NCIS – Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Navy cop

It’s amazing how, after eight seasons and close to two hundred episodes, a show can still have so much to tell us about one of its main characters that we’re still interested to learn. But that’s exactly how I felt about the flashback to Tony’s past on last night’s episode of NCIS.

The Port-to-Port Killer hit close to home by murdering Tony’s former Baltimore PD partner, Danny Price (Scott Grimes), and suddenly we were flashing back to the good old days when Tony dressed like a late-night jogger and still believed in happily ever after. And how outrageous was Tony’s hideously dyed hair? Was that straight-up shoe polish? I loved it!

The best part was discovering that Gibbs fit into the story, and seeing for the first time how Tony and Gibbs met. At first I thought that Gibbs would turn out to be Joey Peanuts, but I was plenty satisfied with how expertly he managed to play both Tony and Danny.

I was actually hoping we’d get the chance to spend even more time in the flashback, and to be honest that little taste just served to make me hungry for more. Who wouldn’t love to get a peak at the days when it was Tony who was known as “Probie?” It would be awesome to see Gibbs breaking him in … what a tease this episode turned out to be!

Anyway, I actually think it was a little dumb to make this a copycat murder. It means that there was absolutely no significance to the fact that, amidst the hunt for the Port-to-Port Killer and given the similarities between the murders, someone close to one of the investigators was killed. Every part of that was merely a coincidence, which changed the incident from daring to improbable.

And speaking of the Port-to-Port Killer, it occurred to me that there’s a possible explanation for the mysterious eyeball from a few weeks ago — I loved when Gibbs tossed McGee’s report into the trash for being too technical — that hasn’t been explored: it could be that someone hacked into the system to add a retina to the approved list, as opposed to the eye belonging to an approved person who’s been killed. Then the significance to putting the eyeball in Tony’s drink could have been flaunting it once the killer had gained the access that he needed. Given the fact that we’ve yet to learn of anyone’s death, it’s certainly worth considering.

In the end this episode was actually a break from a multi-episode arc instead of a continued ramp-up, an interesting diversion that may or may not work in the story’s favor. But in a vacuum it was a great side trip into a story that I think all show fans enjoyed peaking into. On a side note, I always find it highly amusing when hair is used to signify a stroll back in time, and so it was perfect that Gibbs’ bangs were meant to make him look ten years younger. That was awesome! But seriously, we definitely need more of the old days to satiate our appetites. Bring it on!

“I don’t have a lot of rules.” – Gibbs to Tony

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on May 04, 2011 @ 14:00 EST5EDT