Episode: 6.3, Capitol Offense
Air Date: October 7, 2008.
The Victim: Lt. Commander Carrie McLellan, USN.
Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: We got mountain bikers and contemporary jazz accompaniment. The dude busts his ass and falls into a pond. The girl makes fun of him but stops laughing when a body floats up behind him.
There’s the opening we know and love.
Plot Recap: Abby is unwrapping a cupcake at Ziva’s desk. It’s a thank you for Abby letting Ziva sleep at her place. They hug it out while Tony starts to drool and ask questions. Ziva wants to know why Tony needs to know everything. McGee wants to know why Abby is eating a cupcake when she is supposed to be going gluten-free. Gibbs enters and establishes that all Tony, or anybody else, needs to know is that a lieutenant commander’s body was found in Rock Creek Park.
At the crime scene, Ziva IDs the body as Lt. Commander Carrie McClellan, stationed at the Pentagon. She was a congressional liaison for the Navy Office of Legislative Affairs. Ducky reports a single caliber gunshot wound to the back. No exit wound. Ducky thinks she was killed somewhere else though, as the blood stain indicates that she bled out on a solid surface. Ducky can’t tell TOD yet because of the immersion in water, but figures 12-24 hours. McGee finds a partial shoe print, but Gibbs gets a call before he can examine it.
Tony is still working on why Ziva would stay at Abby’s. Abby lives in a one-bedroom apartment, and Tony wants to know if they slept in the coffin together. Ziva tells Tony that her place was being fumigated and Abby let her sleep over. On the couch. In her pajamas. Tony’s fantasies vanish in a cloud of smoke.
Gibbs tells Tony to process the victim’s apartment next. Then he gets in the car and roars off. Which is weird for Gibbs and does not go unnoticed by the agents.
Gibbs is in Washington where he meets a man he calls “Senator,” and who calls him “Gunny.” Then they get down to first names. You know Gibbs’s, but this new guy is named Patrick, Senator Patrick Kiley. And he does not want to be seen with Gibbs right now, so they are meeting…out in the open near the Jefferson Memorial. I mean, it’s not the Senator’s office, but it’s not Gibbs’s basement either.
Senator Kiley knows about Lt. Cmdr. McLelland. He’s sad and sighing and Gibbs asks if Senator Kiley knew her. Then he repeats the question because another sigh is not an answer. Senator Kiley knew our victim alright. Knew her biblically. They were having an affair.
Gibbs wants to know why Senator Kiley thought the body was Lt. Cmdr. McLelland, since the ID hasn’t been released. The Senator’s response is reasonable enough: Cmdr. McLelland lived near the park, they were supposed to meet last night and she no-showed. He said she always made the contact because there’s nothing unusual about a Congressional liaison calling a Senator’s office. Senator Kiley calls himself an idiot and says he has thrown away his career and damaged his family. And, when the affair goes public, everyone is going to think he killed Lt. Cmdr. McLelland. Gibbs makes clear he’s not gonna cover this up, and Senator Kiley accepts this. At least on the surface. Gibbs wants to know Lt. Cmdr. McLelland’s background. Senator Kiley says she was smart and promising. He’s not aware of any exes but describes a run-in with her CO- it sounds pretty vanilla.
This guy is the worst, and this type of characterization hasn’t aged well. Senator Kiley has already told Gibbs he knows NCIS can’t cover up the affair, but then he starts talking about his really important energy bill and how it’s up for a vote and important legislation shouldn’t be defeated because of his indiscretions. Which is just another way of saying, “Hey buddy- just cover it up for a couple of weeks.” And then he just says it- keep my name out of it until after the vote. Gibbs falls for this because loyalty is his blindspot. He’ll see what he can do.
The field agents are processing Lt. Cmdr. McLelland’s apartment. Tony is processing her underwear drawer, which oddly enough, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do with a female victim. Seems right up his alley and he certainly plays it for skeevs here. Ziva usually gives Tony some rope because she’s a perv too, but she’s not on board today. Ziva finds a “You know who” signature on a love note and suggests Lt. Cmdr. McLelland had a lover (which we the audience know). She wonders at the anonymity. McGee suggests she’s gay in the age of don’t ask/don’t tell. Ziva thinks male handwriting. Tony finds the birth control and, rather grossly, opines on what day of her cycle Lt. Cmdr. McLelland was on. But he agrees the lover is a man.
Gibbs arrives. McGee reports no signs of blood or a struggle. They’re still looking through her personal effects. Neighbors says she kept to herself. Tony shows Gibbs the love note and theorizes that they’re dealing with an affair with a married man. Gibbs is silent.
Later, Gibbs and Tony interview Admiral Graves, Lt. Cmdr. McLelland’s CO. He hasn’t seen her since the last staff meeting, but says her job had her on the Hill more than at the Pentagon. He’s also worried about a security breach since Lt. Cmdr. McLelland had a top-level clearance. Tony notes the admiral playing with his wedding ring finger and his Tony-sense is aroused. He asks if Admiral Graves ever met Lt. Cmdr. McClellan’s boyfriend. The Admiral pleads ignorance about her personal life.
Gibbs asks about the confrontation Senator Kiley identified and Tony clearly wonders where Gibbs got his tip. Admiral Graves explains that tech specs were supposedly leaked to a defense contractor before their release. It wasn’t a big deal and never traced to the Admiral’s command, but Lt. Cmdr. McLelland wrote it up even after he told her not to. Gibbs tells the admiral that NCIS will need to examine Lt. Cmdr. McLelland’s office. Admiral Graves doesn’t give Gibbs the usual CO grief that occurs in these circumstances and appears to cooperate.
In the squad room, McGee is examining Lt. Cmdr. McLelland’s cell phone records. She called the Capitol switchboard 36 times. Ziva asks why it’s weird given the victim’s job and McGee wonders why Lt. Cmdr. McLelland wouldn’t just have direct dial numbers.
Gibbs and Tony enter, and Tony announces his intention to follow up on the Admiral since he was more interested in covering his ass than the victim. McGee hasn’t found Lt. Cmdr. McLelland’s cell phone, but he tells Gibbs about the switchboard and Gibbs agrees she didn’t want her calls traced. Ziva provides more background. Lt. Cmdr. McLelland was fourth in her class at Annapolis, and she has been climbing the ladder ever since.
Vance summons Gibbs.
Tony summons the agents for some juicy gossip time re: Gibbs leaving the crime scene and then knowing about the dispute between the Admiral and the victim. There’s a funny shot of the back of the plasma from the angle of the squad room stairs, and all three agents look out from behind a different side of the plasma as Gibbs walks up the stairs.
In the Director’s office, Vance plays for Gibbs a message on his private line. A seemingly artificial female voice describes where to locate the gun that killed Lt. Cmdr. McLelland.
McGee and Tony are searching the area identified in the voicemail with metal detectors. Tony sees something and directs McGee toward a supposed object in the water. It’s far enough out that McGee can’t reach. Tony offers to hold him, but the jaunty score tells us where this is headed. Sure enough, McGee falls into the creek. But he finds the gun.
Which Abby processes back in her lab. It’s a classic S&W .32 pistol. Ballistics indicate that the gun is the murder weapon. But Gibbs wonders at it being handed over on a silver platter.
Gibbs sets McGee to tracing the call to Vance’s voicemail. Of course, this involves getting Vance’s voicemail password and a stern warning from Vance that the messages from Mrs. Vance are not for McGee’s ears. He also tells McGee to go home and change out of NCIS coveralls, which makes him a nicer boss than Gibbs, who would have left McGee in the coveralls until the end of the episode.
After McGee leaves, Vance wonders if they’re being taunted by a serial killer of some sort. Gibbs plays it close to the vest. Vance demands to be kept in the loop. Gibbs agrees, but is a little more evasive than usual, and Vance seems to notice.
Gibbs visits Abby, who reports that someone stole her cupcake. Gibbs would like her to focus. She does and reports that she found carpet fibers on the victim’s clothing that are consistent with automobile fibers, so she’s running them through one of her many databases. While she waits, she finds what she suspects to be a cupcake crumb on Gibbs’s jacket.
In the squad room, Tony gets off a call. He continues to suspect Admiral Graves is Lt. Cmdr. McLelland’s lover based on his source, Jerry the Barber. His fellow agents are amused. Gibbs isn’t, but fortunately McGee saves Tony from a head slap by reporting that the call to Vance came from a burn phone purchased at a convenience store in Arlington. But over a year ago, so there’s no video surveillance. McGee has traced the origin point of the call and also ID’d the voice- sort of. It’s from text-reading software.
Ziva has traced the gun. It’s vintage 1940s and never registered, but the firing pin was new. The gun was taken to a specialist for restoration and cleaning and the customer’s listed name is Otis Tripp. Gibbs reacts visibly to the name, but Ziva says the man died in 1999. Gibbs gets up, irritated, and says no one leaves until he returns. Tony is now officially curious.
Gibbs meets Senator Kiley in the same place and tells him they found the murder weapon. Per Gibbs, it was owned by a Marine who has been dead nine years: “Otis Tripp, your father in law.” Gibbs wants to know if the Senator has ever seen the weapon. Senator Kiley says Tripp left it to him and it was locked in his gun cabinet with the rest of his collection. Senator Kiley knows Gibbs suspects him now, but he plays the “I’m not a good enough liar to trick you” card and swears he did not kill Lt. Cmdr. McLelland. And now Senator Kiley is talking frame-up. I hate this guy.
Gibbs gets a call and Vance orders him back to the office. When Gibbs returns, Vance is watching soccer on the tube and trying to get off the phone with his wife. Vance plays a new message and the caller wonders aloud why an arrest hasn’t been made in light of the murder weapon. It then asks, “Is Special Agent Gibbs covering up for an old friend?” Vance says that if Gibbs is holding back, he’d better rethink that. Gibbs walks off as Vance asks where the hell he’s going. But Gibbs is just being theatrical, not insubordinate. He opens Vance’s door and introduces the Director to his Senator friend.
Senator Kiley talks about how he met Lt. Cmdr. McLelland and how the affair started. Gibbs is now on the frame train and suggests the Senator is being set up. Vance wants to know about enemies, but, despite being a politician, Senator Kiley says big oil money is the only enemy with a massive grudge, presumably because of his energy bill, which the senator says will cost the oil companies tens of billions of dollars. Senator Kiley IDs a lobbyist named Reed Talbot as a person trying to dig up dirt on the Senator to stop the bill. The vote is next week. Vance says the investigation is going to lead where it leads, but it’s also the status of the agency not to divulge details of ongoing cases.
Abby arrives in the squad room and says she has identified the car fibers as being from a recent model Jeep Cherokee, of which there are 1200+ in the DC area. While there, she takes a DNA swab from McGee and Tony. And even Ziva- the person who gave Abby the cupcake!- is not above suspicion.
Gibbs appears and the agents recognize our Senator friend. Gibbs tells Ziva to background Reed Talbot. He tells McGee to trace the latest call to Vance, and takes Tony with him, bypassing Abby’s efforts to get his DNA.
At the Senator’s fancy residence, the agents are greeted by Cole Erickson, Senator Kiley’s chief of staff, who is disturbed that the Senator is missing appointments and not answering his phone. Gibbs tells Erickson that they’re at the residence to investigate a stolen weapon. Oh, and how awkward…here comes Lynn, the senator’s wife and she knows Gibbs personally. And he knows her husband has been slipping it to a dead gal (well, she wasn’t dead when he was slipping it to her…presumably? No, this is not that kind of show). Yikes. But Gibbs puts on his brave face and hugs the nice lady. Until Senator Kiley saves him by telling her this visit isn’t for funsies. And then, shock of shocks, he tells Erickson to show the agents to the study where the guns are while he tells his wife they have to talk. Maybe Gibbs put a gun to his head on the car ride over because it’s a rare man who comes clean to his wife before it’s absolutely necessary. And those guys don’t run for office. We change scenes before we get to see Lynn throw expensive bric-a-brac at her husband’s Senatorial head.
In the study, we see the Senator is well-armed. And a master marketer. There’s a framed picture of the Senator and Gibbs in Marine gear during Desert Storm that was probably placed there 15 minutes previous. Erickson, who I have to assume has been cued, breathlessly says, “You’re that gunnery sergeant the Senator always talks about!” The gun cabinet is locked, and Erickson reaches for the key, but Tony bluntly says he has it and Gibbs politely but firmly excuses the young man.
We shift to the Gibbs Cave, where Gibbs is working on his boat when Lynn Kiley comes by to spray Kiley family drama all over his basement. For someone we’ve only just heard of this episode, she certainly knows Gibbs’s habits re: keeping his door unlocked and working on boats. Gibbs is listening to playoff baseball of some sort and Lynn asks for liquor. She tells him she needed someone to talk to but because she promised “the bastard I wouldn’t tell anyone about his sleazy affair with the dead girl.” That left Gibbs. Lucky, lucky Gibbs.
OK, now I feel bad. Gibbs tells Lynn to talk because she was there for him. And she makes clear that it was during the big crisis, because she responds, “If you can get through Shannon and Kelly’s deaths, I can get through this.” So, she’s a legit friend. Although, she genuinely thinks Gibbs got through Shannon’s and Kelly’s deaths, so maybe she’s not a super-attentive friend?
Lynn promises that she is not going to play the good wife at the press conference. Gibbs catches on that Lynn knew about the affair, though. She tells Gibbs she knew they were meeting at Erickson’s apartment. Lynn calls Erickson a weasel, Gibbs says he seems loyal. But Lynn thinks Erickson is in love with her husband and she has never seen him with a woman…which is not exactly a PC implication. Gibbs sorts of shrugs it off. Senator Kiley calls, but Lynn refuses to take it. Then Gibbs takes her liquor and tells her she needs to go home. Still, she’ll stand by her man in one sense. As she’s walking up the basement stairs, she says that as much as she might hate her husband at this moment, he’s still “a Marine to the core” (haha- get it?) and he would never shoot anyone, let alone a woman in the back.
Hmmmm.
Gibbs arrives at Abby’s lab with Caf-Pow. The prints on the gun cabinet came back as expected except for one she can’t identify. She reports that the footprint McGee found at the crime scene was from a Metro police officer. She is also making headway on the cupcake case and puts up a montage of her suspects, including Gibbs, Ducky, and to Gibbs’s astonishment, Thurman Attenberry, night janitor. Abby thinks Thurman has put on weight. Cupcake weight.
In the squad room, the agents background Reed Talbot, the lobbyist. Ziva likes him for murder. Gibbs asks if Talbot has a fingerprint on file, but that’s a negative. Tony likes Cole Erickson. His prints were on the gun cabinet, and he drives a Cherokee. McGee traced the call to Vance to the same burn phone, but this call came from a different location. Based on the cell towers, the caller was in a vehicle, and probably using a laptop to generate the voice.
During all this, Ziva steals a clipboard from Tony’s work area and claims she needs it. She leaves…
…and wanders up to Reed Talbot on the Hill as he is getting into his car. She’s dressed up extra sexy and asks him to sign a petition opposing the reduction of the federal speed limit to 55 mph to reduce fuel consumption- so right in his wheelhouse. Talbot asks if Ziva knows who he is, and she says he’s a very handsome man who looks like he works out. That gets her a signature, and some prints. And his digits. Yum.
Back at the squad room, Tony orders McGee to trace Erickson’s PDA. The interior of Erickson’s Cherokee matches the fibers Abby found on the bottom, but Tony can’t locate Erickson. Erickson didn’t show for work and he’s in the wind, but McGee traces the PDA to his apartment at the Watergate.
Gibbs and Tony break into the Watergate! I’m just kidding- they found a security guard who grants them entry and I’m sure they gave him a good warrantless excuse. They enter, guns drawn, and find Erickson, dead with a plastic bag taped over his head. And a convenient, typewritten suicide note.
The team processes the scene. McGee links the suicide note to Erickson’s computer. Tony is having Erickson’s Cherokee towed to the evidence garage. He stops to gloat about Ziva’s misfire on Reed Talbot. She shrugs and tells Gibbs that an area of Erickson’s carpet was recently cleaned. Ducky gives Gibbs a preliminary and obvious COD of asphyxia. Ducky calls TOD at roughly 10 AM, which correlates to the suicide note. McGee also finds the burn phone that made the calls to the Director and the laptop also has the voice software used in the calls and boy if you’re thinking this is pretty pat, well, there’s still over eight minutes of runtime left.
Senator Kiley shows up and wants to see the body. It’s a secure crime scene, Gibbs tells him and wants to know when Erickson learned of Senator Kiley’s affair. The Senator says he knew from the beginning and let them use his apartment. Geez, what a stooge. As far as Senator Kiley knew Erickson had no relationship with Lt. Cmdr. McLelland, but he did disapprove of the affair. While enabling it, one is forced to note. Do any of these creeps have an ounce of agency? Gibbs tells the Senator that Erickson left a note addressed to the Senator- a full confession. Senator Kylie looks sad.
Ziva summons Gibbs back to the crime scene and confirms that the area of cleaned carpet shows traces of blood.
In the Director’s office, Ducky confirms asphyxia as the COD and a large quantity of diazepam in Ericson’s stomach and bloodstream. Ducky says it’s not uncommon for suicides to use prescription meds to relax. Vance asks if Gibbs has an opinion and Gibbs says it doesn’t feel right. It’s too easy. Vance says that Senator Kiley is having a press conference in two hours and Vance has been asked to attend. He’d like to confirm the case has been solved but doesn’t feel like Gibbs is there yet. Gibbs assures Vance that a lot can get done in two hours.
McGee takes a trip to Abby’s lab and runs into the Star Chamber: Abby, Ziva, Tony. Abby asks if McGee thinks she’s an idiot. He plays dumb. She has a fingerprint and accuses him of stealing the cupcake. McGee scoffs- he wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave a fingerprint. But Abby didn’t pull one off the refrigerator where the cupcake was. She pulled it off a brand new box of latex gloves- which McGee used while stealing the cupcake. McGee confesses and says he was saving Abby from herself because she said she was going gluten-free. Abby demands to know where he saved it, and McGee admits he ate the cupcake. It was late, the vending machine was empty, and the cupcake looked so good. Sean Murray does a great job here, but Weatherly and de Pablo crush the facial expressions. And even though de Pablo looks like she’s about to crack up, it actually adds to the humor. Tony hugs McGee and asks what he was thinking stealing cupcakes from a world class forensic scientist. Then he slaps his head. Ziva also slaps his head: she bought that cupcake for Abby. Now it’s Abby’s turn. She gets right in his face…and asks how it tasted. “It was life-changing,” McGee whispers. “Book him, Dan-no!” Abby says.
This has been a surprisingly solid and humorous subplot, but Gibbs arrives to call an end to it. They have work to do. Mark that she occasionally is, Ziva protests that they have a confession so why would they work more? Abby and Tony join in. Gibbs is not so easily satisfied and gives McGee a list of dates and times. He wants to know if Erickson used his PDA during the periods. Gibbs leaves and McGee looks at the information on the paper and then back at his co-workers which a quizzical expression. But they’re still judging him. He wanders off, chastised.
Gibbs joins Vance and Senator Kiley at the press conference. Vance says his two hours are up, and Senator Kiley, smarmy as ever, says it’s good to have an old friend present at times like these. But Gibbs is having none of that. He says, “I’m not here to support you.” Senator Kiley balks and leads the men into his study. Gibbs says, “I’m here to arrest you.” Senator Kiley asks if this is a joke. Vance looks at Gibbs’s face (and probably mentally assesses Gibbs’s shallow history of fun and games) and says, “I don’t think so.” Gibbs tells Senator Kiley that the confession didn’t pan out- Erickson wasn’t the anonymous caller. At the time Vance got the second tip, Erickson was 50 miles away talking to his mom on his PDA. Gibbs says that Senator Kiley placed those calls when he was coming to meet Gibbs near the Jefferson Memorial. Senator Kiley tries to protest, but hell hath no fury like a Gibbs whose loyalty has been betrayed; and Gibbs is justifiably and righteously pissed that this disingenuous politician shitbag traded on their friendship to hobble an investigation. Senator Kiley admits he should have known he’d never slip this by Gibbs. Or by anybody really- “Oh, hey, that murder you’re investigating- just wanted to preemptively let you know that it wasn’t me even though she was my side piece.” But whatever.
Still, things are not quite that cut and dried. When Senator Kiley then tries to admit he shot Lt. Cmdr. McLelland, Gibbs calls bullshit. Senator Kiley starts to stammer and then Lynn Kiley appears (from somewhere) and tells him not to say anything else. Gibbs says her big mistake was coming to him too…and revealing knowledge that Lt. Cmdr. McLelland was shot in the back. That detail was never released. Senator Kiley says, “You never should have gone to him,” and Gibbs is forced to ask, “What the hell happened to you two?” Lynn says she didn’t go to Erickson’s apartment to kill Lt. Cmdr. McLelland- she took the gun to scare her off, but then Lt. Cmdr. McLelland allegedly said mean things and Lynn lost it. She claims not to remember pulling the trigger, which is good way to try to plead it down to manslaughter. And a Senator’s wife is prominent enough that that might even work…
…Except…
…there’s the little matter of Cole Erickson.
Senator Kiley says he got to Erickson’s apartment right after it happened and wasn’t going to let Lynn go to prison because he can’t keep it in his pants. Senator Kiley persuaded Erickson to help him dispose of the body. Lynn is trying to work Gibbs now (I guess forgetting there’s another guy in the room who outranks Gibbs and doesn’t give a shit about these two people) and tries to Jedi mind trick him into believing Lt. Cmdr. McLelland’s death was an accident.
…But…
… there’s the little matter of Cole Erickson.
And Gibbs finally brings up how cold and premeditated Erickson’s murder was. Rocky Carroll’s nails the disgust here too as Vance says, “Framed him. Made it look like suicide to save yourselves.” They don’t have a response, so Gibbs breaks out the handcuffs. Craven till the end, Senator Kiley asks if they need to leave in handcuffs, and Gibbs lets him know, “You are all out of favors.” Vance gets the lady.
NCIS makes a rare news broadcast (usually other federal agencies steal their credit), and we see a TV set in Vance’s office showing Gibbs putting Senator Kiley in his vehicle. Vance turns it off and welcomes himself to Washington. He would have appreciated a heads up before the arrest, but Gibbs says he covered good. Like Shepard before him, Vance is perfectly happy to drink hard liquor in his office and makes them both a drink. Gibbs talks about trust and loyalty and how important they are. Vance sits down and figures Gibbs knows all about those things after today. He asks Gibbs how he thinks they’re going to do in the trust and loyalty departments. We end on Gibbs staring back at him, but things seem promising enough.
Quotables: Nothing of note.
Time Until Sexual Harassment: Right off the bat, Tony would like to know details of Abby’s and Ziva’s sleep over. And he’s not subtle about it. Rooting through the victim’s underwear drawer and musing aloud about her menstrual cycle aren’t endearing moments either.
Ziva-propisms: Ziva says “control geek.” Ziva means “control freak.” She doesn’t get “on the nose,” “on the money,” “bullseye,” or “right as rain,” prompting Tony to accuse her of regressing since returning to Israel. She also says, “crumb bag” instead of “scum bag.” That’s a lot of bad idiomatic English for 44 minutes.
Tony Awards: Tony does a Jack Nicholson impression from A Few Good Men (1992) and a Humphrey Bogart impression from The Maltese Falcon (1941). He mentions An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). He makes prequel Star Wars jokes about Jedi masters and Padawan learners. Abby says, “Book him, Dan-no,” a reference to Hawaii 5-0. The original, since we’re still two years away from the re-make.
Abby Road: The hunt of the cupcake thief is afoot.
McNicknames: McGee turns the tables with Di-Nosey.
Ducky Tales: None. Ducky has been uncharacteristically quiet of late.
The Rest of the Story:
-Rock Creek Park is a standard crime scene on this show. I believe it’s first appearance in this role was in The Curse, Episode 1.5.
-Abby sleeping in a coffin was established in Reveille, Episode 1.23.
-Having met Mrs. Vance in later seasons, I do not view her as the type of personality who leaves dirty sex messages on a spouse’s voicemail.
-There are easier ways to kill legislation than murdering people. So, the idea that Talbot the oil lobbyist is a suspect is a little silly.
-I’ve said this before, but if this plot happened in the real world- if a senator called a press conference and then got led out in cuffs with his wife and charged with the murder of his lover and his chief of staff- the Internet would explode. Especially if it meant a game changing lefty enviro-bill got scuttled.
Casting Call: Senator Kiley is Tim DeKay. If you primarily know DeKay as straight-shooting FBI agent Peter Burke from White Collar, you’re probably impressed with his range in this episode. But if you recall DeKay’s role as Dr. Paul Thomas on Party of Five, you know smarmy, passive aggressive sad-sack is in his actor’s toolkit. Brilliant casting, perfect portrayal.
Man, This Show Is Old: The idea of adultery taking down a politician seems awfully quaint in the Age of Trump. The idea of murder taking down a politician is starting to seem awfully quaint in the Age of Trump.
Shades of Chandra Levy! In 2001, Chandra Levy, a federal intern went missing in the DC area. Levy had been having an affair with Rep. Gary Condit (D. Ca.), so he quickly became a focus of her disappearance- at least in the media (his alibi was too good to make him an actual law enforcement suspect). A buddy of mine jokes that Condit was probably the only American silently cheering on 9/11 because those events utterly erased him from the public consciousness (although he still lost his bid for re-election in 2002). Levy’s body was ultimately found in Rock Creek Park about a year after her disappearance, and an El Salvadoran immigrant was charged and convicted for her murder. When he got a new trial, the authorities decided to deport him instead of re-trying him. Wikipedia says the Levy murder remains unsolved.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was anti-LGBTQ legislation related to military service and passed in the Clinton Administration. It was repealed about midway through the Obama Administration, so it’s still in play for another three years or so as of the airing of this episode.
Text-reading software was a little more cutting edge in 2008, I suppose.
PDAs are still getting a mention. Their time in the sun was so short, I guess we should appreciate the ode to transitional technology.
MVP: Abby. For catching McGee stealing that cupcake. As to the main plot, Gibbs largely got played, and didn’t realize he wasn’t being played until the perp showed up in his basement and gift-wrapped the clinching bit of evidence. And everyone else bought the Erickson frame. Nobody looked good here.
Rating: The idea of an energy bill being this progressive and passable in 2008 takes me out of things a bit. But that’s a quibble. A bigger issue is this whole scheme being a bit obvious and a bit crazy. It’s a good episode in terms of humor, characterization, drama and dialogue, and I enjoyed the hell out of writing it up. But the episode’s success depends on the perps being absolute morons and trading manslaughter for premeditated murder and Gibbs and the team largely eating what they’re fed regardless of how unrealistic it is. I like it, and it’s getting seven Palmers, but I’m not entirely sure it’s worth seven Palmers.
Next Time: We head to Gibbs’s hometown. What will we find there?
A Year of NCIS 