NCIS – The one that stretched all bounds of the imagination

I loved seeing Gibbs all decked out in camouflage and armed to the teeth, but was the latest case on NCIS a story worth two hours? I suppose it all depends on how you look at it. Let’s take it in pieces.

The Tony piece I’m a DiNozzo fan (Junior and Senior), and Tony making a bucket list last week was funny, but I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at first his religious struggle, and then his “greatest fear.” While I enjoyed his smile-filled Josiah Bartlet-like chapel chat with God (complete with pacing up the aisle), it also lent doubt to the seriousness of Tony’s feelings, or at least made them harder to take seriously. Could it have been a powerful moment? Sure, if in any of 200 episodes we’d known him to exhibit a relationship with God. But it was kind of cheesy. Shame, too.

As for the kids? I laughed when the little girl left paint handprints on the back of Tony’s suit pants, but again: where was all of this coming from right now?

Gibbs’ flashbacks Okay, so Gibbs was friends (maybe more?) with a fellow Marine who died as soon as she landed in Okinawa. Sad, sure, but worth all the time put into it between the two hours? Did it enhance our picture of Gibbs the man?

The terrorists Could Asa (Satya Bhabha), Soraya (Aliah Whitmore), and Usman (Michael Benyaer) have been any more cliched and unimaginative? Their entire portion of the story was laugh-worthy, which I suppose was worthwhile just for having something to laugh at. Tony’s initial interrogation of Asa was one of his worst yet. And why did Soraya take off the face portion of her Hijab after Gibbs captured her? Did modesty no longer matter at that point? Meanwhile, the whole idea of a woman being at the center of a plot to bomb a school that taught girls to read was hilarious.

The little play that Gibbs and Vance put on was done poorly. Gibbs’ torture tools were fun, but why would his family being “dead” convince Asa to tell the truth about his and his siblings’ plot? And speaking of the plot — Gibbs’ command to the team to find kids trips was absurd. A) Is there suddenly some central database of all field trips? Wouldn’t one assume that schools wouldn’t want to publicize that sort of information out of safety concerns? And B) He knew it was the third one they identified with the three hundred kids? No need to check the other thousand field trips going on in and around DC that day? Sure. Gibbs is good, but give me a break.

The rescue Gibbs’ scarf was great, as everyone said, but I had trouble with the idea of two NCIS agents pretty much leading the charge on a rescue mission against armed insurgents in a war zone. One was a Marine and saw combat … long ago; the other saw combat in a foreign army. You think maybe they should have been in back, like Castle on Castle? Them and the BAU team on Criminal Minds … sure, send the profilers in first against armed unsubs!

And why update Joseph Flores (Alex Fernandez) that they might have located his daughter? Could there be a worse idea than getting his hopes up while there was still such a large possibility that they’d find her dead?

Then there was the sight of the coffin in the opening moments. If they had come out and said that someone other than Flores (Sofia Pernas) was in the box it wouldn’t have made that fact more obvious.

It was cool to see Gibbs in country in Afghanistan … I just felt like so much of the story was told poorly.

Some other funny moments:

• Tony telling McGee that libraries smell like “lonely smart people.”
• Gibbs asking the siblings if they’d last seen one another at the terrorist convention in Toledo.
• Ziva saying that “I grew up in this region” and so therefore was prepared for anything. Right, because Israel and Afghanistan are the same….

Couldn’t they have done better for Cold Case’s John Finn?

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Nov 16, 2011 @ 14:00 EST5EDT