S20.E14: Old Wounds

[thewhiteowl]

Parker grapples with his emotions when a conman from his past turns up as a prime suspect in the murder of a navy officer transporting millions of dollars’ worth of opioids.

[Poohpoohpooh]

Some will say this trope has been done 100 times, 50 times by Gibbs alone. But while Gary Cole is acting it, I'm fine with Parker having an emotional-outburst-due-to-past anytime he wants to. 

I can't take McGee's one-note nonchalance to everything, including non-reacting to Parker's big moments here. Split-screentime episodes like these prove that the other 3 agents cannot carry the show on their own. 

The former FBI partner and, surprisingly, the bad guy Willsnet really shined with Gary Cole. "I'm not some kind of evil genius" while baddie was on his knees stuck with me.

[HurricaneVal]

"I need you to confess." Then the flashlights coming on and the team revealing their presence.  That was good.

The rest of it?  I.....am not so much of a backstory girl.  Mention it.  Show it by actions.  Refer to it in dialogue.  Don't dredge it up as a plot point.

I didn't like the Gibbs arc when his backstory came back.  That was boring.  I didn't like it when Ziva's backstory--other than her original Ari bit--became such a plot driver.  

I like it when backstories  are mentioned in passing, like Tony's dad being an abusive asshole, McGee's dad's disappoints, or Quinn's mom.  Episodes featuring these pasts are just not great.  This one did not capture my attention.

The exception to my spontaneous rule is, of course, any flashback episode featuring Gibbs, Gibbs and Ducky, or Ducky.  Flashbacks for backstories are OK.  Episodes focused on backstories affecting the present kind of bore me.

[ColJackOneill]

For me, all this episode did was reinforce how poorly the team works as a team. The sole exception was Vance who acted pretty much like Vance should have. But the others not so much. This may piss off some people, but McGee is not a leader.

[meira.hand]

9 hours ago, Poohpoohpooh said:

The former FBI partner and, surprisingly, the bad guy Willsnet really shined with Gary Cole. "I'm not some kind of evil genius" while baddie was on his knees stuck with me.

Another case where a standup comedian (Bill Dawes) proves to be a good dramatic actor.

[12catcrazy]

Mixed feelings about this episode.   Showcased Gary Cole as an actor (good) and I really liked the guy who played his former partner, and the actor who played the bad guy was very good as well.    The story kept my interest but I hated that they showed Parker as a Jekyll/Hyde.     I don't buy for a minute that a man who has been a good team leader and all around likeable easy-going sort of guy all of a sudden turns into this driven, nasty, ready-to-go-rogue asshole.   So all of the interesting hobbies of bird watching, piano playing, treating the team to delicious pastries was all just trying to tamp down his guilt about accidently shooting his partner?   Baloney.   I guess that I have to keep telling myself that this is just another comic book TV show and not real life,  but NCIS no.  Please just stop with all the angst ridden backstories.   

[Grizzly]

Did like Jimmy sticking up for himself and the dead sailor(?) in autopsy. Otherwise hated the ep. Parker didn't start all those hobbies since joining NCIS. The greenhouse shows that to be a lie.

[MissLucas]

I guess I'll give this the Bobby Ewing shower treatment - didn't happen, was just a dream. Parker already had a good backstory complete with redemption arc no need to add another one. What made the character work was that he was not like Gibbs, that he had his s*it together (most of the time). No need to give him a guilt-ridden backstory and change the whole character by doing so. What sounded like good healthy balancing strategies (bird-watching, orchids, pastry) all of a sudden turned into evasive distracting mechanisms 🤷‍♂️ What worries me most is that they won't let it rest, just like they could not with Gibbs or Ziva until they both had such convoluted backstories that they felt more like Marvel characters (and that's not meant as a compliment).

 

[MerBearHou]

20 minutes ago, MissLucas said:

I guess I'll give this the Bobby Ewing shower treatment - didn't happen, was just a dream. Parker already had a good backstory complete with redemption arc no need to add another one. What made the character work was that he was not like Gibbs, that he had his s*it together (most of the time). No need to give him a guilt-ridden backstory and change the whole character by doing so. What sounded like good healthy balancing strategies (bird-watching, orchids, pastry) all of a sudden turned into evasive distracting mechanisms 🤷‍♂️ What worries me most is that they won't let it rest, just like they could not with Gibbs or Ziva until they both had such convoluted backstories that they felt more like Marvel characters (and that's not meant as a compliment).

 

1000% agree with this — one of the many reasons I took to Parker so quickly and he’s continued to become a favorite is because he is Not-Gibbs.  Show, please don’t mess with that.  Let this be a Bobby Ewing episode and be done with that story direction.

[twoods]

Bitchy Parker was not fun to watch at all. Like you guys I’ve enjoyed him since he was different from Gibbs. I love seeing all the different pastries and all the fun bantering. This episode was so jarring and not fun to watch when Parker was involved, but the case was intriguing.

Edited February 15, 2023 by twoods

[Poohpoohpooh]

Agree with you all. On a more superficial level, I want to see Gary Cols ACT because he can, instead of plainly talking at the plasma TV which they mostly do.

On the other, this episode has started the downhill lack-of-cohesion and messy canon for Parker. Remember how last season finale, his "last" ex-FBI partner was shot in his own garage? This was a dirty partner who (might have? They never explained) kidnapped Vivian for the Raven. 

Also, NCIS TVlandia only knows trauma as the source of good character drama. We will see a lot more traumatic and revisionist backstory for him, but the payoff is great acting and maybe good plots (not this episode, is the common consensus?)

If he was simply a chipper pastry-sharer, as far as TV written by NCIS is concerned, he might as well be a 2D character like Vance's assistant.

 

[jabRI]

On 2/15/2023 at 12:38 AM, twoods said:

Bitchy Parker was not fun to watch at all.

True, but my favorite part of the episode was what could have been a throw away line from Vance, where he said to Parker 'civil tone'. It may not mean a lot to some people, but I have worked in really hostile environments, and I love when someone in charge speaks up and reminds people to speak, in a civil tone, without shouting and posturing.  You get a lot more done without making people feel unempowered.

[CheshireCat]

On 2/14/2023 at 1:04 AM, HurricaneVal said:

I didn't like the Gibbs arc when his backstory came back.  That was boring.  I didn't like it when Ziva's backstory--other than her original Ari bit--became such a plot driver.  

I like it when backstories  are mentioned in passing, like Tony's dad being an abusive asshole, McGee's dad's disappoints, or Quinn's mom.  Episodes featuring these pasts are just not great.  This one did not capture my attention.

What I don't like is when it does not build on anything but is simply created for an episode and/or as a plot point. Like this story was. Even if we see it again, this was not the Parker character they created originally and I don't think it adds another dimension to the character but changes the character they established.

The reason why I don't buy it is because there was not a single flash of temper in Parker ever before. You don't have issues with your temper and are a hot-head and manage to keep it hidden in any and all situations and then suddenly lose it. And when we met him he was still at the FBI and he didn't lose his temper when he was hunting down Gibbs, so it's almost as if the writers are trying to gaslight us, trying to tell us Parker was someone that we saw with our own eyes that he was not.

The other thing that bothered me was that Parker was like that throughout the episode. We can all lose our cool at one point or another but we then calm down again. Parker had the chance to clear his head after Vance told him to take a breath and again when he was benched but no. For some reason he didn't calm down at any point. There is no way that I believe that a person can stay this mad and be an effective agent for as long as he's been working at the FBI and/or hadn't gotten fired or shot yet.

There's also the fact that Parker was at a point where someone should have told him very firmly to snap out of it or get lost and that, at the end, Parker said that he needed to be there to make sure, so he basically said he needed to be there because he didn't trust the others to get the job done. If I were on his team, that would be a problem for me. (I don't think that ever really was a problem with Gibbs because Gibbs falls into the category of characters who do things alone because they know it could cost them their job and while they're willing to lose it, they don't want the others to lose theirs).
It wasn't just that it didn't work for the character, it just didn't work, period.

I did like that the team wasn't really intimidated and that even Jimmy talked back and didn't just take the yelling. And yes, the acting was good all around.