19.2 "Nearly Departed”Written by Scott Williams
Directed by Terrence O’Hara
Reviewed by KathM
Leon lets people think that Gibbs is dead after the boating accident except for his team; meanwhile, Gibbs sets up his own office/living quarters in the barn from the last episode, so Thelma must have mellowed towards him a bit. It’s basically the bullpen gone country, complete with Gibbs coming into the barn, coffee in hand, asking for an update. Leon finds them as they’re heading out to check out another serial killer victim, which is worrisome because it hasn’t been 100 days yet. Leon dangles Gibbs’s badge and gun in front of him, then says he’ll hold on to them for now.
Did you know that you could track a fitness tracker? Well, Kasie can. She uses it to give the location to the victims location to the team. They find the killer’s lair as well as the killer himself, whose landlady thinks it is called Tommy Samuels. He gets away before anyone catches him, but is courteous enough to call Torres and rub it in.
They are publicly announcing that Gibbs is dead and forgot to tell Fornell that he's not? What’s wrong with this picture? Has the poor man not suffered enough loss? But honestly, Fornell's already guessed that Gibbs is okay; now he just needs someone to tell him where his friend is at the momet. Gibbs is helping Marice clean up her office and learning about Zoom. Fornell seems interested in knowing more about Marcie (“What was her name? Mindy?”), but Gibbs would prefer Fornell step back a bit.
While looking through images of Samuels on Marcie’s iPad she notes a man who seems to be following him all of the time. Fornell joins Gibbs in his pickup truck and he talks some serious talk. He talks about the future and moving forward, thinking about what you want your world to look like and managing grief. Is Gibbs using work to fill the void? Don’t worry, Fornell already knows the answer. He invites his friend to join him in a grief support group he attends with Jimmy Palmer, but for Gibbs it may be too early (or late) for that.
SO glad that Fornell and Jimmy are attending a grief support group together. It never ceases to amaze me the way Jimmy seems to be part of nearly every character’s lives. One thing I haven’t seen or heard about yet is Jimmy's relationship with his daughter and how Victoria (and Victoria and Jimmy together) are faring. I think it would make for an interesting tale or ongoing story.
McGee hauls Samuels’s stalker into Interrogation and eventually it comes to light that his name is Alden Parker and he’s with the FBI. Seems that they’re interested in Samuels, too, and Parker has been undercover for months. He’s happy to share info with NICS and Leon, but not with Gibbs. Looks someone isn't familiar with how NCIS works. Sorry Alden; you’re in Gibbs’s house now.
Kasie reports a Samuels sighting near a local cemetery. Gibbs is first on the scene, which is never a happy time for a perp if Gibbs has a personal connection to whatever they have harmed. Besides small children or animals, the next thing would be his boat. So, yeah. Samuels blew up his boat, and it took all three members of his(?) team to pull Gibbs off of him. Turns out his name is Paul LeMere and he was visiting his “mother’s” crypt with $326,000 and his actual passport in it, getting ready to run. Instead, he gets a trip to the Navy Yard.
As he waits for his lawyer, Kasie tells the team a bit about LeMere: he was a decorated Navy Seal with a bad conduct discharge whose (naturally off-shore) bank account grows richer by $50,000 every 100 days. So he’s a hired killer, not a serial killer. Do we like him any better? Thought not. Oh, and his attorney has been dead for 11 years.
When Knight brings up the named Navis Ventures, the shell company who has been paying him, LeMere becomes more than a little agitated, pushing Knight against the two-way mirror with the table, then knocks out the rest of the glass and escapes. Huh. That’s new. He makes his way around the building and finds Kasie and takes her hostage. He threatens to kill her, and says he doesn’t care if he dies. Which, really, is a bad thing to say anyway near Gibbs, who emerges from the elevator and shoots him in the back.
And so the story of the serial killer who wasn’t draws to a close, although I think there is more to report (like why is this person killing seemingly random people on a schedule), but she has finished her story, had coffee with “Toby”, and now she’s heading up to the cabin with her friend Mitch. Mitch? Gibbs may even be less pleased with the existence of a “Mitch” than he is of “Toby” Fornell, but when Mitch turns out to be a woman, Gibbs feels a bit better about the situation. Hopefully we’ll see Marcie again. If nothing else, it would be fun to watch Gibbs and Forell trying to woo the same woman.
Meanwhile, Torres continues to be distraught over Bishop, taking form this week by trying to force Knight into sitting at Bishop’s old desk. It’s pretty creepy, to be honest. He even starts moving some of Knight’s things, which does not please Knight in the least. She’s a “don’t touch my stuff, need my own space” kind of woman, which is so far the only thing I really like about her. Torres says that he wishes he’d told Bishop how he felt sooner, and Knight kind of shrugs in agreement.
See you next week!
