NCIS – A Mallard Manor Thanksgiving

After more than six seasons, last night saw a rather interesting progression in the camaraderie of the NCIS team. I’m sure there are those among you in the position to correct my mistake, but as far as I can recall this was the first time that the entire team celebrated a holiday together, a show of real familial relationships that have never fully blossomed outside of the office before.

And holding the evening at Ducky’s was the perfect way to do it. Sure, Mr. Palmer had already snuck out of town, but the turkey was staying fresh in the morgue, Abby was testing cranberry recipes in her lab, and Gibbs made sure to bring the dinner rolls … er, potato chips. A happy Thanksgiving to them all.

Of course, it was more a result of the case they were working that everyone was in town and available (ala Friends season one). But Ducky didn’t let the initial negative RSVPs stop him from handing out assignments for the big day. It was a presumption of attendance, something he must have learned from mothers everywhere.

The case-of-the-week was again a side-note for me, save for a few interesting thoughts. First of all, I don’t know much about scarecrows, but I think putting a dead Marine inside that scarecrow’s clothing was actually an excellent hiding place. Just because there was a farm in one direction, police cars in another, and a farmer in a third doesn’t mean the guy was out in the open, or easy to find. If he wasn’t bleeding through his shirt — never trust a corpse, I say — who would have found him? I give the psycho killer serious points for creative thinking.

A government think tank loaded with kids is an extremely scary thought. Children today have finally been given the opportunity to be kids for as long as they can be — no more leaving school after the sixth grade to work the family’s land. Now I realize that kids are also never given the benefit of the doubt in terms of what they’re capable of, but let’s test that by increased responsibility, or independence, not by insertion into the intelligence infrastructure of our country.

I’m not saying it’s a real thing — although I wouldn’t be surprised if it were — but the very idea opened my mind up to thoughts of other ways in which we ask too much of our children. I recall an episode of Nurse Jackie, where a young girl was the de-facto caretaker for her mother (or was it grandmother?), and she was studying her vocabulary while sitting in the nurses’ station after an emergency run to the hospital. It’s a terrible situation that, even if only the case for one child, happens too often.

Having said that (what’s up, Curb!), I do love a good Gibbs and kid plot. He is so natural with children, which in fact makes it even sadder that he lost his own. It’s a totally believable side to his hard-nosed, old-fashioned Navy-lifer, and it makes his character all the richer for it.

Here’s to holiday episodes of NCIS on a more regular basis!

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Nov 25, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT