false witness
So. ::cracks knuckles:: It’s been awhile since I wrote a little overly-analytical NCIS ep review, and I’m a bit out of practice. Zach and I finally got around to False Witness last night, though, and I’m feeling rambly. Mostly about serious!Tony, which is no surprise to anyone, I’m sure.
First off, I liked the episode as a whole. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t terrible, it was a nice run-of-the-mill NCIS. The characters weren’t quite clicking the way they used to, but part of it was because of Tony, and part of it was, well, because that clicking has become the exception rather than the rule. Overall, though, I laughed a lot and didn’t squirm in embarrassment, so I was a happy panda.
On to Tony…
This wasn’t exactly what I was expecting from “no sense of humor” Tony. Like a lot of people, I was hoping for more of the season 4/5 Tony. Still relaxed, but more mature and grounded. We didn’t get that. Instead, it felt like he was trying too hard to be serious, that it was an act more than a change.
Then I realized: That was the entire point. And kudos to the 98% of viewers who caught that far earlier than I did.
Stick with me here...
Let’s start with the fact that we know Tony hides behind the face of a clown. Gibbs said so, thus it is gospel. ;-) This implies that he acts that way on purpose, that there is another Tony beneath the mask, and that he is aware of his behavior. To me, this is different than early series (Seasons 1-2) Tony, for whom it's also an act, but who has been behaving that way for so long that it’s natural to him and he’s honestly surprised when it hurts people. Our new idiot!Tony is a Tony that’s always on stage, and he knows it.
Tony matured slowly and realistically over seasons 3-5. He lost his partner; he fell in love. Two things that will force you to grow up, and he did so, even if it was a bit of a struggle. He finally seemed a bit more comfortable with actually having feelings (Why are you so interested in my feelings? Because you had them.) and is no longer striving quite so hard for Gibbs’ approval. Of course, he's not perfect. He knows the whole time that there isn’t really a chance for him and Jeanne, but he’s a master of denial, always has been, and he’s at the top of that particular game.
Then it hits. The situation with Jeanne unravels. He slowly begins to let go, until she returns to accuse him of her father’s murder. He has to face her directly, and do the mature thing - lie to her face and tell her none of it meant anything, purely so that she could go on. I think that hurt him far more than we really saw. Follow that with his director dying under his watch, then being unceremoniously shipped off to be Agent Afloat, alone, right when he actually needed his friends for a change…
He’s done. This hurts too much. And not just him - he might have dealt with that. But it hurts others. Jeanne is destroyed - his fault. Jenny’s dead - he was supposed to be protecting her. His team is in pieces - wouldn’t have happened if he’d done his job. Screw this, he’s going back to the way things were before. Safer that way.
Except it doesn’t come so naturally anymore. He has to work at it. It goes more and more over the top. And that’s the idiot!Tony we’ve been seeing since Season 6. He’s keeping people as far away as he can. Annoy the crap out of them, and they won’t get too close.
Tying this back to “False Witness”, then…
This was not supposed to be Tony having a sudden revelation and improving his behavior. This was Tony caught up short by something he thinks may have been partly his fault, or at the very least, something he should have seen coming. Tony’s a protector by nature. We’ve seen that time and again (Requiem, Truth or Consequences, etc.). Yet this new behavior pattern didn’t keep this girl from getting hurt like it was supposed to. Annoyed, pissed - yeah, he’d have been fine with that. That’s kind of the point. But she was genuinely in trouble, and whether or not it was his fault, he didn’t help the situation, and he didn’t anticipate it. So idiot!Tony’s not foolproof either.
Now what? Backpedal. Run as far as possible in the opposite direction. Be the perfect agent, don’t screw around, don’t mess up, do your damn job and leave it there. Again, something he has to actively try to do, and he takes it too far.
As Ziva pointed out, our Tony’s not great with balance. And water is slightly wet.
Looking at it from that perspective, his behavior makes perfect sense. He’s not calming down and growing up; he’s trying to be the opposite of what he has been in hopes that it keeps anyone else from getting hurt. The scene between him and Ziva was well done, and was frankly one of the better ones they’ve done lately. No Tiva anvils; you could read into it whatever you wanted, which is exactly how I like it. Whether or not you like Ziva, she can get through to Tony. Hopefully he heard her message about balance. And he apparently had a little chat with the petty officer too (I loved the little thumbs up at the end) which might have gone a bit deeper and helped him even more.
Then there’s the elephant in the room: Why was it Ziva? Why not Gibbs? After all, Gibbs was Tony’s replacement father figure, right? (I’m leaving slash theories out of it, trying to just stick with canon here.) Even though they’re more friends than father/son lately, Gibbs still cares about Tony. Wouldn’t he say something? Shouldn’t he have kept Tony from going so far over the line? Shouldn’t he have talked to him??
We’re forgetting one thing. In the show, these guys don’t talk. In fic, yes, they talk all the time. Sometimes in cringeworthy soul-bearing moments, sometimes very in character, in ways we can easily imagine happening after the cameras are off. But that’s in fic. I’m trying to think of times on the show when Gibbs and Tony have actually, honestly talked. I can think of two. The first was during “Bounce”, when Gibbs told Tony he was proud of him and then proceeded to tear him a new one. The second was during the end of “Flesh and Blood.” I’m sure I’m missing some, but my point is that unlike Supernatural (squee), these guys aren’t exactly spilling their hearts out to each other on a regular basis. They have each other’s’ six, which is the greatest compliment either of them can pay, and they’re there if they’re needed. That’s enough for them. Maybe not what we’d like to see, but, well, that’s what fic is for.
Zach’s theory is that this is their way of making a course correction, that TPTB have *finally* heard everyone’s bitching about Tony’s character assassination and are doing something about it. If so, this was a bit heavy handed, but WHO CARES. If I can watch my show again without cringing at one of my favorite characters behaving like an idiot, then hell - I don’t care if they literally pushed a reset button.
I'm actually looking forward to the show starting up again in January, just to see if they follow through with this. Please, please follow through! ::crosses fingers::
First off, I liked the episode as a whole. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t terrible, it was a nice run-of-the-mill NCIS. The characters weren’t quite clicking the way they used to, but part of it was because of Tony, and part of it was, well, because that clicking has become the exception rather than the rule. Overall, though, I laughed a lot and didn’t squirm in embarrassment, so I was a happy panda.
On to Tony…
This wasn’t exactly what I was expecting from “no sense of humor” Tony. Like a lot of people, I was hoping for more of the season 4/5 Tony. Still relaxed, but more mature and grounded. We didn’t get that. Instead, it felt like he was trying too hard to be serious, that it was an act more than a change.
Then I realized: That was the entire point. And kudos to the 98% of viewers who caught that far earlier than I did.
Stick with me here...
Let’s start with the fact that we know Tony hides behind the face of a clown. Gibbs said so, thus it is gospel. ;-) This implies that he acts that way on purpose, that there is another Tony beneath the mask, and that he is aware of his behavior. To me, this is different than early series (Seasons 1-2) Tony, for whom it's also an act, but who has been behaving that way for so long that it’s natural to him and he’s honestly surprised when it hurts people. Our new idiot!Tony is a Tony that’s always on stage, and he knows it.
Tony matured slowly and realistically over seasons 3-5. He lost his partner; he fell in love. Two things that will force you to grow up, and he did so, even if it was a bit of a struggle. He finally seemed a bit more comfortable with actually having feelings (Why are you so interested in my feelings? Because you had them.) and is no longer striving quite so hard for Gibbs’ approval. Of course, he's not perfect. He knows the whole time that there isn’t really a chance for him and Jeanne, but he’s a master of denial, always has been, and he’s at the top of that particular game.
Then it hits. The situation with Jeanne unravels. He slowly begins to let go, until she returns to accuse him of her father’s murder. He has to face her directly, and do the mature thing - lie to her face and tell her none of it meant anything, purely so that she could go on. I think that hurt him far more than we really saw. Follow that with his director dying under his watch, then being unceremoniously shipped off to be Agent Afloat, alone, right when he actually needed his friends for a change…
He’s done. This hurts too much. And not just him - he might have dealt with that. But it hurts others. Jeanne is destroyed - his fault. Jenny’s dead - he was supposed to be protecting her. His team is in pieces - wouldn’t have happened if he’d done his job. Screw this, he’s going back to the way things were before. Safer that way.
Except it doesn’t come so naturally anymore. He has to work at it. It goes more and more over the top. And that’s the idiot!Tony we’ve been seeing since Season 6. He’s keeping people as far away as he can. Annoy the crap out of them, and they won’t get too close.
Tying this back to “False Witness”, then…
This was not supposed to be Tony having a sudden revelation and improving his behavior. This was Tony caught up short by something he thinks may have been partly his fault, or at the very least, something he should have seen coming. Tony’s a protector by nature. We’ve seen that time and again (Requiem, Truth or Consequences, etc.). Yet this new behavior pattern didn’t keep this girl from getting hurt like it was supposed to. Annoyed, pissed - yeah, he’d have been fine with that. That’s kind of the point. But she was genuinely in trouble, and whether or not it was his fault, he didn’t help the situation, and he didn’t anticipate it. So idiot!Tony’s not foolproof either.
Now what? Backpedal. Run as far as possible in the opposite direction. Be the perfect agent, don’t screw around, don’t mess up, do your damn job and leave it there. Again, something he has to actively try to do, and he takes it too far.
As Ziva pointed out, our Tony’s not great with balance. And water is slightly wet.
Looking at it from that perspective, his behavior makes perfect sense. He’s not calming down and growing up; he’s trying to be the opposite of what he has been in hopes that it keeps anyone else from getting hurt. The scene between him and Ziva was well done, and was frankly one of the better ones they’ve done lately. No Tiva anvils; you could read into it whatever you wanted, which is exactly how I like it. Whether or not you like Ziva, she can get through to Tony. Hopefully he heard her message about balance. And he apparently had a little chat with the petty officer too (I loved the little thumbs up at the end) which might have gone a bit deeper and helped him even more.
Then there’s the elephant in the room: Why was it Ziva? Why not Gibbs? After all, Gibbs was Tony’s replacement father figure, right? (I’m leaving slash theories out of it, trying to just stick with canon here.) Even though they’re more friends than father/son lately, Gibbs still cares about Tony. Wouldn’t he say something? Shouldn’t he have kept Tony from going so far over the line? Shouldn’t he have talked to him??
We’re forgetting one thing. In the show, these guys don’t talk. In fic, yes, they talk all the time. Sometimes in cringeworthy soul-bearing moments, sometimes very in character, in ways we can easily imagine happening after the cameras are off. But that’s in fic. I’m trying to think of times on the show when Gibbs and Tony have actually, honestly talked. I can think of two. The first was during “Bounce”, when Gibbs told Tony he was proud of him and then proceeded to tear him a new one. The second was during the end of “Flesh and Blood.” I’m sure I’m missing some, but my point is that unlike Supernatural (squee), these guys aren’t exactly spilling their hearts out to each other on a regular basis. They have each other’s’ six, which is the greatest compliment either of them can pay, and they’re there if they’re needed. That’s enough for them. Maybe not what we’d like to see, but, well, that’s what fic is for.
Zach’s theory is that this is their way of making a course correction, that TPTB have *finally* heard everyone’s bitching about Tony’s character assassination and are doing something about it. If so, this was a bit heavy handed, but WHO CARES. If I can watch my show again without cringing at one of my favorite characters behaving like an idiot, then hell - I don’t care if they literally pushed a reset button.
I'm actually looking forward to the show starting up again in January, just to see if they follow through with this. Please, please follow through! ::crosses fingers::