A Year of NCIS, Day 23: Reveille (Episode 1.23 Season Finale)

Episode: 1.23, Reveille.  This episode relies heavily on, and flashes back to, Bête Noire (Episode 1.16).  If you have not already, read that summary first.

Air Date: May 25, 2004

The Victim: We don’t have one in the classical sense.

Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: Whoa.  We open on Gibbs.

Plot Summary: I don’t think the show has ever opened on Gibbs.  Literally on Gibbs.  A close-up of his face as an elevator opens.  There’s a heartbeat soundtrack as he walks into a darkened autopsy.  There’s a bagged body on the tableand Ducky stands off to the side.  I don’t think this is real, as it seems very dream-like.  But, either way, Gibbs unzips the body bag, and it’s Kate’s corpse, with a bullet wound through the middle of her head.  Gibbs looks over and sees the Terrorist from Bête Noire (Episode 1.16) standing by the autopsy door and smiling at him.

And roll credits, for the last time this season.

Post-credits, we open on Gibbs’s Terrorist Find-O-Matic, still searching for our perp.  And Gibbs is sleeping at his desk while McGee

McGee!

and Abby debate whether to wake him up.  So, it was a dream, and not one of those opening scenes followed by a “Twenty-Four Hours Earlier” blurb after the credits.

Gibbs, who slept at the office, wonders why McGee isn’t at Norfolk.  Honestly, we’ve all been wondering that.  Absent Director.  Gibbs assigning personnel willy-nilly.  Truly NCIS is a lawless country.  But this time, McGee says he’s going to call in and say Gibbs needs him because he has an idea to speed up the search for the Terrorist.  Gibbs gets new undies out of a file cabinet drawer, and McGee explains that scanning the photos of United Kingdom college graduates for the year the Terrorist was 21 (graduation age in the UK) will cut down on the possibles.  Gibbs, nastily, but reasonably points out that you can’t know a man’s age without knowing who the hell he is.  McGee admits this, but he reverse-engineered the FBI’s child locator software (the program that tells you what abducted kids look like after they age) to give them a shot at targeting the Terrorist’s age.  Duly impressed, Gibbs agrees to write McGee a hall pass.  Just to stir the pot, he asks if McGee spent the night at Abby’s and whether he slept in the coffin.  McGee thought it was a box sofa bed (?!) and is horrified.  Although, Abby makes the point that he didn’t just sleep in the coffin, so that ought to calm him down.

We cut to Tony jogging at a park in DC, when he gets passed by a hot blonde.  She makes him chase her to the top of a hill, and Marine One, the President’s helicopter, flies over.  Tony learns the young lady is Swedish.  Then she runs off again, with Tony following her.

Kate is in line getting coffee when a dude in front of her uses nearby TV news about Israeli actions against Hamas to try and hit on her.  #Washington.  He’s with the Department of Agriculture and wonders why he doesn’t know her since he goes to NCIS all the time.  But he thinks NCIS has something to do with crop insurance.  Gibbs wanders by and has a laugh at Kate’s expense.  He’s in all purpose troll mode this morning.  Kate abandons her meet cute and sits down with the boss.  He brought her coffee and tries to lure her to the dark side of black coffee.  But then he tells her what he really wants, which is for her to profile a terrorist.  Or specifically, THE Terrorist- “The one you couldn’t stab.”  Kate (and the audience) flash back to (one of) Kate’s (many) failure(s), and she demands to know if Ducky told Gibbs.  Then she admits it.  Gibbs wants to know why she hesitated.  Kate says, she looked into the Terrorist’s eyes and they looked kind.  Gibbs is unimpressed.  Probably because this kind of soft, fluffy shit has been Kate’s M.O. all season.  Gibbs tells her that eyes can lie and that if she meets the Terrorist again, she needs to not forget that.

Kate gives Gibbs a profile.  She does not think the Terrorist is an Islamic fanatic.  He’s in it for something else, maybe money.  She bases this on how well-groomed the Terrorist was, and she thinks he lives large.  He’s intelligent, bold, willing to take big risks.  At that, Gibbs flashes back to the shoot-out scene between him and the Terrorist and asks why the Terrorist gave him the chance to take a shot.  Kate points out that the Terrorist knew Gibbs would double tap him in the chest and hit the flak vest, but nonetheless trigger the HRT assault and allow the Terrorist to escape.  Gibbs isn’t buying it.  Killing Gibbs would have also triggered the assault, and the Terrorist would have been just as able to trigger his flashbang grenade and escape.  Kate agrees, and Gibbs notes that the Terrorist did what he did because he needs to face death to feel alive.

We cut to a reckless, helmeted fellow riding a motorcycle at top speed down a country road.  Unsurprisingly, it’s our Terrorist.  He seemingly meets two weapon dealers in a field.  One calls him Mr. Craig (I think).  They appear to be demo-ing a missile launcher, but when the Terrorist and the first guy start discussing weapon specs, it’s clear that “smoky sam” is just an advanced form of pyrotechnic that looks like a launched missile.  The Navy uses it for war games.  The Terrorist claims to be interested because he and his buddies run fake dogfights with high-tech equipment, but nobody gets killed.  The Terrorist launches the smoky sam, and it looks real as hell, and goes way high.  I can’t imagine that’s available for commercial use.

Tony arrives at HQ, feeling fine.  He tells Kate about his new Swedish friend.  They do their usual thing, and then Kate wants to discuss Gibbs and how she’s worried about him being overly fixated on the Terrorist.  She tells Tony about her coffeehouse meeting with Gibbs, but Tony simply thinks Gibbs is being a good cop.

Gibbs, meanwhile, is in MTAC, chatting with Agent Snyder in Bahrain.  Gibbs says Mossad (Israeli intelligence) is lying to Agent Snyder because the Terrorist, particularly given his ties to Hamas, is too good not to be on their radar.  Gibbs wonders if maybe the Terrorist is a freelancer, but Agent Snyder thinks Hamas is too insular for that.  He speculates that maybe the Israelis want the Terrorist for themselves and are holding back, but Gibbs points out that the Terrorist is in the U.S. (he has no proof of this- just his gut). Thus ends the discussion.

The scene shifts to real-world news footage of President George W. Bush on a television, and our Terrorist friend briefing his terrorist friends on the security protocols for Marine One.  Apparently, President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon are taking a helo trip together, and the Terrorist is explaining the flight plan, including decoys.  He starts giving directions to the terrorists, including telling two of them to set up the diversionary smoky sam.  The plan is to make the helicopters think they’ve been fired upon by rockets and execute an immediate emergency landing protocol.  The idea being that the helicopter convoy can only detour form the route and land as a unit in one area, where the terrorists will be waiting, presumably with non-dummy weaponry. 

(Of course, if it’s that obvious, there’d be a security team already there.  But the plan makes for good TV).

The terrorists plan to destroy a couple of the helicopters and then take the President captive and offer him in exchange for Hamas prisoners.  One problem: how do you tell which helicopter is Marine One.  The Terrorist smiles and says, “A bird is going to tell me.”

Abby and McGee are playing with the aging software and flirting with each other.  Gibbs comes in and starts yelling.  Which is shorthand for him being inordinately mad, because he doesn’t usually yell at Abby.  Then he starts screaming at McGee.  Abby switches the hard rock to some twanging banjo bullshit, and moonshine snuggling music soothes the savage Gibbs.  McGee manages to make the aging software work, and Gibbs determines that the Terrorist was 21 in 1990.  He then tells McGee, “If you don’t get a hit in three days, I’m gonna think this was a ploy to play house.” 

Wow.

Kate and Tony are having lunch on an outdoor restaurant patio with Ducky, who tells them Gibbs was like this before his last divorce.  He was chasing a double child murderer and was very difficult to live with.  Tony sees his Swedish girl from across the way and nearly causes an accident jay-running over to her. 

Kate checks the time, and she’s late for a conference with Gitmo.  Ducky graciously offers to pay for lunch and Kate leaves.  At the crosswalk, the Terrorist rides up on his motorcycle, his face helmeted, and starts revving the bike to impress Kate.  She smiles.  Until he lifts up the visor and she sees the eyes she thought were so kind.  He speeds off before she can get to him, and she commandeers the first car she sees to follow him.  Good thing the driver is one of the terrorist cell members. 

Oh Kate.  Will you ever learn?  This is your third time being captured in seven episodes.

McGee is trying to will the facial rec software to work faster.  Gibbs is looking for Kate and Tony and not being nice about it.  If his objective is to make McGee shit in his pants, he’s 94% there. 

Ducky and Palmer have a chopped-up body to put back together.  Ducky compliments Palmer on not puking, but Palmer blows it off as “just a meat jigsaw puzzle.”  And thus did Palmer endear himself to the hearts and minds of all true NCIS fans.  But here comes Gibbs to spread his good cheer to autopsy.  He asks about Jigsaw Man, and Ducky says Agent Balboa found him in a drum of alcohol beside a dumpster near Bethesda Naval Hospital.  The body was expertly dissected by a sadist with medical and anatomical knowledge and…

Terrorist!  Ducky flashes back to his conversations in autopsy.  Ducky begins apologizing because the fact of the Terrorist’s specialized knowledge would have greatly narrowed Gibbs’s search. Ducky thinks the Terrorist went to medical school in Britain.  Gibbs leaves to run down the lead but asks if Tony and Kate came back from lunch.  Ducky mentions that Tony ran off after a girl and Kate had the Gitmo conference.

Gibbs has McGee reformat the search per Ducky’s parameters, and then heads to MTAC.  Real-world footage of President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon is playing on the big screen.  Gibbs logs in to talk to Gitmo and Agent Paula Cassidy.  Gibbs wants to know why Kate set up this conference.  Paula says that Kate wanted to discuss the Norfolk lead from Bête Noire.  Tony comes in and Paula cheerily says hello.  Gibbs hangs up, and that’s the end of cheery.  He gives Tony hell about taking a long lunch to chase ass and segues into a Marine speech about how Tony will eat, sleep, and crap Terrorist until they catch him.  Tony draws the obvious Moby Dick parallel, and quickly runs away.

Gibbs notes Kate’s desk is still empty and tries to call her.  The scene shifts, and it’s now clear that Kate, riding along in a clown car full of terrorists, is officially a captive.  The driver checks the caller ID and asks who Gibbs is (which means the Terrorist in chief didn’t brief them all that well).  He backhands Kate when she doesn’t answer.  And then hits her again when she lies. 

Back at HQ, Gibbs starts to get that sinking feeling.

The car pulls up at El Rancho Terrorist-o, a farmhouse out in the country, and the Terrorist greets Kate.  He asks after Gerald.  He’s not OK with how Kate has been treated and lets her have some payback on the face of the guy who hit her.  He checks her phone and sees that Gibbs called and takes her to get some ice for lip.  He even tells her she can call Gibbs, but I bet there’s a catch to that.

Gibbs is still looking for Kate.  The shifting scenes add to the tension.  I normally don’t like going back and forth too quickly because it feels like padding, but this works.

The Terrorist ministers to Kate.  His condition for her calling Gibbs is that she tell Gibbs a very elaborate and detailed story about food poisoning.  And if Kate doesn’t comply, well, it turns out that Tony’s Swedish gal is at the farmhouse, and she has a date with Tony tonight.  She promises to put a bullet in his head. 

Gibbs gets the food poisoning call and seems to accept that oysters are the reason Kate’s not around.  But he continues to rail at his team, screaming at Tony through gritted teeth about not working hard enough.  He storms out of the room while Tony waxes lustily about the date he doesn’t know wants to shoot his head off. 

And then, after 6.5 episodes of facial rec running in the background, McGee finally gets our man. 

But we’ll have to wait to learn about it.  Because it’s back to the boonies and our Hamas friends.  The Terrorist is having wine.  His buddies say they’re leaving and ask him if he has the info they need.  The Terrorist sets up a three-card-monte-esque game that Kate passes.  Twice.  And again.  The Terrorist wants to know how the Secret Service taught Kate to be so observant.  That comment and her knowledge that President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon are flying to Camp David clues Kate in that the Terrorist wants to know which helo is Marine One. 

Back at HQ, the team finally learns that the Terrorist’s name is Ari Haswari.  And now I can finally stop typing “the Terrorist,” because “Ari” is much shorter.  And I knew his name this whole time too; such is my dedication to any new fans that I did the extra typing so as not to spoil it.  Truly, I deserve the biggest of Heavenly mansions for my magnanimity. 

Speaking of magnanimous, Gibbs returns.  He’s in a killing mood, and everyone talks at once to give him the good news.  Gibbs is confused because “Ari” is Israeli and “Haswari” is Arabic.  Tony, dying to be out of the doghouse, already reached out to someone who did a fellowship with Ari.  Our boy never answers to Ari- always Haswari-, always surrounded himself with beautiful women, and is brilliant.  McGee points out that his parents were both doctors, mother Arab, father Israeli.  They worked in Jerusalem hospital and never married.  The mother died four years ago. 

Gibbs has heard enough.  He also clearly knew more than he let on, because he tells Tony to come with, and instructs McGee to get coordinates on Kate’s cell phone as soon as it’s turned back on.  Tony confirms Gibbs’s fears when Gibbs references Kate’s oyster problem and Tony confusedly notes that Kate ate tuna salad for lunch. 

Kate says you can’t tell the helicopters apart, and she wouldn’t help Ari either way.  Marta, the sexy lady, pulls a gun on her and gives her a lecture on Hamas sacrifice.  Kate all but laughs and says, “You mean you sacrifice your children.”  That almost gets her shot, but Ari makes clear that he will do any killing, and politely but firmly takes the gun from Marta.  He says he believes Kate that the helos are identical.  When Marta objects that he told the terrorist cell otherwise and reaches for a phone, he puts bullet in her head.  Then he hands the phone to Kate and tells her to call the Secret Service.  She hesitates, but he assures her the terrorist cell is well trained, and they will kill or capture, “Your President and mine.”  Kate blinks at that, and Ari identifies himself as Mossad.  Which explains why the Israelis told Agent Snyder they didn’t know who the hell he was. 

We cut to a news story detailing the FBI shooting up the terrorist cell.  The news reports the terrorists as Colombian drug dealers.  Gibbs is working on his boat and watching in his basement while Agent Fornell gives him the download.  The drug dealer spin was the Secret Service’s idea, and CIA gave Ari a get out of jail free car.  All the Directors signed off (including, presumably, Director Morrow, from the back 9- “Ari who?  Sure, sure.”).  Ari’s dad was Mossad and a long enough gamer that Fornell thinks he knocked up Ari’s mother to get a son with Arab blood.  Ari has been a sleeper his entire life.  The attack on NCIS autopsy was to make his bones with Hamas and al Qaeda (who funded it).  Gibbs and Fornell argue over whether that justifies anything, given what happened to Gerald and the fact that Fornell lost an HRT guy in the raid.  “You don’t make your bones, shooting friends!” Gibbs yells.  They drink some bourbon, and have a really good back and forth about it.  This is a great scene, and these actors are fantastic together.   

Then Fornell takes a seat and tells Gibbs that the Directors want his word that he’ll forget about Ari and not blow his cover.  Gibbs promises payback won’t involve blowing Ari’s cover, but he wants to know why Fornell is asking this considerable favor and not Director Morrow.  Director Morrow, in probably the only interesting move he has made all year, refused to make the ask.  Gibbs laughs.  He agrees but wants a meet with Ari at a place of his choosing, alone.  Fornell scoffs that nobody will agree to that, but Gibbs is sure Ari will.

We replay the opening scene, with heartbeat soundtrack and a darkened autopsy room.  Gibbs opens the bodybag, but this time it’s not Kate with a bullethole in the middle of her forehead.  It’s Marta.  He notes her beauty to Ari, standing by the door.  Gibbs seems scandalized that Ari would have sex with a woman and then be perfectly content to kill her.  It’s not out of character, but it’s an odd beat.  Ari tries to draw a comparison between him and Gibbs and why they do what they do, but Gibbs isn’t having it.  Ari will return to the Middle East and tell his terrorist pals that Marta was Mossad and she blew the op.  All of the evidence has been arranged to make that plausible.  Ari is sure Hamas will believe him; al Qaeda, maybe not.  Gibbs makes an understated threat that if al Qaeda does not believe him, Ari is dead.  Ari counters that his position may allow him to learn about the next 9/11, and would Gibbs really blow that opportunity for pride?  “It’s not pride,” Gibbs responds.  Ari, cynical and smirking, asks what else it could be. 

Then, Ari says “Shalom,” and moves to take his leave.  Gibbs puts a bullet in the ball and socket joint of his shoulder at point blank range, mirroring the wound to Gerald.  “Just wanted to help you convince al Qaeda,” Gibbs smirks, and leaves.  Ari smiles the smile we’ve become so used to seeing over the last seven episodes, and laughs.

The Season ends with the elevator door closing in front of Gibbs as he heads back upstairs.   

Quotables:

(1) Abby: Would you be less grumpy if you slept in a bed?

Gibbs: No, I would not!

-Abby would like Gibbs to stop sleeping over at the office.

(2) “Gibbs, you’re making me nervous.  Scary scenarios are popping into my head, like you’re here to fire me.  Or I’m going undercover as DiNozzo’s wife.” 

-Kate doesn’t care for meeting Gibbs for coffee.

(3) Kate: His eyes.  I was looking into his eyes, and they looked…kind.

Gibbs: Did they look kind when he blew out Gerald’s shoulder?

                                                      -Ooo, burn.

(4) “Kate, Gibbs is like a dog.  He’ll gnaw on an old bone until you throw him a steak.  When he’s done with the steak, he goes back to the old bone.  The Terrorist is Gibbs’s old bone.” -Tony.

(5) Gibbs: Two op failures in a row.  I’d axe your ass if you worked for me.

Ari: People who blow themselves apart to kill their enemy have lower expectations.

Time Until Sexual Harassment: 12:50.  We find out that Tony used Kate’s computer to look at porn.  And now all she gets is spam.

Ducky Tales: Ducky thinks Tony is immature and hormonal because he has Italian genes and boys his age in Italy are still living with mom.  This sounds like junk science and, well, Ducky also lives with his mom.

Ducky tells Palmer about a butcher in China who claimed his big toe could predict earthquakes. 

Ducky regales us with famous alumni from his alma mater, Edinburgh Medical College, including Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; as well as a short history of the school, until he is interrupted by Gibbs, who comes bearing threats of physical violence.

He also starts to chat about Jack the Ripper, but duty calls.

The Rest of the Story:

-Gibbs’s dream about autopsy is legitimately creepy.  It all works out at the end of the episode, but seeing Kate’s body laid out like that as part of a season finale is upsetting. 

-McGee having slept in the coffin at Abby’s get referenced a few times going forward.

-I guess Abby and McGee have had sexual relations.  Good for them.

-Rule #7: Always be specific when you lie.

-Tony references characters in The Fugitive, The Searchers, and Payback to analogize Gibbs’s determined efforts to catch the Terrorist.  He later changes his tune from determined to obsessed and references the Gregory Peck Moby Dick movie (because we know Tony hasn’t read the book).

-NCIS agent Daniel Snyder, stationed in Bahrain, last appeared in Bête Noire (Episode 1.16).

-Gibbs’s mysterious redhead doesn’t appear, but she gets a shout-out from Tony.

-Kate smacks Tony on the head like Gibbs does, but he makes it clear it’s not OK when she does it.  Weatherly does a good job seeming legitimately pissed.  His hand even shakes a bit as he puts food into his mouth.

-According to Ducky, at the time of his last divorce, Gibbs was chasing a child murderer.  I’m not sure if that story gets told later or not.

-Not a numbered rule as yet, but Gibbs tells McGee to “Stop apologizing; it’s a sign of weakness.”

–Ducky’s jigsaw body was brought in by special Agent Balboa, who also appeared in Bête Noire (Episode 1.16).  Agent Balboa found the body in a drum of alcohol, which sounds like another one of our greatest hits: the dead Petty Officer in Sub Rosa (Episode 1.7).

-Agent Paula Cassidy last appeared in Bête Noire (Episode 1.16), but we met her in Minimum Security (Episode 1.8).  It’s never clear whether or not Gibbs likes her.  She waves cheerily to Tony when he comes in, but that won’t last.

-Ducky and Ari both graduated from Edinburgh Medical College.

-We learn that Ari’s father was named Benjamin Weinstein.  We’ll later learn that’s not accurate. 

-The show remains aggressively critical of Hamas.  I don’t care, or even disagree, but, as noted in a previous entry, it’s a more strident real-world position than network TV shows typically take.

-Marta the sexy lady dies of a gunshot wound to the center of her forehead.  We’ll learn that this is Ari’s preferred location.

-We love Agent Fornell, but he shows up way too often to go through his past appearances every time.  He and Gibbs are really starting to cement their friendship now. 

-Real world considerations will later cause the writers to alter Ari’s backstory and motivation.  His character makes sense here, in a cruelly utilitarian sort of way.  That won’t always be the case.

-Ari Haswari returns next season, and Gibbs may have cause to regret taking that shoulder shot.

Casting Call: Nobody of note this week.  The budget was probably all used up.

Man, This Show is Old: McGee’s idea about reverse-engineering Ari’s age is old hat and seems basic now but represented newer tech in 2004.

Ariel Sharon is a former Prime Minister of Israel.  Sharon’s hardline tactics against the Palestinians made him controversial at the time, although Americans today seem less interested in or opposed to Israeli hardliners.  Sharon left office in 2006 and died in 2014.

Gibbs makes a real-world reference to the Israeli Defense Force’s then-recent killing of Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in April 2004 to demonstrate the competence of Mossad’s intelligence networks.

President George W. Bush, the target of the terrorists in this episode, was running for his second term at the time of airing.  He won handily in November 2004, defeating Senator John Kerry.

Fornell finds Gibbs’s basement stash and asks, “Who drinks bourbon anymore?”  It’s safe to say that everyone drinks bourbon now.  Bourbon and craft beer.

VIP: In terms of stopping the bad guys, it’s Ari. NCIS doesn’t do much.

Rating: Great finale.  We got superb character work; a decently grounded real-world terrorist plot; a healthy dose of realpolitik in the form of Ari being excused for his efforts in the war on terrorism; and a bit of a Season One greatest hits retrospective as the show wrapped up its longest running and most intense plotline, and also gave us Fornell, Paula Cassidy, another dead guy in a drum, a new plot against President Bush, Abby/McGee, numbered rules, a head smack, a Gibbs divorce mention, and a reference to Gibbs’s mysterious redhead.

And give Mark Harmon an Emmy for this episode.  He plays Gibbs just shy of unhinged and manages to be unsettling without it being farcical.  Think your dad about to lose his shit on you and if it were any more over the top it would be funny, but it’s just right so it’s scary in its unpredictability.

The only complaint is that this was the Ari show.  NCIS finally figured out who he was, but they didn’t accomplish anything else.  Still, for what was clearly a low-budget affair involving a whole lot of talking, the episode kept my attention and had powerful emotional stakes.

And so ends Season 1.  It was an excellent freshman effort.  Of the characters, Abby, Tony, Ducky, and Gibbs emerged almost fully formed, and the chemistry between all of the cast members (with the exception of Tony and Kate) is exactly what you want from network television.  There were more good episodes than bad, and a few were legitimately great.  The only real complaint is that the writers don’t seem to be entirely sure what to do with Kate, or, worse, they are sure, and they intended to make her largely superfluous and/or incompetent.  Let’s hope she gets better with age. 

We’ll end the season with eight Palmers. Strong finish.

Up Next: Season Two begins.