A man crashes his car outside a hospital. McGee (Sean Murray) tells Tony he has two reminders from Brenda Bittner, she's posted on line that she's in a 'committed relationship' with Tony (Michael Weatherly). She's the barista from Gibbs' (Mark Harmon) coffee shop. Ziva (Cote de Pablo) asks when Tony was going to tell them about being in a committed relationship (cos we all know how committed Tony can be, ha.) Tony's not dating her, they only spent the night together. Tony hasn't set his private settings correctly. Ziva thinks he's getting too old for these one night stands. Oh she got that expression right. Tony will settle down when he meets the right girl, whom he thought was Jeanne, luckily she wasn't Ms Right. Gibbs tells Tony, "don't ever settle DiNozzo."
The Vic was Lt Jeffrey Hutton. Ziva asks what Tony is looking for in Ms Right? Tony: "Very independent, intelligent, successful, professional."
Ziva: "What would this woman possibly see in you?"
Ducky (David McCallum) can't determine the COD. The Vic's sister is ZNN reporter Dana Hutton, (Ashley Scott) Tony want to accompany Ziva to interview her. Gibbs lets him. She's blond, really cute but Tony's a professional. Brenda calls Tony and they find Dana's apartment trashed. Allowing Tony the chance to snoop around, he looks at the piano and her photos. I have to admit, I immediately thought of the movie Laura as soon as I read the one line summary for the episode. Though I was waiting for someone to mention it in here and finally Ziva did.
Gibbs: "We don't answer anything," to Navy Operations Command. Tony says NIOC has secrets and he's obsessed with Dana already Abby (Pauley Perrette) has the laptop. Jeffrey's CO, Capt. Austin Sears (Bobby Hosea) asks if it was an accident. Ducky can't find any reason for his multiple organ failure, he was in perfect health. They'll need SecNav clearance as he was working on a classified project. Gibbs asks Tony about his pal at NIOC, whoever he was cos we didn't get to see him.
Dana's producer, Rex (Jonathan Kerrigan) tells Ziva and Tony that her old friend was killed in a car accident and she was overseeing the sale of his bookstore. Ziva clearly flirts with him. She was working on a piece on Private Military Contractors (PMC). (Cue Hart and Bell.) Tony sits on Dana's anchor chair.
Rivera (Marco Sanchez) is from the Mexican Justice Department and Vance (Rocky Carroll) says he's here courtesy of the State Department. Rivera's legal counsel for the Justice Department in Mexico. Allison Hart (Rena Sofer) helped secure Bell's release. Enough with the 'Mr Gibbs' already! Vance gives her temporary employee status. That was easy for her to obtain, especially with her past associations with Bell and she wasn't even vetted! Abby says the Tox screen will take time and Tony hugs her. Palmer (Brian Dietzen) tells him she's in a foul mood. Abby threatens them with the guns in the ballistics lab, for someone who doesn't like guns. Palmer suggests a double date with Tony and Brenda.
Tony's 'missing' from work and is watching Dana's interviews and asks McGee for her number. "Give me the number or I'll Gibbs slap you." Tony wants to check out the bookstore. Besides wouldn't Tony be able to get her number without McGee's help, he's an agent after all and an obsessed one at that. Ziva is curious as to how Tony knows, "called research Da-vid." Palmer worked on the Vic and found a small puncture wound on his shoulder. Ducky lets him remove the dot. Abby says it looks like a bowling ball, she'd say that. Allison brings Rivera to the lab and he invites Abby to Mexico. She's too busy to give him a tour of the lab. Why is Allison (Mallison) ordering Abby around, she's not her boss, she should have complained.
There's a sax player outside the bookstore, recall Tony undercover as a singer outside a restaurant in season 4. He meets Maggie Reed (Kerrie Keane). Now she was an obvious suspect, having access to the bookstore. The safe inside is open and empty, also how could she have missed that. Gibbs has clearance now and the DB was Charlie Baskum. Jeffrey was doing a report for the joint chiefs at PPMCS. McGee says Dana was working on the story and Abby realizes Jeffrey was murdered. Ducky says the metal pellet contained ricin inside. Abby comments Gibbs hates it when she asks him to guess. Ducky concludes he was killed by a cold War weapon and recalls 1978 and the umbrella murder, when Gregor Markov was killed when a passer-by with a folded umbrella injected him with a pellet. The hospital couldn't help since there's no antidote. Dana was writing on the negative aspects of PMCs like Bell, thus the presence also of Allison. Who turns up in Gibbs' basement. If he locked his front door he wouldn't have a social life. She knew he was investigating PMCs and Dana was a friend of hers, small world.
Rex was Dana's boyfriend, which makes Tony jealous. "There are consequences for misleading Federal Agents." But nothing's serious with her and she uses people so he let her use him. Which prompts Tony to grab him by the collar. Abby loves the word 'symposium'. McGee comments Rivera probably wants to know how many tattoos she's got. Abby teases, perhaps she's got another one. Tattoos were mostly discussed in seasons 1 & 2 when Kate (Sasha Alexander) was around and when McGee got one too, to impress Abby. 1985 was the year of the spy. There were many arrested on US soil. Ziva says Charlie's death was an accident and he had the name of a dead man who emigrated from Canada. Ziva asks Gibbs if he's spoken with Tony. He went to ZNN and got "physical" with Rex. He might be obsessed with Dana, not might, he is. Tony plays her piano and leaves her a message on her phone. Ziva worrying about Tony again, as she did in season 4 when he was seeing Jeanne and making all those hospital trips. Then telling Gibbs about Tony once more.
Finally Ziva turns up and mentions Laura (1944). Tony: "Ziva making a film reference - go figure." Ziva claims Dana won't walk through his door as this is real life, she was wrong. Ducky finds the COD was "pink tooth." The use of an arsenic compound from Russia during the twentieth century. Vance recalls the legend of Yuri, a mole in the DC area, who funded KGB operations in the US and Charlie fits this profile. He had $10 million in a slush fund. Tony associates him with Kevin Costner's landlord in No Way Out (1987) mentioned again. McGee thinks these would be great characters if he was writing a novel. Gibbs says it's about the money and they search the bookstore. Dana calls Tony and they meet at Gibbs' fave backdrop.
Gibbs finds Microfiche which is the earlier version of the flash memory as McGee tells Gibbs. Who refers to them as the 1970's version of those memory plug in things in the side of the computer. Dana has been in hiding and he tells her about Yuri/Charlie. She opened the safe and found Russian documents and codes. She told Jeffrey and they did their own research. There's no money in the safe cos it was obviously in his books, the first editions, etc, William Shakespeare's works were worth $6 million and the Guttenberg Bible printed on vellum was worth 10 times $2.5 million. Dana thinks it was "probably the same person who killed me." She's been injected too. (Didn't this remind you of the season 4.16 Dead Man Walking episode with Ziva and her brief love, Roy Sanders. The parts with Tony and what happeend to Dana at the end, I mean.)
Vance says Fornell owes Gibbs dinner. The microfiche was a ledger and Gibbs sees one name on the list stand out: Maggie. He converses with her in Russian, she wanted the KGB money. She was at the bookstore all this time and didn't think there might have been something of value there.
Tony's turn to acquiesce Gibbs' basement now for some bourbon. Dana died peacefully. Tony's not fine, he broke Rule number 10: never get personally involved in a case. Gibbs: "it's the rule I've always had the most trouble with." As we know from past experience.
Well they had to make this episode eventually, even if it took 5 years to get there; the number of times Tony's mentioned the film Laura, only in this episode Dana dies. In Laura, played by Gene Tierney, the detective who falls for her was played by actor, Dana Andrews, wonder if that's why Dana was named so. Ashely Scott was in Dark Angel and Michael actually got some scenes with his former co-star, which he didn't get with William Gregory Lee. Laura was first mentioned in season 2.17 An Eye for an Eye. Tony and his allusion to No Way Out again as in 5.5 Leap of Faith, where he said, "sort of an Arab version of Kevin Costner in No Way Out." Clearly a movie that can be applied to many genres and nationalities.
At least this episode was enjoyable and as atmospheric as a film noir, especially the haunting music in the scenes where Tony is obsessing over Dana.
Tony got involved personally in this case, but we knew that was coming, they all do, one way or another as we know, they either fall for the suspect, like Ducky and Gibbs in the past, or the object of their obsession is killed, like Ziva's amour in season 4. Which no one mentioned here, but Ziva was more involved than Tony was, he only just briefly met her. Tony turns to Gibbs in his darkest hour. And Brenda was all but forgotten. Think Tony believed Dana could have been Ms Right, but he didn't really know her and Rex said she used people, so, probably not right for him anyway. Besides at the end of the day, she was just the woman on the other side of the TV screen for Tony. However Tony tends to get 'obsessed,' at least intense over his female counterparts, friends, colleagues, or should I just say women, in general and be done with it, when he's genuinely concerned about them, jealous, or just plain fancies them. Such as with Ziva in season 6 after he found out she was keeping secrets about her relationship with Rivkin and felt he had to protect her from him.
McGee's tattoo, or the possibility of him having one was mentioned in season 1's Sub Rosa and Kate's tattoo which Tony was so curious about was in My Other Left Foot. Allison's there for a reason, has an ulterior motive for being there and not just cos she was friends with Dana, curiously the episode started out with Dana investigating PMCs, as Allison is so connected with those and ended up with Russian spies.
Also Ducky calls the umbrella murder Vic, Gregor instead of Georgi Markov, who was actually Bulgarian, not Russian. Though his hit was ordered by the KGB.
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