seaboe_muffinchucker | Entries tagged with season 3

Ducky's story about his mother forgetting him on the ferry makes me think of Tony being left in Hawaii. Yet another sign that my two favorite men on this show might have more in common than it seems at first glance.

Why are they giving Gibbs oxygen? Were his lungs damaged? Hospitals do not go around putting patients on oxygen for no reason. Except on TV. A nasal cannula is TV short hand for "this person is very sick." They put them on everyone.

I like that when Tony is confronting Jenny he doesn't let her reduce him to tripping over his own tongue as happens to him so often. For once the writers showed some respect for the character, even though it doesn't even last through the end of the scene. I like his description of the matters under discussion "you take care of the big picture and let me handle the two reeler."

This and part one are very difficult shows to watch. I think the actual mystery part is well done. I think the people who think secrecy is more important than lives are assholes, and if I'd been Gibbs, I'd've resigned, too.

We get more emotion out of Gibbs in these two episodes than all the rest of the series put together. These are also the first big Gibbs' back story episodes. I confess, I don't like the flashback sequences (like the ones where he remembers being wounded). Part of it is the way they're filmed. I know this show deals with serious topics, and I'm glad they do. However, I watch it to be entertained and if a scene makes me too uncomfortable (for any of a host of possible reasons), it's not entertaining. These are the scenes I mute or look away from.

The beginning movie discussion does a good job of misdirecting our expectations. It seems like it's going to be the usual mystery. Then the bomb goes off. I have to say that I find Gibbs injuries somewhat unrealistic. That big a bomb in that small a room? He should've been killed instead of just having superficial burns and abrasions. No intracranial bleeding, yet he's in critical condition? I think there are other shows that do a better job of matching the injuries to the reports.

More about Abby's family—her uncle Charlie got his leg caught in a nutria trap. Now, I've heard of nutria before, but I had to go see what a nutria trap looks like. They look to be the same kind of trap that's used to capture feral cats. I'm not sure how or why getting your leg trapped in one would lead to a trip to the hospital. As funny as it is, this scene is the over the top Abby the child. As such, I find it disappointing.

When push comes to shove, Tony is nice. He depends too much on Gibbs to tell him when he's crossed the line; still, as this episode shows, he can control his sense of humor. His stress shows when he's reporting to Jenny and becomes very formal.

Someone complained that they got a different actress to play his daughter in one of the later episodes, and all I could think was "of course it's a different actress; how could you think it wouldn't be?"

There are touches of humor in this, despite the seriousness of what is going on, and for once the writers keep them delicate (Abby's scene excepted), like when Ducky and Palmer are standing in identical poses considering the remains of the bomber. Ducky actually snaps at Palmer, which is a nice and fairly subtle way of showing how much this has tipped them all off balance.

This episode has the Jessica Alba line. If you don't know what that means, you probably shouldn't be reading this blog.

How much time is passing? In the MTAC scene, Tony is wearing the same clothes he had on at the hospital and (possibly) at the ship.

McGee is so lost. He doesn't know what to say to Abby. She's upset that Ziva and McGee are not taking this all as hard as she is and in the same way. Poor McGee, escaping from the women he runs, literally, into Tony, who isn't in the mood for it. Using McGee's tie to stop the nosebleed is very Tony & McGee.

This is the first time we've seen real emotion from Ziva. First episode with Mike Franks. Ducky's mother's brother was named Carkin.

Tony knows he's not Gibbs. Emotionally, he needs to act like Gibbs to prove to himself that Gibbs will come back. I think the others sometimes forget that Tony is more than just an irritating clown. I would say this is the first episode where they were forced to acknowledge that. For example, when Tony is talking about From Russia With Love and doesn't seem to be paying any attention to what Ziva's doing, then shushes McGee and turns at just the right moment.

This episode ends just as Gibbs wakes up, not knowing Ducky. Temporary traumatic amnesia.

So he was alive when Ziva manhandled him into the elevator but died on the ride up. I just realized that I've never watched the beginning of this before. I'm not sure how I managed that. I also didn't realize Cassie was in this. She seems to specialize in drug cases.

It's interesting to me that Ducky asked Tony how she was and not McGee. In fact, he seems to have waited until McGee walked away. That's probably an illusion. He probably asked the nearest team member.

Abby's fascination with the crime scene may be understandable, but it's a little over the top, even for her. She's generally so sensitive to the feelings of those around her (overly so, IMO), it's strange that she intrudes the way she does on Ziva and Gibbs.

Ducky's parents were divorced! OMG! Actually, I don't know why it should shock me; my grandparents were divorced in the 1930s. Maybe because the way he's written he seems to have come from such a stable family. It's a shock to discover it wasn't.

This is very well paced. I know what's going on and I still find it very tension inducing.

Tony tries to make Ziva feel better by teasing her about her crazy ninja skills; McGee by comparing her experience here with his in Probie. I like that even though she rejects his comfort, saying she doesn't need it, she tries to comfort him in return—and then he turns the comfort back on her. Very well done, McGee.

Gibbs is treating Ziva and Cassie very similarly in keeping them at headquarters (although for different reasons). As an aside, the two actresses are very similar body types and are wearing their hair in the same style (more or less).

Ziva is worse at sitting still than Tony is.

The scene in Abby's lab with the tarot cards, and Abby and Tony both saying the same thing about the cards is not exactly humor, more a lightening of the tension. Tony's experience is showing again when he tells McGee that they don't have enough time to search 50 square miles.

It's nice to see they let Jenny get so close to freeing herself. It reminds the viewer once again that she was a field agent for a long time. Plus, it's a refreshing twist on the damsel in distress trope. I grant you, this is the second episode in a row that they've done that, but I don't mind.

I liked this episode a lot. Ziva figuratively chewing her nails to her elbows at not being able to contribute, Tony being competent and serious, McGee showing more self-confidence and, of course, Jenny being strong and unbowed. I never thought too much about her as director, and when I did it was after she entered her obsessive stage. I'd forgotten how good she was her first season.

The woman at the start is just not a believable character for me, even in the very short amount of time she spends on screen. No woman I know would go back to a hotel she'd decided was not up to standard, unless there was absolutely nowhere else to stay.

I've been reading other reviews of this series over the years, and I'm not the only one who has noticed that Tony is always the butt of the hash. It's gotten old already, in season three. By the time they finish (assuming they actually start spreading the hate), this horse will have been pounded to a pulp.

Tony's analysis of the crime scene was great. His experience shown through. Even Gibbs acknowledged how good it was, ending with a sarcastic comment that seemed to be directed more to Ziva and McGee than to Tony.

Favorite line (in the face of Jenny's insult) "Hey!... Ma'am." Of course, then the writers pound it into the ground by having just about every other character chip in with the same refrain.

Abby prefers to deal with things herself. She's been set up like that from the beginning, and this episode really hammers it home. I like the way the men get so het up because she didn't say anything (especially Gibbs and Tony). I also believe her reason for keeping it from Gibbs is very much in character.

I have to say that when she opens the door of McGee's apartment to her stalker, she's being incredibly (and un-Abbily) stupid. She doesn't even ask through the door who it is.

Gibbs punishing McGee for letting Abby out of his sight by taking away his chair is cute. Yes, I said it: Gibbs did something cute. I like the way Gibbs lets drunk Abby talk herself out of thinking this is her fault.

The tools the other women gave Abby to defend herself are touching and very reflective of the varying personalities. Then Ducky gives her the whistle, too. All of which she uses on the guy (I think). I have to say, though that I didn't think Tasers worked like that. I don't think I want to find out.

Why do they leave this guy hanging? What did they do with him? They can't just let him go without endangering Abby. Clearly nothing they will do will convince him she doesn't love him. But they never follow through.

I thought this was interesting. More misdirection as to who is doing what.

I would say that the way Ziva touches Tony's hair right at the beginning was not necessarily scripted. It's a cute little business.

I choose to think it was not the cat shooting through the pet door that caused Tony to draw his gun, but the bloody footprints which he noticed before Ziva did. Tony is good at his job. He must be, or Gibbs would've fired him long ago. So this business of having his younger colleagues constantly showing him up is annoying.

It's true, though, Tony and animals do not go together well. Which is probably why (when we finally see his apartment) it turns out he has fish. His childhood pet were sea monkeys. I choose to believe that the mother who drank them was not his biological mother, but the first in the long string of his stepmothers.

It's interesting that Gibbs has Tony tell Palmer about investigating suicides as murders. Did it really save anything not to do it himself? Weird.

I love the way McGee just can't walk by the blackboard with the error on it. He handled himself well while he was being insulted by the commander of the unit. I love the way he bitched about it to Abby later, though.

Palmer gets to do the external examination all by himself while Ducky goes off somewhere. He almost gets to start the actual autopsy, but Ducky arrives (with his mother in tow) in the nick of time. Thanks to the presence of his mother, we find out that Ducky has (or had) an Aunt Gloria.

Nina Foch is spectacular in her second and last appearance as Ducky's mother. As yet another example of Hollywood casting younger women as older, she was only nine years older than David McCallum.

The search and destroy scene is well filmed and cut together. You don't have to watch every second of their search to know how very thorough it is, and how very tired everyone but Gibbs is. Which is why McGee falls asleep and tempts Tony. That's one of the Gibbs slaps I think is funny and appropriate.

Parts of the surveillance scenes are funny, like when Ziva is going to pour water in Tony's lap and the resolution of the chase. Others are not (guess). Ziva offering the piano lessons is just nice, although as we know from seeing his apartment, Tony probably doesn't need lessons. Most people don't put a baby grand in their living rooms if they're not going to use it.

This episode clearly made very little impression on me the first time I saw it, as I had no idea who the bad guy would turn out to be on this rewatch. This indicates that the mystery is probably fairly banal. Which it is, though watchable.