A Year of NCIS, Day 89: Grace Period (Episode 4.19)

Episode: 4.19, Grace Period

Air Date: April 3, 2007.

The Victim: NCIS Special Agent Hall, NCIS Special Agent Nelson, and…well, spoilers.

Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: Special Agent Paula Cassidy

Plot Recap: The episode starts at an outside café.  Two redshirts NCIS agents we have never seen before, Agent Hall and Agent Nelson, are waiting to meet an informant who called the NCIS hotline about a terrorist plot.  The informant is three hours late and the agents are grumping at their boss over the commlink about having to pull two weekend duty shifts.  Their boss is NCIS Special Agent Paula Cassidy, sitting in a nearby car, staking out the meet.  Paula is also annoyed about pulling double duty to talk to a guy who may be full of shit.  Paula gets a call, and the informant tells her to meet him at an address.  She wants to do the meeting on the street, but the informant claims he’ll be killed by people watching if he is seen talking to feds.  Agent Hall can hear the call over the comm and rolls his eyes. 

They make the likely informant walking across the street.  Paula tells them to follow and pick up the guy and she’ll be right behind them.  The agents follow the informant to a storefront.  Right as Paula’s car pulls up to the curb, a massive explosion destroys the building and our two redshirts agents and throws Paula to the pavement amidst flaming debris.

Post-credits, Gibbs is spending his Saturday not getting blown up.  He is at the batting cages teaching Lt. Col. Mann how to hit.  CID just put Lt. Col. Mann in charge of the softball team, but she’s more focused on how Gibbs’s ass looks than learning anything.  Still, they seem to be in much better shape relationship-wise since their awkward passive aggression in Skeletons, Episode 4.17.  Gibbs gets good and handsy while correcting her stance, but that’s the joy of the batting cage date.  She tees up some double entendres about fast speed versus low speed, but then she swats numerous balls.  Because TV people are either naturals at new activities (or assholes who lie about their previous experience).

Gibbs gets a call and ends the date.  Lt. Col. Mann objects because they were supposed to spend the entire weekend together (wow, that is progress from him “slinking” out of her bedroom).  But she can’t validly object when he announces that they just lost two NCIS agents.

In the squad room, McGee and Ziva are looking at the pictures of the dead agents on the plasma.  McGee tells Ziva that he and Agent Nelson attended FLETC together.  Agent Nelson was recently married.  Tony arrives, characteristically self-absorbed and complaining about his floor seats to the Wizards game.  To his credit, he shuts up quickly when he hears the news.  Tony and Paula had a thing once or twice, so his concern immediately turns to her, but she’s still alive.  Gibbs enters and tells the team to grab their gear.  Then he tells them much louder.  Director Shepard looks on somberly from the balcony.

At the scene, Ducky says the agents died almost immediately (Gibbs isn’t consoled), caused by shrapnel in the form of ball bearings and nails.  The store has remnants of five Arab nation flags inside and Ziva wonders what the hell kind of store it was.  McGee is looking into that.   Based on the arrangement of body parts, Ducky and Gibbs think the informant was a suicide bomber.  They can’t find his head, though.  Ziva looks up at the ceiling and thinks they might have to search the roof.

Tony wonders why a terrorist would blow up an empty store.  Paula appears.  She’s distraught and says the place wasn’t empty.  McGee tells Gibbs that Paula insisted on being part of the investigation (as if that decides it).  McGee also tells Gibbs the landlord thought he was renting to a non-profit, so he’s not sure what’s up with the flags.  Paula starts spazzing about it being her fault and that she killed her team.  Tony moves toward her, but it’s Gibbs who moves her away from the scene.  He tells Tony to find the bomber’s missing head.  Tony stares, but then gets to business.

Gibbs finds Paula in the NCIS truck.  He has not had much patience with her in the past, so I’m curious to see how this is gonna go.  She preemptively says she doesn’t need a lecture, which is probably a fair approach given their past dealings.  Gibbs hands her a pile of tissues and asks about the tip she got.  She tells him what we already know- it was a hotline tip about a terrorist attack.  He asks about the target, but Paula thinks it’s obvious it was NCIS.  She’s angry she didn’t go in with her team, but Gibbs says if it was an ambush and there was nothing she could have done.  She wonders if Gibbs would feel the same way.  He says he would.  She doesn’t believe him, so he challenges her: if their positions were reversed, he wouldn’t stop to grieve until he “put the bastards in the ground.”  “What about you?” he asks as he leaves.

The camera keeps panning over dead Agent Nelson’s face.  Ducky is trying to help McGee process through the death of his friend.  Ducky figures McGee is thinking it could have been him.  For reasons unknown, Gibbs decides to help exacerbate any sense of survivor’s guilt by telling McGee they were supposed to be working the hotline this weekend.  Tony asks if Gibbs is serious, but they’re interrupted by some angry Arab guys trying to break through the police cordon.  They are members of the Muslim Coalition for Peace.  They’re looking for a friend and, Tony picks that exact moment to yell, “Found it” before dropping a severed head down from the ceiling.  The two Arab guys are distraught, and Gibbs asks if they know the guy.  The head belongs to Yazeed Fahad, the chapter president. 

Gibbs has both MCP guys, Abdul and Jamal, in interrogation.  Paula, in observation, wonders why he didn’t separate them per his usual rules.  The MCP guys are defending Yazeed as a man of peace and think that if he blew himself up, he was forced to wear the bomb.  According to them, there is an upcoming peace conference with a bunch of high-level Islamic cleric types from five countries (hence the flags).  The cleric’s unified words condemning sectarian violence in Iraq could save thousands, yet how many will attend the conference if they think the guy who organized it is a suicide bomber?  The MCP guys think this has been staged to discredit Yazeed.  The two suspects were at lunch together, so they claim they couldn’t have been involved.  Abdul is tired of answering questions.  Jamal is more forthcoming and gives the lunch location so Gibbs won’t charge them with something.  Jamal talks Abdul down and explains that cooperation will equal exoneration.

(On TV, that’s usually true.  I don’t advise buying stock in that proposition in real life).

Abby is listening to the informant’s discussion with the hotline.  McGee has silently entered the lab and she turns to find him sitting sadly up against a file cabinet.  She’s sorry he lost his very close friend (who we never saw or heard McGee mention before this episode).  McGee says he wouldn’t have graduated FLETC without Agent Nelson’s help.  That leads to a weird hypothetical where Agent Nelson might be alive but for McGee.

Abby hugs McGee and Gibbs and Paula arrive.  Gibbs helps McGee to his feet and sends him off to do paperwork.  Abby tells Gibbs that both the tip line call and the call to Paula were from the same caller, and from a line registered to Yazeed.  Paula gets impatient because all of this is old news.  Abby says that Yazeed was in the Navy and he was honorably discharged. 

Gibbs and Paula head to autopsy.  Get it?  Head?  Because Ducky has the head on a pedestal and is examining it.  Oh…I guess I should have led with that part.  Anyway, Ducky has determined that Yazeed was dead at least a day before the bomb went off.  So, whoever Paula saw enter the building, it wasn’t Yazeed.

Gibbs arrives in Shepard’s office and asks if she’s OK.  She has just been on the phone with Agent Nelson’s wife and now she has to call Agent Hall’s parents.  Shepard is upset that her agents are getting killed by suicide bombers.  It’s America, not Iraq.  Gibbs goes to “stop feeling sorry for yourself” a little quick, but it bucks her up and she says she has calls to make and he has a terrorist to kill.  Then she corrects herself and says “catch.”  Gibbs tells her about Ducky’s findings and leaves.

Ziva has backgrounded Yazeed.  He’s a former U.S. sailor, and peaceful Muslim involved in peaceful Muslim groups.  His apartment was clean of any kind of explosive materials or residue.  His friends Abdul and Jamal have verified alibis.  Paula is still impatient, and snapping at people, but Ziva, having no history with Paula, is 100% less likely to put up with her bullshit.  Ziva asks Paula who exactly she saw entering the building before the explosion.  Paula suggests Ducky is mistaken about TOD, but Tony confirms Ducky doesn’t make mistakes (except for the time he made a mistake about the TOD in Smoked, Episode 4.10).  Paula thinks Yazeed could still have been involved.  Ziva thinks she’s reaching.  Tony decides to defuse their escalating tension with humor, but this just gets him Gibbs-slapped for his trouble.  Gibbs has no patience for bullshit- even understandable bullshit (although Paula should really be on leave).  He sends Paula and Tony to re-work the scene and tells them not to return until they find out how Paula’s perp got out of the building before the explosion.  Ziva won’t miss her and Paula returns the sentiment, intentionally mispronouncing Ziva’s last name.

After Tony and Paula leave, Gibbs asks Ziva if she’s getting soft.  Because he knows what she’s doing.  Ziva says she knows what Paula’s feeling and that giving her something to hate will help her get through it.  Gibbs notes that the drawback is Paula hating her guts for life.  Ziva says if Paula comes out on the other side, it will be worth it.  Gibbs smiles.

Tony and Paula discuss Ziva.  Paula wonders how Tony could work with her and Tony shrugs and says he has worked with Paula.  She also wonders what Gibbs would do if Paula slapped Ziva.  Tony is more concerned with what Ziva would do and doesn’t seem confident that Paula would walk away from that one.  Paula thinks she would win because she once took Tony.  Ziva could kill three Tonys, though, and Tony claims the floor was slippery the day Paula put him down anyway.

At the crime scene, Paula gets emotional.  Tony tells her she can stay outside, but she presses forward.  She’s wondering when Tony became so caring…and who brought it on.  Tony simply says, “You get older, you change.”  Paula asks her name and begs Tony to tell her it’s not Ziva.  So, Tony tells her about Jeanne.  Paula asks if Tony loves Jeanne.  He says he does.  Paula believes him but wants to know the problem.  Tony says he can’t say it to Jeanne and talks about the climbing wall snafu from last episode (Iceman, Episode 4.18).  Paula tells Tony that while she knows it’s a cliché, life is too short to hold back an “I love you.”

Back at NCIS, Abby tells Gibbs and McGee that she found  a third call that she has voice matched to the tipster, and it came in a day before, on Friday.  The caller wants to tell NCIS something about his co-worker, but then has to abruptly hang up.  Abby has traced that call to a software company called Kertek, and it’s where Yazeed worked before his death.  McGee figures they might be able to match some employee’s voicemail and find out who made the tip line call.

At Kertek, the guy in charge, Azid Abu Selom, seems surprised to learn Yazeed is dead, but assumes it’s murder because there are federal agents in his office.  They want to check Yazeed’s office and any computer programs on which he worked.  Abu Selom asks about a warrant, and Gibbs tells him he’ll damn sure get one.  Abu Selom thinks it won’t be necessary if Gibbs levels with him.  The agents tell him about Yazeed’s involvement with the bomb blast.  They tell a little lie and say Yazeed was the bomber (as opposed to the bomb), and Abu Selom gives them free reign.

Back at the crime scene, Tony tries to figure out how much time our bad guy had to escape the bomb blast. Paula says 10-12 seconds elapsed between him entering the building and the explosion.  There are no side rooms, and no back door.  Tony wonders, “How does a dirtbag just vanish into thin air.”

Back at Kertek, Gibbs is interviewing employees.  McGee is downloading files.  The employees seem pissed/nervous, Ziva notes.

At Abby’s lab, she compares the voicemails from Kertek and none match the caller.  Ziva finds a training DVD made by Yazeed.  Abby uses the recording to match Yazeed’s voice, even though he was dead at the time of the Saturday calls.  So Ducky was wrong, and Yazeed was alive when Cassidy’s team walked into the building?  Hmmmm.

Ziva and McGee are frustrated at the contradictory evidence.  Shepard arrives in the squad room to lend a fresh set of eyes, so the agents recap the evidence.  The contradiction persists, so is Abby wrong or is Ducky wrong?  Shepard asks Gibbs who he favors, and Gibbs has his money on Tony.  Whether he means Tony will resolve the contradiction isn’t clear.

Paula is not doing well.  She’s seated in the building where the bomb went off talking out loud to herself.  Tony rejoins and gives her a candy bar.  He brought a cigar for himself, not for pleasure, but to suss out any secret passage ways via the smoke following toward an air pressure differential.  It works- the smoke seeps through a side wall.  Paula is shocked and leaves to get a pry bar.  Tony stays to try and muscle the secret door and mostly just hurts himself.  And then Paula opens it from the far side.  They check the secret room and find a broken lens- evidence of the perp’s mirror shades, as observed by Paula before the explosion. 

Gibbs and Ziva visit Ducky, who can’t find Palmer and complains about his continuing rash of disappearances.  Gibbs suggests smacking him on the back of the head, but Ducky says Palmer seemed to enjoy it the one time Ducky tried.  Ziva files that one away.  Ducky explains that Yazeed died of suffocation and likely when someone forced a bunch of latex into his mouth and throat to make a mask of his face.  Which tells us Paula may not have seen Yazeed at all.  Ziva says the evidence demonstrates that Ducky’s TOD is off, but Ducky is confident he is right.

In Abby’s lab, the agents are working and bantering.  Gibbs arrives and Tony tells him he solved the mystery of how the perp entered and exited the building.  The secret passageway was left over from a magic joke shop that used to occupy the building.  Paula is still impressed in relating Tony’s discovery.  Gibbs, never willing to let Tony’s head swell, says it took him long enough to figure out the secret.  Ziva pokes at Paula again and notes that Paula didn’t see what she thought she saw in terms of who entered what building.  Tony is hoping Abby will be able to pull a print off the sunglass lens.

Tony follows Gibbs out of the lab, and wants to confirm what Gibbs said about their team originally being on duty when the tip came in.  Gibbs says he asked off, presumably to spend the time with Lt. Col. Mann.  Tony is shaken, but Gibbs tells him to worry about tomorrow, not yesterday, and leaves in the elevator.

Gibbs is in his basement cleaning his weapon when Lt. Col. Mann drops by with Chinese and banter.  Gibbs dodges the serious talk about the dead agents.  He eats Chinese like a pet dog and says they should do the batting cages thing again.  But their CID/NCIS schedules don’t usually synch up.  Gibbs notes that somebody has to keep the wolves away from the doors.  Lt. Col. Mann brings up retirement, as she is near to her 20-year mark.  She wants to “Settle down.”  Gibbs wants…to not have this conversation from all appearances.

We shift back to HQ, where Abby excitedly reveals she ID’d the fingerprint on the sunglass lens.  It’s a guy they interviewed at Kertek named Salman Umar.  The team exits…

…and arrives at Kertek.  Gibbs divvies up assignments and tells Paula he wants Umar alive so the team can determine his associates.  When Paula doesn’t immediately answer, Gibbs makes clear he’ll take her weapon until she finally agrees that they’ll take the perp alive. 

Gibbs tries to soft pedal the team’s approach and tells Abu Selom that they just want to talk to some folks again.  But Umar enters the room, carrying a laptop and Paula’s poker face fails her.  Umar makes the murderous intent in Paula’s eyes when she locks onto him, and he runs for his cubicle.  He procures a pistol and begins firing.  But not for long.  Gibbs and Ziva accomplish the rare NCIS tandem kill and perhaps split this blog’s MVP between them.  Umar is dead, but Gibbs is not pleased and is giving Paula the eye as we fade to commercial.

Ziva says they had no choice but to shoot Umar.  Gibbs says he had a choice and could have left Paula back at NCIS.  As usual, he’s not afraid to slap her around when she kacks up.  Gibbs hands McGee Umar’s laptop and tells him to find out why Umar was carrying it.  He also finds a flyer for the upcoming peace conference.  Ziva reads the Arabic, and Abu Selom doesn’t think Umar would have been interested in going as he was very anti-Shi’ite. 

McGee looks at the laptop and, with info from Abu Selom, determines that it’s a state-of-the-art vocal simulator that, like Stephen Hawking’s synthesizer, plays back words typed into the keyboard.  Only this version uses a 3-D model of vocal cords to imitate the speech of specific human beings.  Tl;dr: Umar faked Yazeed’s voice on the Saturday tip line and on the call with Paula, and Ducky was right all along about TOD.  It’s left unsaid, but the Friday tip line call was probably the real Yazeed trying to report Umar.

But…how’d Umar get the model of Yazeed’s vocal cords?  Well, Abby demonstrates how the software works and McGee says Umar poured hot latex down Yazeed’s throat to get the model.  Which is probably what killed him.  And that’s horrifying, but the team keeps it loose.  Abby continually uses the simulator and Yazeed’s voice to convey normal conversation, like asking Gibbs for more Caf-Pow, and it’s pretty funny. 

Paula makes the point, however, that the guy she saw walking on the street while she was on the phone did not have a laptop.  So, there’s at least one more perp unaccounted for. 

Gibbs arrives and says that NCIS was set up, but they weren’t the target.  Yazeed was the target.  NCIS was just supposed to work the scene and find evidence of his suicide bomber tendencies, thus discrediting him in advance of the peace conference.  The agents just happened to work the scene a little too closely and died in the explosion.  Show’s not over, though.  The peace conference will continue and at least one perp is still out there to try to blow it up.  Ziva figures they will need to kill that perp.  Tony goes with “catch.”  Paula likes Ziva’s original lyrics. 

Abdul and Jamal are meeting with the Director.  They are going ahead with the peace conference.  Security has been enhanced, and the attending clerics will have bodyguards. 

Ziva makes security detail assignments (uh-oh- NCIS is terrible at security detail).  Tony has a cleric, Paula has a cleric, Gibbs has the head cleric, and Ziva will float.  McGee will look into the attendees for connections to terrorist groups.  There’s a slight change of plans because the clerics want to hold a memorial for Yazeed and Cassidy’s team at the location of their deaths.  Paula seems shocked.

At the scene, Paula is upset.  She thinks she could have saved her team.  Tony tells her she knows that’s not true.  She says she could have turned down the weekend duty.  Tony then does something so dumb that I’m having trouble processing it.  He tells Paula that Gibbs’s team was supposed to have the weekend duty.  I mean, presumably she could have figured that out, but why make it obvious?  I guess his point was to let her know that someone might have died regardless, and that seems to be how she takes it.  But then she gets all fatalistic and says she knows she was fated to have been in the room when the bomb went off.  Tony is horrified but not sure what to say (nice work by Weatherly, using just facial expressions).  Fortunately, Ziva lightens the mood when she pops through the secret door with a “Hah!” She’s amused until it slams hard behind her and makes her jump and go for her gun.  Paula ribs Ziva for her “jump”, but at least gets her name right this time.  Still, Ziva doesn’t go as easy on Paula as she should and makes clear that in Mossad, that jump is what they call the difference between life and death.  Tony has kind of an “oh shit” look on his face, but Paula leaves to check in with Gibbs.  Ziva asks Tony if something is wrong and Tony can’t get over how it was supposed to be them.  Ziva says it wasn’t and Tony replies, “Not this time.”

Abby and McGee are at the lab and Abby is trying to figure out the other fingerprints on the voice software computer.  They’re all mashed together, but Abby is in the process of isolating them.

At the scene, everyone is setting up for the memorial.  Paula asks Gibbs where he wants her.  He says he didn’t bring her for security.  She apologizes for Kertek, but Gibbs simply says she should go say a prayer for her team and his team will do the heavy lifting. 

Abby pulls the rest of the fingerprints and they match quickly.  Because they were taken from the first crime scene.  Off a paintbrush.  Meaning it was someone helping Yazeed renovate the venue.  McGee jumps and phones Gibbs.

At the memorial, Ziva is working the front.  Abdul is thanking the clerics for coming.  Gibbs gets the call and puts Abdul in an armlock.  Then he asks where Jamal is.  Abdul seems genuinely confused and says that Jamal was present a moment ago.  Gibbs tells Ziva to find Jamal, but then the fake door swings open.  Jamal is there with a bomb strapped to his body.  It’s a fearsome image. 

Jamal reaches for the kill switch, and Paula moves.  She tackles him to the floor in the adjacent building, and the hidden door slams behind her as Gibbs and Tony bounce helplessly off it on the other side.  Jamal activates the bomb as Paula reaches for the switch.  As it glows red, she sees Agent Hall and Agent Nelson standing above her.  And then the bomb goes off and rocks the building next door.  Gibbs and Tony can see the glowing fire under the secret door and Tony angrily bashes it with his hand and stares in shock.

The scene shifts to the outside of Jeanne Benoit’s apartment door.  Tony knocks.  On his arm is the platinum bracelet Jeanne gave him in Friends and Lovers, Episode 4.15.  Jeanne answers and Everybody Hurts by R.E.M. is playing inside.  Tony tells Jeanne he loves her.  They kiss.  And he holds her, and we see a tear slide down his face.

Quotables:  Nothing jumps out beyond what’s covered above.

Ziva-propisms: None.  She probably didn’t want to give Paula any ammunition.

Tony Awards:  Tony references an old monster movie and gives it credit for his cigar smoke idea.  He does not name the movie.

Abby Road: Abby stays on task.

McNicknames: Gibbs drops an Elf Lord.  Tony takes a new tact with “McGeekle.”

Ducky Tales: Ducky also stays on task.

The Rest of the Story:

-Special Agent Paula Cassidy is a returning guest star.  She first appeared in Minimum Security, Episode 1.8, and had subsequent appearances in Heart Break, Episode 2.8 and Mind Games, Episode 3.3.  In the latter episode, she earned this blog’s MVP for killing a knife-wielding serial killer offscreen while her hands were tied.  It is never clear how Gibbs feels about her- he has given her chances, but he’s also mean to her when he sees her being sloppy. It is abundantly clear how Tony feels about her, but, having ridden that ride, she has been averse to return engagements.

-How long has Paula Cassidy had a team in DC?

-As with most TV explosions, Paula would be very dead were she that close to a blast of that magnitude.   

-Lt. Col. Hollis Mann is a lead investigator with Army CID.  She and Gibbs have a weird relationship.  They met in Sandblast, Episode 4.7, she saved his life and he sexed her as thanks in Sharif Returns, Episode 4.8.  We learned that he left the next morning and never called in Skeletons, Episode 4.17.  The whole thing is fraught with drama. 

-Ziva is still wearing Lt. Roy Sanders’s running hat.  He died in Dead Man Walking, Episode 4.16.  They were in love.  Sort of?

-The Washington Wizards went .500 for the season in 2006-2007 and got scorched 4-0 by the Cavs in the first round of the playoffs.  But they were good enough that I can see why Tony is pissed about missing the (wholly fictional, per their schedule) game.

-Rule #1, according to Blowback, Episode 4.14, is “Never screw over your partner.”  According to Yankee White, Episode 1.1, Rule #1 is never keep suspects together.  Paula invokes the latter in this episode. 

-Gibbs slaps Tony in the head.

-Paula did defeat Tony in light hand-to-hand when he swiped her birth control in Mind Games, Episode 3.3.  And she did kill a guy with her arms tied, but we didn’t get to see how.  I think Ziva would destroy her.

-As has been noted in the past (but not recently), Tony attended Ohio State University.

-Palmer is continually disappearing because he and Agent Lee have been having on-premises office sex all season.

-Abby tells Tony to never lie to a woman and he looks grim.

-“It could have been us every single day of the week.  Sometimes it has been.”  Gibbs quietly reminds Tony that Kate didn’t walk away after Twilight, Episode 2.23.  I think a more direct reference would have been appropriate, but maybe that ended up on the cutting room floor.

– Lt. Col. Mann’s retirement came up in her discussion with Shepard in Skeletons, Episode 4.17.

-And Tony falls down the rabbit hole.  He was in it, for sure.  But now he’s down it.  Paula may be in Heaven thinking she did him a favor, but if Heaven lets you know all and see all, she knows she did not.  More later.

-The episode raises an interesting question.  Because it’s TV, our leads rarely get dead.  But is that because they’re lucky, good, or a combination of the two?  Would Gibbs, Tony, or Ziva have sensed the trap even if they had drawn Saturday duty?  Or is the only thing between NCIS’ A-team and a stack of coffins the fickle hand of fate?

-The show probably should have spent the money to show McGee and Agent Nelson hanging out before this episode.  It would have done wonders for the emotional impact of Agent Nelson’s death.  Even Pocci (Deadman Talking, Episode 1.19) let us get to know him a little before dying.  But the show has been covered up with recurring characters this season, so maybe another one was either a practical or financial impossibility.

-As we have noted repeatedly on the blog, NCIS sucks at security detail.  Kate got captured by fugitive Jack Curtin in UnSEALed, Episode 1.18 (after being tricked by his kid).  Kate let a kidnapper take Ducky in The Meat Puzzle, Episode 2.13 (after being tricked by a dog).  Tony got knocked out by Mike Franks, the guy he was supposed to protect, in Faking It, Episode 4.4.  McGee shot a cop while on security detail in Probie, Episode 3.10.  Kate managed to protect Gibbs, but died herself while on assigned security detail in Twilight, Episode 2.23.  The whole team almost let Abby get killed several times in Bloodbath, Episode 3.21.  Tony and Kate almost lost their charge to a homemade bomb made by a housewife in Terminal Leave, Episode 2.6.  And while not technically security detail, McGee let a woman die in an apartment across the street from where he was securing the premises despite only being about a two-minute run away in Witness, Episode 2.14. 

And there’s at least one more egregious failure coming.

-I came into this episode wondering if Gibbs would take the view that his pushing Paula led to her demise.  But I didn’t quite recall how do-or-die the situation was.  Paula didn’t martyr herself to appease her guilty conscience or to show anybody her agent chops.  There wasn’t a less fatal choice.  There wasn’t a choice period.  If Paula doesn’t tackle Jamal, everyone in that room dies.  Hopefully that helps Gibbs sleep at night. 

Casting Call: Nobody registers.            

Man, This Show Is Old: “Everything happens for a reason,” has fallen out of favor as consolation over the death of loved ones.  It probably never should have been in favor, because it is not consoling in the least.

MVP: Gibbs and Ziva got a joint kill.  But Paula saved the peace conference.  Let the MVP be her send-off.

Rating: Due to happenstance, I saw Paula’s appearances in reverse order.  I saw this one first, Mind Games second and Minimum Security last.  So, I probably liked her better than I would have if I’d seen them in order.  Paula is a good character, but she fell short as an agent more than she didn’t.  In that context, this was sort of the perfect Paula Cassidy episode.  Some screw-ups, too many emotions, but then redemption.  When I was thinking about this episode before watching it this time, I felt like I would come away from it thinking they wasted a decent recurring character.  Even midway through it, I felt like the show was treating Paula unfairly and giving her almost out-of-character baggage.  And yes, she seemed a little fragile in terms of her inability to deal with the death of her fellow agents.  But…we’ve only ever seen her work alone (Gitmo, agent afloat), so that may have had something to do with it.  Certainly, someone with her history with Gibbs working at Gibbs’s office would perhaps have too much to prove and not do well with such a traumatic setback.  In any event, I was set not to like Paula’s treatment, and then the Kertek foul-up so specifically matched everything the character has done wrong that her story arc suddenly seemed both inevitable and fitting.  And her final scene was well-done.

It’s not a great episode.  The secret door is just goofy.  McGee’s mourning his friend is empty because there’s no evidence that they were friends.  The team sucked at providing security yet again.  And Paula’s arc, while realistic in the context of all of her appearances, is not inspiring.  And it gets unintentionally mangled by her weird descent into fatalism at the end.  She had no choice but to die to save others (and probably would have died with the others had she not chosen to die alone to save them), so the weird last-minute implication that she was suddenly shouldering a death wish crapped all over her sacrifice. 

Five Palmers.  And it’s lucky to get that.   

Next Time: McGee’s new novel inspires a killer.