NCIS – The wonders of the spherical organ

It might just be me, but I was kind of disappointed in the body discovery on last night’s episode of NCIS … or should I say lack of discovery? We actually never found out how (or when) the janitor stumbled upon the dead lieutenant. I’m not saying we needed to have seen it, but it was weird for the show to have panned to the body for the audiences’ sake without someone actually finding it.

I know that it makes more sense to assume that solving a crime won’t be as easy as checking out surveillance footage, and in this case it wasn’t, but I actually thought it was going to be that simple — I figured the challenge could always develop as the team was chasing down their man. And in this case I’d actually argue that the eventual convoluted nature of the truth begged for a much simpler, less far-fetched tale. Life-like masks, covert ops, and a cover-up … I guess, but was it really all necessary?

That being said, the masks were, of course, awesome. The one worn in the video was perfect — and obviously not a mask as far as filming the show was concerned — whereas the one Tunney (Jeffrey Johnson) used to slip past the entire team was the fakest, most novelty store bought thing imaginable. It was amusing that the grand master who’d engineered an elaborate cover-up would go so relatively low-tech when running for his life.

Both more and less interesting about the episode were the developments right back at NCIS headquarters. EJ’s (Sarah Jane Morris) unfortunately still around, and with the murder of the lieutenant at the Pentagon her team was officially given full purview of the Port-to-Port killer investigation. With that came an introduction to her full team: Gayne Levin (Alimi Ballard), and Lou Ferrigno … I mean Simon Cade (Matthew Willig). By the way, I loved the giant hat and all, and he is a big guy, but no way would that hat have fit on Simon’s head. No way.

On again/off again relationships on TV are annoying; on again/off again flare-ups of jealousy on TV are even worse. Did we really need to have McGee and Abby going at it after watching the other half of the team do so last week? Cade as a genius makes no sense; Cade and Abby together makes no sense … if I was McGee, I would just be laughing at how ridiculous the entire situation was.

Then there was Tony and Gibbs. I wonder what it says that Gibbs didn’t go to Tony directly about his concerns. Some might say — and have — that it showed a sign of respect, Gibbs not approaching Tony as if he was a little kid. But I see it differently — I think it’s an indication of just how disappointed Gibbs is in Tony. So much so that he couldn’t even bring himself to reprimand Tony: “You know this is a mistake; how could you do that?”

But still I was impressed that Tony challenged Gibbs’ hard-and-fast rule. Look, for our sakes, for Tony’s, for the team’s, and for the show’s I think Tony and EJ shouldn’t be together and EJ should go away quickly. But Tony’s an adult; we all love Gibbs’ rules and his ways, but Tony’s an adult. He doesn’t need a second father, and he doesn’t need to be told how to live his life. There’s nothing wrong with looking to a man like Gibbs for guidance — save for in the love life department, I’d think — but that doesn’t mean anyone should be able to tell Tony no … that’s his call. And I see character evolution in how he stood up for that.

The eyeball thing at the end? Obviously it has to belong to someone still in the NCIS system. You could argue that it could be someone we’ve known who’s died in the past — Director Shepard, maybe? — but then you’d have to assume that the Navy did a bad job of updating its security. No, I think it has to be someone who’s dead and hasn’t been discovered as such yet. That, or someone in the office is walking around with a fake eye. Notice anyone not blinking last night?

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Apr 13, 2011 @ 12:00 EST5EDT