Since when does Gibbs have a speedboat in his basement?
If you pondered that question out loud tonight, you’re not alone. This detail is the first of many signs that things aren’t exactly as they should be at Chez Gibbs, where a man in a USMC hoodie, his head just out of the frame, walks down the stairs and helps himself to the liquor stashed under the workbench.
Again, eagle-eyed longtime NCIS viewers probably noticed that this figure doesn’t move like Gibbs, and when the man chokes on the first sip of alcohol, it’s confirmed: This is McGee (Sean Murray).
An ancient monitor flips on to show real-time security footage of McGee in the basement, and when he spots the name “Tim” on the aforementioned speedboat, he cautiously asks, “Boss?”
And his boss turns up, all right. But it’s his real boss, LaRoche (Seamus Dever), who descends the stairs and shoots him. (That’s a little thing we call foreshadowing.)
McGee is, of course, dreaming. He fell asleep at his desk, having stayed late yet again, combing through evidence to bring down LaRoche as part of his Ahab-like obsession with the man. Then there’s LaRoche in the flesh, strolling through the big orange room with an unknown woman (Nanrisa Lee) in tow and smarmily offering McGee good luck in catching the man he’s after. Careful what you wish for, Gabe!
The next morning, McGee learns he’s not the only team member who’s had nighttime Gibbs manifestations; Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) has dreams where the boss hands him a virgin piña colada and orders him to stop slouching.
Knight (Katrina Law) won’t cop to any dreams but says McGee’s manifesting his fears of failing to live up to Gibbs’ high standards. Also, boats symbolize growth and progress. (That, or he always coveted Gibbs’ comfy sweatshirt.)
McGee, though, is intent on linking LaRoche to the Nexus cartel, hopefully with help from the DOJ file Vance (Rocky Carroll) slipped him. He blows off his team’s suggestions that he take a break and even snaps, “I can do my job, Gibbs,” when Parker (Gary Cole) joins the chorus of concerned coworkers.
Coulda been worse, honestly. He coulda slipped and said “Dad.”
He finally agrees to go home for the day and is making lunch plans with Delilah (Margo Harshman) when he spots LaRoche angrily ending a phone call. Thai food forgotten, he hops in his car to follow.
McGee’s unsanctioned surveillance revealed LaRoche switching cars in a parking garage, then driving to a secluded warehouse area. The sun has set as McGee lurks, ignoring Delilah’s texts asking where the heck he is. He told that woman he’d be home for lunch, then he didn’t fire off a single text since then? Yikes, Tim!
But hey, it all pays off when he follows LaRoche into an empty building and witnesses him shoot somebody he was just arguing with. McGee knocks over some pipes in his excitement, and LaRoche runs for it.
McGee shouts that he’s a federal agent, but weirdly, that doesn’t convince LaRoche to stop. They race outside, where McGee’s clipped by a truck. He’s left with a concussion and a good deal of confusion, asking the same questions over and over and failing to convince the team that he actually witnessed their boss do a murder.
Unfortunately, the truck driver didn’t see anyone but McGee, and there’s no body, blood, prints, drag marks, or shell casings in the warehouse. As for Vance, he was already skeptical about McGee’s claims, and that was before the head injury.
Time for the team to focus on the crime of the week, which involves a birthday party van that’s been shot up. They find a mysterious U.S. Navy weapon nearby that looks like something you’d pry off of Optimus Prime, as well as a now-empty safe in the side of the van and a discarded money band behind a box of clown wigs. *shudder*
The oddball weapon is a signal jammer designed to take down drones in war zones and was likely used to neutralize the van vault’s silent alarm so the thief could make off with what Kasie (Diona Reasonover) estimates is a million dollars.
The Transformers weapon also logs nearby cell phone activity, which leads them to Crispin Shaker Jr., an armored car robber. And when Parker suggests that McGee visit Palmer (Brian Dietzen) before he goes home to rest up, it’s not for medical reasons. Jimmy puts his amateur sketch artist skills to work rendering the man McGee saw LaRoche kill.
And whaddya know, we have a connection. Palmer’s sketch matches one of Shaker’s known associates, Jason Meeks. Parker rushes out to tell McGee, who’s seeing Gibbs’ old truck in his parking place instead of his own sensible dad car. Timothy Farragut McGee, you need to go home and rest!
Alas, the delay allows the mystery woman to introduce herself. She’s Inspector General Regina Ward, there to investigate LaRoche’s complaint against McGee for professional misconduct, harassment, and abuse of power.
This causes a stir for everybody. Vance is angry about being kept in the dark, Torres and Knight are angry that McGee’s being railroaded, and Delilah just wants her husband to return her texts. She even wonders if a boat in the basement is next. If so, I hope it’s that sexy lil’ speedboat from his dream!
The team doubles down on linking LaRoche to the party van heist. The theory: LaRoche is a mole for the Nexus cartel, and he knew about the money in the van safe. With the bad guys wanting him dead and the good guys wanting him in prison, LaRoche hired thieves to steal the cash so he could disappear, and now he’s killing the thieves to cover the tracks.
Furthermore, text messages Kasie found between Crispin and Meeks show them agreeing not to make the drop “until he makes the trade.” So LaRoche doesn’t have the birthday van money yet, and he’s planning to give them something valuable in return.
Then Meeks’ body turns up in a park with a mint in his pants cuff, having been moved from the warehouse where LaRouche killed him. Plus, NCIS now has bullets to match a gun.
This doesn’t help McGee, though. Ward says that all evidence — accessing confidential records, going through LaRoche’s home office — points to him acting out of professional jealousy. McGee, who hasn’t slept in four nights, insists that LaRoche is using Ward as a pawn to set him up, and when he accuses his boss of killing a man, it’s a step too far, and Ward suspends him indefinitely. She even takes his phone as evidence, which seems like an overreach without a warrant???
McGee finally decides to lawyer up, but when Ward fetches Vance to be part of this final stage, they return to the interrogation room to find McGee gone and “Rule 45” written on a notepad.
With McGee and LaRoche missing and both of their cars still in the parking lot, Vance demands to know how the team helped McGee leave HQ undetected, but they’re mystified. Also, I love that Parker immediately recognizes Rule 45 as “Clean up your own mess,” despite the two men never really working together. He respects his predecessor!
Palmer matches a partial print on Meeks’ fingernail to LaRoche and says he’s bothered that their boss is undermining everything NCIS stands for while a somber version of the theme song plays on the soundtrack.
Although Ward’s now accusing everybody of aiding and abetting McGee, they finally have evidence that LaRoche worked with Shaker and Meeks to steal the top-secret Transformers gun. Also, he was most recently spotted on a security feed loading evidence from the basement into a GPS-enabled government van.
It’s enough proof for Ward, who sends the team after LaRoche. But McGee’s already there, having slipped into the back of the van. He interrupts LaRoche’s tense showdown with Shaker (Brandon Brooks) in an abandoned church.
All three men pull guns, and LaRoche says Gibbs would be proud of McGee’s but that there’s no need to pull the trigger. It’s a three-way standoff until LaRoche shoots Shaker, presumably before Shaker can shoot McGee.
Now it’s a two-way standoff, with LaRoche haloed by light through a stained glass window bearing the image of a cross.
The rest of the team bursts in, and at LaRoche’s direction, Knight pulls a computer chip (or a disc? Do people still use discs?) from Shaker’s pocket. LaRoche says this isn’t about money, and it’s time they know the truth.
Sooooo LaRoche has been a good guy all along, right? Maybe he cut corners or got a little compromised, but there’s going to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this, right?
In B-plot news, Knight and Torres got accidentally officially married during their undercover wedding, which should have happened under fake names, so how did their real names get on the paperwork? Whatever the reason, they’re tempted by all the financial perks that Barbara from Accounting (Victoria Kelleher) outlines for married couples until they learn that one of them would need to transfer off the team. Hello, annulment! And good news for Barbara, that means Torres is still on the market.
Should “Gibbs’ rules always come at a cost,” as Vance says, be made into an official rule? Knight might be onto something there…
The building maintenance crew had to set the “days without an unexplained elevator stoppage” counter back to zero when Knight and Parker have a heart-to-heart on the Elevator of Schemes and Secrets. He tells her that Lily was a real little girl, and she hasn’t appeared to him lately thanks to a revealing conversation with his father. Also, he asks for Palmer’s help in finding his mother’s grave since the cemetery records are a mess and he could use somebody with connections to the mortuary world to pull some strings. So that plot’s advancing too.
Here’s hoping the episode title — “Irreconcilable Differences” — isn’t on the paperwork Delilah files after Tim pulled such an epic disappearing act. Let’s see what next week brings!
