Episode Review: 7x01 - Truth and Consequences
There are many things I should be doing right now, including writing up my learning journal from last week's uni class, and also general work, seeing as how I am in the office and all.
But, NCIS is on in America tonight, and I really should put down some thoughts about the premiere of a week ago because otherwise I'll get all wrapped up in the ( Read more... )
But, NCIS is on in America tonight, and I really should put down some thoughts about the premiere of a week ago because otherwise I'll get all wrapped up in the ( Read more... )
You're making me think about just how different they are too - I just had a general idea before, but what you said about Tony being all gooey on the outside and like a rock on the inside made me think - does that mean Gibbs is hard on the outside and gooey on the inside? Or is he just hard all over? I got quite confused, and then I started thinking about Maltesers. But seriously, it's a really tricky thing - I think you're very right about them being more similar in the beginning, with Gibbs being much more laidback and funny. I think the change started with maybe even Bete Noire, then Kate - and then obviously Hiatus brought up everything about Shannon and Kelly, and that's really been a turning point for him - I always see Hiatus as a huge moment in changing the dynamic of the team, you're so right. And like you were saying about the pair of them being stressed in different ways - Gibbs is the way he is for a lot of reasons, but I think the most important one is that his wife and child were murdered - and he's so very angry and hurt by that - he in turn murdered their killer! Tony hasn't been through that, though he's been through a lot of other things and obviously something's gone very wrong with his family (although I do find it interesting that both of them seem to have lost their mothers at an early age), but the thing that strikes me is that I don't think Tony would go out for revenge the way that Gibbs did, even if he had been through that. That's the one thing I'm having a ltitle trouble dealing with in 7x01 - his need for revenge. Although in the end, Gibbs took the killing shot, not Tony. IDK. I'm already rambling on about this far too much, LOL!
I accept that NCIS is never going to be classed as high drama - it's actually probably one of the reasons I like it so very much, the comedy element - but the characterisation is seriously impressive. There are so many layers to Tony and Ziva, in particular, and they're so very interesting even though there are still so many questions we haven't had answered about them. Particularly regarding Tony, the writers have done a great job of giving us just enough information and snippets about his family that we know it wasn't particualrly happy, but we have no idea what exactly happened! When Ziva first appeared, I was prepared to dislike her, or be completely indifferent, but I actually like her so much more than I ever expected. I really, really enjoy her big episodes, and I'm really enjoying what they're doing with her so far this season, too. I'm also looking forward to her being funny again - I have to admit to sniggering at her smacking the computer in annoyance at her rejection being rejected, such a Ziva thing to do, beating on inanimate objects - and loved the salami moment last week!
Oh, I'm so going to go over the limit, LOL, your fault! ;-)
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I was thinking about this in a meeting yesterday (it was a very dull meeting), and for a few minutes I was on the they’re-the-same bandwagon. But now I’ve come back around to thinking that they are different. Gibbs gets angry, but Tony is angry. I can see how that might look the same to other people on the team, but it’s really not. Gibbs is irascible and grumpy and flies off the handle all the damn time, while Tony is much calmer and has almost no temper, but I also feel like Tony hangs on to things longer and internalizes his manpain so that it festers, whereas Gibbs goes after people and beats them up and shoots them and generally works out his aggression. Not that Gibbs doesn’t internalize his manpain, because he does, but not as much, maybe?
I feel like Tony is fundamentally a much more screwed up person than Gibbs is, but he’s also much better at hiding it. At least with Gibbs, what you see (irritable bastard with communication issues) is more or less what you get. If I can be all melodramatic for a minute, there’s something about Tony that is always vaguely on-the-edge. Like how his mask will sometimes slip off, and you realize that there’s a totally different person underneath, but then the mask quickly comes back, and it’s all a little too disturbed to be normal. I mean, really, who does that, aside from people who need serious mental help? I was thinking of the episode in which Tony was framed by Chip, and how he sort of loses it in the jail cell and spills out his mommy issues in front of Gibbs, which didn’t seem out of character at all even though normal!Tony would never do that, and seeing him unravel was actually kind of scary. (As an aside, I love that episode so much because it highlights just how much he trusts Gibbs, both in terms of doing what Gibbs says even when he doesn’t want to and in terms of letting his mask slip in front of him.) And then when he grabs McGee later on in the episode… I’m sure that was supposed to be a joke, but it freaked me out. Or the one from the second (?) season where the crazy serial killer was kidnapping women and chaining them to the bed in an effort to find the perfect wife, and Tony totally grokked him? Cree. Pee... I probably had a point when I started this paragraph, but I don’t remember anymore. I’m just basically glad that Tony found Gibbs so that he has a role model for dealing with his manpain in a way that will not result in a hospitalization and/or serial killing.
I can sort of (but not completely, not yet) buy the events of 7x01 because I don’t think Tony was driven by rage, but by a desire to do one last thing for Ziva since no one else (i.e., her father) was going to. It seemed to me like he was just really angry about the whole thing instead of vengeful, more "I said good day!" than "Oh, I must avenge my love/teammate!" I also give kudos to the writers for the way in which they had Tony freak out. Aside from the zoning out, he didn’t really seem all that different from the Tony of season 6 (which is pretty disturbing, now that I think about it), even when he was tied up and scruffy, but I really got the sense of him slowly but completely checking out. Poor McGee, watching that happen to someone like Tony. You know it’s really bad when he’s not even lashing out at people. I bet it’s why Gibbs looked happy-ish when Tony finally snapped out of it, even if his attempt to snap out of it was weak.
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The problem with thinking so very hard about Tony and Gibbs is that the more I search for differences, the more some of their similarities strike me - I'm literally writing this off-the-cuff, so I'm sorry for tangential nonsense - and right now I'm kind of warming to the theory that maybe their core values are very, similar, but the way they deal with their emotions and beliefs and thigns that have happened to them are very different. The main example that started me off on that is that they both seem to be intensely private - but whereas Gibbs is enigmatic because he doesn't talk, and shares next-to-nothing, Tony is enigmatic because he talks, all the time, but any accidental snippets that shoot out of his mouth are masked and hidden by a dozen different things that he's saying. A lot of that interpretation is subjective, obviously.
But. Then there are the differences, and I'm seriously getting really into this at the moment! I love your thoughts that Gibbs is kind of a short-fuse guy, gets furious very quickly and loses it, but that gets it out of his system, and that Tony is more of a long-fuse, he bottles up his anger and it only surfaces very occasionally, and quite explosively when it does. I think that's such a good interpretation of the way they behave - especially in Gibbs' case, because I got the feeling from Heartland that he'd always had a really hot temper, he's obviously been very fiery and needed a job which could focus him and give him an outlet for that quick-to-emerge anger.
And that leads into the thoguht that Gibbs, despite his enigmatic silence and dangeorus, physical outburts af rage, is actually the healthier individual - which I totally buy, by the way, and which terrifies me. But it makes sense, especially in the later seasons where Gibbs really seems to be working out a lot of his issues over Shannon and Kelly. But I think his issues with them are more linked to his being unwilling to deal with the loss, and so trying very hard to bury it. I think his anger issues have always been there, even before Shannon. But, back to Tony. Because if he is internalising all that manpain - and there are so many incidents that have occurred that he has to be angry about - then that's going to be a huge amount of fury under the mask. He's shown anger so very rarely, and when he does it seems like a filtered down version of what he could really do, that it genuinely scares me - espcially if his internalisation is conscious. It's already frightening, and must be exhausting, for him to keep up the mask he does all the time, only very rarely revealing serious emotion and usually immediately hiding it with a joke, but for there to be yet another layer under that, of pure anger? That's pretty insane, really, that he's keeping all of that together. The explosion if the floodgates opened would be awful, and awesome at the same time (yes: hospitalisation and serial killing!). But there's also the possibility, which is slightly less frightening I think, that maybe he's internalising his anger and pain unconsciously? He's let slip a couple of times little hints that his parents fought, quite loudly - there's a couple of episodes I totally can't pinpoint and I really don't want to go over the limit for a 1st part of an already over the limit topic, LOL - and maybe he saw how hurtful that anger can be, so he automatically suppresses it. Which is a slightly less scary possibility, but I think it would still fit in with what we see on screen. And yeah, Tony was really, really on edge in Frame-Up. Totally supports the hidden anger idea.
Going to add the Tony-in-7x01 thoughts to the Part 2 post! ;-)
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I’ve also reached a point where I can’t make up my mind about Tony because there are too many layers. He’s incredibly multi-faceted. There are people who just don’t get angry about things, and people who do get angry who usually can’t grasp how others can go through life just letting things go, but it’s so hard to point to actual evidence of where Tony falls on that scale. I do like the idea that Tony is unconsciously repressing his anger rather than actively being a closet psycho. It does feel more natural for him, and would explain why he only has major freakouts when he loses control of the situation. I think, if it were all an elaborate façade that he himself had orchestrated, he wouldn’t be so able to deal with his job or his coworkers or witnesses because he does actually seem very laid-back sometimes in a way that doesn’t appear to be artificial. Though he comes across as very hyper at first glance, I’ve watched a lot of episodes recently (under the guise of trying to get my brother into the show) and it’s amazing how often he actually stays calm or lets things roll off his back when you wouldn’t expect it. It might also be a function of growing up. In later seasons, he seems less crazy than he did at the beginning and more willing to roll with the punches. So maybe he’s learning.
Actually, he just seems all-around to be better adjusted recently, even if a little more sad. He probably still has all these issues that he doesn’t want to/can’t deal with, but his relationships with other people on the team are so much healthier now than they were at the beginning. Not that he’s necessarily healthier (I’m sure his (in)adequacy issues are still there, just pared down to the fundamentals) but the way he interacts with people close to him has lost that disturbing, needy edge which might come from having people that he considers as family. I think that McGee, for example, gets the real Tony in a way that his previous partners probably haven’t simply by virtue of having spent more time with Tony and having been taught by him, and McGee is probably okay with the Tony that he gets. Assuming you’re Tony and you have a weird fetish for "normal", the fact that a moderately normal person can accept you as you are and stick by you, even in the middle of a weeks-long trauma-induced freakout, has to be fairly affirming.
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Tony's such an onion. (I could be a total dick here and go into random metaphors about peeling his layers, and that sometimes, doing so makes me cry because of the strength of what's underneath, but I think you get the whole idea. Or are totally cracking up at the loser-ish attempt to explain!) But. Pretty much everything you said, I love. It is so hard to pinpoint what exactly Tony is and where he falls on a scale of things, and there are a million different ways to explain him that would still be in-character. I don't know if the writers intended for him to be ... not quite difficult to read, just very slippery, or if that's just kind of evolved, but I constantly watch him and question just how much he's giving away with everything that he says: how much of what he's projecting is tightly controlled and how much of what he lets slip is real.
And I do think that he's laid-back in many ways, he actually lets a lot of comments just roll off him and seems quite relaxed - and he was really, cutely polite with Ducky in the last episode, when he almost went away with the skull, for some reason that moment struck me. I also believe him when he's having fun banter with McGee and Ziva - it doesn't feel like that's an act, even though he does use humour as a deflection or defense mechanism. It feels like he's fond of his teammates, and he shows it through teasing and pranking and generally being boisterous and adorable. It's just that those moments that he does let his mask slip, like you say, like in that seriously, sickening moment in Truth & Consequences, he does get bitter and quite frighteningly dark. It's itneresting that I've rarely noticed him lose it on the job - usually, he seems to react very calmly at a scene, and the times he's lost it before are in the more relaxed moments when they're not on a hot case. Ah, having a reason to re-watch other than just Tony-ogling is always good - and what always strikes me when I go through episodes is how very good-natured he seems, even if I am very much coming round to the idea that he is repressing a lot of negativity and anger.
The thing is, even though there's that possibility that Tony is consciously controlling his emotions so very tightly that he's completely nuts, and even if it's not as radical or as intense as that, he's still a control-freak and has admitted it on the show. But he's not necessarily dealing with life that badly. I've always wanted to see Tony as a strong person, capable of looking after himself and not crippled by a desperate need for Gibbs' (in particular) attention and approval. I think he likes and wants that attention, but I've never thought he needed it in order to cope, and I would agree that recently, he seems more secure in his interactions with everyone - particularly McGee and Gibbs. Gibbs and Tony may not have been on screen very much together in this episode - this season, even, but the scenes they have together feel like they're both being respectful of one another rather than one needing the other - and the Tony/Tim interaction speaks for itself.
I'm enjoying the way Tony is dealing with Ziva, too - I haven't come to a conclusion about how angry they should/shouldn't be with one another. I'm not angry with Ziva, so obviously I'm projecting that onto Tony, but he doesn't seem angry at her - not even unsure, really. That scene in the elevator in the last episode, he was smiling genuinely, at her, and didn't seem overly anxious to say whatever he was going to. He seems quite calm around her, almost like he's giving her the leeway to feel whatever she needs to about him. Maybe taking a leaf out of Gibbs' book with the revenge tactics over summer actually allowed him to release any residual annoyance he may have had with her rather than bury it - but then I think when it comes to Tony, the important thing to him is not seeing his teammates get hurt - that drove his actions before and it's possibly driving them now, too.
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Oh, God, words cannot express how much I hate the fanon version of poor!oppressed!Tony, the one who goes home at night and cries into his pillows because Gibbs doesn’t love him enough. Please, he’s an adult! They all are, and they can leave if they’re that miserable. No one is chaining them to their desks! It’s even been said explicitly on the show that nice!Gibbs worries him, so why would he sit around and fret about the lack of positive affirmation? None of the team members, not even McGee, are the type to sit around and talk about their feelings (which is why I can so easily buy Gibbs trying to snap Tony out of his funk by riling him up instead of having an actual conversation about it). Tony might want friends, but he doesn’t need a nursemaid.
Obviously Gibbs’ opinion is still important to him - we see that so many times throughout the series - but it’s not the be all and end all. He managed fine before he met Gibbs and he managed fine when Gibbs ran off to Mexico and he managed fine for the four months he was sent to sea. Yeah, he missed his team/family when he was aboard the Seahawk and he apparently wanted very much to come home, but he wasn’t a sobbing, non-functional woobie who poured his heart out to his teddy bear every night. Instead, he was all hot and authoritative and take-charge and firm. And hot. (The part where he’s running through the halls of the ship, or when he’s breaking up the poker game? Yes, please.) Even though he was maybe drinking too much, he did his job and probably did it well, even without Gibbs there to hold his hand and pat him on the head. I definitely prefer the Gibbs-Tony relationship today, with its implied distance, to the one they had six years ago - professionally, they’re on a more equal footing and there is more respect between them.
In that sense, I think last season was the pivotal season in the Tony-grows-up arc, and Bounce was the really pivotal episode of that season in terms of Tony-team interactions. It allowed McGee & Co. to work out all of their issues (which were apparently plentiful) about Tony being in charge, and was soon followed by McGee and Tony being thrown together without Ziva. The events of the summer probably also thrust McGee into the role of caretaker, which made him and Tony more equal than they had been (by making Tony more human, which I think is an aspect of Tony that McGee had conveniently forgotten) and which, perversely, might have made it easier for him to take orders from Tony, something he apparently didn’t have problems with in this last episode. Bounce was also the episode that allowed us and the team and Tony to hear explicitly that Gibbs thought Tony was doing a good job and to see with our own eyes that he could do a good job (even though I actually hated Bounce for many, many reasons. But I will concede that it was important).
One of the things I really liked about Gibbs spending time with Vance this week (aside from Vance’s general awesomeness and the fact that the writers chose to imbue the toothpick, of all things, with symbolism ♥) was that, by default, it put Tony in charge, with the resulting implication that Gibbs trusts him to lead the team. Of course, we know that Gibbs already trusted him to lead as far back as the end of season 3, but Tony seems so much more adept at leading now. In the latest episode, he fell into the role of leader so naturally that I didn’t realize he was in charge until about halfway through, and he was more at ease with everyone, including Ducky and McGee. I think, if Tony were offered the Rota assignment today, not only would he not take it, he wouldn’t think about it as much as he did in season 4. His decision to stay would be about what he wanted to do (remain with his friends, who are actually being friendly), and not about whether or not he were capable. He has the air of someone who knows he could do it if he wanted to, he just doesn’t want to.
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OMG, this! Reading about a Tony who cries and weeps and cuts himself - over his massive insecurity issues and the fact that he didn't get invited to one fricking dinner makes me want to claw my eyes out. Tony intentionally tries to piss Gibbs off when he's being too nice! He may have some issues with attention and abandonment, but they are issues that he copes with really well, even though they do colour his behaviour and attitudes. But Tony was 30 when he met Gibbs, so presumably he'd survived those years without turning into a complete mess - or at least, managed to rescue himself if he did - and yes! He lead the team for four months, and he was on that boat over summer and he wasn't afraid to not be liked - and speaking of hot, the way he was all super-competent with the ship doctor and his dodgy prescription dealings made me fan myself quite vigorously! He missed his team, and Gibbs, but he wasn't ready to throw himself overboard with misery. And I don't think he got bullied either, and that's another thing that bothers me - Tony is pretty good at making friends, or at least acquaintances, quickly. He has a long list of people who might want to frame him for murder probably because they are criminals that he put away - but I rarely find Tony-being-beaten scenarios very believable.
And the thing is, Tony is a guy. I think he's acompassionate guy, and he's definitely got deeper feelings than he lets on, but he is not going to dwell on them or talk about them in great detail - and like you say, none of the team are great talkers. They're showers - in Bounce the part I like the most is not Gibbs telling Tony he's proud of him, but the simple fact that he steps down and gives Tony the lead is enough to show that respectful relationship they've developed. (Before I go into Bounce, another example of them showing that struck me is McGee turning the fire on for Tony in Family - that said "welcome back, I care for you even though I will always call you a dick if you called me on it" better than actually saying anything could ever have.) I do have issues with Bounce, and haven't watched it very often because there's something about the feel of the episode that puts me off (although Renny is distractingly gorgeous) and I would have liked to see the team being a little more cohesive than they were - though I wasn't as bothered by McGee's little huff as I know a lot of people were. It was whiny, but I can imagine Tony strutting about when he was leader, albeit only in the moments where they're in the office and not focusing on a case. He would never distract the team by making them mad that way unless it could inspire produtivity, I think. But the Gibbs/Tony relationship there - and in this season so far, too - was excellent: I think there was still the sense of leader and 2IC, and the way Tony plays up to Gibbs' all-knowing reputation, but there wasn't an unhealthy aspect to that relationship.
What I loved about last ep, in addition to Vance being so cool and all the points you made, is that the way that Tony took charge was very quietly done - it wasn't the big deal that it was in Bounce, and Tony wasn't stressed out like he was in Bait. He stepped into the role of leader with very little fanfare, suggesting that he and the rest of the team are much more comfortable with the entire concept than they've been shown to be in the past - and that Tony perhaps doesn't feel the need to imitate Gibbs or strut like a peacock in order to get the team's attention. It feels like fantastic character growth, and I'm all for it! I always thought he turned down Rota because he was loyal to the team. It's never been about progressing up the career path - but now, he'd turn down Rota much more confidently than he did before, because he doesn't have that need to find out whether he's good enough to lead his own team - he knows he is.
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Tony is so totally the fandom shallot! Shallots are also much more expensive than onions and much rarer. And they make me cry while onions don’t. ♥
I have accidentally excluded someone from a dinner get-together, so I am maybe not objective, but I hated the idea that Tony would go home and slit his wrists because he missed dinner. I just get very offended on Tony’s behalf when people portray him as weak, either physically or mentally. Plus, I really can’t see Gibbs respecting and mentoring someone who was that much of a pushover. He’s got faults, of course - guilt issues and daddy issues and mommy issues and commitment issues. But looking back at the canon of the show, the things that we’ve learned about Tony’s past - turning his back on his family and doing what he wants with his life instead of what other people say he should do, for example - those are not the actions of someone who caves to what others want him to do. I also really can’t see him wallowing in self-pity. I wouldn’t say he’s an optimist, exactly, but he does seem determined to never give up. He has too much hope to spend all his time feeling sorry for himself. I can see him feeling responsible for bad things that aren’t really his fault, but the two are not the same. If we go with the generally accepted backstory for Tony of abusive/neglectful parents, etc., he'd have to be simultaneously very steely and very resilient in order to become the person he is today. Actually, for all the talk of Tony’s neediness, and his desire to have Gibbs’ approval above all else, I thought it was interesting how much Gibbs seemed to miss Tony at the beginning of season 6. He was kind of going crazy in those episodes, which would imply that Tony’s not the only needy one in that relationship.
The chameleon-like aspect of his personality is such fundamental part of his character to me that I get very irritated when people ignore it. That’s not to say that I don’t think he didn’t fit in very well at one point - he was dressed in sailor suits until he was 10! That can’t be healthy. But if so, then he compensated for it by learning to read people. I mean, it’s pretty much canon at this point that he is generally well-liked. Not in the way where he has lots of close friends, but he does seem to be friendly with a lot people. He’s so different with everybody that I can’t buy that he doesn’t fit in most places he goes. If he doesn’t/can’t fit in, then why bother dealing with different groups differently? When he’s with military types (in Baghdad, on the Seahawk), he’s all business and no goofing off. When he was with Jenny, he was more serious, but still snarky. When he’s with his team, he’s the comic relief that keeps them from worrying and keeps them focused. When he’s on the phone with random dispatch guy, he’s all about the Grateful Dead concerts. Sure, he’s not a trained fighter like Ziva is, but Gibbs said he was a brawler (I love that description sosoosso much) and I bet he can hold his own. Not against a Ziva or a Kort, but against other cops? Absolutely. But the point is that he wouldn’t have to, because they’d already like him.
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So it's kind of a symbiotic relationship between Gibbs needing people around him to prevent him maybe slipping into full-on rage or depression and his team wanting someone they can really trust and depend on - there's no question that he is the leader, and they will follow him, but he gets as much from that as they do.
I'm attempting a fairly useless fic at the moment, which is slash, and is Gibbs/DiNozzo, and it's kind of surprising me (sorry to get rather pretentious and self-pimpy and ridiculous, here) that Gibbs is actually turning out to be the needier, way more fucked up one of the relationship. Tony's very much about protecting himself, and shielding his emotions, but he's getting on with his shit, while Gibbs is totally not dealing with his crap and getting really maudlin and kind of needy. It's also developed into this weird thing where Gibbs relied on Tony to kind of calm him, a little, which is something I'm going with in the fic but haven't quite decided as an interpretation of present canon - I think Tony definitely makes Gibbs look at things in different ways, sometimes, like when he stands up to his obsession in S1, and I had a vague point about Tony's annoying chatter being vaguely soothing to Gibbs even though it shouldn't be - and he reacts negatively to Ziva's babbling in S6!. It's also interesting that Gibbs is the most trusting of Ducky and Abby and Tony, the people who have been with him longest at this point in time, and it really interests me that they're probably the first constants he had in his life after years of kind of being abandoned by everyone else - even Franks left, then Burley. I'm kind of blethering stream-of-consciousness now, so sorry about the incoherence. In short: they're really, deliciously complicated, from any POV. Slash or no!
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Thinking back on the earlier seasons, the show dropped quite a few hints that Tony was very much after Gibbs’ approval and attention, while at the same time Gibbs seemed above silly human emotions and attachments. (The fanon probably grew out of this, took on a life of its own, and now it doesn't matter that it's no longer true.) So if we’re looking at early Gibbs/Tony, I’d say Tony was the needier one, and Gibbs was the repressed, screwed up one. Of course, Tony also strikes me as someone who knows just how screwed up he is and is kind of okay with it. If he wanted Gibbs badly, he'd take whatever he could get and learn to live with that. Maybe Tony protects himself by trying (and failing?) not to feel things as much. Whereas Gibbs,not having had Tony's experience, responds to tragic events by making himself harder and making sure that no one can get close enough to hurt him.
I was very uncomfortable with Gibbs/DiNozzo as a pairing in the early days of the show. Adding a sexual or romantic relationship to their S1/S2 power dynamic was just waaaaay too creepy for me to contemplate because it did appear to me to be a very one-way interaction. They’re much closer to being equals, both professionally and in terms of what they need (or don’t need) from a relationship.
Now, Gibbs is coming to terms with the past. He’s been almost happy this season. I know a lot of people are freaked out by his gentler side, but I think he's slowly moving on with his life. He may not have Shannon and Kelly anymore, but he does have a family. The flip side of that is that he’s less closed off than he used to be and therefore more dependent on his adopted family. They’ve wormed their way into his heart. Personally, I'm going with the idea that S6 Gibbs got his team back together because he had to for his own sanity and because he missed them, but he was irritated with himself for needing it. In S7, after that horrible summer, he may have just decided to roll with what he has and enjoy the family he's made for himself. He does have an extra special dependence on Tony, so perhaps in trying to deal with Tony's little breakdown, he realized how closed off and inaccessible he had become. (Admittedly, I'm only going with this idea because TPTB didn't think we'd need reasons for any character changes.)
Overall, I think I could buy that the Gibbs of today is needier. The want/need distinction that you pointed out is key - Tony seems to want their interaction more, but I don't think it would be difficult to reach the conclusion Gibbs needs it more.
I'm so excited to hear that you're working on another fic! And it sounds like one that will do their characters justice, which is so exciting. But I will refrain from begging for details, even though self control is hard. Actually, I keep meaning to go over to Caffeine, Interrupted and leave ridiculously gushy feedback, but then I get distracted by the idea of Tony leaning on McGee and it's all downhill from there.
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In a good way? Because I think that episode made me die about a million happy deaths! I'll probably find out in a sec when I read your other comment, LOL!
I really like that idea that Gibbs was originally less needy, and it definitely fits in character-wise, because Tony did seem to work for Gibbs' approval a lot in those early episodes - although at the same time, there was a kind of equality between them that faltered in S4 and S5 (making sense, canonically) and is being restored now, I think. I would agree that fanon took this on and it became a little more exaggerated. And Gibbs is so repressed, in my opinion, especially earlier on, that it really is so fucked up. Like, this is a guy who lost his wife and child, and in order to deal with that, pretty much denied their existence to everyone except the person who helped him murder their murderer. In terms of grief reactions, that's pretty strong, and pretty out there, like he's been stuck in denial for what, fifteen years? And I think that unlike Tony, he's not even sure of how screwed up he is. Tony seems much more aware of his way of repressing, and lets snippets out at least rather than totally hiding himself away. That makes another "different similarity" to add to the tally! I also think Tony would be completely okay with just taking what he could from Gibbs and not quite getting exactly what he wanted - Gibbs, I think, has had two major events in his life that suck: losing his mom, and losing his wife and child. Obviously, those things are awful, but aside from a possible horrible event in his childhood we've not heard of since the JAG episodes, his life was great; his dad did everything he could for him, and his wife and child were gorgeous. His two major events fucked him up badly because he didn’t have major pain to compare them with. Tony strikes me as someone who's been suffering loss and pain, though perhaps not of quite so epic proportions, over a much longer period, and so he defends against them in a better way.
Er, I was going to mention that yes, I am writing fic! And the one that's looking like it'll be done first is actually pre-series Gibbs/DiNozzo, and therefore probably quite AU and probably OOC, don't have high expectations! This made me think of it, and about it, because you might have given me a better ending than I'd thought of before. Sorry to be mysterious, it’s not actually worth building up suspense for, but the idea of Tony/Gibbs in the first couple of seasons - I actually saw it a lot, back then, but re-watching sometimes makes me wince because there's such a disparity in power and want and need that you're right, it is a creepy kind of partnership, and any slash between them would probably be a bit fucked up. I do think that even then, Tony seemed to be able to slip under Gibbs' defences more than anyone else, and vice versa, to an extent.
Definitely agree with Gibbs becoming a bit happier. He was forced to acknowledge Shannon and Kelly in Hiatus, and S5 seemed all about him becoming softer and allowing himself to remember. But then, just as he was softening and being more open with his new, surrogate family, the team, they were ripped apart, so he closed himself off again. Just supposition, but that's my justification for the way he's behaving in S6 and now in S7, opening up a little more again. I need a reason for his behaviour if TPTB decide to continue their lack of explanation! Love, love, love your explanation.
I'm really very much practicing when it comes to writing, LOL, and using NCIS as a fun, cute guinea pig! Hopefully it'll be readable, if not fantastic! I don’t even think I’ve got details - it's Tony/Gibbs, with Jeanne fallout and fairly obvious attempts to avoid actually having to form a coherent case-plot of any kind, because I’m useless at them! Tony will probably get whumped a bit, too, because I have a total weakness for that. ;-) Glad you liked that one, though, thank you! Tony and McGee are adorable.
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I weep over onions, but haven't attempted cooking with shallots. I'm not sure I'd be able to, now, it'd be like eating Tony. Oh, no, wait, I am okay with that.
My perspective is possibly a bit skewed as well - I have once been out to dinner with friends in a restaurant where the excluded - not intentionally viciously - person actually then came out for dinner with someone else. It was kind of unbearably, hilariously awkward - but she didn't die of unhappiness at missing out on our not-that-interesting company! And given those snippets that we're given about Tony's life prior to NCIS, as well as some of the other things he's gone through while working there, I think being left off an invitation list to an informal dinner party is hardly going to be top of his list of things to have a mental breakdown over. And really, given those snippets we're given and the fanon that has developed, like you say, Tony's characterisation really isn't fragile and prone to tears or weak - he's actually surprisingly optimistic. Not quite an optimist, no, but very willing to look forward to improvement. He knows that life goes on, until it doesn't. He does have parental issues - which he's actually quite honest about, I think, although there's probably a huge amount of meta we could dissect about his mother and subsequent attitudes towards women - and guilt issues, but even those issues about guilt aren't written incredibly over-dramatically. He expresses guilt over Paula in Minimum Security, but that's just after Kate and he was leading the team when she went missing - and even then, it wasn't played into much. He says he's sorry to Gibbs, Gibbs gives him a WTF face, than they set about solving the problem. He feels guilty about putting Renny away in Bounce, but accepts his mistake and tries to fix it. He feels guilty enough over Jenny that he gets morose, maudlin, and drinks a bit more than he should, but he still gets on with life and solving the msytery, and he doesn't seem to want to stay out at sea in some weird self-punishment thing. I'm kind of getting a theme here, and that's that whatever he seems to get hit with, he takes it all on board and moves on! That's not particularly weak, IMO.
I love Tony the brawler, such an ace description, and I have such a soft spot for him calling up his various buddies in other departments! He is very chameleon-like in the way he deals with people, and can switch very quickly from one side to another. From the psycho!repressed!Tony POV, that's another example of his insane ability to show exactly what emotions he wants to show when he needs them, but from the milder interpretation of Tony that I prefer, it's that, like you say, he's become very good at reading people and knowing how best to approach them. When the situation calls for it, he is to the job, but when it doesn't, he's more light-hearted. He walks a fine line between serious and silly with Gibbs that seems to work very well, and he chooses his strategies with McGee and Ziva carefully - he seems to want to play big brother to McGee, so he alternates between between being obnoxious - which I think he is! I'm as guilty as the next Tony-fan of being blind to some of his faults and habits, but he can be a total dick to McGee and therefore the way McGee snaps back occasionally, albeit with more biting comments, is more understandable to me. Ziva's about as slippery a character as Tony, I think, so the way they play off one another is hard to read, but in he does seem to act silly quite a lot with her, sensing her tendency to get quite serious like she does in episodes like Recoil, where he personally cops to joking around to get her to ease up a little. He'd great at adapting, is what I'm very long-windedly saying in agreement!
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I didn’t mind the peacock comparison because, well, Tony does have peacock-y tendencies. I loved that he took it in stride and actually said, “Stroke my plumage!” I approve of anything that leads to that wavy hand gesture used in conjunction with the word plumage and/or references to stroking. What I thought was worse in that episode was McGee handing some pictures or something at the crime scene to Gibbs instead of Tony even though Tony was standing right there. Because as you said, they are all about actions and not words, and that was a pretty blatant snub that seemed to bother Tony in a way that the peacock thing didn’t (or I could be projecting, heh).
But I don’t hold it against him because I can understand why McGee was conflicted about Tony being in charge. It adds a little depth to his character without setting up a super duper angst fest. I like to go on about how Gibbs running off to Mexico affected Tony but McGee was also screwed in that whole situation. He was senior field agent before he was ready and then suddenly, probably right after he got used to it, he wasn’t anymore, followed by Tony spending an entire season lying to him. I also wonder if, deep down, he didn't sort of blame Tony for what happened to the Director. Later, he got sent to Cyber Crimes where he actually had his own team - his own nerdy, geeky team, but they were his - and then suddenly he was back at the bottom of the totem pole within the team hierarchy. That had to be jarring and just plain old hard. And he doesn’t seem to have the affection (not exactly the word I want to use here, but it’s close enough) for Gibbs that Tony does that would make something like that go down a little easier.
Not that he doesn’t like or respect Gibbs - but he’s pretty much the only one for whom the team isn’t a surrogate family. I don’t spend as much time staring at McGee’s hair as I do Tony’s so my understanding of his character might be a little off, but, of the three, I’d say McGee is the one who is least loyal to Gibbs and the most loyal to the organization. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that right now he’s just as loyal to Tony as he is to Gibbs and if it came down to it, he might pick Tony. I don’t think he regrets at all his choice to come back to the team, but I could see how it would have been difficult for him last season. And just as Tony went through a rough patch and became more leader-like, McGee seemed to be finding his way into a senior agent-like state last season with the quips and the snarkiness and the more polished outer edge. He overshot sometimes, but this season he seems to have found the happy medium. I thought it was interesting to contrast McGee and Palmer in the episode that starred Jimmy. Tony and Ziva mock McGee for being geeky, but when you compare him to a Palmer, or even to earlier-seasons McGee, it’s amazing to see how far he’s come.
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But I do remember that Renny, despite being extremely hot, was a bit of a smarmy git. And he did get convicted by not just Tony, but a ton of other people, so clearly his shit did not entirely smell of roses - also, framing the cop who convicted you on evidence he had that nobody else failed to see the flaws in is not exactly the act of a sane, saintly man. I'm not a fan of over-thinking episode plotlines, because it hurts my brain and at heart, it's all about the little moments and the hair, but Bounce stood out as being particularly weak plot-wise, I think, which is a shame because the concept was pretty awesome - Gibbs letting Tony take charge was fantastic. The entire campfire scene could probably make me forgive everything else I disliked about the episode, for the sheer emotive powers behind Gibbs' incredulous eyebrows. But the way he stands back and trusts Tony to do his thing, and just watches him - and the shock on Ziva and McGee's faces when he strings together two whole sentences, wow. LOLed so much.
I watched the "stroke my plumage" bit on repeat - really, too funny. I like that part of Tony, the ridiculous, attention-seeking part! I totally subscribe to the fanon that Tony is very much hiding millions of layers under his shallot exterior, but that fun, playful exterior is actually a part of him too, and sometimes I don't think it's covering anything. Sometimes, Tony's just twelve and wants Ziva and McGee to listen, and bow to his awesomeness.
I'm fairly guilty of not thinking overly much about the way McGee feels, but when you put it like that, the way he's kind of been pushed and tugged around for the past six years, it's got to have been a tough ride for him. He really wanted to be on Gibbs' team, in the beginning, and seems like someone who likes to have a place in life and at work, so being shunted around and having responsibilities shoved on him then yanked away again must have been difficult. Lashing out at Tony because of that makes perfect sense, because Tony's been annoying him for years. I think Tony's teasing is typically, very funny, and not in any way malicious, but if I was McGee and Tony was like that 96% of the time, I might go just a little bit crazy.
I would definitely agree about McGee's first priority not being to Gibbs. I would say Tony's priorities go: Gibbs, the team, NCIS; while McGee's order is NCIS, the team, Tony (especially as things are going in S7), then Gibbs. He obviously respects Gibbs, and wanted to be on the team, but I wonder how much of that was to do with having heard Gibbs' reputation and wanting to experience field work with someone who would look great on his career record. I don't think McGee's as cold as that makes him sound, but he strikes me as being quite career-driven as well as wanting to prove himself as a field agent (that's something I think is very important to him). I don't know if I could see McGee taking over as lead agent of a major crimes team, but I think if Tony ever did take his own team (IMO, not going to happen, but I could be jinxing things by saying that!) McGee would stay with him, rather than Gibbs. I don't think the Tony-McGee relationship is in any way a mirror of the Gibbs-Tony relationship, but there's a loyalty, trust and care there that I haven't really seen between McGee and any other character (it's different with Abby). I have a lot of love for fics involving Director!McGee, and a lot of love for Palmer in general. I think he's so ridiculously nice it hurts.
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Your description makes McGee sound normal, not cold. He’s very much an agent in the way that Vance is an agent - NCIS and the team are important and he knows the value of his job, but it’s still just a job and not his whole entire life. And there's nothing wrong with advancing in the workplace! One day, he’ll marry a nice girl and live in a nice house and have 2.4 nice children, and they will be the most important thing in his life. In short, McGee is normal. The team is not his family. They’re very good friends who would die for each other, but McGee doesn’t look at Gibbs as his father-substitute and Ziva as his sister. He already has a father and a sister, and if he had to pick between his real family and his team, he’d pick his real family every time (which is the way it should be if your family is not completely screwy and/or you’re not at least a little damaged).
McGee might only now be starting to get the fucked up relationships that Tony and Ziva and Gibbs have. It’s one of the reasons Vance likes McGee so much - he’s not totally messed up in the head like the others. When Vance assigned Tony to the carrier, he probably did it with the intention of restoring normal operating procedure. Despite Gibbs' protestations and the fact that Vance didn't really care for Tony, it was a promotion, and it was kind of overdue. He probably thought that Gibbs’ attempts to get Tony back were some sort of power play - he seemed very surprised at the extent to which Gibbs and Tony freaked out.
I could see McGee leading his own team someday. Not the McGee of today, but when I look at how different he is now than when he first started, I think he has the potential to evolve enough to have a field team one day. He’s slowly becoming a badass. Like, when he was in the sandwich shop with Tony in 7x02, they didn’t look like field agent and probie - they looked like two field agents. This season is the first time I’ve found McGee genuinely hot because it seems like he finally has confidence to back up his arrogance. Or maybe he’s absorbing hottie vibes from Tony because they spend so much time standing next to each other. Either way works.
I have this ridiculous urge to read a Tony-and-Palmer-in-prison fic. I have no idea how it would even work - maybe they’re investigating in a small town when the team splits up and Tony, Palmer, and Ducky are grouped together while the others are elsewhere, perhaps in DC. And then the evil sheriff, in an effort to stop Palmer’s inquisitiveness from uncovering the key to his misdeeds, conspires with the judge to lock him up in the local prison on trumped-up charges. Tony then makes sure that he’s arrested as well because he knows Palmer will never make it in prison on his own. While they’re in prison, Tony constantly fights to protect Palmer’s virtue from other prisoners and the guards. Ducky’s still on the outside so he calls Gibbs, and then Gibbs and Ziva and McGee have to come rescue them! After they're free, Tony and Gibbs go home and have hot just-got-out-of-prison sex! … Hmmm, I’ve spent too much time thinking about this. The show is making me insane, I think.
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McGee is good at his job in a different way, and yes! He's normal! I'm sure things about his backstory could be read to create some horror in his life having happened, but for me it'd be a tough sell. He seems loyal to his real family, although some of his comments maybe suggest that he has a need to prove himself in his chosen field, which is different to his father's. One comment he did make which I never really understood is the way he says his dad is just like The Great Santini, which I swear, in the book that would mean McGee got the shit beaten out of him. Which, what? There is no other evidence for that. McGee did go to a therapist as a kid, but he just seems more inexperienced in life and loss, sometimes, and like you said, only just becoming aware of how very fucked up Ziva, Tony and Gibbs are, with their crappy families and need/desire for a substitute. His lack of hang-ups like that do separate him from the group, although I know they'd die for him and vice versa and there's ultimate trust and loyalty, and mean that I can very much imagine him moving away from the group for promotion and his own team, and possibly eventually for a position like Vance's.
The extent to which Gibbs and Tony freaked out.
I love this, because they really did. I know we've talked about the two of them, and how they've become dependent on one another in different ways, but realistically, to an outsider's POV, they are grown men who can presumably survive without having their mentor/mentee with them. But there's something so very wrong when they're torn apart - Gibbs in particular arguably became numb and detached the moment Tony went away and has been fucked up ever since. Obviously that can be read as not just due to Tony, but it's still an overreaction. Tony coped because that's what Tony does, but he was still screwed up over it and there was never a question of him being content to stay there, or even being content to be assigned to another team in DC.
Clearly, McGee is not stealing the hottie vibes, because Tony has lost none, so I am all for them standing together if McGee's new hotness is a result. I think McGee is happier now, and therefore more comfortably confident rather than defensively so. Presumably, something happened over those four months to precipitate this change - possibly, with Gibbs being detached and Tony being a detached but more leaderly member of the team, McGee sneaked back up the hierachy ladder like he did during those four months after Hiatus. Maybe he just realised he is valued, despite the hazing, and sucked it up and lost the 'tude. It suits him, whatever happened!
Your insanity must be catching, I would so, so love to read this fic! Palmer! In prison! Being ridiculously literal with the other criminals and getting into trouble! Throw in a bruise to Tony's cheekbone, and some prison!hair, and get cooking, because that's a hot mix.
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