Love is in the NCIS air. Jeanne Benoit (Scottie Thompson), interesse di amore of Special Agent Anthony "Tony" Dinozzo (Michael Weatherly), queries her paramour on why, after a month of dating, they don’t find themselves In flagrante delicto. Forensics Specialist Abigail "Abby" Sciuto (Pauley Perrette) is smitten with an instrumentation salesman she met in the previous episode “Once A Hero” (Marty Pearson (Michael Gilden)). And Agent Timothy "Tim" McGee’s (Sean Murray) college-aged sister, Sara McGee (Troian Bellisario), who threatened to kill a former boyfriend in an email, shows up at McGee’s apartment covered with said old boyfriend’s (a Navy Seaman) blood. Love is in the air, indeed.McGee (Tim, that is) is flummoxed by his sister’s behavior. She shows up at his door, bloody and disoriented, claiming she may have killed someone. After an hour in the shower, Sara doesn’t remember having told Tim anything about killing someone. Tim suspects she was drugged, gets a urine sample. Sara falls asleep while Tim emails NCIS claiming laryngitis and tries to pull a rabbit out of a hat on her behalf on the sly. Tim determines that Sara has four unaccounted hours between the time she went for dinner at the school food court and when she showed up at Tim’s door, approximately 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM. A little deductive reasoning on Sara’s part proposes that she would have had to take a taxi to Tim’s apartment. While researching the Taxi angle on campus, Tim is alerted by the security Officer Samuel Tate (John Cabrera) that his NCIS unit is across campus investigating the body of a slain navy Seaman Jeff Petty and several dead goldfish.
McGee’s efforts to shield his sister are uncovered and he returns to headquarters to face Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and the tag team of Tony and Ziva presenting him a mountain of evidence linking his sister to the crime. Tim claims she was drugged, but Abby’s tox screen on Sara’s urine came back negative. However, the tox screen on the goldfish revealed nicotine poisoning that occurred when a nicotine patch had been dropped in the tank and was found by the fish. Considering other suspects Tony and Ziva suggest Petty’s current cheerleader girlfriend and Sara McGee’s blog whore Carolyn (April Matson). Gibbs and Tim go to the domicile of said girlfriend and meet the whole bunch of cheerleaders, preparing for some function. Gibbs questions Carolyn and Tim notices an empty fish tank.
Comic relief comes in the form of Tony consulting with NCIS Director Jennifer "Jenny" Shepard (Lauren Holly) about his reluctance to consummate his relationship with his amore. The conversation is pure subterfuge and innuendo and is one of the handiest bits of dialog on the show. The conversation is interrupted by a call from Ziva notifying him that campus security (Samuel Tate) found Sara asleep in the library and she and Tony were ordered to go gather her up. The Director wished Tony luck in all measures. While bringing Sara in, she reveals Tim’s secret that he has published a book under a pseudonym with a plot and characters too close for comfort to the NCIS family.
Back at the NCIS shack, Jenny reads Tim the riot act regarding withholding information, Tim quits, Gibbs calms him down, questions Sara, who breaks down and cops to the murder. At about the same time, Abby analyzes the carpeting from the cab, since impounded and revealing the murder weapon (a knife), and discovers vomitus containing all of the ingredients for Sara’s favorite pizza (cheeseless, with Tabasco Sauce, Pickles and Peanut Butter). Also present was evidence of GBH (gamma-hydroxybutyrate), a popular date-rape drug that is metabolized so rapidly that it cannot be detected via either urinalysis. A quick survey of the surveillance tape from the food court shows cheerleader-whore Madison (Katherine Bailess), who Sara trashed on her blog, spiking peanut butter Sara carried around for such occasions. Tim and Tony pick her up and Sara and new Petty girlfriend Carolyn make friends and hug. Love is in the air.
Stars:
Forensics Specialist Abigail "Abby" Sciuto (Pauley Perrette)
Special Agent Anthony "Tony" Dinozzo (Michael Weatherly)
Agent Timothy "Tim" McGee (Sean Murray)
Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon)
NCIS Director Jennifer "Jenny" Shepard (Lauren Holly)
Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard (David McCallum)
Mossad Agent Ziva David (Cote de Pablo)
NCIS Special Agent Michelle Lee (Liza Lapira)
Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen)
Guest Stars:
Jordan Block (Fidel Gomez)
Officer Samuel Tate (John Cabrera)
Madison (Katherine Bailess)
Carolyn (April Matson)
Sara McGee (Troian Bellisario)
Jeanne Benoit (Scottie Thompson)
This review was first published in Blogcritics.org
© Copyright, C. Michael Bailey, 2006
