanical comparison idea, and seems willing to fall on a redheaded grenade to make the bust. There’s a reason he’s in charge.

Rating: How utterly macabre.  I’m not sure how well this plot would work in the real world- is $750k enough to live off while staying hidden?  Did PFC Dorn get another identity?  If not, why was he wearing his Marine clothes when killed other than to further the plot (and wouldn’t the (ironic) Semper fi tattoo have served the same purpose).  But it made for good TV. And hey, if the coroner is in on it, seems like there’d be a lot of mileage in discretely killing out-of-towners for fun and profit.

Seven Palmers.