S16.E15: Crossing the Line

[thewhiteowl]

The team investigates a man overboard fatality on a destroyer at sea. Also Torres is frustrated with his assignment.

[Katy M]

I know she was lying and all because she was the killer, but I didn't know it at the time and I thought the sister's interview was ridiculous.  Maybe that should have made me realize that she was the killer. But, how would she know if her brother was on drugs or not?  He could have just started.  He's on a Navy ship.  How often do you see him?  And, then she said she should have stepped in or intervened or something when someone on the ship was giving him a hard time. What?  How?  Again, he's in the Navy.  Not first grade. You can't go have a parent teacher conference, or talk to the bully's parents.  It was just bizarre.

Maybe instead of withholding the truth from Torres to see if he won't act like a jerk, you can tell him so he won't act like a jerk if you're at all concerned about the kid's feelings.  And, maybe don't put Torres in charge of the interns anyway.  

And why were the gung ho kids playing a video game when there was all that interesting stuff in Kasie's lab?  Not interesting to me, but interesting to the two kids who wanted to see everything?  

[stonehaven]

Yeah this episode was boring..slow and all together stupid. I am so sick of the agents not showing Gibbs respect..and Gibbs not even trying to show any kind of anger towards his agents. When "The Rookie" is more exciting TV than NCIS, it is time to pull the plug...but they might lure me in two weeks as it looks like Fornell is back.

[enoughcats]

Torres, remember the agent who had been under cover, deep cover, for a decade?  That's the Torres I think they should be writing, not the dude two years out of high school who might mature sometime in the next decade.  The Torres as written shows no sign of appreciating the life he has now and that he survived his years of danger.  

[twoods]

I liked it. Tying the kid to the Navy bombing 6 years ago was a nice touch, and Torres got his ass rightfully handed to him and grew up a little at the end. 

Was the CO Sean Patrick Thomas from Save the Last Dance? He has not aged at all and can’t believe he’s 48. Now I want to go watch a cheesy dance movie. 

[Aliconehead]

7 hours ago, twoods said:

I liked it. Tying the kid to the Navy bombing 6 years ago was a nice touch, and Torres got his ass rightfully handed to him and grew up a little at the end. 

Was the CO Sean Patrick Thomas from Save the Last Dance? He has not aged at all and can’t believe he’s 48. Now I want to go watch a cheesy dance movie. 

Torres should have been professional whether the kids had history with NCIS or not. I am glad that everyone called him on it too. He was rude and dismissive for selfish reasons.  Torres continually acts like a narcissistic ahole

yes that was Sean Patrick Thomas, I saw his name in the credits so I was waiting for him.  Still a hottie. 

[thewhiteowl]

If they want to plug Torres in to Tony's role they really need to give him some charm and some competence. Just giving him Tony's vanity is grating, annoying and unwatchable. Tony was just as vain but made it funny and could put it aside to get the job done. It wasn't his only characteristic, unlike Torres. Dude, your t-shirts are too tight. When strangers mention it, pay attention! Can't over.

I liked Jack, for a change. The rest was alright.

[meira.hand]

There was one glaring mistake that really annoyed me. The sister said that by the time she realized she sent her brother the drug laced drinks it was already too late, i.e. she found out her brother was dead. She knew a tray of deadly drinks was still on the ship and didn't bother to warn them? This is attempted murder all by itself.

[basiltherat]

Was the kid's dad who died in the bombing anyone we had met before?  Was this the same bombing that happened during Jimmy's wedding? 

They did do a story about a civilian woman who worked at NCIS at the time of the bombing who was murdered  -- and we had never met her.  There was also an old story with older interns, with one a dead ringer for a younger Tony.

[HurricaneVal]

OK.  I love this show.  I have stuck with this show all these years.  I know that this show has its faults.  I know that all TV shows take shortcuts to further the plot, but last night stretched even my generous credulity. 

The crossing the line ceremony is for when a ship crosses the equator.  Washington DC is over 2600 miles from the equator, but that's overland as the crow flies.  This incident happened on a ship.  At sea.  So the distance is even greater from the Navy Yard in DC to the ship out on maneuvers.  There is no way Gibbs et al were flitting back and forth from the ship to the office all in the same day.  Even into the next day.  There is no way.  There is also no way they took a helicopter to the ship, no helicopter has that sort of range.  It is possible they took a helicopter to an airport, boarded a plane for somewhere near the equator, say Brazil or Ecuador, then took another helicopter out to the ship which may have moved closer to land to meet with the agents.  But all that takes more than just a few hours, even if it were all prearranged the logistics moved smoothly.  Much more than just a few hours, and certainly not back and forth within the same work day.

Do the writers think we're dumb?

Never mind.  I know the answer to that question.

[Trey]

i wondered why they waited until they were in dock before they had the ceremony.

Torres can leave any time now. 

[Gothish520]

I wanted to slap Torres and that kid throughout the whole episode - and then they got me in the end. Sneaky bastards.

[HurricaneVal]

OK.  I missed that part.  They had the crossing the line ceremony back at the dock?  No.  That's just not done.  Now I'm really confused.

[Trey]

2 hours ago, HurricaneVal said:

OK.  I missed that part.  They had the crossing the line ceremony back at the dock?  No.  That's just not done.  Now I'm really confused.

I assumed they were in dock because of the easy comings and goings of the NCIS team.  Otherwise, it would be what @HurricaneVal said. You, in other words:)

Edited February 27, 2019 by Trey

[laredhead]

I have some pictures of my uncle and other shipmates taking part in the equator crossing ceremony back in the late 1930's.  He was a navy medical corpsman, and stationed in the south Pacific just before World War 2 and during the war.  I think they call it the Neptune ceremony.  I always thought it happened when the ship was at sea and crossed the equator.

[rhys]

2 hours ago, laredhead said:

I have some pictures of my uncle and other shipmates taking part in the equator crossing ceremony back in the late 1930's.  He was a navy medical corpsman, and stationed in the south Pacific just before World War 2 and during the war.  I think they call it the Neptune ceremony.  I always thought it happened when the ship was at sea and crossed the equator.

I have my grandpa's document from crossing the equator & you're right. It's neptunus rex.

[Packerbrewerbadger]

I was so hoping Gibs was going to fire Torres!

So is he going to be less annoying now?

[hookedontv]

Torres is a dick. 

That is all. 

[LuvMyShows]

It was also lazy writing for them to immediately conclude, not just suspect, that the drug overdose had been because the sailor was using, even in the face of no evidence that he used drugs at all.  

And lazy for the characters, and for the writing, to have Vance tell Torres to mentor the kids like his job depended on it, and then have no consequence whatsoever for the sucky job he did at mentoring.

On 2/26/2019 at 9:11 PM, Katy M said:

And why were the gung ho kids playing a video game when there was all that interesting stuff in Kasie's lab?  Not interesting to me, but interesting to the two kids who wanted to see everything?  

This, 1000 times.  It made absolutely no sense.  Plus no way would Kasie have let the game be played with the volume up like that.

[ForReal]

That Torres was so insolent to Vance in front of the kids was unacceptable. Torres just does not have sufficient redeeming qualities, in my opinion, to make up for the jerk wad behavior we keep seeing from him.

It struck me as odd when the sister said she should have done something, like her brother was a little kid. But when Gibbs eyed her with his steely gaze, I knew she was guilty. Although, that really should not be a plot device to provide a clue in a mystery.

[transitfan]

19 hours ago, HurricaneVal said:

OK.  I love this show.  I have stuck with this show all these years.  I know that this show has its faults.  I know that all TV shows take shortcuts to further the plot, but last night stretched even my generous credulity. 

The crossing the line ceremony is for when a ship crosses the equator.  Washington DC is over 2600 miles from the equator, but that's overland as the crow flies.  This incident happened on a ship.  At sea.  So the distance is even greater from the Navy Yard in DC to the ship out on maneuvers.  There is no way Gibbs et al were flitting back and forth from the ship to the office all in the same day.  Even into the next day.  There is no way.  There is also no way they took a helicopter to the ship, no helicopter has that sort of range.  It is possible they took a helicopter to an airport, boarded a plane for somewhere near the equator, say Brazil or Ecuador, then took another helicopter out to the ship which may have moved closer to land to meet with the agents.  But all that takes more than just a few hours, even if it were all prearranged the logistics moved smoothly.  Much more than just a few hours, and certainly not back and forth within the same work day.

Do the writers think we're dumb?

Never mind.  I know the answer to that question.

^^^ This.  Also, wouldn't there be a closer NCIS team, like maybe in Florida?  Florida-equator is close enough that airlines fly 737s or A-320 family planes.  But of course, Gibbs' team is the only one that can solve Navy crimes anywhere on the globe!

[Trey]

11 hours ago, LuvMyShows said:

And lazy for the characters, and for the writing, to have Vance tell Torres to mentor the kids like his job depended on it, and then have no consequence whatsoever for the sucky job he did at mentoring.

Exactly!

And why was Torres even given this assignment when he was in the middle of a case.  The whole thing was pointless...just so we could have an Aww moment at the end of the episode.  Wasn't worth it.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Trey

[Katy M]

8 minutes ago, Trey said:

And why was Torres even given this assignment when he was in the middle of a case.  The whole thing was pointless...just so we could have an Aww moment at the end of the episode.  Wasn't worth it.

Technically, he wasn't in the middle of a case.  He was late and the rest of the team went out without him.  And speaking of the lateness, who even starts a story like that without seeing who's there/  He said he didn't know the director was there, but was it really all that amazing for him to be? No, he's not always down there, but he makes enough appearances that if you wouldn't want him to hear  a story you wouldn't tell it blind.  And, would he really have wanted Gibbs hearing that story?  If he couldn't see Vance, he would clearly have no way of knowing if Gibbs was at his desk.  What about Jack?  Would he want her hearing it?  I doubt it. Or some random accounting person?  Or any number of people who could have reasonably been there that morning?

[HurricaneVal]

14 hours ago, ForReal said:

That Torres was so insolent to Vance in front of the kids was unacceptable. Torres just does not have sufficient redeeming qualities, in my opinion, to make up for the jerk wad behavior we keep seeing from him.

The writers just really don't know what to do with Torres.  The writing for that character is so inconsistent.  Either he's being a giant ass, or he's being a slightly arrogant, incredibly competent agent with a heart of gold.  They kind of did the same thing with Tony, except Michael Weatherly played the character so well that he knocked the edges of the giant ass parts to lean them more to "overgrown goofy frat boy" and suaved out the scary good agent parts. 

[Ebau]

On 2/27/2019 at 5:44 PM, hookedontv said:

Torres is a dick. 

 That is all. 

Well, at five-foot-nuthin', he's not much bigger than one, that's for sure.

(Sorry, had to be said.)

[ForReal]

On 2/28/2019 at 10:30 AM, HurricaneVal said:

...Michael Weatherly played the character so well that he knocked the edges of the giant ass parts to lean them more to "overgrown goofy frat boy" and suaved out the scary good agent parts. 

It's never fails to surprise me when people actively dislike Tony for being sexist, when to me it was always apparent that it was mostly an act. He pretty much always did the right thing it counted.

[Aliconehead]

20 hours ago, ForReal said:

It's never fails to surprise me when people actively dislike Tony for being sexist, when to me it was always apparent that it was mostly an act. He pretty much always did the right thing it counted.

I disagree. Tony might have layers,like an onion, that were more palatable but that does not change the fact that the outer layer was rotten and unappetizing. Tony was a bully, perhaps because he was bullied, and that is where his antagonizism comes from while Torres is a jerk because he is self centered and arrogant but I have not noticed him being a bully.  Tony’s schtick does not hold up well when watching reruns, especially after his issues on Bull.  

[Katy M]

21 hours ago, Aliconehead said:

Tony’s schtick does not hold up well when watching reruns, especially after his issues on Bull.  

Tony doesn't have any issues from Bull. He's never been on that show.

[Aliconehead]

1 hour ago, Katy M said:

Tony doesn't have any issues from Bull. He's never been on that show.

No but Michael Weatherly is and he/CBS was sued, and lost, a sexual harassment lawsuit.  Now watching Tony, I can not help but see Michael Weatherly and the harassment and it takes me out of the show.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Aliconehead

[ForReal]

On 3/5/2019 at 8:05 AM, Aliconehead said:

No but Michael Weatherly is and he/CBS was sued, and lost, a sexual harassment lawsuit.  Now watching Tony, I can not help but see Michael Weatherly and the harassment and it takes me out of the show.

Actually, they were not sued and did not lose, the company settled with the actress. I get that the whole situation takes away from NCIS for you, but as far as Tony's character went, I think the frat boy personality was an act and he was a good guy underneath. I found him much more likable than Torres.

[Bobbin]

On Wednesday, February 27, 2019 at 8:30 PM, ForReal said:

That Torres was so insolent to Vance in front of the kids was unacceptable. Torres just does not have sufficient redeeming qualities, in my opinion, to make up for the jerk wad behavior we keep seeing from him.

Exactly. Plus his hypocrisy in telling the kids that a Marine does what he's ordered to do, all the while he's crabbing and refusing to do what Vance ordered him to do. It's odd that that contradiction was never pointed out to him. It also bothered me greatly that Jack wasn't more forceful in stopping Torres' rant with young Max. Inexcusable. But of course it's a TV drama, not real life.

Incidentally, I was surprised to find that Sloane Siegel (Max) really is 18 and not 24 like most "teenage" actors.

[thewhiteowl]

1 hour ago, jakoritahari said:

The writing for that character is so inconsistent.  Either he's being a giant ass, or he's being a slightly arrogant, incredibly competent agent with a heart of gold. 

Completely agree. Unfortunately they don't give me enough of the second part to put up with the first part. They had better balance with Tony.

[Gramto6]

13 minutes ago, thewhiteowl said:

Completely agree. Unfortunately they don't give me enough of the second part to put up with the first part. They had better balance with Tony.

Maybe, but I was so glad when he left. He was rude, juvenile, and a bully. I was glad to see the elevator close on him.