Nary a week after I suggested that our NCIS investigative unit get the opportunity to investigate a naval crime, there we were aboard a ship as the team investigated the murder of a commanding officer. Nice!
At first glance I was actually somewhat disappointed in where the case went from there. I felt like it was a bit of a cop-out for the XO to have committed suicide. Not to minimize it, but I expected intrigue, especially considering the fact that the suspects were a captive bunch.
And yet upon reflection, the power of the episode actually lay in the “simplicity” of the death. Sometimes it really is as uncomplicated as a person getting older and fearing their unknown future. I appreciated that the show gave us an alternative to the blood and gore of murder (not that it’s any neater when self-inflicted).
By the way, the journalist angle kind of fizzled out, but for some reason I loved the total randomness of the South Korean journalist actually being a North Korean spy. Maybe in a different week someone might have pursued that lead somewhere; it’s way above Gibbs’ pay grade — and ridiculously far outside his jurisdiction — but I’m sure in real life something would have been done with that tidbit.
The timing of the psych evaluations conducted by Rachel Cranston (Wendy Makkena) was wildly random and nonsensical. I’m not saying any or all of those people are psychologically stable, but other than with Vance, where was it coming from? And the twist ending only served to multiply the questions, not answer any of them.
I don’t know what the general viewer consensus was about Agent Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander) because I didn’t join the show until it was well underway, and I caught up on my own time. But what I do know is that Cate’s ghost hasn’t been looming around anyone for years now, so what’s with making us think that it has been? I realize that the purpose of the exercise may have been solely for Rachel’s closure, but the clips show of memories that we got from everyone on the team painted a very different picture about how regularly they think of their fallen colleague.
Speaking of Rachel, I was kind of shocked by how wildly inappropriate her whole Cate delving was. Even the fact that she presented herself as there to help the team, only to lie to them about who she was and why she was there. And Gibbs not only thought it was a good idea, but he set the whole thing up? Not cool.
It was also really weird, both before the reveal as well as after, that Rachel seemed to be pushing Abby and McGee to get together. It was strange in the first place because their coupling has never made sense to me. But after we learned that she was Cate’s sister, it gave the impression that Cate used to spend a lot of time imagining what it would be like for McGee and Abby to date. Wouldn’t she have had better things to do with her time?
![NCIS Did you notice that we never saw McGee dispose of the doll? [51YTJvzPHVL. SL160 ] (IMAGE)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YTJvzPHVL._SL160_.jpg "NCIS Did you notice that we never saw McGee dispose of the doll? [51YTJvzPHVL. SL160 ] (IMAGE)")
![NCIS Did you notice that we never saw McGee dispose of the doll? [51eRnHz2DHL. SL160 ] (IMAGE)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eRnHz2DHL._SL160_.jpg "NCIS Did you notice that we never saw McGee dispose of the doll? [51eRnHz2DHL. SL160 ] (IMAGE)")
![NCIS Did you notice that we never saw McGee dispose of the doll? [517viGC516L. SL160 ] (IMAGE)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517viGC516L._SL160_.jpg "NCIS Did you notice that we never saw McGee dispose of the doll? [517viGC516L. SL160 ] (IMAGE)")
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Feb 09, 2011 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
Couldn’t disagree more, my friend. The death of Todd has informed these characters subtly again and again (Though, for Ziva, it was a reach) for many seasons now.
I actually thought based on that sublot, that this was the best episode of NCIS I’ve seen in a long, long time.
I was irritated though, with JAG being in the same “universe,” their use of a former main character actor NOT in the same role he played on the sister show. It is bad enough when they reuse guest actors (and JAG would do it to itself ALL the time), but to use former Commander Turner as the Captain was just bad, bad pool.
I agree … he could have been the ship’s JAG and all would have jived perfectly.
And I have to agree that Agent Todd’s death HAS been hanging around all the main character’s lives since her murder back in the 2005 season. I actually thought this was a pretty decent episode … especially considering it was a clip show.
*POST AUTHOR*
I’m willing to reevaluate, but I haven’t been able to think of any instances since Ziva’s settled in when Cate’s even come to mind. Examples?
Boy did you ever miss the whole point of this episode. You don’t understand what the death of Agent Todd meant to the team apparently. It left a wound in each that has never healed, and even tho Gibbs said “I’ve moved on”, it is obvious that he hasn’t.
I don’t like to be personal here, but I really think someone else should be doing these recap/reviews. You may claim that you caught up from the beginning of the series, but that doesn’t seem to mean that you get the whole dynamic of the show.
Aryeh: All of the emotional growth that Tony has experienced isn’t due to Jeanne, but to Todd and her death. He would have never had the emotional maturity to take on that particular mission.
It isn’t about specifics. Who the characters are was affected.
*POST AUTHOR*
That’s an interesting perspective. I saw it differently, that Tony took on the assignment for career advancement … it was only after the experience that he began to evolve emotionally. But I hear what you’re saying.
IIRC, he was already advancing his career at that time, having taken over the team in Gibbs’ absence.
But going back to it, even if it was for career advancement, he’d not had the emotional maturity to sucede if not for … blah blah blah .
:P
I think it was falling for Jeanne and seeing how much he hurt her that changed him. He took the mission as just another job but then Jeanne became real to him. He even asked Jenny if he should sleep with her as part of the job. Jenny said ‘yes’ but Tony still didn’t until he had sort of fallen in love with her himself.
Old Tony would have never stopped to ask Jenny if he should sleep with her or not.
I agree with you, it seemed totally random. I was hoping for an episode with some real insight into the charcters and all it ended up being was a huge anvil for what I presume is the rest of the season: McGee/Abby (who they totally retconned as having no social life when she’s the one who always did); Ziva wanting permanence in loyalties (already done) and SO; Tony turning down the Rota job and not having family connections.
If you didn’t love Cate (which I didn’t, I thought she was humorless and annoying; I didn’t get into the show till she was gone), it was a bunch of WTH? especially with the retcons. I can see that they might still be affected by her death since she was a colleague but Gibbs and Tony must have had colleagues die. I didn’t see any change in anyones behaviour because of Cate’s death. At least after Paula’s death Tony went to Jeanne and told her he loved her.
Special mention on how unprofessional Rachel was. She gets the approval to do the evaluations on the team (shouldn’t have been allowed near them since she was Cate’s sister) and spent the episode on her own issues with information from Cate that should have been kept confidential. The ‘report’ was totally superficial.
*POST AUTHOR*
Kate, you tell it like it is! Thanks! :)
No, she tells it like SHE SEES IT. Lots of the rest of us see it quite differently.