NCIS - Cabin Fever - Review: "It's not how you fall, it's how you rise"

This week's NCIS showed us the rise and fall of two characters as the episode drew the season-long Sergei Mishnev arc to a close.

Let's start with the rise of Sergei himself. After an explosion at a summit for global terror event kills a Petty Officer and leaves several injured, the team investigates and finds a bomb fragment in Russian. The prime suspect immediately becomes Sergei, and since Vance was present at the event, it becomes clear he is hunting for Gibbs' friends again. However, also present at the event was Russian Counselor Anton Pavlenko, who helped Gibbs and McGee in the season premiere. He claims he was the target, because he helped Gibbs earlier. Gibbs and Vance make it sure they don't trust him even though Pavlenko offers to help in the investigation. It later turns out that the grenade was placed by the father of one of the injured, who had a history with Sergei. Also, Gibbs was right not to trust Pavlenko as we later see him with Sergei in an alley. The Counselor offers his long-time friend Sergei immunity from prosecution and a safe return to Russia on one condition: kill Gibbs. It's time to end the feud and since Pavlenko learned the scientist Nelly Benin (from the episode "Choke Hold") is still alive, he wants Gibbs dead for tricking him. Pavlenko knows where Gibbs is, and Sergei later gets a cell phone jammer from the bombing suspect.

Meanwhile, it becomes clear how far FBI agent Fornell has fallen since the death of Diane. In the opening sequence, he is found in his car driving under influence. Gibbs bails him out, but later he gets a phone call from Emily. She shows her concerns for her father and says she is still working through her own grief so she can't really help him. Therefore, Emily urges Gibbs to not only talk to him, but help him. Gibbs subsequently takes a leave from the Sergei case and takes Tobias to his cabin in the woods. There, Gibbs suggests they together commit a quick suicide instead of a slow one. Fornell is mad at Gibbs for his intervention while the hunt for Sergei is full on, but Gibbs tries to convince him it's necessary. He tells his friend he is embarrassing the badge and himself, and Fornell gets so angry that he punches Gibbs in the face. Gibbs knows the real reason why Tobias is angry at him: he blames Gibbs for Diane's death. However, Fornell instead says that he killed Diane. He reveals they had a fight the night before she died, and that the last words he said to her: "This is a mistake", referring to their impending second marriage. Fornell says he can never forgive himself for that.

In the meantime, Sergei has found Gibbs' cabin and is fast approaching. He is determined to kill Gibbs and put an end to this once and for all. However, when he storms the cabin he finds Fornell instead of Gibbs. As the two start to talk, Gibbs comes up behind Sergei and hits him down. Little did Sergei know that Pavlenko helped Gibbs instead of him. Gibbs had a plan all along to make sure that it's Sergei who falls.

And as one man falls, another man rises. After Gibbs tells Fornell that he has to forgive himself for his daughter, he gives his friend the honor of putting an end to Sergei's reign of terror. As Sergei wakes up in the middle of the woods, he again finds Fornell instead of his arch-enemy Gibbs. Just for show, Sergei has been given an unloaded gun so he quickly starts shooting at Fornell. However, Fornell is quick to shoot Sergei through the head in the same way he killed Diane. Sergei is dead, this time for real, and Diane's death has been avenged. Emily is happy to see that Gibbs helped her father in the best possible way.

Don't get me wrong, this was a good episode. The scenes between Gibbs and Fornell were terrific and both Mark Harmon and Joe Spano did an excellent job. Both men portrayed the grief of their characters with so much depth and made it feel very real for the audience. It was an intense episode from beginning till the end. Also, Emily is one awesome teenager and she had some great scenes with Gibbs. I was surprised at the end that Pavlenko set Sergei up, I actually really expected him to be dirty. I'm glad that Sergei never got the pleasure of seeing Gibbs before he died.

However, my main criticism of the episode is one I have been having for a few years now: the villains. While most of them are compelling and possibly dangerous, they are often taken out too soon and too easily. I think the Sergei arc should have been carried to the season finale with a big cliffhanger ending. In general, over the last few seasons the NCIS villains have been relatively short arcs, with most of them appearing in only 3-4 episodes at most. Just think about Jonas Cobb, Jonathan Cole, Harper Dearing, Ilan Bodnar and Benham Parsa. I wouldn't mind a real season-long villain like La Grenouille or Paloma Reynosa. I was excited when I thought that Sergei was a season-long villain, but sadly he has already been killed off. If you look at NCIS: Los Angeles, they have kept Callen's arch-enemy the Cameleon alive for three seasons and he's still in a prison somewhere so he could always come back.

And about killing Sergei off: of course that was just an execution. I have no other words for it. However, it was quite anti-climatic. An international mercenary who has been evading capture for months walks into a cabin and doesn't check to see if anyone is standing behind him. Last I checked, Sergei also had at least one helper left who hit Gibbs from behind in "Check". And when he wakes up, he is executed. Again, if you look at the villains of the previous seasons, most of them were taken out pretty easily. The only one who really fought for his life till the very end was Ilan Bodnar in an intense combat fight with Ziva. The others had a pretty anti-climatic death, like Harper Dearing, who was easily stabbed by Gibbs.

Lastly, I'd like to believe that this team is more than some rogue unit, but apparently they have learned nothing from Richard Parsons. Especially when it comes to the longer villains, they really are sending them to the morgue. I wouldn't mind if some of them had been arrested and brought to justice instead of having been killed. Also, think about the endless possibilities if the villains were kept alive. I would have loved to see some of them working together, like last season finale when Alejandro Rivera worked with the remaining members of Parsa's terrorist cell. Just imagine Harper Dearing and Sergei Mishnev working together, or Jonas Cobb and Ilan Bodnar. It would have been awesome!

A few side dishes:
-I always love these 'Previously on NCIS'. It was the second time this season that we heard it. More of that please!
-So Ari and Sergei are half-brothers. I called it in my review of "Check".
-The team hears Fornell vomiting when Tony calls Gibbs. Hillarious moment!
-When Sergei woke up in the woods, he asked whether Gibbs had taken him back to Russia where it all started in the season premiere. I honestly don't believe they really went all the way to Russia just to take him out there.
-The voicemail from Diane to Tobias was heartbreaking. It's really sad that Diane died while she and Fornell had a fight the night before. It's the worst nightmare when your loved one dies.
-Vance knew very well what happened with Sergei, but he has also learned not to ask questions. He knows what it's like to want revenge for someone you lost.
-It has never been explained why Sergei waited nine years to get revenge for Ari's death. I'm just gonna assume that he only learned the identity of Ari's killer recently.

What did you think of the episode? Are you happy that Sergei is dead? Do you think the Sergei arc ended too soon or do you think it ended at the right time? How do you feel about Fornell executing him? What did you think about the scenes between Gibbs and Fornell in Gibbs' cabin? And lastly, with Sergei out of the way, do you have any idea what they are going to do in the season finale? Be sure to tell me your opinions and theories in the comment section below.

The promo for the next NCIS episode can be found here.

About the Author - Daniel van der Veer

Daniel van der Veer is a Dutch university student studying Psychology. On SpoilerTV he is a reviewer of NCIS, The 100, Stalker, Madam Secretary and the upcoming shows Battle Creek and Odyssey. He also enjoys LOST, Arrow, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, Nikita, The Blacklist, Scorpion and How To Get Away With Murder.

Recent Reviews by Daniel van der Veer (All Reviews)