A Year of NCIS, Day 36: The Meat Puzzle (Episode 2.13)

Episode: 2.13, The Meat Puzzle

Air Date: February 8, 2005

The Victim(s): Michael Grant, a Baltimore D.A.; Roland Davis, a Baltimore judge; Carl Foss, a jury foreman; and Marco Cesaretti, a retired Baltimore police detective. 

How in God’s name did our heroes get jurisdiction on this one?

Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: We don’t get to see the look of horror on whoever discovered the drum full of people pieces way back when.

Plot Summary:  We open up with Ducky’s jigsaw man, which we first saw at the end of last season in Reveille (Episode 1.23) and again to open this season in See No Evil (Episode 2.1).  Like Gerald before him, Palmer enjoys the ear buds.  Ducky makes him take them out, and then asks Palmer to explain to him why he reconstructed this particular jigsaw man with a toe where his thumb should be.  Palmer explains that the scarring indicated that the guy lost his thumb in an accident and underwent a toe amputation for purposes of replacing the thumb with the toe.

If that sounds weird, I can assure you it’s real.  I have a friend who underwent this exact procedure. 

Regardless, the explanation causes Ducky to have a flashback and to proclaim that he thinks he knows the identity of the body. 

Roll Credits.

We recommence with Tony teasing Kate about a date she had with a guy who turns out to be one of Tony’s fraternity brothers.  Kate had no clue.  Which raises a question as to Kate’s competence as an investigator.  “Where’d you go to college?” is almost pre-appetizer conversation.  Seems like, “Oh, did you know Tony DiNozzo?” would have come up in even the most casual discussion.

Ducky interrupts to call Gibbs away.  Gibbs doesn’t want to do HR paperwork on Tony (probably not for the first time), so he takes the excuse.  They head to autopsy where Ducky explains the toe-thumb procedure.  Then he says he knows who the victim is: Michael Grant, a Baltimore D.A.  Ducky testified at several cases he was prosecuting, and specifically remembers his toe-thumb (which we get to see in flashback).

The bodies, three in all, are unidentifiable, because the killer peeled off fingerprints and faces.  Absent matchable DNA, dental records will have to do, so ducky goes in search of Mr. Grant’s.

Gibbs returns upstairs and hands out assignments.  Tony is to find out if Grant has been reported missing.  Kate is to pull all of the cases where Ducky testified for Grant.

In autopsy, Ducky takes dental x-rays of the jigsaw corpse and compares to the records.  It’s Mr. Grant.  Tony reports that Mr. Grant disappeared hiking the Appalachian Trail, and that authorities are unable to confirm foul play.  Ducky re-apprises the audience that Mr. Grant and two other bodies were chopped into pieces, put in a barrel of alcohol, and deposited behind Bethesda Naval Hospital (which is how NCIS and Ducky have jurisdiction!)  But yes, it sounds like foul play. 

Kate asks about a Judge named Roland Davis.  He presided over one of the two cases where Ducky testified, and he has been reported missing also.  Kate pulls up the case involving Mr. Grant, Judge Davis, and Ducky. The perp is named Vincent Hanlan, a medical school dropout who was studying to be a medical examiner.  He was accused of raping and murdering a Navy lieutenant who worked in Bethesda’s pathology lab.  Ducky did the autopsy.  Ducky flashes back to the trial as he tells the story: Hanlan stalked the girl, but the evidence indicated he couldn’t perform when it came time to effectuate the rape, and, in a rage, he beat the victim to death.  The evidence was all circumstantial, so when the judge offered the jury second degree murder, they took it and Hanlan only served eight years. 

Gibbs tells Kate to build a profile on Hanlan; Tony finishes Gibbs’s sentence and begins quickly looking for anyone else involved in the trial; and Gibbs tells McGee to find a last known address for Hanlan and…well…we knew it couldn’t be that easy.  Hanlan has been dead over a year.

Ducky checks the dental records on Judge Davis, and jigsaw man #2 is a match.  Tony believes that Carl Foss, the jury foreman, missing since last summer, is jigsaw man #3.  The x-rays are en route.  Ducky thinks this is all being enacted for his benefit, as he was the one who lifted a partial print off the body and connected it to Hanlan.  Ducky recalls that Hanlan seemed particularly agitated when Ducky was on the stand and Kate theorizes it was because Ducky was an ME and Hanlan flunked out of med school and never achieved his dream of becoming an ME.

Gibbs tells Ducky to either remain at NCIS, or to only leave with one of the agents.  Ducky scoffs because he has a 96-year-old mother who suffers from dementia, and his diverging from his routine will cause her to have issues.  Gibbs assigns Tony to take the first shift with Ducky’s mom (and, to Tony’s chagrin, her dogs).  Kate will look into Hanlan’s family to see who wants revenge. 

Kate finds that Hanlan’s parents are morticians and his brother is a taxidermist.  She and Gibbs visit the parents first.  Mom is cleaning up a body, and she is very, very angry.  She says “Good,” when she finds out about the murders.  She swears her son is innocent and offers the fact that he went to medical school as exculpation.  Gibbs, never flush with shits to give, responds that Jack the Ripper went to medical school.  Mrs. Hanlan says that Vincent Hanlan never had a chance when he got out of prison and was labeled a “sex murderer.”  Mr. Hanlan says Vincent drank a lot when he got out of jail.  Mrs. Hanlan lights into her husband for mentioning this, and Mr. Hanlan relates that Vincent died when he drove his car into a tree.  Kate asks who would want revenge on Vincent Hanlan’s behalf, and Mrs. Hanlan says, “ME!” but then disclaims all knowledge.  She tells Gibbs and Kate to get the hell out or she’ll call the police and maybe they can go to prison.  She calls them bastards too.  Gibbs kinda smirks at her empty threats, but the scene ends, so I guess he and Kate leave.

Ducky IDs body #3 as the jury foreman.  Palmer asks Ducky if he’s scared, and Ducky admits he is.  He leaves Jimmy to put the jigsaw people back in their boxes.

Tony arrives at Ducky’s very nice home and meets Ducky’s mom.  She’s excited about Tony being Italian and calls him a gigolo.  Some other stuff happens to demonstrate that she has dementia, but it’s pretty routine scripting in that regard.  Immediately forgetting who Tony is.  Wanting him to move a commode into the living room.  That sort of TV shorthand.  Less pedestrian, she tells him she has a knife in her bra and that if Tony the gigolo looks down her blouse, she’ll disembowel him.  Too bad Kate’s not there to hold Tony down.

Gibbs and Kate visit the taxidermist brother, Jonathan.  He’s weird as hell and talks about wishing he could have stuffed his brother.  He does high-end taxidermy and has won awards.  Gibbs asks if Jonathan and his brother got along.  Jonathan says they were close and then he follows his parents’ line about Vincent Hanlan not being able to get a job when he got out of prison and the alcohol abuse.  He describes the night of Vincent’s death.  Jonathan was in the car when Vincent lost control and hit a tree.  Jonathan’s head hit the dash and he stumbled out of the car.  By the time he recovered his senses, the car was on fire.  The authorities said Vincent never felt the flames, but Jonathan doesn’t agree.

McGee calls and tells Gibbs that the lead detective in the Vincent Hanlan case, a retiree named Marco Cesaretti, has disappeared as well.  Nobody has seen him in three weeks.

Back at Chez Ducky, I learn that when Mrs. Mallard said “commode,” she didn’t mean “toilet.”  So, it’s less dementia and more wanting to take advantage of Tony for purposes of moving awkward pieces of antique furniture.  She pulls a giant knife on Tony, once again having forgotten who Tony is.  The doorbell rings and Tony draws his gun, frightening Mrs. Mallard even further.  It’s a delivery guy at the door, and he has a “perishable” metal container to deliver.  Which almost certainly contains our missing retired detective. 

Ducky arrives home and confirms that the container holds victim #4, and the cuts are similar to those on the first three bodies.  Which leaves only the ME.  Ducky smilingly tells Palmer, “He’s saving the best for last.”

McGee checked out the delivery driver and determined where he picked up the delivery and from whom.  Gibbs tells Kate to stick to Ducky like an ex-wife after an alimony check.  Tony thinks he’s off the Mrs. Mallard detail, and explains to Gibbs that she got sauced on her afternoon Wild Turkey and took a nap.  Gibbs laughs, and it almost looks like Harmon broke character a bit.  He tells Tony he did good work, but, unfortunately for Tony, the detail isn’t over, and Gibbs sends him back in to continue looking after Mrs. Mallard.  There’s an extended scene of Tony trying to lure four corgis back into the house.

Gibbs and McGee arrive at the pick-up location for the delivery of the chopped up retired detective.  They interview Jeffery Wilson, who’s ex-Navy.  He already knows it’s about “that barrel” because the deal was too good to be true.  Wilson sells barrels and sold some to this guy.  The buyer returns one of the barrels and it clearly had something sloshing inside.  The buyer, disguised with a hoodie and shades, paid Wilson $200.00 to ship the barrel Ducky’s house.

In Abby’s lab, Gibbs visits and asks what she’s got.  Abby confirms that dental records indicate that the body in Vincent Hanlan’s casket is Vincent Hanlan.  Gibbs wants either DNA or dental records taken from before Hanlan’s prison stay.

Kate and Ducky return to Ducky’s home.  Given Kate’s last protection detail (UnSEALed, Episode 1.18), I’m not sure Ducky should feel all that safe.  Ducky and Kate find Tony and Mrs. Mallard grooming a corgi.  Kate relieves Tony, but not before Mrs. Mallard accuses her of having both loose morals and designs on Ducky.  She even asks to see Kate’s panties because, per Mrs. Mallard, you can always tell a girl’s intentions by her panties.

Abby calls Gibbs and she has dental records for Vincent Hanlan from his time in medical school.  Palmer compares the autopsy records to the medical school records.  Other than some excessive wear on the molars, which McGee attributes to the grinding of teeth, the x-rays match.  Gibbs tells Palmer and Abby to exhume Vincent Hanlan’s body anyway.

At Ducky’s house, he and his mom are asleep, and Kate is reading.  A dog is barking in the back yard and Mrs. Mallard goes outside to check on it.  Kate draws her gun and follows her out and Mrs. Mallard, in so many words, laughingly accuses Kate of sneaking out after having intercourse with Ducky, “just as I knew you would.”  Kate tells her to take the dog back inside, but Mrs. Mallard says it’s not her dog.  Kate doesn’t have time for dementia and insists.  Mrs. Mallard says she only has corgis, and sure enough, that dog ain’t a corgi.  Kate runs back inside, yelling Ducky’s name.  He’s missing from the chair he was sleeping in and there are signs of a struggle.  An engine cranks up and Kate runs out the front door to see a van drive off.  She looks to see her tire is slashed, and forlornly pulls out her phone as the show fades to commercial break.  She will not be fired.  But she probably should be fired.

Or maybe not.  Gibbs makes the valid point that he should have had two agents on the detail because Kate was just as responsible for Mrs. Mallard as she was for Ducky.  I wonder if that bit got inserted into the script after Sasha Alexander read the previous scene and let fly with a justified “Come the f$%* on!”  Tony comes in and tells Gibbs that the tire tracks from the van are of a certain type, which McGee matches to vans owned by both the Hanlan taxidermy business and the Hanlan funeral home.  Gibbs triumphantly shouts that this is good enough to seek a search authorization.  Although why start now?   

Gibbs and McGee storm the funeral home with agents.  Mrs. Hanlan is no more pleasant this time, and calls McGee a simpering wimp when he smarts off to her.  This actress is worth whatever they paid her.  She’s had maybe five lines of dialogue up to this point and I HATE the character.  In the way I’m intended to hate the character.  When Gibbs asks her to unlock a door, her body language brilliantly conveys her contempt.  Of course, then she stands in his way and he effectively threatens to assault her if she doesn’t move.  The doorway leads to the crematorium.  Gibbs tells McGee to take scrapings while he shits all over Ms. Hanlan’s parenting, to her utter indifference.

Back in autopsy, the dental x-rays for the exhumed corpse of Vincent Hanlan match the autopsy x-rays.  But Palmer has a brain storm.  He asks Abby if she can type blood from the soft tissue in a tooth.  She agrees to try.

Gibbs and McGee continue to disrupt the hell out of the funeral home business.  Even checking underneath a corpse in a coffin.  Mrs. Hanlan continues to spew menace, and threatens to tell the deceased gentleman’s family, who she identifies as “litigators.”  McGee has the funeral home van towed to the garage for forensics.  But otherwise they’ve found nothing, and Mrs. Hanlan isn’t pleasant about it.  Tony calls and reports similar results from the taxidermy shop.  But Gibbs pretends like Tony gave him good news for the benefit of the Hanlans and tells Tony to “bring him in.”  Then he laughs and he and McGee leave.  This makes Mr. Hanlan nervous and we get to see him tell his wife about Jonathan calling and reporting the search.  Mrs. Hanlan laughs and asks if NCIS thinks Jonathan “stuffed their precious doctor.”  Mr. Hanlan thinks they should “do something,” but Mrs. Hanlan tells him not to start thinking now.  “We’re far too old for that.”

Gibbs interrogates Jonathan and asks him to tell him about the accident.  Jonathan claims the fire was too hot and there was no way he could get to his brother.  Gibbs asks what Mrs. Hanlan thinks about this excuse and Jonathan says they don’t speak anymore because Vincent Hanlan was her favorite.  Gibbs states that she blames Jonathan for Vincent’s death, and then tells Jonathan, “If my friend dies, I’ll blame you too.”  Jonathan’s hands clench, and maybe he poops a little.

Once again, an interrogation is interrupted, as Kate comes over the intercom and tells Gibbs that Palmer and Abby need to see him.  Palmer and Abby have determined that while those are indeed Vincent Hanlan’s teeth in the skeleton’s jaw, the blood type in the teeth, doesn’t match the blood type for the body.  Abby also found minute traces of super glue in the jaw.  Meaning someone with skill, maybe an award-winning taxidermist, pulled Vincent Hanlan’s teeth and put them inside another person’s jaw.

Gibbs confronts Jonathan with the skull and the pile of teeth.  Jonathan denies doing the work.  He blames his mother and his brother and tells Gibbs that Vincent was drunk the night they crashed into the tree, but both got out before the car caught fire.  When they got home, Mrs. Hanlan had a car crash body laid out on the table and came up with the idea of giving Vincent a new life.  She extracted the teeth, put them in the body, and then burnt the corpse beyond recognition.  Gibbs asks where Vincent is.  Jonathan thinks he’s with his mother, where he always is, and that Ducky is there too.  Gibbs just didn’t look hard enough.  Gibbs hands Jonathan his phone and tells him to call his mother and convince her that NCIS hit a dead end and released him.  He picks up one of the teeth and tells Jonathan that if he doesn’t sell the story, “I will tear every tooth out of your skull.”  And then he hits Jonathan in the face with a tooth for emphasis.  Mark Harmon crushes this scene.  He looks completely unhinged.

Cut to a secret door in the Hanlan house, where a person dressed in all black opens up either a coffin or a crematorium and we see a bound and gagged Ducky within. 

Outside the funeral home, the agents are watching the house.  Tony wants to go in, but Gibbs says to wait until they get Ducky out of wherever they’ve been hiding him.  More lights come on, and the team storms the house as Vincent Hanlan is telling Ducky what’s about to happen to him (all of which Ducky probably knows, being an ME and all).  It’s four minutes of blood draining for eight years in prison.  Mom is assisting and says, “He’s getting off easy, angel.”  Oooo…they actually start draining Ducky’s blood through a tube from what looks like his carotid artery.  The team kicks in the door and Mr. Hanlan, who has probably been a broken man for a very long time, quietly tells the team where Ducky is. 

They burst into the rooms, gun drawn, but the tension is still high as they have to stop Ducky’s bleeding.  As Tony removes the tape from Ducky’s mouth, he desperately tells them to free his hands.  Then he yanks out the tube and Tony gets him something to stop the bleeding.  Gibbs tells the bad guys to get up against the wall and Vincent says he can’t go back to prison.  His mother keeps telling him to do as the agents say, but he tells her he’s sorry and slashes his own throat.  It would take a better man than I to not take satisfaction in the criminal mother losing her shit as her criminal son bleeds out on the floor.  Such was the power of actress Lee Garlington’s portrayal of this evil woman.

Ducky asks Gibbs what kept him. #Brits.

Back at HQ, Tony asks Gibbs if the mother finally gave a statement.  Gibbs responds, “Yeah, short one.  Two words.” 

The episode ends with Kate about to go on another date with Tony’s fraternity brother.  She plans on turning the tables and getting college dirt on Tony, and suddenly, he looks nervous.

Quotables:

(1) “Drawn out digressions is a privileged earned, Mr. Palmer.” -Ducky tells Palmer to get to the point.

(2) [Mrs. Hanlan blocks a door in her funeral home and refuses to unlock it]

McGee: Ma’am if you impede our search in any way, you will be charged with obstruction.

Gibbs [to McGee]: That’s not the way to do this.  [Approaching Mrs. Hanlan] I have the right to break down that door.  And anything in my way.

Time Until Sexual Harassment: It’s close to the line here.  The post-credits portion of the episode starts with Tony telling Kate intimate details about her date the prior weekend.  Kate accuses Tony of following her.  In reality, she went out with one of Tony’s fraternity brothers.  Kate is scandalized that Tony knows the “intimate” details of the date and appeals to Gibbs.  Gibbs sounds like he’s about to regulate for once, and Ducky calls him away.   

Honestly, but for the broader context, ad maybe absent the bit about intimate details, this is closer to co-worker razzing than harassment.

Ducky Tales: Palmer takes over and talks about why opposable thumbs are important.  Gibbs actually smiles.

Ducky quotes Marie Curie- “There is nothing in life to be feared; only to be understood.”

The Rest of the Story:

-Tony swears on his mother’s life that he wasn’t following Kate on her date.  Gibbs walks by and says Tony’s mother is dead.  This is the first mention that Tony’s mother is dead, and I think her death is explored a number of seasons from now.  It’s funny how what’s almost certainly a throwaway joke on a TV show can end up in a character bible and make for a plot point years later.

-Ducky’s mom is 96 years old and suffers from dementia, and she lives with him, so he can care for her.  Now I feel bad about making fun of him in earlier posts for living with his mom.  Mrs. Mallard returns in 2006.

-Tony references The Shining when he says, “Here’s Tony!” to Mrs. Mallard’s corgis. 

-We knew Abby slept in a casket, but apparently she sometimes wears a funeral gown to bed.

-McGee used to grind his teeth at night.  When he says he used to wear a device to protect his teeth at night, Abby says he still should, and then grins. 

-Kate used to protect the President?  Really?  Last time she had the security detail, she got tricked by a kid (UnSEALed, Episode 1.18).  This time she gets tricked by a dog.  Would it have been too much for the writers to have put that snafu on either Tony or McGee?

-I can’t imagine wanting a new identity enough to let my mom, or anyone else, pull out all my teeth.

-Ducky is the second prisoner that the team has saved from being embalmed alive.  See also, Marine Down (Episode 1.9).

-What kind of dirt could Kate get from Tony’s fraternity brother that would beat what she has on him already with respect to him making out with a guy?  I would think her better play would be to threaten to tell the fraternity brother about the events of Dead Man Talking (Episode 1.19).

Casting Call: The actors playing the Hanlans have all played a ton of roles, but none of those roles jumped out at me. 

Man, This Show Is Old: Other than cell phones and such, this episode isn’t particularly dated.

MVP: Well, the show ends with a perp in a box, which is always good.  But we can’t give an MVP to anyone for standing there while the perp kills himself.  Which means there’s only one person deserving of this coveted award.

Jimmy had the idea to type the blood in the tooth and compare it to the body.  His boss is alive because of him. 

Rating: Great episode.  We got a good, creepy horror story that had been on slow burn for a while.  The characters’ motivations were extreme, but consistent.  The tension was good, and the NCIS team looked genuinely helpless to find their friend at points.  Ducky was in legitimate danger.  And the acting was top-notch.  This show does well with guest-stars, but the actors playing the Hanlans really sold their roles.

And Ducky actually did something besides show up in the last third and COD some crook.

Eight Palmers.

Next Time: You’re not going to believe this, but a sailor is brutally murdered.