S16.E06: Beneath the Surface

[thewhiteowl]

At a Halloween crime scene Torres recognizes the victim. Jimmy suspects the lab is haunted.

[stonehaven]

Well..that was a letdown..I swear this show is operating on fumes...how many more times will we deal with Torres angst? Where was McGee talking about his kids' Halloween? I'm thinking this show might not be must see for me anymore...Mark Harmon crush be damned....oh yeah, the case was really convoluted and never fully explained.

[LittlePeas3]

Am I imagining it or are Torres and Bishop a couple?  There seems to have been some hints in the last couple of episodes. 

[Badsamaritan]

59 minutes ago, LittlePeas3 said:

Am I imagining it or are Torres and Bishop a couple?  There seems to have been some hints in the last couple of episodes. 

I was wondering that too! Didn't Torres say something last week at the beginning of the episode about him being out of town, and so was Bishop, and she gave him a look like, 'Hush!' And then this episode he called her 'Babe'. I was honestly expecting, when he went to Gibbs' basement at the end, that Gibbs was going to ask Torres when he was gonna tell Gibbs about him and Bishop. I'm not opposed, they look very pretty together. I'm just surprised, after all the wishy washy crap with Tiva, that the mothership has decided to go there with these two. 

Still enjoying Kacie a lot. I like how they're showing her learning the team and them learning her instead of just having her be perfect right from jump. 

[Katy M]

I'm getting so bored with this show. I liked the part where Jimmy thought his lab was haunted because McGee rigged the security cameras. That had old-time feel, something Tony would have put him up to.  But, I can't even remember what goes on with the cases 5 minutes after the show is over. And, is the guy that was talking to Vance the same one that was working with the not-in-need of physical therapy woman?  If so, I still don't care, but if not, they seemed to have dropped that like a hot potato.

3 minutes ago, Badsamaritan said:

Still enjoying Kacie a lot. I like how they're showing her learning the team and them learning her instead of just having her be perfect right from jump. 

She did make a good point, even being new.  Since when does Gibbs walk into any room when they're on a case and say pretty much anything besides "what do you got?"  

[JessDVD]

This one read sort of like two sets of writers were assigned different episodes to write the A and B plots for (the crime, the CIA guy), and the editing room accidentally put the two together. We were obviously supposed to suspect CIA guy is up to something (Puh-leez, in 10+ years of watching crime shows, never ONCE has the CIA cooperated or been nice to any other agency), but then nothing came of it.

Anvils dropping all over for Torres/Bishop. I'm betting that whichever writer specializing in Awkward Contrived Romance was feeling underrepresented and pleaded his/her case in the writers' room.

[Trey]

One thing I appreciated in this episode was Kaysie feeling overwhelmed by all the work she had to do.  It always annoyed met that Abby did everything by herself; there should have been a few technicians wandering about the lab, doing most of the cleaning, sorting, whatever they really do in labs.

Yeah, what was up with CIA guy not ending up being the hit man's handler? What a let down! But he did seem to have some sort of agenda re Jack and Vance's dealings with Nigel Hakim.

Edited October 31, 2018 by Trey

[Driad]

Jimmy -- Samhain is pronounced SOW-en. Guessing you learned the word from reading it, and never heard anyone say it (correctly).

[preeya]

Thought for sure CIA guy (Scott Winters) was dirty. I was confused that his role in this episode was moot (also unrealistic).

Have they set him up for a future appearance?

Edited October 31, 2018 by preeya

[basiltherat]

Yeah, CIA guy is not to be trusted.   With a made-up name like "Wesley Clark" you know he must be working on the QT, but for whom we don't know.  

And the trick on Jimmy is SO what Tony would have done!  McGee should be trick or treating with his kids instead of Tony-ing Jimmy.

[laredhead]

I agree with previous post that this episode seemed to have been written by a committee that never met together.  I was cringing when Kaysie was handling all of that evidence from the bathroom, and she wasn't wearing a mask, and then she turned around and picked up something while still wearing the gloves that she had used to touch all of that germ laden stuff.  YUCK!  That would not happen in a real lab.  

There were too many story lines going on to keep track of or to really hold my interest, and I never say that about NCIS.  I really didn't understand Torres angst about the hit man.  Even though they had similar interests, that doesn't mean Torres is going to suddenly wake up and become a hit man.  People are different, so why spend so much time trying to figure out what happened to him?  I haven't picked up on the Bishop/Torres relationship possibility, but I guess I need to pay better attention.            

[12catcrazy]

I think the CIA guy is the guy who was handling the woman who Vance was going to ask out.  I normally don't 'ship characters in these shows getting together, but I actually LIKE the idea of Torres and Bishop together.  I've come to like both of them and they seem to have some kind of playful chemistry.   I also like Kaysie but I hope they keep the weirdness in check.  Don't know why these NCIS shows always have to make the tech people so over the top.  I couldn't stand Abby so I find Kaysie an improvement - just keep her sorta geeky but REAL.  

[enoughcats]

49 minutes ago, laredhead said:

There were too many story lines going on to keep track of or to really hold my interest, and I never say that about NCIS.

Two possibilities: 

They aren't trying to hold our interest.

They were supposed to be a two or even three episode arc, but decided it stank and it was time to make the computers a more important part of their team>  Computer, instantaneously find out who these people are, everything about them, and then find the similarity....,.........,,,,............What are the odds that everything would come together that fast? Or that they'd ask the right questions.  The basic work gets turned over to computers to generate things that must be true, and then, at the same time, send people to Jack to come up with touchy feely indistinct can-be-wrong-or-misleading clues.  

Hard science isn't going to happen with Jack there, because she's being rushed through, too.

[Trey]

11 minutes ago, 12catcrazy said:

I think the CIA guy is the guy who was handling the woman who Vance was going to ask out.

Yes, he is.  He was credited in Boom as "unidentified man".

[LuvMyShows]

2 hours ago, JessDVD said:

Anvils dropping all over for Torres/Bishop. I'm betting that whichever writer specializing in Awkward Contrived Romance was feeling underrepresented and pleaded his/her case in the writers' room.

LOL!

1 hour ago, basiltherat said:

And the trick on Jimmy is SO what Tony would have done!  McGee should be trick or treating with his kids instead of Tony-ing Jimmy.

I liked that Jimmy got McGee back, except that it was stupid, because all he did was put a pop-up hand in McGee's drawer, and IRL, McGee would have opened that drawer some other time than right at the end of the day when Jimmy was standing there.

[HurricaneVal]

1 hour ago, 12catcrazy said:

I think the CIA guy is the guy who was handling the woman who Vance was going to ask out.

Oooooooh.....  The plot thickens!

 

Well, this was a scattered episode.  I usually look forward to the NCIS Halloween episode, Gibbs's exasperation with all the tomfoolery is always a delight, but seemed to be completely absent from this episode.  And I agree, McGee should have been itching to get home and take his kids out trick-or-treating rather than pranking Jimmy.  I love Jimmy, I really like that they're starting to use him more, and letting him have his own moments.  Like the "severed" hand....

[mythoughtis]

Why is Kacie in the lab by herself in the first place? She is basically 1 level up from an intern, whereas Abby was a senior forensic whatever. Seems to me that theyr should be mention of a supervisor, etc.  it’s never been realistic that there would be 1 lab with 1 employee for the entire office. 

Torres telling Gibbs ‘you don’t know what it’s like to look in the mirror and see a killer’.  

[Rambler]

Kasey "The handler’s hit order was sent to a burner phone."

Gibbs: "Where is that phone now?”

McGee: “A parking garage in Alexandria".

Whelp I guess that Supreme Court ruling that you need a warrant to ping the location of a cell phone lasted all of one episode.

An explanation is needed as to what an international hitman was doing in a rundown truckstop bathroom that came equipped with a secret passageway that his killer somehow knew about.

So this mysterious handler that the CIA has spent years trying to identify, just gives out her name and phone number to anyone that hires her? Yep that sounds totally believable.

[mufcace89]

7.09 mins in, whats the song title being played, when Bishop touches the touchscreen interface.

[Dr.OO7]

On 10/31/2018 at 9:20 AM, JessDVD said:

Anvils dropping all over for Torres/Bishop. I'm betting that whichever writer specializing in Awkward Contrived Romance was feeling underrepresented and pleaded his/her case in the writers' room.

This made me laugh.

But I believe the proper term is Strangled By The Red String.

Incidentally, that applied to her relationship with Qasim too.

[Katy M]

8 hours ago, Rambler said:

Kasey "The handler’s hit order was sent to a burner phone."

Gibbs: "Where is that phone now?”

McGee: “A parking garage in Alexandria".

Whelp I guess that Supreme Court ruling that you need a warrant to ping the location of a cell phone lasted all of one episode.

They said something in that other epi about having a judge on standby for that.

[Rambler]

2 hours ago, Katy M said:

They said something in that other epi about having a judge on standby for that.

Yep exactly. The writers should have had Gibbs saying "Call the judge and get me a warrant to ping the location." somewhere in the middle of that conversation.

[ForReal]

The whole Jimmy/McGee thing left me puzzled. So Jimmy knew it was McGee and pretended to be so upset to see McGee open the drawer? And McGee honestly thought Ducky wanted him to do something along these lines to Jimmy? It would have been funny if Tony did it, but something didn't work for me in this exchange.

I liked that Jack immediately saw through the CIA guy and pushed back; I didn't like that Vance didn't do the same. When that guy started talking about his traumatic experiences, he should have shut him down right on the spot.

I didn't get the Torres angst at all. Because he knew a guy who turned bad, he might turn bad? Okay, lose sleep over that, but don't bug Gibbs with it. I agree with Methought's post of "Torres telling Gibbs ‘you don’t know what it’s like to look in the mirror and see a killer’. " Loved the steely look Gibbs gave in return. Torres is such a probie compared to Gibbs.

[welnoc]

4 hours ago, ForReal said:

I didn't get the Torres angst at all. Because he knew a guy who turned bad, he might turn bad? Okay, lose sleep over that, but don't bug Gibbs with it. I agree with Methought's post of "Torres telling Gibbs ‘you don’t know what it’s like to look in the mirror and see a killer’. " Loved the steely look Gibbs gave in return. Torres is such a probie compared to Gibbs.

Torres is incredibly self-absorbed so his increasing navel-gazing and angst comes as no surprise.

Suck it up buttercup and get on with life!

[Xeliou66]

I hated seeing McGee act like Tony 2.0 in this episode, behaving like an unprofessional assclown, I loathed Tony and that behavior is not what I want from the characters, and it was OOC for McGee, it was nice to see Palmer turn the tables on him at the end but it would’ve been more satisfying if Palmer had slugged him, or at least Gibbs had given him a head slap, I’ve said before I disliked Gibbs’ slaps but McGee deserved it in this one.

I also hate the Torres/Bishop shipping that the show is doing, they don’t have chemistry and it’s incredibly forced.

I do like that Gibbs seems more relaxed and less angsty, I’m enjoying Palmer in the ME’s role a lot although Ducky is sorely missed, and it’s nice to have Gibbs back in the lab and I don’t miss Abby, her childish behavior was tiresome. 

[Badsamaritan]

They definitely could have said something about contacting an on-call judge for a warrant, but I also don't want to hear that every episode as it becomes repetitious. Maybe every few episodes, and then we can just assume it happens always even though it's not stated in the dialogue. 

I'm liking Gibbs and Torres developing relationship. It's like if we had gotten to see Gibbs and Tony in the early years of their team. I think Gibbs is seeing he has a lot more in common with Torres than Tony since they both have had more "gray area" events in their lives than I think Tony was shown to have had. That mirror line from Torres to Gibbs served to remind us that Torres is still new as he has no idea about the Shannon/Kelly story and also the similarities between the two men and Gibbs recognizing that. 

I do like the chemistry between Bishop and Torres. She's portrayed as focused and kinda serious and Torres is more fun loving so it's a nice balance. I'd like to imagine the introspection currently afflicting him has to do with Bishop's influence and he's choosing to be more reflective of his life and choices now that he's back in society and not in deep cover. But I'm probably thinking about it way more than the writers lol. 

[enoughcats]

3 hours ago, Badsamaritan said:

It's like if we had gotten to see Gibbs and Tony in the early years of their team

We did.  We saw Tony, the Baltimore cop, and we even saw Gibbs hand him an application for NCIS.  TPTB took years to bring Tony to maturity as a person, and Gibbs tollerated that slowness.

Torres...is not an average citizen. IIRC he was deep undercover for almost a decade. and I don't get how that makes him more fun loving. To me, it would be as if he lost a decade of being a twenty something goofball because in that decade-ish he could never let his guard down.  What the writers aren't giving us is the story of him becoming a person with lowered walls around him.

[GHScorpiosRule]

This was so exciting and had my attention so much that I...fell asleep about 20 minutes in.

Oh how unique and different-ANOTHER episode about Torres whining about his life and  the nimrodic idiocy of not knowing the difference between him and Kohl.

Sean Murray just sounds like he’s doped up on meds with the way he’s been delivering his lines. And McGee looked like such an asshole when he admitted he was behind gaslighting Palmer. Tony may have pulled some childish pranks, but there was a reason-McGee was a probie. MCGee’s reason that it was Ducky’s idea was so lame.

How nice. If scared witnesses don’t want to talk, let’s just threaten them. ?????

Since when are CIA AGENTS referred to as “Officers”? And he couldn’t have been more obvious he was fishing for information. 

I still have no idea who the target was that Kohl refused to kill. 

The deadpan look Gibbs gave Torres when he accused Gibbs about how he doesn’t know about looking in a mirror and seeing a killer gave me the second laugh in the episode followed by ???. And I wasn’t thinking about the drug dealer Gibbs killed to avenge Shannon and Kelly. Gibbs was a Marine Sniper.

All Torres did was “waa wah waa wah” like he does practically every episode.

A big giant ???? to the “babe...don’t call me babe. Babe. Babe” exchange.

The only highlight was seeing Marla Gibbs and how she played someone who was senile until she got in Gibbs’ face.

[Badsamaritan]

On 11/3/2018 at 10:07 AM, enoughcats said:

We did.  We saw Tony, the Baltimore cop, and we even saw Gibbs hand him an application for NCIS.  TPTB took years to bring Tony to maturity as a person, and Gibbs tollerated that slowness.

Torres...is not an average citizen. IIRC he was deep undercover for almost a decade. and I don't get how that makes him more fun loving. To me, it would be as if he lost a decade of being a twenty something goofball because in that decade-ish he could never let his guard down.  What the writers aren't giving us is the story of him becoming a person with lowered walls around him.

We did have that episode but I was comparing 'early days' as what happened between 'Baltimore' and 'Yankee White'. We got the Gibbs/Tony 'meet cute' and Tony applying to be an agent, but no Tony as Probie as by the time Yankee White happened, they had been working together for a while. 

I also didn't mind not seeing McGee trick or treating with the twins since they're what? Less than 2 years old, right? If they were older I wouldn't have minded seeing it but at this age, when they don't even know what Halloween is, I understand not showing that. A pic of the kids dressed up would have been nice but I also understand they would have had to pay the twin babies their fee for showing a picture of them.