Episode: 4.13, Sharif Returns. Talk about a spoiler.
Air Date: January 23, 2007.
The Victim: Major John McGuire, USMC.
Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: A man is walking down the street, presumably in DC, talking on a large pre-Bluetooth headset about his wife’s interest in cryogenics. He crosses with the light and almost gets run over. The pedestrian and the driver argue over what the traffic light depicted, but then both notice the green light is flickering. The pedestrian calls it a malfunction. The driver recognizes it for what it is: a Morse code SOS.
Plot Recap: NCIS is on the scene. But why? Do they have jurisdiction over all Morse code calls for assistance?
Aha. Major John McGuire, USMC is lying in a sewer near where the utility company back-traced the electrical disturbance that created the SOS light. Major McGuire is dead and…missing an eye? He worked under Marine Corps systems command as liaison to the civilian sector for nuclear, biological and chemical preparedness. The nearby door is locked, meaning someone locked the Major in the hole. He didn’t know where his SOS was going and simply hacked a nearby power box. He got lucky that someone recognized his signal.
Major McGuire has blood on his hands, like he tried to climb the walls. There’s no obvious COD, but it appears the victim was running a slight fever. Whatever it was that killed Major McGuire, somebody wanted to watch. Ziva finds a nearby remote camera.
In autopsy, Ducky determines a COD of hyperthermia. Major McGuire got too hot and his organs failed. But the Major doesn’t suffer from any of the heat stroke risk factors. Ducky thinks maybe the tox screen will ID some medication that interferes with bodily temperature regulation. Ducky also says the Major tore out his own eyeball. And since Ducky found it in his stomach, there’s a good chance he swallowed it.
In the lab, Abby explains the hyperthermia. Her tox screen found BZ gas, a chemical weapon that causes hallucinations, hyperthermia, and death. She can’t trace it, though. The camera may be another matter, though. Abby traced the transmittal signal to a bowling alley.
The four field agents arrive at the bowling alley. Gibbs and McGee enter the front. Nobody is bowling. An interrogation is going on in the manager’s office. Gibbs and McGee storm in and suddenly everyone is pulling guns on everyone, including Tony and Ziva, arriving from the back. And including Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann, Army CID.
Looks like everybody’s a good guy.
Back at HQ, Lt. Col. Mann shows Gibbs a picture of Mamoun Sharif, the escaped terrorist from Sandblast, Episode 4.7. An old lead from Sharif’s CIA informant days led the to a credit card used by Sharif which led them to the bowling alley. Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann continue their usual flirtation. Meanwhile the agents wonder what the hell they’re seeing that is so incomprehensible that their brains choose to translate it as Gibbs making time with a lady lieutenant colonel in the NCIS squad room.
Tony arrives to confirm that the dead Marine and the hunt for Sharif are connected. Fingerprints lifted from a free-internet computer at the bowling alley match Sharif’s from his CIA file. Sharif was monitoring Major McGuire’s death from the bowling alley. But if Sharif is back, why has he moved from bombs to gas. And where did he get the gas? Tony reports that Major McGuire was responsible for delivering BZ gas in small quantities to civilian research labs. Gibbs sends Tony and Ziva to check those labs, but they’re already in motion and finishing his sentences. Lt. Col. Mann is impressed.
McGee wants to know why Sharif, if he’s trying to cover his tracks, would kill the Major. Gibbs thinks Sharif was testing the gas.
Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann brief the Director. She asks about targets and/or intel. The last time Sharif planned an attack, there was zero chatter, so the team can’t count on an early warning form terrorist communication. Shepard says that she and the CID director flipped a coin and Lt. Col. Mann will work “under” Gibbs as part of a joint investigation. Trapped in a room with a woman he has had sex with and who clearly has territorial issues with a woman with whom he hopes to soon have sex, Gibbs can’t help but turn Shepard’s remarks into a double entendre about who gets to be on top. And now it’s awkward. Gibbs even hangs around and smiles until Shepard gestures for he and the Lieutenant Colonel to leave.
Lt. Col. Mann isn’t dumb and asks casually about Gibbs’s “work” history with Shepard. Gibbs doesn’t give up the goods. And then Shepard come out and gives him the eye on her way to MTAC. The scene ends on Gibbs’s “women love me” smirk.
Ziva and Tony are interviewing the head of one of the labs that works with BZ gas for the military. He has problems of his own including falling stock from not being able to sell gas masks, and doesn’t much care about their investigation. But he confirms that Major McGuire dropped off a shipment of BZ gas. Tony gets a phone call mid-interview. As has been a running theme this season, he interrupts his work to take a phone call from his girlfriend, Dr. Jeanne Benoit. Ziva once again notes Tony’s having two cell phones. We only hear Tony’s end, but it sounds like Jeanne is canceling a date. Tony takes a rain check. Ziva remains curious, and, per last episode, concerned that all these calls with a doctor mean that Tony is sick. (See Suspicious, Episode 4.11).
The lab head takes Tony and Ziva to meet his chief engineer, Dane Hogan, an attractive man. Tony kids Ziva about wanting the man’s number. Tony wants to confirm shipment. He also asks questions about the lab’s purpose, which prompts some expository dialogue on why a lab tests banned weapons (answer: to create safeguards to use against people who don’t care about bans). The shipment details confirm delivery of 4 kgs of BZ gas. But the Marine records demonstrate delivery of 14 kg. Tony asks if the missing 10kg is a lot and Hogan tosses him a gas mask.
In the lab, McGee is gossiping to Abby about Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann. They’re also using the software from Singled Out, Episode 4.3 to predict what a child of Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann would look like. So, of course they get caught by both Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann. They report that Major McGuire recently received a $20k wire into his bank account. They technobabble and Lt. Col. Mann wonders how long it will last. Gibbs says until someone stops them, so she asks McGee for the bottom line. McGee says they found the video that Sharif watched of Major McGuire, and they queue it up on screen. First the Major tries to pick the lock. Then he calls for help. Then he thinks of using the power box to send an SOS. But when the BZ gas goes into effect, he goes crazy, collapses, and rips out and eats his own eye. Lt. Col. Mann quietly asks how much BZ gas would cause this. Abby estimates 10 mg. Which is a million times less than the 10 kg Sharif presently has in his possession.
In the squad room, Tony calls for a campfire to discuss the case, and everyone boos. Gibbs just leaves. Lt. Col. Mann wonders where he’s going and McGee says, “Where he always goes to think.”
We switch to Gibbs’s basement where Gibbs is using hand tools to fiddle with lumber, like always. Lt. Col. Mann breaks into Gibbs’s house (again) and joins him downstairs to tell him that all the agencies are on Sharif’s ass now. Belatedly. She (and I) wonder where Gibbs’s boat is, because he is woodworking something smaller- maybe another boat? Gibbs says he had to move his old boat to make some room. While the question ultimately remains unviced, Lt. Col. Mann (and I) also wonder how the hell he got it out of there. But Gibbs doesn’t feel like dispelling any of the mysteries that surround him. Lt. Col. Mann says she’s here to brainstorm the case with Gibbs. He questions her intentions, and hey, she brought dinner. Lt. Col. Mann wonders if Sharif will just sell the gas. Gibbs thinks Sharif has the eyes of a killer, not a greedy person. Lt. Col. Mann wonders what changed, given that he used to always be for sale to the highest bidder. Gibbs says people get older and change what they want. Lt. Col. Mann wonders how Gibbs can see all that in a man’s eyes and then wonder’s what he see’s in a Mann’s eyes. Meaning her eyes because her name is…no? Stop? OK.
Gibbs looks into her eyes and says she wants him to give her a kiss. She asks if he’s going to. He says yes. But after they catch Sharif. Master motivator there. There’s a long pause and then Lt. Col. Mann says it’s probably a good idea to wait. Gibbs is bummed now because he was hoping she’d talk him into going for it, and then she leaves so she won’t change her mind.
Gibbs gets a phone call after Lt. Col. Mann exits. His phone is in a nail jar, but he fishes it out. It’s Sharif. Gibbs asks what he wants, and Sharif bemoans the lack of pleasantries. Gibbs says the front door’s open and to bring coffee. Sharif says he already did, and that Gibbs has a nice place. He also says he did some re-decorating. Sharif gets down to brass tacks. He wants six Chechnyan separatists released from an Afghanistan prison. Or he’ll release “more” of the gas. Gibbs zones in on “more” and Sharif is blasé about how many people have been exposed. Airborne gas is tricky, he says. Gibbs turns on his basement TV. The news reports no fatalities, but six people have fallen ill. Sharif hears that and says Gibbs makes seven.
Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann are isolated in autopsy. Ducky emerges and reports that Sharif was bluffing and Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann are clear of any exposure to BZ gas. Ziva confirms no fatalities at the hospitals and the attack is being reported as food poisoning. So far there is no link between Sharif and Chechnyan rebels, but Gibbs thinks that was a feint by Sharif to distract them from the real objective.
McGee reports that several of the affected people reported seeing a red exterminator truck on the street before they took ill. Gibbs starts to give Ziva instructions, but notices that Tony is gone again. Ziva shrugs and says if Gibbs knows where Tony is, he has thus far refused to tell her. Gibbs angrily tells Ziva to find Tony.
Tony is knocking on Jeanne’s door, the lusty truant. He ignores a call from Ziva. Then Jeanne walks around the corner and, not entirely politely, checks to see if Tony understands the meaning of the word “rain check.” They have a pseudo-fight because apparently Jeanne got an email from an old “friend” who isn’t good at taking “no” for an answer. She’s projecting her annoyance a bit on to Tony. But he wins her heart back with a movie boxed set. The whole scene is sort of pointless, but it looks like Tony is getting laid all the same. Jeanne leaves to run a bath and Tony surreptitiously checks her computer and finds an email where a guy says he wants her back. But then he sees her news scroll and an item about the “mystery illness.” This time he takes the call from Ziva. They argue about where he keeps disappearing to and she updates him about the exterminator truck. Tony knows that duty calls and hangs up on Ziva’s efforts to find out where he is. Jeanne comes out in a bathrobe and says the water is getting cold, and now it’s poor Tony who will have to take a rain check.
In MTAC, Shepard is on the phone with someone, reporting that the exterminator firm lost a truck but didn’t realize it until Tony and Ziva dropped by. Sharif is a former employee of the company. Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann arrive. Shepard tells Gibbs that the truck’s sprayer can be adapted for aircraft. She outlines preventative and surveillance measures including mobile sensors and grounding small aircraft. Lt. Col. Mann recommends getting an antidote into the hands of local trauma wards and base hospitals, and Shepard says all of this is “in the works.” Lt. Col. Mann hopes that phrase means something different at NCIS than where she comes from, but Gibbs tells her to “keep hoping.” Then he flashes back to the scene at the end of Hiatus (Part Two), Episode 3.24, when the U.S. government decided that letting innocent people die was forgivable if it prevented the broader public from learning about a potential terrorist attack. Shepard sees Gibbs zone out, and asks, but he waves it off and he and Lt. Col. Mann leave.
Well…she tries to leave. Shepard gives Lt. Col. Mann a lecture about Gibbs not exactly following orders and placing himself in danger and tells her to watch out for him. He has already ended up in a coma in the last six months. Lt. Col. Mann thinks Gibbs can take care of himself but acknowledges the warning.
Gibbs is watching the news speculate about terrorist attacks in response to the FAA grounding of small craft. Abby and McGee come to the squad room and tell Gibbs that they were able to back-trace the wire transfer to Major McGuire’s account. But it didn’t come from Sharif. It came from Hogan, the engineer guy…
…who is now sitting in interrogation. Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann pay a visit and Hogan asks for a lawyer. Gibbs invokes the Patriot Act and makes clear that lawyers and trials are not a thing that are going to happen for Hogan unless he convinces them he’s not a terrorist. Hogan caves and says he diverted the gas to Sharif and Major McGuire found out. Sharif told Hogan that he’d take care of Major McGuire. Hogan figured it would be traced to him when Major McGuire disappeared, so he faked a wire. And that’s not all he faked. Hogan’s company paid him in stock options. The company wasn’t doing well, so Hogan paid Sharif to fake a terrorist attack. Now, with the grounding of small planes and TV news reporting the possibility of attacks, everyone is buying gas masks, Hogan’s company’s stock went through the roof, and he’ll be a millionaire by morning. A millionaire in prison. Hogan tells Lt. Col. Mann and Gibbs that he monkeyed with the BZ gas, though, to make it ineffective in an airborne attack. Ingesting it will kill you, but so will lots of things. He swears there’s no terrorist attack. But he doesn’t have an answer when Gibbs asks why there are six people in the hospital.
McGee reports that the local LEOs found the stolen exterminator sprayers in an alley. No trace of BZ gas. Lt. Col. Mann confirms that the BZ gas has been modified. CID checked the blood of the people in the hospital and found evidence of modification. It’s harmless unless ingested. Including Major McGuire, Gibbs has seven reasons to assume that’s not the case. McGee wonders if Sharif could have found a way to un-modify the gas.
At that moment, Sharif calls and sportingly agrees to allow Gibbs time to start a trace. He tells Gibbs he plans to do some traveling in his retirement. But not to Chechnya- Sharif laughs and tells Gibbs he doesn’t even know where it is. Gibbs doesn’t believe this is about money and wants to know who Sharif is getting revenge over/on. Gibbs even tries to bond a little and says he has been there. Sharif hangs up.
Ducky arrives with a clue. When he learned the gas had been modified, he looked for other methods of exposure. Ducky tested the urine and Major McGuire’s finger tips and theorizes that Sharif has created some kind of topical application for the BZ gas. Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann take off. Ducky observes to Tony that while Gibbs always gets his man, the two seem unusually motivated to find Sharif.
Because Gibbs wants to get his Mann! Yeah? Yeah?
Abby tests the finger tip sample Ducky procured and confirms that Sharif mixed BZ gas with DMSO, which is a chemical that will deliver anything it’s mixed with straight to the bloodstream. The bad news is this could work on as many as 100,000 people given the amount of BZ gas outstanding. The good news is it seems like distribution would still be a problem. Abby thinks Sharif could do more damage with a shotgun. Gibbs flashes back to sniping Pedro Hernandez to death for murdering his family. For some reason.
In the squad room, the agents show Gibbs evidence that Sharif got flagged for making twelve different $9,000.00 withdrawals from twelve different banks. $108,000.00 in all. Lt. Col. Mann thinks Sharif is putting the BZ ointment on the money and plans to distribute it. Tony heads to check out racetracks and casinos, McGee to travel terminals, Ziva to coordinate road blocks. Lt. Col. Mann worries that a warning will wreak havoc on the economy. She’s also pessimistic that they’ll find Sharif and Gibbs wonders if she’s reneging on their hook-up deal.
Gibbs pulls up a still of Sharif leaving one of the banks. McGee recognizes a portable game box. Tony says the bowling alley owner previously said Sharif was addicted to it. Because it’s wireless, McGee can trace it if it’s on and Sharif is playing under his game ID.
Abby locates Sharif’s game handle by hacking the bowling alley where Sharif killed time waiting for Major McGuire to die. Amusingly, Sharif’s handle is “Agent Gibbs.” They track him to the local AMTRAK station.
The team and Lt. Col. Mann arrive. Gibbs tells Ziva to lock the station down. The National Guard is en route with the BZ antidote. Lt. Col. Mann tells Tony to have security block all exits.
Sharif is in a restaurant and pays with cash, telling the bartender to keep the change. Sharif has dyed his hair blonde, so Gibbs and McGee walk right by him while his back is turned. But Gibbs saw something, because he turns, and we get a slow motion shot of them recognizing each other. Gibbs flashes back to killing Pedro Hernandez again. Sharif turns to walk off, but Gibbs pulls his gun and identifies himself and tells Sharif to get down on the ground. Gibbs vision blurs and he falters (exposed?) Sharif senses the hesitation and runs. He throws money in the air and people start going for it as McGee tries to tell them that the money is poisoned. Gibbs gives chase, but he’s clearly in dire straits and can barely stand or hold his gun. Gibbs corners Sharif in a men’s room (why’d he run in there?) but then collapses. He asks what Sharif did to him. Sharif says he coated Gibbs’s hand tools with the toxin, which is undetectable until it reaches the brain. That’s why Ducky didn’t find it. Sharif thinks Gibbs is manifesting symptoms earlier than expected, but he’s not complaining. He picks up Gibbs’s gun. Gibbs goes for a knife, but he can’t hold on to it. A lot of these scenes are shot from Gibbs’s perspective, with everything blurry and shifting. Sharif tells Gibbs the name of his own dead family members and reveals they were killed by a U.S. smart bomb that went astray. Ironically, he asks Gibbs if he knows what it’s like to lose his family.
Sharif makes ready to finish Gibbs off with Gibbs’s own gun. But Lt. Col. Mann arrives just in time to win her first MVP with multiple kill shots to Sharif’s chest. Tony and McGee also arrive and say the antidote is coming. Lt. Col. Mann leans over, and Gibbs sees her blurry face staring down at him.
Lt. Col. Mann is in her bed watching TV news. Gibbs calls and she offers to buzz him in. But turnabout is fair play and her door was unlocked, so he just wanders into her bedroom like a Super Pro. She jokes that her doorbell works (his does not- See Sandblast, Episode 4.7). She asks if he’s feeling better, and Gibbs is definitely feeling better than Tony, whom he tasked with burning the tainted $100k. Gibbs joins Lt. Col. Mann on the bed and says he came by to thank her. They start making out. She says before they “do this,” she needs to know one thing: “How did you get that damn boat out of your basement.”
And the show ends before we get to find out. Which is bullshit.
Quotables:
Lt. Col. Mann: How much?
Ziva: $108,000.
McGee: That’s a lot of singles.
Ziva: Approximately one hundred and eight thousand.
Tony: I have an entirely inappropriate joke about strip clubs, but I’m going to save it for a less terrifying moment.
Ziva-propisms: Ziva does know what “wazoo,” means. As in when the lab head says, “I’ve got creditors out the wazoo.”
Tony Awards: Jeanne references Beaches (1988).
Abby Road: Abby ropes Gibbs into her search for a new tattoo. Until he asks where she wants it. Then it’s a conversation best had with others.
McNicknames: Elf Lord makes a return.
Ducky Tales: Ducky talks about the precursor to SOS. He also talks about the origin of the artificial glass eye, and how they would pop out during sex. Seriously.
The Rest of the Story:
-Mamoun Sharif was last seen in Sandblast, Episode 4.7.
-When Ducky finds the eyeball in the victim’s stomach, Gibbs makes sure he didn’t also find a toe. This is a reference to the serial killer(s?) in Smoked, Episode 4.10.
-We also met Lt. Col. Mann in Sandblast, Episode 4.7. She will appear again this season.
-Campfires were Tony’s way for the team to discuss a case as a group when he was in charge during Gibbs’s retirement. They were most prominently featured in Escaped, Episode 4.2.
-Truly Season 4 is the Season of Gettin’ Some. Gibbs and Lt. Col. Mann; Palmer and Agent Lee; Tony and Jeanne Benoit; Tony and Ziva (allegedly); Abby and Marty Pearson; McGee and a Redskins cheerleader. Ducky needs to up his game.
-This is the first time (other than the original Hiatus episodes) that Gibbs flashes back to killing Pedro Hernandez, the man who murdered his family. It will not be the last time. Presumably all of the flashbacks in this episode were simply to clue us in that the drug was working on Gibbs’s brain. Because they’re pretty much complete non sequiturs otherwise. I even wondered if Sharif had some kind of connection to Hernandez.
Casting Call: Nobody we haven’t already met before.
Man, This Show Is Old: The man in the opening has what would now be a comically oversized phone headset. He looks like he escaped from a telemarketing farm.
References are made to Hurricane Katrina (2005) and the tsunami that it Thailand in 2004. Nowadays, disaster shorthand would maybe reference something more recent, but Katrina is still a pretty solid reference.
The tainted money scheme would work today, but a warning about it would not, per Lt. Col. Mann, wreak havoc on the economy. Most people with purchasing power don’t carry cash in 2019.
MVP: Take your prize, Lt. Col. Mann. Gibbs will wrap it up for you (yeah he will!).
Rating: Solid but not brilliant. Sharif’s characterization is all over the place between the two episodes in which he appears, and the last-minute effort to turn him into an evil Gibbs would have worked better if built up over a longer period. Moments like this, you can tell the show needs a new Ari, but Sharif was too haphazardly developed to fill the role. Better to snuff him in a men’s room and start over.
Six Palmers.
Next Time: Worlds collide as the team as a whole takes on…Le Grenouille.
A Year of NCIS 