Episode: 3.12, Boxed In
Air Date: January 10, 2006. Welcome to 2006, the year I turned 30. I had still never seen an episode of this show.
The Victim: NCIS Special Agent Tony DiNozzo and Mossad Officer Ziva David. But will they die?
Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: Not applicable.
Plot Summary: Tony and Ziva arrive at a port and are walking among the shipping containers. He’s talking about going to watch women mud wrestle the night before. She made dinner for McGee. And Palmer. Tony is upset he has never been to Ziva’s place but she’ll invite Palmer. The conversation stops when they find an open storage containers with crates unloaded outside. But containers aren’t unloaded in the yard. Meaning, smugglers. The agents pull their weapons and converge on the location. They find nobody in the open container but see that the Customs seal has been broken. Suddenly, they take machine gun fire from two gun men.
Tony kills one of the assailants. But they’re still under attack, and with nowhere else to go, Tony and Ziva take cover inside the container. Then the bad guys lock them in.
Ziva is pissed at Tony for encouraging her to take up a defensive position in a metal box. Their phones don’t work, so that’s a problem. Tony says it’s not his fault. And he notes that the smugglers unloaded the cargo, so they’re probably not coming back. Tony suggests firing some rounds out of the openings in the container, but Ziva angrily notes that if the machine gun firefight didn’t attract notice, them wasting what’s left of their rounds won’t either.
Interestingly, despite her more formal training in derring-do, Ziva is much more emotional about this scrape than Tony. Who, honestly, the show rarely depicts losing his cool.
Tony is certain Gibbs will find them. Ziva believes him, but will Gibbs find them before they freeze to death?
In MTAC, Gibbs is getting a brief from NCIS agent Survoy on Tony’s and Ziva’s mission. They were looking for a container filled with smuggled weapons, but it actually contains highly unstable cluster bomblets. So, way worse. French intelligence thinks the material was loaded on a Senegalese ship a week ago. When Gibbs complains about the delay in notification, Agent Survoy blames the French, causing Gibbs to flash back to being arrested in France. It’s the same flashback from last episode (Model Behavior, Episode 3.11) where then-Special Agent Shepard simply watches the arrest from across the street.
McGee arrives in MTAC and says that Tony and Ziva called in and said they were changing their position based on new intel about the container. McGee couldn’t make out what they said because of the bad cell phone reception, though. Gibbs tells McGee to find them and tell them not to touch anything without a bomb squad present.
This segues to Tony doing just that: touching things. He opens crates and finds DVDs. Lots of DVDs. Tony wonders why they’d be shot at over DVDs and why they can’t find the supposed small arms shipment. Ziva is focused on escape, like a caged animal, and suggests shooting out the door near the bolt. Tony figures ricochets in a confined space are a terrible exit strategy. But before he can finish that thought, Ziva shoots and then has to tackle Tony to the floor to save him from the ricochet.
(I’m also surprised they aren’t deaf).
Ziva lingers as to getting off Tony and they briefly relive their adventure under covers in Under Covers, Episode 3.8 (you see what I did there). Ziva goes from panicked to flirty, and she’s still on top of Tony, their faces inches apart, when the scene shifts back to the squad room.
McGee is confused because even if cell phone signal is bad, GPS should work, yet he can’t locate Tony and Ziva. He suggests chips could be disabled, phones could be turned off, or they could be in a structure blocking the signal. Gibbs is very angry that McGee didn’t tell him that he lost track of Tony and Ziva and McGee stammers and makes excuses until he gets a head slap and a reminder that apologizing is a sign of weakness. Gibbs says, “Let’s find ‘em. Before DiNozzo blows both his arms off.”
And we segue to Tony tipping over a crate and breaking it open on the floor. Somebody should maybe tell him about the unstable explosives. Tony is confused about the lack of contraband. He feels like they’re missing something. Tony notices the dimensions seem off in the container, and discovers a false wall and a compartment. The agents find crates with Arabic writing warning of explosives and saying “Death to America.” Tony and Ziva are thinking they might be in trouble.
After a non-commercial break (thanks, Netflix), we see Tony and Ziva trying to open one of the crates. Why? Because if it is a bomb, Ziva wants to know whether it’s armed. There’s some concern that the crate might explode from a booby trap, so Tony makes sure to tell Ziva, in case it’s his last communication to her, that her life would have had more meaning if she’d slept with him. She responds, if he’d had anything else on his mind, maybe they would have. But she’s not serious.
They get the crate open and it is filled with money. Tony, holding a wad of bills, says when they get out of the container, he is going to buy Ziva a house. But it will be a fake house. Because the money is counterfeit. He knows because American currency ink doesn’t stink. He lights a bill on fire to show that the burn color is off. But, fake or real, Ziva notes that their friends are coming back for it.
At the port security office, Gibbs and McGee are talking to Matthew Lake, the head of security. He reports meeting with Tony and Ziva and describes their position. He’s irate that they called an audible and wandered off because any change in plan was supposed to be cleared with his office. Lake tells a member of his team to sweep a certain area to look for the missing agents. He stresses that, given the size of the port, even experienced people get lost all the time. McGee asks to review security tapes. Lake wants to know what NCIS is looking for. When he hears, “explosives,” he wants to lock down the ship rumored to be carrying them, but NCIS doesn’t have that intel. “From Senegal” doesn’t really narrow it down either, especially since the port gets dozens of security BOLOs daily and most of them are false alarms. Lake needs more, better intel before he can disrupt the port. Gibbs needs to find his people.
Tony is counting money. Ziva is setting up a defensive perimeter. Tony wants to light the money on fire. He thinks the ventilation ports at the top of the container will take care of the smoke AND draw attention. Ziva thinks he’s nuts, but he makes the point that it’s a better idea than firing a weapon inside a metal box. They light the money, and it warms them. The fire goes a little crazy with sparks and smoke, though.
Abby and Gibbs are on the phone and the reception is shitty, so Gibbs gives up and calls her on the port landline. He tells her to review security footage and find Tony and Ziva. She asks to speak to McGee, allegedly to get tech specs, but she just wants to know what happened to Tony and Ziva. McGee isn’t stupid so he does not waste time chatting with Abby beneath the fiery gaze of his boss, but agrees to her demand that he call when he is Gibbs-free.
Lake has forwarded all video to Abby. He shows Gibbs where the Senegalese ships are docked, and Gibbs and McGee take off to go find them. Lake is exasperated.
Tony and Ziva have put out the fire and the smoke hasn’t dissipated. That was not a good plan. They start preparing defensive fortifications again. Tony wants to know how he gets invited to Ziva’s house. Tony understands McGee, but Palmer? Ziva likes Palmer and he tuned her piano.
Ducky comes to Abby’s lab. Abby asks him why Gibbs doesn’t give them the full story. She thinks Gibbs thinks Tony and Ziva are in trouble, but is holding back.
Tony approves of Ziva’s fortifications. But he’s hungry. Ziva wants to know why he turns everything into a joke rather than admitting he’s scared. Tony shifts the subject to Steve McQueen movies and when Ziva objects, he accuses her of having no fantasy life. Tony wants to hear a Ziva fantasy and she says she has one involving him. Wher she’s a sumo wrestler. And that’s all Tony wants to hear. Per Ziva, it’s all about hot women and brave men to Tony and given anything beyond that he shuts down. Tony says he enjoys lots of deep movies and tells Ziva to pick a genre. They get into a discussion about why Ziva never talks about herself. She likes her privacy, but Tony thinks they could die in a cold metal box so he thinks she could give him something. And one of his choices is, “First time you realized daddy wasn’t perfect.” And, yeah, Tony is just as much a pro as Ziva. Even in the confines of a shipping container, he’s lightheartedly but purposefully trying to get at what makes his partner tick. Not necessarily for selfish or nefarious reasons, but because you need to know these things about people who are responsible for keeping you from getting shot.
Ziva is not as impressed as I am, however, and replaces her stone face and walks away. So, Tony says he’ll tell his daddy story, and the room shakes. Not because Tony’s story is so moving, but because the container is being lifted by a forklift. Interestingly, Gibbs and McGee appear to pass right under the container as it is being moved, assuming that wasn’t just a transition shot to a completely different forklift and container somewhere else on the dock.
Gibbs tells McGee to look for Tony’s and Ziva’s car, which he finds. Lake and Gibbs find a blood trail. And McGee finds the dead terrorist Tony shot.
Some time has passed. McGee updates Gibbs. They found evidence of the gun fight. Tony and Ziva were caught in a crossfire. McGee wonders if they’re dead and if he should order divers for the water. Gibbs says, “If they were in the water, they’d be dead. And if they were dead, I’d know about it.” And he pats McGee on the shoulder to buck him up a little.
Lake said nobody heard gunfire, and they’re trying to trace the container. Gibbs makes with the impossible order and tells Lake to search every container in the port. He tells McGee to supervise.
Ducky examines the terrorist’s body, and says Tony and/or Ziva shot the terrorist three times. The terrorist is 25-35 year old. He ran about 50 yards before he died and someone dragged him to cover. Ducky says the terrorist is foreign born because of the lack of quality dental work- third world, he thinks. Soft hands, too, meaning the terrorist isn’t a dock worker.
Tony is holding Ziva up so she can try to see their trajectory out of the ventilation port. Of the ways that the container could be transported, Tony prefers truck, and that seems to be the play. He starts yelling as the truck pulls up, but Ziva quiets him down. Because these people might be the bad guy. But Ziva has the idea that they might be able to throw money out the container to leave a trail (which they should have done by now).
At Abby’s lab, she is communicating via monitor with Gibbs and illustrating the security footage progression of Tony and Ziva.
A hobo is walking down the street and sees money falling out of the back of a shipping container on a truck. He begins following the trail.
Inside the truck, Tony, still can’t get a cell phone signal, but has the idea that using Ziva’s jewelry as an antenna might boost his gain. Ziva has doubts, but thinks that it will work if they’re precise.
Abby is still working through the footage for Gibbs. She gets an image of the dead terrorist and IDs him as Moussa Senghor, a Senegalese citizen and known terrorist. Senghor has ties to Wilson N’Diaye, al Qaeda’s money man.
Abby also shows another gunman but can’t ID him. Then the terrorists shoot the security camera. But McGee sees something he likes. By comparing the film from Abby with the crime scene shots, McGee notices a container is missing and theorizes that Tony and Ziva took cover in it.
Tony and Ziva are still working on the antenna.
The hobo is still picking up money.
At port security, Lake can’t track the container without a tracking number. But he and the agents determine that they can find the forklift that moved the container.
The truck makes its delivery. Tony and Ziva are still struggling with the antenna. The truck comes to a stop and Ziva tells Tony that if he’s going to make a phone call, he should do it in a hurry.
Abby confirms that the rounds in the dead guy are all from Tony’s guns; and that none of the blood on-site was from Tony or Ziva. Tony and Ziva are both capable and Abby has GPS locked and loaded for when their cell phones come on again. She’s trying to convince herself and Ducky that there’s nothing to worry about. Ducky brings her in for a hug and tells her their friends are going to be fine.
Gibbs and McGee are coordinating a massive NCIS agent search. Lake seems to have traced where the container ended up: at an auxiliary warehouse. He offers to send someone to contact the truck drivers, who should still be with their rigs, but Gibbs says he and McGee will take care of it.
At the warehouse, Ziva is listening and trying to translate. She thinks the terrorists are debating the best way to murder her and Tony. The container unlocks and a voice tells them to come out. It’s N’Diaye, al Qaeda’s money man. Ziva claims she can’t hear him and climbs to the top of her crate fortifications, near the ceiling of the container. N’Diaye walks closer, repeats himself and asks for her answer. Ziva sees his foot come into view through the crack in the container door and says, “This,” and shoots
N’Diaye in the foot. Tony gets ready to make the call.
Gibbs and McGee are searching the warehouse area in Gibbs’s car when the phone rings and Tony gets through. But the reception is garbled and Gibbs can only hear a reference to following the money. The terrorists begin their assault, so Tony has to go.
Abby has Tony’s phone on GPS for a second, but loses it again. Still, she narrowed the radius to 500 meters.
The terrorists pull open the doors of the container from afar with wires, and then begin perforating Ziva’s fortifications with machine gun fire.
Abby can’t get through to Gibbs or McGee, so Ducky suggests trying to reach them through the port security office. She gets Lake, and gives him the coordinates of Tony’s and Ziva’s location.
Tony and Ziva are pinned down and almost out of ammo. Tony yells out that they found the money and that the terrorists need to cease fire, or he and Ziva will start burning it. N’Diaye thinks they’re bluffing, so Tony throws out two stacks of burning bills. N’Diaye is not happy about that and asks for terms. Tony suggests “surrender.” N’Diaye seems OK with that and says, “Throw out your weapons.” Tony says, “Not us, you idiot.” But then N’Diaye makes the valid point that Tony and Ziva will be dead before they can burn $50 million. Tony tells Ziva they just need to stall and then tells N’Diaye that he and Ziva will talk it over.
Gibbs gets the coordinates from Lake and makes ready to follow. Then they find the hobo. He gives them the direction of the money. It’s the wrong direction from the GPS fix, but Gibbs trusts Tony over the technology, so off they go.
The standoff continues, but Tony takes a flesh wound from wooden shrapnel, and then our friends are out of ammo. Tony asks about the friction burns he saw on her earlier. Ziva laughs and says she’ll tell him only when she’s positive they’re going to die. Tony gives them ten minutes. Ziva apologizes for not inviting Tony to dinner. But then they hear Lake’s voice saying port security and telling the terrorists to surrender and get on their knees. He calls for Tony and Ziva by name, and they come out of the container to see Lake covering the gunmen. Tony asks where Gibbs is, and Lake says he’s on his way. Lake asks the agents to do him a favor and cover the gunmen while he radios for help. Ziva says they’re out of ammo, and Lake turns the gun on them and says, “Oh geez, that’s too bad.”
Ooops. You kinda wanted Lake to be a good guy. He had charisma. Charm, even. He was so helpful, if a little cranky about it. Man.
Lake tells N’Diaye and his goon to get the money out of the container and into the van. N’Diaye says when it’s all over, Ziva belongs to him. Lake is noncommittal. He wants to go ahead and kill Tony and Ziva since they almost cost him $15 million. Tony says it’s more like $10-12 million and Ziva admits they burned some of it. Lake angrily asks if Tony thinks this is funny. Tony says not him personally. But Gibbs does, and announces as much when he puts his Sig to Lake’s head. McGee locks the terrorists in the container.
Gibbs asks if his agents are OK. Ziva says, “No,” and walks over and kicks Lake in his balls. Then she half limps away and, when asked where she’s going, notes in so many words that she has been locked in a box all day and really needs to pee.
Back at the squad room, Tony is milking his injury and making McGee clean the soot from the earlier fire off his face. They argue over whether Tony, whose arm is in a sling, was actually shot or just grazed by wood. Abby comes to welcome Tony back with a huge hug, sees that he’s hurt and yells at McGee for not taking better care of Tony. Abby asks who is driving Tony home. Ziva appears and says she is, and she’s making Tony dinner. Abby looks over at Ziva, and then runs over and gives her a huge hug too. “What was that for?” asks Ziva. “I’m glad you’re not dead,” says Abby.
Abby asks what Ziva is cooking for Tony and then says that Ziva is an amazing cook and makes clear that she was also at dinner the previous night. As was Gibbs. And we end with Tony feeling terrible about himself.
Quotables:
Ziva: Careful. This thing could be booby-trapped a dozen different ways.
Tony: Then why are we opening it again?
Ziva: Because if it is a bomb, it might be armed.
Tony: Hey, listen, if this thing goes off, I just want you to know that…
Ziva: This is not your fault, I know.
Tony: Uh, no. I was gonna say that your life would’ve had more meaning if you’d slept with me.
Ziva: If you had anything else on your mind, perhaps I would have.
Tony: Really?
Ziva: No.
Ducky Tales: No time for that.
The Rest of the Story:
-Tony refers to Palmer as the Autopsy Gremlin again.
-Ziva says “screwed” when she means “bolted.” But, either way you slice it, she and Tony are screwed. She says “braless,” when she means “barless,” referring to the lack of a cell phone signal. But she’s also braless, per Tony. She confuses “King Cole” for “King Midas.” She says “homos” when she means “hobos.”
-Still not a numbered rule, but Gibbs tells McGee, “Don’t apologize. It’s a sign of weakness.”
-McGee gets a head slap.
-OK, so now we know, as of this episode, Tony and Ziva have not slept together.
-Why in the hell would terrorists write “Death to America” on crates they were trying to smuggle. Even hidden crates. That’s leaving a lot to chance.
-Not that these guys are geniuses. Locking Tony and Ziva in the container was one of the least efficient ways to deal with the problem.
-Like Kate before her, Ziva does not care for the constant movie references spewing forth from Tony.
Tony references Night of the Living Dead (1968)and Body Heat (1981)
-Tony’s mother used to make him take piano lessons with a woman who hit him with a ruler every time he made a mistake.
-Tony notices that Ziva has friction burns. He seems to think they’re from kinky sex. I wonder if he’s scared one of his co-workers and Ziva fooled around.
-Presumably the cold war between Ziva and Abby ended off screen since Abby was invited to dinner.
-This is the second time this season Tony has needed to be driven home after a case. See Under Covers, Episode 3.8.
Casting Call: Lake was played by Daniel Roebuck, who has had roles in The Man in the High Castle, Agents of SHIELD, and Lost.
Man, This Show Is Old: With increased cell phone coverage and signal strength, one wonders if this plot would be as believable in 2019.
MVP: Tony. He and Ziva do a good job of self-help for the most part, but Tony keeps a cooler head than Ziva. And, of course, he iced a perp. And he probably needs a trophy to keep him company while his friends and the autopsy gremlin are all off having a nice time without him.
Rating: It’s a surprisingly simple, but terrifying idea: what if you were locked in a storage container and surrounded by thousands of storage containers and nobody had a good idea where you were? Even without the idea of terrorists coming back for you, that’s frightening. And while Tony’s and Ziva’s connection in this episode was less remarkable than in previous episodes, it wasn’t bad. The reveal on Lake was solid too. I’ve seen this one before, but the first time I watched it, it surprised me because Lake was mostly pretty helpful. And clever. You have to read between the lines, but he almost certainly gave Gibbs the wrong coordinates for the warehouse in a way that would give him plausible deniability for writing them down wrong. Fortunately for Tony and Ziva, Gibbs trusted his agents more than a satellite fix even with no reason to distrust Lake.
Entertaining, tense, fast-paced (especially compared to last episode) good character work, nice twist. Seven Palmers.
Next Time: A woman gets abducted and NCIS races against the clock to find her. Yes, that is really boring, cliched copy. Statistically, they can’t all be gems and I’m tired.
A Year of NCIS 