NCIS/Headscratchers

• The way they were talking about La Grenouille's murder in 'Internal Affairs' (5.14), La Grenouille's murderer was talking to him on his boat, grabbed his hand, pulled the gun out and shot him, and then either the force knocked him over the side of the boat or his murderer threw him off the side. But in 'Bury Your Dead' (5.01), his body is far away from where the boat is docked. So how did it get so far from the boat?
  • There was a current?
• Who actually killed La Grenouille anyway?
  • Jenny Shepard. Note the flashback at the very end of "Internal Affairs": the gun he was killed with, the one that Jenny had testified she'd given to La Grenouille in her office earlier, never actually left her office. While she had handed it to La Grenouille at that time, he'd put it back on her desk before he left . The only way the gun could possibly have gotten to the site of La Grenoiulle's murder is if Jenny carried it there herself.
• Speaking of 'Internal Affairs', how come Fornell was put in charge of the investigation? First off, he is a member of the FBI, not NCIS, and secondly, he is best friends with one of the top suspects, and has a pretty close relationship with the rest of the team.
  • While the second point is valid (as Fornell has personal connections to Gibbs) the former makes sense—Jenny is the highest-ranking person at NCIS. There basically isn't any way for any in-house investigation to appear impartial. The FBI is about the only agency that would have jurisdiction.
    • Correct. Investigations of misconduct by federal agents is, if too serious to handle as an internal disciplinary matter, by default in FBI jurisdiction. And given that this particular incident involves alleged misconduct by an agency director, in practice jurisdiction would be determined by 'Whoever the Attorney General decides can handle it'.
    • And even though Fornell has strong ties to Gibbs, he has shown time and time again that he has no qualms with putting Gibbs on the spot. It was probably something like "oh, Gibbs is the prime suspect in one of Fornell's investigations... Sounds like a Wednesday."
• What was the deal with Jenny's father? Did he commit suicide? Is he still alive? What the hell here, show?
  • It's implied that La Grenouille and Kort faked all that stuff to get Shepard fired to get her off his back. The polygraph tests that were scheduled at the end of that arc would have suggested that, as said by Gibbs "Subject displayed emotional instability indicating delusional belief that her father is still alive." NOT the kind of person you want running your armed federal agency.
  • Well, there's still her father's old friend who swore that he saw Jasper Sheppard, alive, in his hospital room 3 weeks prior.
    • I sort of assume this is like the Meat Puzzles: It's something that will get picked up in a later season when they need an idea. He'll probably turn out to be connected to Mossad, since everything seems to lead back to them these days.
    • And it's not like La Grenouille and/or Kort couldn't find a combination of threats and bribery revolving around the dying man's family to make him claim otherwise.
    • However, since it's been at least two seasons since Jenny's death, it looks as if the writers just plain forgot about this plotline, or at least didn't know what to do with it.
• Why did Abby and McGee split up?
  • Because McGee asked Abby where their relationship was going, and it freaked her out. She presumably thought their affair was only a fling, and he was moving too fast for her, or something. She complains about it to Kate in an episode.
  • What episode was this?
    • Season 1, Episode 22 'A Weak Link.'
    • Thank you.
  • Rule 12.
• If McGee has been working at NCIS for six years, why the hell is he still on probation?
  • Erm... If you're talking about the way Tony addresses McGee, this Troper always thought that was just a nickname, kind of like the way an older sibling might act. He isn't literally on probation- it's just Tony talk.
  • It's apparently an office custom that the people who were on your team when you were the probie get to call you that for life, even after you graduate. Mike Franks still calls Gibbs 'probie', even 20 years later.
  • Also, Tony's a bit jealous of the fact that McGee is competent in areas he is not, and has a life outside of work that isn't based around sex. Basically, DiNozzo is an arse to McGee.
  • When McGee joined Team Gibbs full-time, he had been working for NCIS, but not as a field agent. So he was a probationary field agent, hence 'probie', and now it's just what Tony calls him. Note that Ziva gets it now, too, as she's working on joining NCIS now that she's left Mossad.
• When other people get shot in NCIS, they get their brains splattered. Kate gets a neat little hole in the forehead. What the fuck?
  • Well, the exit wound was on the back of her head, which we never saw. It was stated that there was a hole the size of a grapefruit back there.
    • Ari used a jacketed round (for some odd reason-that's not what a real pro would generally use.) There would have been a neat hole entry (since he hit her straight on, on the hardest bone in the skull) and a larger exit wound at the back. Probably NOT 'grapefruit sized', as Tony said, but larger than the entry. A softnosed or hollow-point round would have blown her head apart (which is why a professional killer would usually prefer a hollow round-a body hit is less likely to be survivable than a full jacketed round, so accuracy is not as critical.)
    • The ammo choice's reason is given in the second half of the episode: Ari deliberately killed Kate with the same model rifle and same type of ammo that Gibbs was originally issued as a Marine Corps sniper, just to piss Gibbs off even further. (Note that international treaty forbids the use of expanding ammo in war.)
    • When I was in first grade, I saw John F Kennedy's autopsy pictures in a documentary (our teacher ended up getting fired because of that). I recall it was a copper jacket (and looking through the internet verifies what I remember). The front was a small bullet hole, but at the back of the head was a very large opening. The skull and scalp that was left were kept in one piece though. The coroner even fitted it over the wound.
    • Because Kate is beautiful and Beauty Is Never Tarnished.
    • I'm not sure if SFX Awareness is a valid trope, but in that scene you can see Michael Waverly (DiNozzo) flinch just before the squib on Kate's back splatters him with blood.
• What the hell is NCIS even doing investigating half the cases that they investigate? For example, Ari was probably a matter for the CIA, even if he did do all those bad things inside NCIS. It could be theorised that they weren't actually supposed to be investigating him but they did anyway because of Gibbs' vendetta, but still...
  • Crimes committed directly against NCIS agents or employees puts it within NCIS jurisdiction.
  • In addition, Ari's first attack was conducted inside NCIS headquarters. Which, in addition to being NCIS' own headquarters, puts the attack in NCIS jurisdiction because their headquarters building is on a US navy base (Washington Navy Yard).
  • NCIS is, in fact, a law-enforcement agency heavily involved in anti-terrorist activities, particularly in the past decade. They are involved in any terrorist activities that can "be a threat to the Navy or Marines". As Ari was a suspected terrorist, it would fall right into their jurisdiction.
    • But if somebody attacks the Navy or Marines they are not terrorist, they are only terrorist if they target civilians. NCIS would not go after a terrorist unless they attacked a military contractor on a naval base (like Ari did).
    • Besides, Special Agents are civilians. Their civilian status is why they're 'special agents' instead of just 'agents'. So shooting Gibbs and Gerald in shoulder while taking Kate and Ducky hostage was an act of terrorism, since all of the involved were civilians.
    • For that matter, even attacking active duty military personnel is terrorism and/or criminal activity unless done in an actual war zone by legitimate combatants... which Ari is not, becaues he fails to meet the Geneva Conventions standards of 'wearing openly identifiable uniform as a hostile force' and 'obeying the Geneva Conventions'.
  • Also, Gibbs was ordered to back off more than once. He didn't.
  • A LOT of the cases they're involved in would really not be their jurisdiction. In reality, if it's not ON Navy property (including ships) it's not their business no matter who the victim or killer is—local or FBI would have jurisdiction. A particularly egregious example is the case of the Admiral killed while riding in a taxi, where it turns out the taxi driver was the target, having been mistaken for another refugee immigrant. It wasn't relevant that the victim was a Navy officer—the crime occurred in an area that would make it the D.C. Police's jurisdiction. In Ari's case, once it was clear he was 'off the reservation' and killing people, he would have been a matter for the FBI and locals. (The CIA, contrary to everything you see on TV and in the movies, is NOT a law-enforcement agency and doesn't have those sorts of powers, least of all within the US.)
  • You are seriously underestimating their jurisdiction over crimes committed by or against Naval and Marine officers. According to their own web site, their criminal jurisdiction includes:
    • All crimes punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice by confinement of more than one year (note that they don't investigate purely military offenses, like desertion or consensual sexual activity.)
    • Felony crimes when Navy personnel/properties are involved, and
    • Any death of a naval service member other than natural causes.
  • Having said all that, Gibb's team has been described as one of the Major Case Response Teams—which are only responsible for processing crime scenes and doing forensics. A completely different team of agents would do the actual investigation and arresting.
  • Additionally, although a Federal law enforcement agency, NCIS is so small and specialized that the majority of civilians they meet and question would not ever have heard of the agency before. Why does the authoritative badge flash always elicit recognition of the agency and meaningful cooperation, rather than the suspicion typically levied when someone claims to be from a police agency that (as far as you know) does not exist? (Best guess: having the main characters give a presentation on the existence and role of NCIS five times per episode would be very tiring.)
  • This did come up a few times in the early episodes, but after that they dropped it. At about the same time that the show's publicity ought to mean that people in the real world would start to recognise the agency. Celebrity Paradox, maybe?
  • As for the CIA bit, the CIA is legally barred from carrying out operations inside the United States. They would either have to cooperate with a federal agency that can (like NCIS), or do it off the books.
• Why the hell doesn't anyone report DiNozzo for sexual harassment? Every other episode he is doing something that either violates a coworker's privacy, violates them, or is just plain old inappropriate. It makes my blood boil just thinking about it and he seldom does anything that redeems him in the eyes of the audience. Why isn't this sort of possessive behavior portrayed as dangerous or deviant? Also it has unfortunate implications for Italian men.
  • They're afraid of Gibbs?
  • Generally, DiNozzo only does it to the other members of his Nakama, who don't care. Note that when he was stuck as field agent on the aircraft carrier, he practically lived in his office and didn't socialize at all: he knew durn well that he wasn't among friends out there.
  • Hasn't this been lampshaded in two different episodes on 'Sensitivity Training'?
  • "Doesn't do anything to redeem himself in the eyes of the audience" really, I'd say helping to put murderers behind bars would be redeeming.
    • Not to mention doing things like risking his life repeatedly for those coworkers he 'harasses?' To the point of being tortured by the terrorists holding one of them hostage?
    • Redeeming qualities does not reverse his creepitude. specially since he acts just plain slimey to a lot of women he's known for all of a few seconds because they're attractive to him. Personally, the breaking point of this for me was when he was reading an article out of a fifties women's magazine, and completely agreed with a golden piece of advice that basically said "If your husband wants to have sex with you, totally let him no matter what! It's your duty as a wife and as a woman!" Yes, McGee and another officer called him out on it, but he just... Laughed it off.
      • Someone is taking DiNozzo a BIT too seriously...
      • Exactly half the time DiNozzo is trying to mess with his audience (which is probably what the above was) and the other half is just the writers not caring.
    • Well, since DiNozzo had already been working at NCIS for a few years when the series starts, most of his coworkers probably already knew what to expect of him.
  • I agree; it's one thing for his team to put up with him, as his friends. However, it's shown multiple time that he sexually harasses other women in the building. They reference female agents who won't return his calls, in one episode he uses McGee's computer to chat a woman up because she's stopped answering Tony's messages, etc. Why don't those women report him?
• Does the rest of the team consider Palmer part of the main group, half the time they show him with everybody else in meetings and in the other half nobody comments on his absents. He has been there longer then McGee and Ziva but remains a Fake Guest Star.
  • Well it is known that at least Dr. Mallard and Tony consider Palmer "part of the Team". Ducky requested special protection for Palmer, and also has invited him or acknowledged him during interactions with the rest of the Team. As for Tony it was shown during the time Tony was head of a case that he had actually assigned Palmer the role of a Mysterious Advisor, providing a perspective that no other members of the Team could provide (in particular when Gibbs quit retired went away. (Then there's that Palmer seemed to be quite effective at giving advice)
  • And he was invited to Ziva's for dinner as early as season three. Actually, it seems everyone was invited except Tony.
• Speaking of Jimmy Palmer how long has he been in medical school, most people spend 4 years and do not start interning until their second, yet he has been at NCIS for 7 years and has yet to graduate.
  • Well, I thought he already graduated, and he and Ducky just consider themselves teacher and student.
  • I seem to recall them having a graduation party for him a few seasons ago.
  • The discussion in Season 6's Broken Bird doesn't seem to agree.
  • This is almost a wall banger, this troper just researched the requirements for becoming a Medical Examiner Assistant. The requirements being, a medical degree and four years of residency as a pathologist. And a two year residency as a forensic pathologist. Basically, Jimmy should've had his doctorate when he debuted as well as four years of residency at a hospital as a pathologist. And his first couple of years as Ducky's assistant would've served as his residency as a forensic pathologist. He should've received his certification as a forensic pathologist by the third season. He shouldn't be a medical examiners assistant, he should've been a full fledged medical examiner for several seasons. Ducky would still be calling shots, though as he's the chief medical examiner.
• How is it that during the episode where Kate, Gibbs, and Tony go to Guantanamo Bay, Tony has ZERO idea what the Maltese Falcon is when talking to the bartender, when he's supposed to be the resident movie genius?
  • Hype Aversion? Obfuscating Obliviousness?
    • Hype Aversion? With Tony? Please. He'd see any movie ever just to know about it. And he doesn't seem to have a reason to Obfuscate Obliviousness, but Tony is a Jerkass, so he may just been doing it to mess with Barkeep.
    • Actually, you're probably right. I seem to recall Tony at one point using the quote "it's the stuff dreams are made of." I could be wrong, though...
  • Characterization Marches On. Word of God stated a while ago that they didn't quite have the defining features of each character worked out in Season 1- i.e. Tony being a movie nut, Abby and Gibbs having a father/daughter relationship- hence, there are moments where Tony doesn't get movie references and Abby and Gibbs seriously flirt in Season 1.
• In the season one episode Left For Dead the team was near ground zero when the Yandere bomber that Kate had been helping detonated a high explosive that leveled half the building and killed a lot of people, yet none of them seemed hurt at all by it, Kate just seemed worried because she had helped the mad woman kill people.
  • Where did you get the idea that it killed a lot of people and leveled half the building? Not to be a dick, but just because she says it's volatile doesn't mean that it is some super powerful explosive that can do a ton of damage despite very little volume, it means it doesn't take a lot of added energy to make it blow. Also, Kate gets patched up in an ambulance afterwards.
  • I assumed it killed a lot of people because there were several ambulances outside the building and I assume not all of them survived. As for leveling half the building, I admit that was a guess but considering the fact that hours later the fire was still going it definitely caused a lot of damage.
    • Not necessarily. Let's say that it was a very small explosion (enough to kill her and the guy). The concussion and "shrapnel" (body fragments) would probably hurt or even seriously injure those who were very close. A hand grenade has a kill radius of approximately 5–8 meters with an effective radius of approximately 15 meters (but a lot of that is the shrapnel. If memory serves, this was basically a brick of C4, so the only shrapnel would be the aforementioned body fragments). There wasn't anyone very close to them (they wanted privacy to discuss their affair), and we can adjust the distances according to TV magic. So the number of casualties and the damage to the building are likely VERY small. Why were there a lot of ambulances? Panic attacks, taking precautions, and just a general response to "911, there was an explosion in an office complex". And, if memory serves, Kate was pretty banged up.
• The serial killer who wasn't a serial killer in Smoked. How did the toe get into his stomach? Assuming that they weren't a serial killing/toe eating team and the husband just ended up dead because the wife got tired of him, that is. If he really was innocent, and she killed him because he found out she killed people, why force him to eat the toe? If she forced him to eat it so that they would think he was the killer, why try to incinerate him? She had no way of knowing he would get stuck and found, ergo: no need to feed him the toe. Right?
  • Yeah, this bugged me too. I always had the feeling that I was missing something and I could never figure out what it could be.
  • I assume she was covering her bases so they would suspect him just in case he was not incinerated, she probably force fed it to him shortly before killing him because it was not at all digested.
  • Or they were both the serial killer! How else would his fingerprints and hair be at the serial killer's crime scenes?
  • I think what you said about them being a team is the explanation. She got mad at him over something and killed him, then kept right on killing.
• Maybe it's just me, but the ending of the season three episode Boxed in really bothered me. At the beginning of the episode, when Tony finds out that McGee and Palmer went to Ziva's for dinner, it's kind of funny and you don't really think about it that much. But then at the end, Tony finds out that he was the only one from the team not invited, and I was uncomfortably reminded of psychological bullying and ostracism from school. Is the viewer really supposed to find that funny?
  • No.
    • This isn't meant to condone her behavior or anything, but let's look at it from a different point of view. "Boxed In" is an early-ish Ziva episode. Tony IS rather obnoxious at times, and considering "Undercovers" and all of that he may have ended up making things awkward. Ziva was fairly new, maybe she didn't want to deal with that? Except, even that early, she didn't act that way...
    • I like to think it was kind of rectified when she took him home to dinner the night after. Just him. Sort of a non-verbal apology.
  • I thought maybe she did it because asking her coworkers/friends to dinner was one thing, but asking Tony would be different. Maybe something romantic. And she did totally rectify it when she took him for dinner at the end as an apology.
• In the season four episode where some crazy stalker mimics the plot from McGee'sThom E. Gemcity's unfinished novel, they talk to his publisher since she's the only one who has read his script. She tells them that she may be the only one on her firm but definitely not the only one in the city, and then she says: "Obsessed fans always find a way to get material early. They dig through trash, hack computers, anything short of writing it themselves." Well, that's all fine and dandy miss Publisher, except that... they do write it themselves. Has she never heard of fanfiction?
  • She probably has, but an obsessed fan can't write the actual canon unless Word of God okays it.
• Kate was almost always a bitch to Tony (and sometimes McGee) but nobody ever called her on it or punished her for it. While it is true Tony would often also tease her he was always scolded or hit for doing so and was nice to her several times. Perhaps the best example of this was SWAK when she finds out that Tony is infected with the pneumonic plague but she wasn’t she turns around and tells him that he also infected her and because of him she was going to die. Making a person believe they accidently killed someone they cared about is probably the meanest thing you can do to somebody on their death bed. While she showed concern for him when he was not around she never did to his face. Other examples of her being a bitch include when a heartbroken Tony came to her for support after the ATF agent he was interested in turned out to be a weapons smuggling traitor and she responded by reminding him he once kissed a heshe. There was also the time when she told everybody in the office his fraternity Embarrassing Nickname, and after he threatened to show a legitimate picture of her in a wet t-shirt contest to get her to stop constantly insulting and humiliating him she responded by doctoring gay porn with tony’s face on it. Even her last scene has her being mean to him, after he told her that she did good and Gibbs said that “DiNozzo’s right”, she responded by saying she thought she would die before hearing that before being Killed Mid-Sentence . Yet people seem to misremember the scene as her being happy that Gibbs complimented her despite the fact he had done so several times in the past.
  • It's like you don't watch the show at all. Everyone makes fun of everyone all the time to keep their workplace's light and cheery mood. It's all friendly. You're making it sound like they're trying to hurt each other. The reason she's makes fun of Tony so much is because of the way he keeps playfully harassing her and "epitomizing sophomoric." During the plague thing, Kate said she was infected so she wouldn't have to leave. She did it because she cared and wanted to stay without regard for her safety. I'd hardly call it being a Jerkass
  • I know it was always supposed to be fun and it usually was but there were times when he was hurt and tried to open up to her for support but she just responded by attacking him. She might not have been trying to hurt him but she obviously did. Even though she did obviously care about him a lot she never showed it to his face. While it is true she claimed he infected her so she could stay with him in SWAK she could have done it without making him think he killed her by pointing out that she could not get infected in that room like she did with the doctor a few minutes earlier or saying it was not his fault she got infected. Getting angry at Tony and Guilt tripping him for killing her was a Jerkass move no matter how you look at it.
  • When Kate died she was NOT referring to Gibbs complimenting her, she was expressing (mock) disbelief that Gibbs agreed with DiNozzo on something. Note that the entire conversation following Kate getting shot in the chest consisted of the three of them joking around in relief because she had a vest on. Even if you consider this jerkish behavior towards Tony it's common for the whole team to do that, it's not a Kate thing.
  • If you look at the "team relationships", Tony and Kate are like a brother-and-sister pairing. Sure, they have their petty making fun of each other sessions all the time, but when the chips are down (i.e. the team is threatened), they show their Nakama by being there for each other.
• Why is it that in Dog Tags, everyone treats McGee like he is a jerk and an animal hater for not immediately loving the dog that almost KILLED him? At the end Abby forces him to even adopt the dog! If I was in his situation I would never stand near a German Shepard again let alone be force to live with the one that tried to rip out my jugular!
  • It was pretty much only Abby that felt that way, everybody else was distressingly unworried about the whole event. It seems that Abby was a dog lover the whole time, though the rate she turned on McGee was somewhat uncharacteristic. As for McGee taking the Shepard in, do you honestly believe he ever says no to Abby? What is more worrying that the dog wasn't put down after the investigation; whether or not it killed somebody, it attacked somebody unprovoked.
    • Think about it. Abby is a famous, brilliant forensic scientist. She's also excellent at getting Gibbs to do things for her, and he in turn was very good at convincing Director Shepard to do things. This is not the first time NCIS has done something to break protocol, and like the other times they had a good reason: saving an innocent animal.
    • While the dog did viciously attack McGee, I thought they determined it was from the cocaine its owner had and the dog was otherwise very docile. They never outright explain it that way, though.
• I know that it "helps the show" but why are civilians that don't work for the Navy shown deferring to NCIS or even bothering to answer their questions? Yes...they ARE Federal law enforcement, but they have extremely limited powers when dealing w/ civilians and even people who don't know much about the military would have to at least suspect that is the case.
  • Why wouldn't they at least answer their questions? Maybe it's this troper's small-town upbringing talking, but in my experience, most people will cooperate with the authorities when they're investigating major crimes (maybe not things like drug dealing, but murder? sure). Even the perps have incentive to at least appear to be cooperative—why bring suspicion on yourself by not cooperating?
  • In at least one case, Gibbs ordered a civilian hotel clerk to give up the key to a room. The clerk (a law student) correctly pointed out that the military equivalent of a warrant was needed, even if the room was charged to a service member's card. The exchange portrayed the clerk in a very poor light for being obstructionist, and he was eventually bullied into giving up the key without a warrant. Result? An innocent and very troubled young man was confronted by armed agents, leading to his death.
• The"slapping the back of the head" scenes always bother this troper. The very last thing that I would stand for in any workplace would be my boss putting his or her hands on me. It seems childishly abusive and demeaning and would probably result in Gibbs either fighting w/ his subordinate or finding a new line of work.
  • Except a slap to the back of the head isn't demeaning or insulting. As Gibbs once said "A slap to the face is an insult. A slap to the back of the head is a wake-up call."
  • Also, it's shown that Gibbs' methods are not NCIS' methods. The sexual harassment lecturer seemed horrified to hear it could possibly be happening, but everyone backpedals and she moves on to other difficulties. Team Gibbs gets a pass likely because the various Directors know that he and his team get results, even with their bunny ears on, and turn a blind eye to it. And Team Gibbs has accepted it more as a gesture of affection - they all consider him a father figure, and it's clear he views them with fatherly pride. They don't see the Gibb Slap as abuse but a message of 'stop being an idiot.'
    • Plus, it helps Gibbs get back his lost memory after he lost in an accident.
  • Sorry, but this troper would never have stood for the kind of abuse - both physical and emotional - that Gibbs dishes out, especially in the early seasons. I'd have had him up on charges and a demand for a transfer in the works so fast it'd make his head spin. There's a line between razzing your co-workers and abuse. Gibbs did indeed cross it.
    • Once again, it's a term of endearment as opposed to a form of abuse, which is what you're viewing it as.
    • It's also shown not to be that hard of a hit. It's a light tap no harder than someone slapping a shoulder. Hard enough to be felt, but weak enough not to hurt. Most don't even really move from the slap. They flinch when they are expecting one that doesn't come.

• • Think about the characters, though. All of them come from some form of military/police background, except Abby, who never gets Gibbs-slapped. Tony was a cop, Kate was Secret Service, McGee was raised by Navy, Ziva was Moussad. These people aren't bothered by physical contact; they're not that high maintenance.
  • Maybe all the agents who were bothered by the head-slapping were transferred to other units? They've been pretty consistent in showing that Gibbs doesn't like working with new people. And this wouldn't be the first workplace to transfer the complainer instead of doing something about the overall situation.
  • Pretty much. Gibbs is given the freedom to be "eccentric" so long as it doesn't interfere with job performance (which is one of the reason's Vance was on him when the lawyer love-interest was around). And, as shown when they were replacing Ziva, they have a pretty heavy screening process for new hires. While Dinozzo's sexual harassment of interviewees was played up for laughs, Gibbs (and McGee) allowed it because they were more interested in if the applicant would be a good teammate: Their files already showed they would be great investigators. And, you are right: this is the military. And, in the military, the special forces community still has traditions and pseudo-hazing rituals that would probably get them brought up on charges. But those are the elite groups who are given a bit of freedom, so long as it doesn't become something anyone has to act on (and, when it has, it was cracked down on HARD). So, to summarize: You would never have been let on the team. They would have seen you were the kind of person who would press charges (that are totally valid) or take it the wrong way and would have rejected you during the interviewing process. And they would have had a very good excuse (even something as simple as "If she cried when Gibbs interviewed her, how is she going to handle a terrorist like Ari?"). Is it right, legal, or even ethical? Probably not. But it isn't inconceivable either. And, at least in TV land, it provides results (Dinozzo's insanely offensive and borderline stalker-ish behavior has helped solve cases on multiple occasions).
• Why does NCIS need a liaison from Mossad?
  • Jenny Shepard. If you watch the resulting conversations between Leon Vance and Eli David regarding Shepard, she enlisted Ziva as "Liason" for superficial purposes while using Ziva's contacts and connections through Mossad and other sources for the explicit purpose of tracking down and getting revenge against La Grenouille. Almost every conversation Vance has ever had about her has mentioned the fact that she was highly abusive of her powers as the director of NCIS.
    • Rule of Cool.
    • Actually, Jenny was only abusive starting in season four when La Grenouille got going. Before that she was pretty good at her job, just completely ineffectual when Gibbs was involved. And she does pretty well in some post-Grenouille season five episodes too, like "Chimera."
    • This troper always had the impression that Jenny got Ziva at NCIS because they were old friends and Ziva wanted away from Mossad after the Ari debacle. Even if what we later hear is true about Ziva being a double agent at first, she probably did want to be away after being forced (maybe ordered) to murder the brother she clearly loved.
• The Russian stereotypes. Everywhere. It's worse than COD4.
  • Oh look, the magical Communist Russians and their blah blah blah and we h8 u Meriken. One Magical Russian from an ep. was quoted as "The last years of the Cold War deprived of us of our victory over the U.S." I mean, just...what. Please, NCIS, stop with the stereotypes. You make me sad every time you bring in the Magical Russian, which is 30% of the time. It's so...Eagle Land and America Saves the Day--again! and Anvilicious
    • Bro, that one is from NCIS: LA, which...arguably sucks compared to this original NCIS.
      • Well, not that arguably.
• In "Power Down" Emma Paxton was supposedly working for The Government without her husband's knowledge. Ducky during the forensics finds that she has old battle scars. How come her husband didn't notice that a long time before?
  • She probably handwaved them as something in a mountain accident or some other dangerous activity.
    • Except it also specifically says that he knew her since high school. He would not know whether or not she liked dangerous sports?
  • Accidents from working with electronics. Depending on what the scars actually look like, he might have believed it. She was going into some dangerous areas to put on shows after all.
• In "Silver War," Abby is forced to (gasp) adhere to a dress code, I think the reason had something to do with the new director. Anyway, she is seen wearing a white business suit. Why the heck would a SCIENTIST working in a LAB wear that? It seems to me she'd be forced to wear practical clothes that actually cover her skin and her usual lab coat...
  • It seems that Abby has a very limited wardrobe. It's split into "everyday Abby", and "Abby appears in court", with no middle-ground.
  • On that same line, this troper wonders why Perky Goth girl Abby doesn't know what "corpgoth" style is? (For those who also don't, it's simply appropriate dress code wear modified to suit a gothic style, often simply in darker colors.) Really, in one episode (it might have been "Silver War") she whines that she looks like Career Girl Barbie in a lavender skirt suit. Her court clothes in another episode are brown. Why can't she wear, say, a black suit with a white blouse, or something more fitting to her personal style? All I can think of is Rule of Funny.
    • I think she keeps her court clothes as close to the "norm" as possible, so as to avoid inciting bias in court personnel and in the jury. Even if you believe in tolerance, you can't expect everyone to do so, and you can't risk a murderer going free because a juror doesnt like goths.
• In “My Other Left Foot” apparently nobody on Team Gibbs did any research into the sister’s background despite her being the prime suspect for most of the episode. They seemed to have no idea that the seemingly sweet old lady coroner she supposedly doped was actually her mother. Even if she was raised by her father like she said she was you would think a simple profile of her would list who her mother was, and even if it did not they would look for some connection between her and the doctor.
• It bugs me that the children of Pedro Hernandez turned out to be criminals and could thus be safely dehumanised and written off (killed and arrested, respectively) without Gibbs ever having to face the consequences of...y'know...committing murder all those years ago. I love the show, I do, but the ongoing ode to vigilantism (o hai thar Franks) sets my teeth on edge. Vigilante justice is perfectly okay if it's one of "us" (usually represented by white Americans, natch) doing it to "them". If brown people (in this case represented by Paloma and her brother) do it, it's criminal and/or terrorism.
  • Well, it's either Gibbs, an American law enforcement agent, or them, drug dealer and corrupt government agent. Also, the main page specifically says that the Reynosas are the one of the more affable bad guys in the show. Gibbs himself is ready to face the consequences, shown by he telling Abby who just discovers the evidence of his vigilante murder to do what she has to do.
  • Really, their father was a drug lord and a murderer, the chances of them being upstanding citizens weren't exactly high. And the way in which they tried to exact revenge was different. They attacked other people to cause Gibbs pain. Gibbs just killed Hernandez, his children seem to be collateral damage he didn't think about during his revenge-crazed spree.
  • I'll admit it is a bit grating they never had the two at least find out why Gibbs did it (at least from what I recall). I mean, sure, they probably wouldn't have cared if they knew he was simply acting out of grief and vengeance, but it would have at least helped their characters in some way by allowing them to show a personal reaction of whether they were truly just revenge driven as well or simply misguided from their own grief.
• McGee's subplot in "Freedom." Ok, so once again the Probie is the target of fraud and identity theft, totalling about $10,000, and it turns out that the culprit this time is some kid from his apartment complex. Tony tracks down the kid and brings him to the headquarters, and the kid smugly tells McGee that he did it because McGee has a set daily routine, and is "too young to act so old." And Tony not only befriends the kid, but as a reward he takes him to GameStop to buy a video game and gets McGee to tag along. Everyone goes along with this. Am I missing something here?
  • If I recall the kid gave an explanation that McGee would get most of his money back after the proper paper work had been filed. But that subplot was ridiculous and the episode would've been better with out.
• In "Double Identity" a man is shot and ends up in the hospital in critical condition. The team finds out he was not only a man missing in Afghanistan 6 years ago, but he was living a double marriage. When he's awake, the doctors repeatedly tell the NCIS team not to interview him because he's not stable. Tony, of course, sneaks into his room, and not only questions him about his double identity, but that his two wives know about it. The man has a heart attack and dies. The nurse caught Tony at the last minute and kicks him out. The kicker? No one even MENTIONS Tony's role in his death. Are we supposed to believe that no one was aware that Tony ended up getting him killed? The nurse saw him talking to the guy.
  • Because unless Tony actually physically did something to him, it would be pretty difficult to prove that he incited a heart attack just by talking to a guy.
• Is it just me or is NCIS sexist? The only major characters that get killed off are women! Namely Jenny and Kate. Now, I wouldn't want Tony or McGee to die but seriously? It's quite annoying to me. Maybe Leon can die next, that would be good.
  • Male NCIS agents have died exactly twice, Brent Langer and Chris Pacci. FEMALE NCIS employee deaths include Kate, Paula Cassidy, Jenny, Michelle Lee, and Lara Macy. This issue has been noted several times.
    • Make that three times - RIP Mike Franks.
    • Also, one of EJ's team members, who is male, is killed trying to arrest the P2P Killer.
    • And now the gender ratio is 1:1. Simon Cade, EJ's other team member, is killed for his computer chip.
    • Except even if the numbers are equal, look at the differences in the type of men and women to get killed. The women are all recurring characters we've grown to like and feel sympathy for. Except for Franks, the men are either Affably Evil villains or one-off characters.
  • Kate and Jenny were killed because their actresses wanted to leave the show. I admit they could've been Put on a Bus, in fact I would've preferred that, but those characters would likely still be alive had their actresses not left the show.
  • From a dramatic point of view, female deaths tend to inspire more sympathy than male deaths, hence they are more common.
    • Yeeeah... That's kind of the problem.
  • NCIS: LA chews through male NCIS Agents fast enough that by the end of next season the numbers will be equal.
  • There's also the tendency of there being something fishy about female characters. There are very few females who manages to not be main characters whithout having some sort of agenda (and sometimes even when they are main characters), especially if they are someone's Love Interest.
  • Not just you. I definitely get the impression that the show's writers think sexism/sexual equality is a numbers game, and that they don't particularly question the tropes they implement for female characters.
  • Probably, but think about WHY those characters died. Kate was killed because Ari was trying to hurt Gibbs (and Gibbs IS a bit sexist). Paula Cassidy was actually the leader of a team and got to go out saving everyone. Jenny was director of NCIS when she was offed. Lee was a mole (and, going back to Gibbs being sexist, he would be less likely to suspect her). And nobody liked Macy. As for the men: Everyone but Franks was a random guest star. So, if anything, one might argue for a bit of sexism in the other direction: Lots of powerful women characters, but men (and Macy) get shoved in refrigerators. Or, more likely, the core cast is very penis-heavy, so most of the guest stars tend to be women.
• In the episode Freedom the victim’s widow was a violent and abusive drill sergeant/ martial arts instructor and boxer who was known for her short temper and loved of fighting, she was found to have several bruises on her body and everyone assumes her husband was beating her and she was a weak submissive woman despite the fact that was the opposite of her personality. They never suggested that he hit her in self defense, or it might have been a mutually abusive relationship, or even that she was telling the truth about how she got them and that somebody who likes fighting might be covered in bruises from sparing. When Gibbs suggested she was to proud to talk about abuse Ducky said she was to week and that her abusive behavior on the job was because she was powerless at home. I am not saying that the above situation never happens but they should have investigated other possibilities. This was a very tough and mean woman; if a man was in the same situation there would be no question in peoples minds he was abusing his wife. After giving her this situation she said that he was also psychologically abused because he threatened to take away their son because of her violent behavior. This is bad because NCIS had previously learned not to jump to conclusion with domestic abuse cases.
• Am I the only one bothered by the horrible portrayal of video games in the show? MMO's having leaderboards, Abby, being able to play The Godfather on the PC without a mouse, which is required for nearly every PC game to be played? The only two accurate representations of games on the show so far are when the kid is playing Battlefield: Bad Company (I forget which episode) and when they go to the bowling alley(?) with the side room of game consoles with various games being played on them (Again, I forget what epsiode).
  • You're not the only one. This troper, who has parents who believe video games to be the big cause of familial breakdowns(despite the fact that his younger sister is far more prodigal than he is, who is actually quite loyal and loving toward his parents, and outside of DDR and a brief attempt to get into Final Fantasy VII, she's never played video games in her life), has always loathed how a lot of media pundits and television shows have treated video games like The New Rock and Roll.
  • Well, the video game thing is kind of true of all media, if only because it is hard to show the games in live action (lots of takes, and you don't want the screen to be too distracting). But seriously, NCIS is HORRIBLE with technology to the point that I am starting to strongly suspect the crew are doing it on purpose because it is funny. Anyone with a basic knowledge of programming or network security is going to either burst into laughter or tears during any random episode.
• One thing that constantly bugs me is the team's trips to Norfolk. It is consistently shown to be an easy drive that will get you there in time for whatever is going on. Reality Check: The Navy Yard (where NCIS headquarters is) is nearly 200 miles away from Norfolk.
  • That depends, 200 miles over highway is a pretty easy drive. Even if they obey the speed limit it's 3 hours or so tops.
    • And with Gibbs driving, they could easily cut that in half at the least.
    • Driving in or around D.C. or the Beltway is in no way easy. With all the road construction going on it's nearly impossible to get anywhere quickly, plus very confusing. Also, never trust your GPS, the ramp it's telling you to take is no longer there.
• After watching the season finale of season 6, it bugs me how Vance would give Tony to mossad for killing Rivkin. I know that Vance put Tony in there to piss Eli off and spill something, but come on. Tony did everything by the book here. It's known that Rivkin killed a couple of civilians and an agent, so he pretty much deserved to get arrested. He attacks Tony, with intent to kill, Tony defends himself and kills Rivkin. Like Tony says, kill or be killed. Vance should have told Tony to pull off his usual act, because he wanted to get Eli to spill something, it would have worked just as well.
  • OP here to follow up: It also bugs me that the mossad operatives allowed to practically do anything, without getting any consequences from any Americans in charge. The only two mossad operatives who actually had to pay for their crimes (in both cases, killing an American agent - Ari killed Kate, Rivkin killed a Red Shirt). Both paid with their lives, but anyone standing higher in the food chain that Gibbs were very much against it. How were they allowed to just walk around the streets with guns in the Enemies Domestic/Enemies Foreign double episodes? Why didn't ANYONE wring the terrorist charges up against Ben-Gidon?
  • Given that Eli David's actions essentially consist of performing espionage against the USA, Israel's most important ally, and the US knows this, it makes no sense that he would still be in any position of authority. The actions his agents took in the last two episodes of Season 6 should have resulted in a major international incident, seriously straining US-Israeli relations. But after sending Mossad agents to perform covert operations on US soil (prohibited by Israel's treaties with the US), and having Mossad agents murder a number of US citizens on US soil (the terrorists Rivkin killed were all US citizens, he had no legal authority to operate on US soil), spy on high US officials including Cabinet members (killing a US federal agent in the process), and blow up an apartment? If anyone should have been handed over to the other government for prosecution at the end of season six, it would be Eli David. At the least it should not have ended with the director of NCIS placating Eli over the phone, but with the Prime Minister of Israel apologizing and making concessions to the President of the US for flagrantly violating their treaties.
• McGee and Abby's typing and doing EVERYTHING via keyboard. For one, I haven't heard that typing sound effect from any keyboard newer than the mid-90s, let alone that skinny, foldable, glowing blue one Abby uses. Plus, wouldn't you need to use a mouse in this day and age to do at least half of what they do on the show? I can understand typing commands into a console, but I never see one on the screens they use.
• It's cliched, but how, in the name of all that is holy, does Gibbs get the boat out?
• Was nobody but me ever bothered by the fact that Tony seems to suffer from a case of Idiot Decay? In the first season he was shown to have been working with Gibbs as a two-man team for a while, something that takes both endurance and skill (and a tolerance for head slaps). Similarly, Gibbs must see / have seen something in him for keeping him on his team for so long, as the second in command no less. Additionally, Tony was shown to be capable before, especially when he was team-leader during Gibbs'... holiday of sorts and when he was offered his own team in Rota. So why is he portrayed more and more as an idiot with his only focus on women and so on? Jeanne was a nice break from that, as much as I despised her original setup, I loved her with Tony. Also, his role seems focused a whole damn lot on romance these days, serious romance as opposed to before, and not much more, he goes as far as breaking one of Gibbs' rules for that - which I, personally, never thought possible after the display of their relationship in earlier seasons. I mean, what the hell?!
  • Glad I'm not the only one who's noticed this. While Tony still has his moments that demonstrate he's a great agent, his immaturity has grown to the point it's almost like a caricature of Tony from earlier seasons. The numbers of Gibbs Slaps dolled out to individuals other than Tony can be counted practically on one hand in Season 8. Heck the fact Season 8 had an episode in which Tony worried everyone by acting like a responsible adult instead of his usual juvenile self is probably a case of lampshade hanging.
• In the first episode about the P2P killer, Ziva tells her boyfriend Ray that Tony is like a brother to her. Excuse me, but didn't Ziva kill her brother? Should we be worried?
  • Actually, Ari was her half brother. Apparently that's enough to spare Tony. Also, you must remember that she killed him to save Gibbs.
• So in "Playing with Fire", the team finds a letter that is written in Korean letters. Yet, when they get someone to translate it, she says it's in gibberish. If I remember correctly, McGee figured out the code by finding a program that turned English letters into Korean letters. So it was just English words written with Korean letters, right? If that is true, then why couldn't the translator understand it if she spoke both English and Korean? It would be no different than writing Japanese or Chinese words in the English Alphabet, would it?
  • From what I understood, the Korean was translated as it was written in English. Thus making it gibberish. The Koran is written in blocks that make up words or sentences.