A stripper enters a motel room, only to find her clients are dead. A new agent, Agent Brynn Fillmore (Valerie Rae Miller) recruited as Ziva's (Cote de Pablo) replacement types up her resignation. Tony (Michael Weatherly) comments they only investigate crimes in the navy here and not the army. (Also crimes in the marines.) As we know the army has its own unit, hence Col. Mann (Susanna Thompson) back in season 4. Valerie Rae in her one and only short scene with Michael, a Dark Angel reunion. As Original Cindy in the show, she didn't like Logan and she doesn't like Tony here either. Her first name is Brynn, also the name of one of Max's (Jessica Alba) sisters in the show.
Tony asks McGee (Sean Murray) if Ziva called, he tried to speak with her on the plane. He would have also tried to speak with her on the plane in the season 6 finale, had Ziva come back with them. McGee mentions Janice has asked him out for drinks. Janice, described as having "man hands." McGee tells Tony that Ziva will be back and they bet $20 that her desk will be empty by next month. Too late, Brynn's already signed her resignation as she finds Tony to be "childish, juvenile and annoying." Nothing new there then. Hey would love to work in that office, wouldn't you? She refers to McGee as "the faithful sidekick." Tony has to repeat, "Annoying." With McGee holding onto the "sidekick" reference.
Ziva pays Gibbs (Mark Harmon) a visit to his basement. She gives him a chisel for leaving her behind in Israel. As I recall from the season 6 finale, she wanted to stay and refused to go back with them. It was her choice, he didn't leave her there. She says she felt betrayed. Her feelings of betrayal and anger were directed at Tony and not Gibbs so she can't say he left her. Then she goes on to say after having time to think it through, Gibbs was right to leave her there. Again it was her choice. She had forgotten who to trust, but wants to be part of the team now. As for the trust issue that works both ways and in the season 3 opener when Ziva arrived in town, they had no reason to trust her, but it appeared she insinuated herself into their lives and especially that of Gibbs. Appearing to have a hidden agenda. Gibbs tells her to talk to Vance (Rocky Carroll) who is expecting her and she most certainly needs to speak with Tony.
The others investigate a triple homicide and McGee insists he's not Tony's sidekick. Tony replies he is since he's the boss. No, Gibbs is the boss and Tony corrects him by saying Tony's the boss when Gibbs isn't around. Gibbs and McGee question the stripper and her manager, Hector (Eamonn Roche) and McGee accepts his card with a pair of tweezers. He sprays cologne on McGee. (Hey McGee acting like he had OCD there, a trait he inherited from Agent Nikki Jardine - I liked her. ( Susan Kelechi Watson). [Recall the cologne for later.] The stripper tells them that one of the marines had hair when she met him. Ducky (David McCallum) finds a razor burn on his head. His hair was removed after he was dead. They are identified as Jurel, Ross and Sandrich, whose fiance was out of town.
McGee and Tony still harping on about the sidekick issue, when he tells Tony to follow him. Tony replies, no McGee should follow him as the sidekick. McGee shouldn't "fight his inner sidekick." Besides Tony calls McGee shorter than him. They're the same height. Tony tells him that women find him too good looking. Ziva arrives and adds her opinion, she finds McGee is more handsome, it's "nothing personal." Anyone would think it was, especially since she's into bearing grudges and she has a big chip on her shoulder too as far as Tony is concerned.
Vance asks if she's discussed her decision with her father, Eli. She replies it was NCIS who rescued her and he thinks she has been invaluable to this office; but Ziva wasn't an agent. Only a Liaison Officer. She has to pass her Psych Evaluation before they take things further. Gibbs tells her to talk to Tony and Vance wants her to speak with her father. Like that'll happen. As we know it's a pushover for Ziva to pass her Eval.
The auctioneer at Jurel's place of work thinks it's good news that he's dead since he made everyone miserable. Yet one of his co-workers cries, Elena (Sarah Utterback) calls him misunderstood. Palmer (Brian Dietzen) has never been to a bachelor party. Ducky can tell him stories to embarrass. Ducky says his findings were confirmed by Abby. (Pauley Perrette) All three were drugged. One drowned, one suffocated and one suffered alcohol poisoning. The killer wanted them awake when they died and there's evidence of a GS wound.
McGee can't help playing with his new techno gadget, the touch screen TV. With the "swipy things;" as he calls it. He finds one of the Vics was followed. Tony was interviewing his fiance and tells them she's already re-engaged. Tony: "Remind you of someone Boss?"
Gibbs: "How long are you going to keep making those jokes?" Cos he's been going since season 1!
Tony: "I think that was actually the last time I am going to be making that joke. Sorry." Notice when Tony apologizes to Gibbs, he's always coy about it and lowers his voice, like he's embarrassed or he's been caught out like a child. So he's been married four times, we could ask, how many times is Tony going to keep on dating without settling down! Then he shows his sign of weakness by apologizing, for fear of being slapped. Not many slaps going around lately.
Tony and McGee watch the video from the bachelor party and Gibbs wants them to turn it off and rightly so. Gibbs surmises the second party was a cover. His fiance discovered he was messing around and called off the engagement five months ago. Ziva suggests they recreate Jurel's daily route using his GPS history from his mobile (cell) phone. Why didn't McGee(k) think of this anyway, it's his area! Tony mentions loving Psych Evals, and as Ziva puts it, just so he could talk about himself the entire time. Tony replies no one can accuse her of being tactful.
Abby welcomes Ziva back and then berates her for ever doubting Tony after everything they went through. That Tony didn't kill Rivkin because he was jealous and she told Gibbs she didn't trust Tony. But Tony's "all soft and goofy on the outside and 100% rock on the inside." (Wasn't that meant to be the other way around.) He risked his life for her. She scores Tony -1 and Ziva -0. It's her move and she'd better make a good one. Then she hugs her again before the planned welcome. Abby style with the banner.
Gibbs speaks with Ross's C.O. Marine Col. Dick Jestern (Charles Parnell) who needs to revise his report as Ross didn't hurt himself on the base in South Korea. Vance will sign Ziva's reinstatement and work It out with her father, but if Gibbs doesn't want her here, then he won't bother with the formalities. Gibbs needs her here. McGee gives Ziva credit for her idea to track Jurel's movements. Unlike Tony. They arrive at a house where Shelley, (Ian Reed Kesler) a Baltimore cop is already there and pretends there's a suspect in the house. He asks if he's Tony DiNozzo, he is, but only if he doesn't owe him money. That was stupid of Shelley, did he think he'd get away with it, when they find out it's his own house. Gibbs slaps Tony, finally!
Tony believes they may have stopped the second half of a murder/suicide. McGee, out for coffee, spots Ziva. She thanks him for saving her. It's been three months and she has put everything that happened behind her; but she's avoiding Tony. That's nice, McGee didn't being back coffee for Gibbs. Shelley and the Vics all attended the same high school and Shelley was a target of their bullying. Tony's desperate to use the Head. They e-mailed the video of their bullying to everyone in Shelley's precinct. McGee finds incidents were recreated from the past in the marine's deaths, so Shelley would be an obvious suspect.
Tony relieves himself and proceeds to sing and as luck would have it, or not, Ziva walks in. She's not sure what to say. Tony asks if she needs to say it here. When he shot Rivkin, she could have shot Tony where he stood. Tony corrects her, he wasn't standing and he was double parked outside. Tony was watching out for her and she was wrong not to trust him. She explains she trusted Ari (Rudolf Martin) and Rivkin and they let her down, she couldn't afford to trust Tony. She gave the same explanation to Gibbs earlier on, couldn't she come up with something different now. They say sorry to one another and she kisses him on his cheek. Guess some of you Tiva lovers were poised on the edge of your seats thinking this was it, but thank goodness it wasn't! Tony grabs Ziva as he gets a brainwave! For a minute there, Ziva thought he was going to kiss her! Tony's instincts were right. "I'm a cop, think like a cop." Tony knows Shelley has another burn phone and tells McSidekick to track the phone. Shelley calls DiNozzo and denies killing them. He will meet with Tony. Shelley crashes his truck into the phonebox after being shot.
Ducky states he knew his killer. Ross was involved in a shooting at an airstrip used by smugglers. Had a package on the plane. McGee sneezes in the presence of Shelley's DB. The cologne leads to Hector. He's not a manager but a fence. He has Shelley's DNA under his fingernails as they were in a fight. He admits the package was the plane. See season 1 JAG episode Black Ops, where Harm (David James Elliott) investigates the death of a Senator's son. What appeared to be an accident, turns out to be murder by his C.O as he was selling off a military plane; which was the 'package'. Abby's conclusions points to Shelley being shot by an antique percussion cap pistol. Leading to Elena, well she stupidly gave herself away. They have proof, as Tony calls McGee, 'McProof'. The suicide note was traced to her laptop.
Ziva senses Gibbs' hesitation at Vance having her back in the team. Gibbs mentions Ari and the flashback to Season 3 Part 2, Kill Ari. She had orders to kill Ari to earn Gibbs' trust and Gibbs says she killed her own brother. She thought her father was wrong about Ari. Ziva believed Ari was innocent and would have lied to Gibbs since Ari was her brother. Gibbs meant nothing to her but when she killed him to save Gibbs; she wasn't following orders. Everyone's gone and Gibbs is the closest she has to a father and he's accusing her.
Ziva's back and Tony and McGee return to find her behind her desk. McGee went on a date with Janice and Tony will get all the details out of him. A bit of a long-winded way to get to the truth and the real reason why Ziva arrived in Season 3; it was apparent she was there for Ari, but when she found out what he was really like and what he had done, she had no choice but to kill him. It could be pointed out that her character could have gone either way and her real reason for being there was to 'infiltrate' NCIS. She was an assassin after all and so she could have strung them along and not been a part of their team because she really wanted to be, but since she was following orders. At least that storyline was laid to rest, was tending to drag on a bit.
The way one of the marine's was posed over the toilet reminded me of Nick's (George Eads) stalker episode in CSI.
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