Episode: 5.18, Judgment Day.
Air Date: May 20, 2008.
The Victim: NCIS Special Agent William Decker and…well, that would be telling.
Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: We’re in the woods. A rifle barrel pokes out of a tree and we see a female mail carrier through the scope. So, we’re not in the woods at all. We’re on the side of some house, and two kids, a white kid and an African-American kid, are scoping the mail carrier. The African-American kid thinks the mail carrier is hot. The white kid would like his friend to get on with it, so he shoots the mailbox, causing the mail carrier to spin around in annoyance.
That’s probably a federal crime.
The kids run away laughing. And hey, who doesn’t yearn for the time when two kids could shoot a bb gun as a prank and have grounding by their parents be the worst possible outcome? As opposed to now, where it’s arrest, suspension, misdemeanor charge, and civil lawsuit in any particular order. Hell, does an African-American kid dare venture outside with a bb gun in 2019 America? Especially a bb gun with a scope?
But this isn’t my political blog. The kids run, they laugh, they laugh, they run. They eventually find the motherlode: a man in shades floating in an armchair floatie in his pool. He has eye protection via the shades, so even if they miss the float, no blood no foul. And they’re not gonna miss the float. It’s huge and they have a scope. The white kid calls “my shot,” and fair is fair. The boys get into position. We hear a radio airing a baseball game. The man in the floatie appears to be asleep (unless you’ve seen more than one episode of this show), and the kids take their shot. The bb punctures the floatie and it begins to deflate. The man sinks and he sinks, but he doesn’t wake up and flail around. He just keeps sinking until he’s submerged.
Yeah, they’ll remember this day for the rest of their lives.
Plot Recap: Director Shepard is in Los Angeles, at a funeral for our dead guy from the opening. He is Special Agent Decker, and he died of a heart attack. And he had an attractive younger wife, whom Tony ogles on her way out of the funeral. Ziva shushes him. Tony provides some expository dialogue about accompanying the Director, newly back from vacation, and providing her security.
That never goes well.
Shepard’s attention is caught by a man asking after a Mr. Oshimaida. She freezes and tries to get a look at him with her compact mirror but doesn’t have the angle. She takes some camera phone pics of the man with his back turned, his vehicle, and a side view of his driver, a blonde woman. Then the man departs.
Ziva asks if the Director is ready to leave…and what happens next is mind-boggling even by NCIS’ lax security detail standards. The Director dismisses Tony and Ziva and gives them the day off until they fly back to DC the next day. That’s not wise, but it’s within the realm of Director Shepard’s behavior. Hell, she ditched an escort in Trojan Horse, Episode 4.23 and flew to damn Russia. But Tony, before the Director even finishes the sentence, just agrees. They will take the day off. They will make arrangements and get a cab. Tony hands the Director the car keys and tells her to drive safely. Ziva is not so enthusiastic as Tony, but she doesn’t object either, and walks off in the direction of…something.
Back at NCIS, McGee arrives at work and finds Abby at Ziva’s desk and Ducky at Tony’s. Abby is playing with Ziva’s knife. McGee would like to know why they’re in the squad room. Palmer arrives abruptly and quite Gibbs-like. He is carrying a cup of coffee, and wearing a tan suit, and he walks over to Gibbs’s desk and tells McGee that a random bug sweep is being conducted of the lower floors. Palmer’s gruff entrance is instantly muted, however, when the real Gibbs arrives and chases him away from the desk with a look. McGee hands Gibbs a package from FBI Special Agent Fornell and Gibbs exits. Ducky exits too, musing that the security sweep must be finished. He calls McGee “probie” and chuckles at his own Tony impression as he leaves.
In LA, Director Shepard is in the wind. She drives up to a dumpy motel and meets…why, it’s former NCIS Special Agent Mike Franks, Gibbs’s mentor. Franks has a bottle of liquor and a hotel ice bucket and he hopes Shepard has a damn good reason for calling him up from his leaky-ass beach shack in Mexico. Shepard asks if he worked with Agent Decker. Franks says they overlapped by a year. Shepard says that Decker is dead and she’s next.
In the hotel room, Franks is trying to figure out why the Director of an armed federal agency needs his help. Shepard says it has to be outside the agency and if Gibbs trusts Franks, then she will too. Shepard explains. Ten years ago, Shepard and another agent were in Europe on a classified op. Franks isn’t going to help unless he knows the op and threatens to leave. Shepard says they were trying to infiltrate a Russian spy ring. Agent Decker was the contact agent and handler. The name Oshimaida was a code word that the agents were to use if their cover was compromised. They thought they got out clean then, but today at Agent Decker’s funeral, Shepard heard the code word. Only three of them knew the name so whoever the guy is, he got it from Decker, and Decker wouldn’t have used it unless he thought he was about to be killed. Franks notes that Decker died of a heart attack, but Shepard says that simply what the coroner said. She thinks Decker was trying to get her a message. And her partner’s in danger too. Because whoever the perp is, he believes either Shepard or her partner is Oshimaida. Franks asks who the other agent is (although it’s obvious) and when Shepard hesitates, Franks says the next time he heads for the door, it won’t be for show. Shepard admits that it’s Gibbs. That gets Franks’s cooperation.
Back east, Gibbs arrives in his basement and opens the package from Fornell. Presumably it’s the case file on Shepard from the FBI investigation on her in Internal Affairs, Episode 5.13. Sure enough. Gibbs sees the picture of the dead Le Grenouille and a photo of a shell casing. Then he sees a surveillance photo of Shepard that causes him to pause.
Abby is looking at the photos the Director took at Decker’s funeral, and she’s not sure how she’s supposed to ID anyone given the angles. Abby is explaining all this to mock-ups she made of Tony and Ziva using brooms and mops and cardboard pictures of their faces. She exposits that the Director told her to keep all of this on the down-low, so McGee arrives just then to ask questions. Abby shuts off her computer and McGee is offended that Abby told Cardboard Tony and Cardboard Ziva what she’s working on but won’t tell him. McGee has Caf-Pow but backs away with it and says Abby must not need his help. But Abby wants that Caf-Pow. And she needs his help. So, she reads McGee in, but says Gibbs doesn’t know. McGee suggests a few obvious strategies for determining the IDs of the funeral crashers that even Cardboard Tony knows. But then he looks at the mystery man talking on his cell phone in the photo and comes up with the idea to take the time stamp from the picture and use that to track calls coming to and from cell towers in the area and figure out the man’s number. Abby calls it genius. McGee beaus up at Cardboard Tony to let him know who’s boss.
Real Tony and Real Ziva are at a swanky hotel pool. She’s wearing a bikini. He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt a la his hero, Magnum, P.I.. She is reading. He’s taking pictures of hot women, including her. He wants to go have fun. She thinks the Director could easily need them and rescind their day off, so she wants to stay close. He thinks that’s what cell phones are for. She asks what he has in mind. He wants to take a cruise down Sunset Boulevard. And of course, he rented a cherry red Mustang convertible in which to do that. The valet brings it around and Ziva (having had time to change in the interim scene change) rolls her eyes and says if she hears one movie quote, she is driving. Tony makes her pay the valet, and they peel out.
Shepard and Franks visit a residence and she picks the front door lock. They banter over who learned lock picking from Gibbs and who taught Gibbs. It’s Decker’s home and Shepard wants to see if the killer left anything behind that local LEOs missed. Or maybe Decker left something. Shepard calls him a pro. Shepard accesses Decker’s laptop. Then the agents hear a sound. Franks traces it to a closet and it’s Sasha, Decker’s wife, hiding inside and crying. Sasha recognizes Shepard from the funeral. Shepard shares that she doesn’t think Decker died from natural causes and she guesses Sasha doesn’t either. Sasha says Decker never said anything specific. Just that if anything ever happened to him, she was to deliver a message. Sasha holds out a piece of paper with Shepard’s name on it. Franks reads Shepard’s name aloud and Sasha says, “You know her.” Franks grimaces, “Unfortunately.” Shepard says they’ll deliver the message. Sasha says that Decker wanted Shepard to know he had an insurance policy in an old diner he owned out in the desert and that he was going to start fixing up next month. Shepard would know where to look. She confirms the address for Franks. Shepard tells Sasha to go stay with her family in Nevada and gives Sasha her rental. After she leaves, Franks asks what happens when they find whoever is behind this. Shepard responds, “It will be just the way you like it. No paperwork.”
That’s a strong quote.
The Beach Boys accompany Tony’s and Ziva’s cruise…in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Ziva belatedly begins to feel her Mossad-sense tingling over separating from the Director. Tony hands Ziva a phone, but figures Shepard’s off hooking up with a dude.
Not quite accurate. Shepard is complaining that a dude doesn’t have satnav on his rental. Franks makes Gibbs look like Steve Jobs. Shepard gets that call from Tony. He’s curious, but she tells him to enjoy his day off or she will find something for him to do. Tony hears Franks says, “Got it.” He doesn’t get enough to recognize Franks’s voice though, and figures Shepard is having a hook-up. Ziva thinks it’s more than that. Tony thinks if Ziva had a sex life she’d be more understanding. Ziva could tell him stories. But now Tony wants to hear them. Ziva says it’s a deal as long as Tony calls the LAPD, pretends he’s conducting an investigation and asks for GPS coordinates on the Director’s rental.
In Abby’s lab, McGee is giving Cardboard Tony a handlebar moustache. But his cell phone idea gets a hit. They trace the call to a Viggo Drantyev. The Director calls right as they get background on Drantyev. McGee tells Abby good luck and tries to flee but Abby says in for a penny in for a pound and makes him stay.
We get the call from the Director’s perspective and a shot of Franks finishing taking a piss in the desert. Shepard gets right to it and gets Drantyev’s name and the fact that he flew in from Moscow three days ago, rented a car, checked into a hotel and then checked out. That’s all Abby has because Viggo Drantyev didn’t exist before three days ago and his alias is so tight that, in this day and age, he must have friends in nosebleed high places. Abby offers a BOLO, but Shepard tells her to erase the search.
Franks and Shepard confab. Franks recaps but figures that they don’t have enough to convict Drantyev for Decker’s murder. It’s enough for Shepard, though, and anyone who was present for last season knows that Shepard doesn’t need due process when she has a vendetta and a firearm. Franks asks who Drantyev is and then guesses that Shepard doesn’t know. But Shepard knows who sent him and who he’s after.
Gibbs comes back to work and down to autopsy. Palmer is practicing his CPR on a dummy. Gibbs asks if it’s a new girlfriend. Gibbs developed a grudging respect for Palmer last episode (About Face, Episode 5.17) and this may be the first time he has teased Palmer as opposed to grunting at him. Ducky says Gibbs’s CPR certification is due to be renewed, but Gibbs has other things to talk about. Ducky excuses Palmer but tells Gibbs that while he recognizes the look on Gibbs’s face, he’s all out of secrets. Gibbs asks if Ducky found anything unusual about the Le Grenouille autopsy report. Ducky lays out the COD and says the report looked consistent to him. Gibbs starts to leave. Ducky says he thought the case was closed and Gibbs says it is. Then Ducky yells after him to let sleeping dogs lie.
Tony and Ziva hit the Santa Monica Pier. They find the Director’s rental, and to the viewer, it’s conspicuously not headed towards Nevada. Ziva checks out the car, but not too closely because Tony still thinks the Director is doing the horizontal mambo and doesn’t want to disturb her. Ziva gets back in the car and they pass a local squad car. Tony hears a radio report and reverses. There’s a crime scene. Tony and Ziva look into it and it’s Sasha, Decker’s wife. She’s dead and it looks like she fell off the pier.
Shepard and Franks arrive at Decker’s diner. It is in the middle of the desert. Shepard makes a remark about needing to find the perps before she shoots them. Franks figures that anybody that knows about Decker’s insurance policy, whatever it is, will likely come find them.
At the pier, Tony and Ziva flash their badges and work their way on to the scene. Local police are calling Sasha’s death a drunk lady falling off the pier. There are no obvious signs of foul play, and the info from NCIS that she just buried her boyfriend confirms that surmise. The detective wants to know if Tony and Ziva know something he doesn’t, but Tony backs off. He takes Ziva off to the side and tells her to leave the Director out of this. Ziva points out that the Director’s car is 50 yards away. Tony retorts that they talked to the Director twenty-one minutes previous. Probably just a coincidence. But Tony admits he doesn’t really believe that.
Abby is practicing her CPR on Bert the farting hippo under the watchful eye of Cardboard Mustached Tony. Gibbs arrives and wants to know about the ballistics on the Le Grenouille case. They have the shell casing, so Gibbs wants to know if it can be tied to a specific gun. Abby cannot do that…although she could probably eliminate an individual gun. However, she notices a scratch on the shell casing that could have occurred when the casing was ejected. Or it could come from a defect in the gun clip. Abby would need to inspect the clip, but even then, she doubts it’s admissible in court. Gibbs has heard what he needs to hear and leaves. Abby has a really bad feeling and tells Cardboard Mustached Tony that he should have stopped her. And then headslaps him. Deservedly. Stupid Cardboard Mustached Tony.
Shepard is on the floor of the diner looking for Decker’s insurance policy. Franks is looking at Shepard’s ass. Until she tells him to stop. Shepard has a brain storm when Franks notices all the photos hung up in the diner. She flashes back to putting on make-up and a wig and getting ready for some kind of op. Gibbs is with her, dressed in a suit, looking through photos. He looks at the dates on the photos and notes them on a pad. Back in the present, Shepard does likewise. The dates on Decker’s framed photos are all wrong. It’s a code. Shepard writes all the numbers down and she and Franks puzzle over what the numbers could mean.
Shepard gets a call from Ziva that she is tempted to ignore, but Franks makes clear that NCIS will call in the SWAT team if she doesn’t pick up. Shepard answers with attitude- “This better be World War III, Officer David.” Ziva informs Shepard about Sasha and the fact that she was found with a broken neck near Shepard’s rental. Ziva gets testy but Shepard out-big-dogs her and says that, despite Gibbs’s admonitions, there are such things as coincidences and this situation is one. She says she’ll meet them at the airport and hangs up.
Back at the pier, Ziva thinks the Director is lying or being held at gunpoint. Tony notes that she didn’t use the duress code word. Ziva is flabbergasted that Tony can’t see there’s something going on. And then she figures it out. Tony knows something is going on- he just doesn’t care to get involved. And who could blame him? The last time he got sucked into one of Shepard’s ops, he got fried (See the entirety of Season Four plus Bury Your Dead, Episode 5.1.) And he can’t be feeling great about having it all dredged up again in and being accused of murder in Internal Affairs, Episode 5.14. Granted, he did a lot of that to himself, but Shepard was not in any way supportive and essentially told him to walk it off. I’d be content to enjoy my vacation and let her fix her own wagon too. He tells Ziva that that Shepard is a big girl.
Shepard is updating Franks. He figures Sasha went back to her apartment to get a few things and that if she’s dead, she probably talked. Which means company will be coming soon. Having transferred the code numbers, Shepard burns the photos. Franks figures they should leave now. Shepard says he can go, but she’s making a stand. Franks reaches into his ankle hostler and hands her a gun that can’t be traced. Then he takes a seat to wait, as Shepard smiles grimly and we fade to black and white.
Tony and Ziva are still sitting at the pier, turning the Mustang ignition on and off and debating what to do. Neither of them really wants to call Gibbs because that means admitting that the team has loused up yet another security detail. They compromise and call McGee.
Who is sitting at Tony’s desk reading Tony’s copy of GSM (NCIS’ answer to Maxim). McGee answers the phone and Tony thinks it took too long and McGee must have been sitting at his desk. Tony’s advantage doesn’t last long, however, because McGee susses out quickly that Tony and Ziva lost the Director. McGee figures Gibbs will kill them, but Tony and Ziva explain they just talked to her. Like Tony, McGee feels like Shepard’s not using the duress word is a point in favor of Shepard not being in trouble. Ziva tells McGee to trace Shepard’s cell. McGee refuses. Ziva threatens to tell Gibbs. McGee complies. He finds her about 35 miles into the Mojave Desert. Tony tells McGee to get an exact fix and let them know en route.
Shepard, in Ziva-like fashion (See Under Covers, Episode 3.8) is cleaning her gun before the fight. But, when Franks inquires if she always doe that, she notes that it’s not her gun. Soo this makes sense. She asks if he always sits on his ass before a fight. Franks wonders what he should be doing, and Shepard notes he could be assessing their situation. Franks has no time for her NCIS field tactics manual bullshit and explains their tactical advantages and disadvantages, which he has already assessed. After outlining the building’s construction, he concludes, “If they don’t come too heavy, it should provide adequate cover. Situation assessed.” I have always loved Mike Franks, and this bit of dialogue explains why. Shepard seems impressed too. She gets up and walks over to the window. She tells him she never said thanks. He says to thank him later. Shepard says that when she first heard Decker died of a heart attack, she was relieved. Franks snarks, “Gibbs did say you were complicated.” She says relieved because she knew this op would come back to haunt them and it’s her fault, because of choices she made that she’s not proud of. Franks says they’ve all done that. “Even Gibbs?” wonders Shepard. “He let you go,” Franks responds. Shepard explains that Gibbs didn’t let her go- he didn’t fit into her five-point-plan. Franks says she made her bed, but Shepard says she doesn’t want to sleep in it. Franks chuckles, and asks, “Gibbs know?” Shepard says it wouldn’t make a difference and, when Franks says Gibbs came back from his retirement in Mexico (Shalom, Episode 4.1; Escaped, Episode 4.2), Shepard says he came back from the job. Franks implies that the job wasn’t what Gibbs spent retirement talking about on Franks’s boat. Franks says Shepard is still young and she has plenty of time to make right, but Shepard’s face falls a bit at this.
We shift to a pair of dark cowboy boots walking toward a vehicle and getting into it. The vehicle is a black SUV and pulls away form a gas station right as Tony and Ziva pull up. Ziva is annoyed that they stopped, but Tony thinks they would not have made it given they don’t know exactly where they’re headed, and that the Mustang’s fuel needle is on E. They fuss and Tony tells Ziva to get them a map and snacks. She slaps her ass at him as she walks away. This had to have been a de Pablo ad-lib because I can’t imagine the writer’s room churning out, “And then Ziva slaps her own ass as she walks away.”
Tony gets a call from McGee. McGee has an address and tells Tony about Decker’s diner in the desert. Tony hangs up and sighs.
At the diner, Franks talks about a time he was in love. With a girl named Maggie. Or even a car named Maggie, since he traded her for a Harley when the transmission blew. I don’t…think these are metaphors…? Shepard lets Franks get away with some tension-lightening levity. But then he walks over and explains that when he asked earlier if Gibbs knew he wasn’t talking about Shepard’s romantic feelings, but whether Gibbs knew Shepard was sick. She pauses and he explains that people get a look in their eyes when they know time is running out. She calls bullshit and says he’s not that good. Franks admits he went through Shepard’s purse and glove compartment and found her pills. Shepard says Gibbs doesn’t know. Franks asks what she’s waiting for. She doesn’t have an answer.
In his basement, Gibbs pours himself a taaaalllll glass of bourbon into a mason jar that he just dumped a bunch of bolts out of. He’s still looking at the FBI file on Shepard and the scratched shell casing.
Tony and Ziva are a bit lost in the desert. Tony stops the car, gets out, and screams. “Turn at the giant cactus” is not a direction he appreciates from the gas station attendant. They drive off, still hunting.
At the diner, Shepard finds some tea. But there’s no water. Franks only drinks lemongrass anyway but saw a water tank out back. He has to piss too so he stations Shepard at the window and heads out the back. Shepard sighs, and we get a long shot of her alone in the empty diner, lit only by the sun from outside.
In Gibbs’s basement, he examines a pistol clip. He flashes back to his conversation in Bury Your Dead, Episode 5.1 where he asked Shepard if he hadn’t been present and if Le Grenouille hadn’t preemptively unladed her gun as a precaution, would she have pulled the trigger? Then he flashes back to Le Grenouille returning Shepard’s gun to her desk after Shepard gave it to him. This matters because, as we learned in Internal Affairs, Episode 5.14, the FBI believes, mistakenly, that Le Grenouille took Shepard’s gun with him and was then killed with it by CIA agent Trent Kort. But Gibbs knows that’s not true. He saw Le Grenouille return the weapon and the clip to Shepard’s desk, but kept that fact to himself during the investigation. Gibbs guzzles his bourbon and then flashes back to Shepard handing him a clip and saying she thought he might want that back. I don’t recognize that scene and wonder if it happened on any of the episodes or is new information for the viewer. A dishonest flashback as it were. Gibbs pulls a bullet out of the clip and examines it with a magnifying glass. It has the same scratch as the shell casing found at the scene of Le Grenouille’s murder. Gibbs sits, and seems uncertain.
Franks heads out back to the water tank.
The SUV from the gas station pulls up and we see the man in the cowboy boots. The shot pans up and we see it’s Dratnyev, the guy from the funeral, and three friends, all heavily armed. They eye the diner, get their weapons together, and move on the location.
Franks is out back, still getting water.
Then men force their way into the diner from outside with a loud crash.
Franks looks up, and back at the diner.
The camera moves to the front of the diner and recedes. We hear a number of gunshots and the sound of glass breaking, but we don’t see inside. The shots stop. Then we hear two more.
We switch to Tony and Ziva, finally arriving. Ziva and Tony know something is wrong when they recognize the SUV from the gas station. As they approach, they’re still debating whether this is anything…until they see all the bullet holes in the structure. They draw their guns and move in, cautiously. They enter and see bodies strewn on the floor, including Dratnyev.
“Tony,” Ziva calls. Tony walks over and, from his perspective, we see a bloody arm and, next to it, an image of Shepard’s face, eyes closed, reflected in a pool of her blood. Tony walks over and checks for a pulse. Nothing. He closes his eyes.
Shepard’s cell rings. The caller ID says “Gibbs.” Tony picks up but doesn’t immediately answer. “Jenny? Jenny, you there?” and we end with Tony, Ziva at his side, silently holding the phone.
Quotables:
“You deserve a probie snack. Get yourself one, but not from my desk drawer. Use the vending machine.” -Tony thanks McGee (sort of) for helping locate the Director.
Time Until Sexual Harassment: 10:45. Tony takes photos of Ziva sunbathing in a bikini for his personal collection.
Ziva-propisms: Ziva chastises Tony for Googling the girls, but she means ogling the girls. Although, he probably does the former too. Hell, if he’ll search through your desk drawers, he’ll put your name in a search engine.
Tony Awards: Against All Odds (1984). Chinatown (1974). Tony says that McGee deserves a “Probie snack,” which is a reference to the Scooby-snacks on the various Scooby-Doo cartoons.
Abby Road: Abby stays on task.
McNicknames: Probie. McOz.
Ducky Tales: Ducky also stays on task.
The Rest of the Story:
-Oh dear. Yet another NCIS security detail. As we have noted repeatedly on this 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 getting 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 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 two minutes away in Witness, Episode 2.14. And now Tony and Ziva have lost Director Shepard, literally and figuratively.
-Mike Franks was last seen in Iceman, Episode 4.18.
-Wait, if Ziva had a sex life? Shouldn’t Tony know? Are they or aren’t they?
-Cardboard Mustached Tony gets head-slapped.
-I guess it wasn’t CIA handler Trent Kort who killed Le Grenouille after all. But there’s no way he didn’t OK it. I guess we’re supposed to assume that Shepard realized CIA was going to burn Le Grenouille regardless and she asked for the privilege.
-According to something I read, this episode originally aired as a single 2-hour finale. That must have blown people’s minds.
Casting Call: Nobody I recognize.
Man, This Show Is Old: Maps and PDAs tell us it’s the ‘aughts.
MVP: It looks like Jenny took a few of them with her. RIP Director.
Rating: This episode is very well done. It borrows liberally, but respectfully, from the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino (and their obvious antecedents) in terms of establishing the last stand in the desert. We get covered up with might-have-beens here at the end of Shepard’s life and all of them are earned and compelling. If Tony and Ziva do literally anything different or faster, that’s a very different firefight at the diner. And there are several of those types of variables, from arguing harder with Shepard at the funeral, to leaving the crime scene at the pier quicker, to calling McGee quicker, to not stopping for gas. Having seen this episode several times, each misstep made me sag back into my chair a little more.
Then there’s Gibbs (who was almost guest-star on this one). He can’t not look into the eye of the sun and discovers at the end that Shepard got her revenge on Le Grenouille. He’s disappointed, clearly, but he also knows he of all people can’t judge Shepard for killing the man who (maybe) killed her father.
But all of that pales in comparison to the “two ships passing in the night” narrative of Shepard and Gibbs. It’s an interesting script choice because Shepard and Gibbs having regrets could have gone either way. It seemed like they were over each other until Lost & Found, Episode 5.9 when Shepard suddenly started talking regrets. Gibbs looked indifferent then, but there’s been enough tension that Franks’s revelation that Gibbs got chatty about Shepard on the boat isn’t completely out of left field. Obviously, I don’t think the show does anything romantic with these two if Lauren Holly wanted to hang around for more seasons, but they left enough toes in the water that dropping in a Gibbs-Shepard might-have-been at the moment of Shepard’s death was poignant instead of contrived. Especially since Shepard died protecting Gibbs from a mistake she made.
Great episode. Ten Palmers.
Next Time: Revenge? Please. It’s this show. Of course, revenge.
A Year of NCIS 