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Rogue9a
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NCIS Recaps

From Zap2it By Josh Lasser

It has been a long time since the "NCIS" finale last spring, and my one hope was that poor Ziva hadn't had to remain a hostage that whole time (there was no way she was going to be dead). Well, we didn't find out about that immediately. No, instead of being given an instant answer about Ziva, we learned that DiNozzo was being held captive in Somalia.

Some may say it wrong, but I can't fault DiNozzo for telling Saleem about the team - he had, after all, been given truth serum. Of course, what makes the show great is that even with truth serum DiNozzo was still able to be a wiseass.

How did you take the bit where DiNozzo told Saleem he was doing everything he was doing for "vengeance?" I was putting my money on "love." Do you think it was vengeance due to love or that all the implications we got at the end of last season were a load of hooey? The way he was in that haze later in the episode - after they learned about the Damocles going down - to me, spoke of love.

What concerned me tonight though, was the plausibility that the guys figured Ziva was angry enough at them that she had been refusing to talk to them for months on end. I understand why she would have been angry at Gibbs and DiNozzo, but what about McGee and Abby? Surely if those two had dropped her an e-mail she would have responded had she been able. Maybe not. All I know is that I wish we'd gotten more earlier on their explanation for Ziva's silence. I'm just surprised that they all took so long to work out that she was in trouble, or at least to talk about it.

Caf-Pow. The whole thing hinged on Saleem wanting his Caf-Pow, if not for that, they may never have found Ziva alive. The devil, god, someone - in this case Ziva - is always in the details. I would, however, like to learn the details of exactly what happened to the ship. I know - not strictly relevant - I'm just curious.

Speaking of my being curious, while it's great that they went back to the office at the end of the episode for their round of applause, why didn't they clean up a little bit better first? McGee was still wearing a shirt with rip in it during that final scene. But, that's a quibble, the real question I'm left with at the end of the episode is whether Ziva is already officially a part of the team again or if we have to wait till next week for that to happen.

As a side note, I love the interview bit tonight with Claire Connell. McGee and DiNozzo had a bunch of worthless questions after which they passed her on to Gibbs... who made her cry. What were thinking with that "job interview?" Do you think they just had to pass her along because there would have been a lawsuit about they way they were asking the questions otherwise? Becca Hastings however, even if she didn't cry, was definitely not the right fit - I'm happy she disappeared as quickly as she did. Heather Kincaid would have been fine, but she still wasn't Ziva.

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9/27/2009, 2:05 am

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Rogue9a
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Re: NCIS Recaps

From Zap2it By Josh Lasser

We knew that Ziva was alive and back in the States as of the end of the last episode of "NCIS," what we didn't know was whether or not she was going to be part of the team again. Except, of course, that she was definitely going to be, whether or not the show wanted to make it explicit last week.

Agent Fillmore was in Ziva's chair at the beginning of the episode, but she quickly resigned, and did so in excellent fashion. Everyone on the show is so quirky and hysterical, that it all completely works as television but is obviously foolish as reality. Fillmore called them on their foolishness, it won't change them - it shouldn't, that would be horrible - but it was nice to see the reality check and a good way for Fillmore to exit Ziva's chair.

Vance was the guy who really hit the nail on the head with Ziva's reinstatement though - she was the Mossad Liaison Officer - if she wasn't Mossad anymore, or they didn't want her there anymore, she couldn't really be the Liaison Officer, could she? Vance signed her up for psych evaluations, but he wasn't definitive on whether she'd get a job following them. But Gibbs was pushing for her, and he has some clout, so, as we all knew, she was getting her job back eventually.

The big thing though was at the end of the episode when Ziva admitted that she had orders back in the day to earn Gibbs' trust by eliminating Ari. Gibbs called that a "problem." Building a relationship on such a lie, even if the relationship became a great one, is unquestionably problematic. I did accept Ziva saying that she didn't kill Ari to earn Gibbs' trust but to protect him, Gibbs did too, but I can't imagine that the trust issues just disappear. That's going to linger, even if Gibbs and Vance did make sure that Ziva was back on the team at the end of the episode.

And because it would be wrong to not discuss the case at all... The killer tonight shaved his victims. Now that's a signature. Sure, it might have been hard to dispose of the hair later, but it was a good calling card. Not that the killer was using it as such, but still. Also, the killer didn't so much kill our three victims at a bachelor party - it was a fake bachelor party complete with real stripper. Way to go the extra mile.

It made for a good case, right up until they decided that Officer Shelley had done it. It seemed like an awful long time to hang onto high school bullying, didn't it? I get that Shelley was bullied badly, but triple murder in which he sets the victims in the same positions he was put in during high school? That was way too much and I don't know why Gibbs and company bought it even for a moment.

Elaina, the auction house lady who worked with one of the victims, learning of their nefarious smuggling activities and teaming with Shelley? I guess I can buy that, but not enthusiastically. Needlessly twisty and not well-established if you ask me, but I was really far more interested in watching how Ziva was going to rejoin the team (and I get the impression that the writers were more interested in getting her to rejoin the team) than in the murders.

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10/4/2009, 2:39 am

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Re: NCIS Recaps

From Zap2it By Josh Lasser

Dead blogger? Tonight's "NCIS" started with a dead blogger?!? Were they trying to tell yours truly something? I like the show, I swear I do. Sure, I complain about plots every now and then, but it comes out of a good place.

Now, Matt Burns, he was investigating an NCIS cover up for his blog, something I would never do... unless it was a cover up about future plots. Gibbs wouldn't like that any more than he liked what Burns was doing, but I have a sense of responsibility to you, dear readers.

Tell me the truth, from the moment that Arnett's CO came in with that Lieutenant, you knew she was hiding something, right? I think one or two shots lingered just a little too long on her. Thank goodness they didn't hide the Summers/Arnett thing very long before copping to it.

I have to say, I was awfully confused when Arnett's body wasn't in the coffin. Ducky did the autopsy, so to me that meant that Arnett was good and dead. Why then would the body not be in the coffin? Ziva figured that Burns had stolen the body in order to bring he, Burns, greater fame. As a plot device I guess that works, but are there really people out there who would do that? Eh, who cares, Burns apparently did steal the body, and I'll give the show a pass on the foolishness of that.

The sandwich maker, Sutton, who did have some pretty good looking pastrami, ended up taking the same train to work as Arnett and the two had the insider trading deal in a not very "Strangers on a Train" kind of thing, which still might have been an excellent referencing of "Strangers on a Train" had "Castle" not done a far better one last week. In any case, Sutton offed Burns based on faulty information.

All of that is all well and good, but on to the big stuff. What do we think of Ziva resigning from Mossad in order to try to join NCIS as a real and true agent? I'm pretty sure that her father will never speak to her again, but as we all know from last week, she considers Gibbs a father figure so maybe she's willing to truly trade one for the other. If she does somehow - probably via the magic of television writers - pass the vetting process, does this mean that she'll have to join a different team as the position on Gibbs' squad is for a Mossad Liaison? I know that it wasn't always thus, but it is now.

I think we can all assume that the show will let that slide and no matter how hard they make it for Ziva to become an actual NCIS agent, that she eventually will become one, right? Really the only other alternative if she is to stay on the show and has resigned from Mossad (besides going back to Mossad) would be for her to meet up with Tony for a date every week and I somehow don't think the show is going to go there.

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10/12/2009, 3:38 am

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Re: NCIS Recaps

Ep. 5 From Zap2it By Josh Lasser

I can tell you quite honestly I was thrilled that the Halloween teen pranksters got the scare of their life at the start of tonight's "NCIS." Sure, no one deserves to get scared by a dead body, but Halloween pranksters come as close as anyone can. (No, I'm not 80, I just sound that way.)

Before we go any further, I know there was no recap last week, but go Ziva, way to become a real and true NCIS agent! Sadly, tonight we didn't get that much story about our characters; we mostly ended up with the single murder. At least it was a good murder, even if the ending wasn't terribly satisfying.

Korby, our dead guy, was a Halloween prankster himself, although that didn't really explain why the guy was frozen solid. Even by the end of the episode it didn't. You'd have to hate Halloween pranksters a whole lot more than I do to take a guy out like that, and our murderer mostly seemed to choose that method of death because... well, if they explained why, I missed it.

I initially liked Tony's idea that the wife, Sara, did it, although once we met her, she instantly struck me as the non-murdering type. Tony should have junked his idea as soon as he saw her, too. It did seem odd Korby wanted to ditch Sara right after getting back from being overseas in order to play with his Halloween toys, but that didn't make her the killer (even if her husbands did have a nasty habit of turning up dead).

Most people seemed to hate Korby's pranks, so why would the wife have been responsible? Why did Tony keep going after Sara once it became clear so many people didn't like Korby? And don't tell me that as soon as Singer showed up at Korby's with flowers for Sara you didn't know that the two of them were having an affair (or contemplating one). You knew it just as well as I did.

The best fact of the night in the case was the Code Red, which I mostly liked because Gibbs could not only handle the truth, but identify it as well. Anytime I hear that "Code Red" phrase a smile appears on my face as I think of Jack Nicholson and poor young Noah Wyle. Oh, and that Cruise fellow.

Mr. Rogers was my candidate for killer. I don't like Halloween, but that guy was living in the Land of Make-Believe: Completely ignoring the holiday is an impossibility. Anyone who can stick his head in the sand that far about the world in which we live might just be odd enough to commit murder (at least on television). Once Gibbs worked out the inconsistencies with the seat position, I thought maybe Mr. Rogers had in fact done it. (He was short.)

I was, however, wrong (not the first time). The step-daughter doing it for the cash kind of came out of nowhere. The plot certainly seemed to hold together (except for the bit where Korby didn't realize what he was about to drink before he drank it), but that may only be because we really didn't get all that much in the way of specifics. I forgive the show.

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10/21/2009, 7:55 pm

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