Fall, Sukkot, Rebecca's birthday, and NCIS!
Sara and I had a little early birthday celebration for me yesterday. The weather was perfect, and we were both off and able to sleep in -- hallelujah! She treated me to burritos for lunch, and I baked brownies. We packed it all up, drove to the temple, and ate outside in the courtyard, underneath the beautiful sukkah! Sara also gave me a beautiful silver mezuzah as a birthday present.
At my birthday lunch under the sukkah -- fun times!
From there, we walked (yes, walked! but it wasn't far and the weather was so nice and cool) to the downtown art gallery. There was an exhibition there by Bennett Sewell, who makes incredible sculptures of animals (mostly dogs) out of regular household items, like a space heater, utensils, light bulbs, etc. It was a very cool show and a very great day.
And tonight, there were two more things to be excited about: Liam Neeson on Inside the Actors Studio (the first decent guest they'd had in some time) and a new NCIS! I wasn't loving this one, though.
Notes on episode 10x02 Recovery
Featuring Kyle, Abby's brother, last seen in Enemy on the Hill
Writer: Scott Williams (Housekeeping)
- Ugh, that opening scene. The shots and lighting were so cheesy, and I'm sorry, but Pauley Perrette didn't do panicked well. I wasn't sure I liked how she called Gibbs when she woke up, either. On the one hand, it seems so childish (especially since she's apparently called him before), but on the other hand, Abby can be very childish, so this is the sorta thing she would do.
- Tony flirting with Judy -- I spent the entire scene going, "What? What is this?" It felt so weird coming right after all the Tiva anvils in Extreme Prejudice last week. Yes, I tried to ignore them, but we all know they were there. Michael Weatherly also made comments that this season would be Tiva-heavy. And Ziva's semi-jealous reaction to Tony and Judy -- ugh!
+ Saving graces: Ziva calling Tony "brother," and... SHE DOESN'T HAVE STRAIGHT HAIR! It's curly again! There are no words for how happy this made me.
+/- McGee: "Seems like everything's gone back to exactly the way it was." Which is exactly how it should be! I don't practice the Status Quo Is God religion, but I did kinda like this line because it seems like the writers are embracing it, rather than pretending not to notice that everything stays the same.
+/- Dr. Wolf felt very hokey, especially in his first scene. But at least they didn't bring back that UGH-inducing Dr. Cranston. (Yes, she warrants an all-caps UGH. I suspect they only didn't bring her back because the actress who plays her is shooting in Atlanta.) And Ziva calling Wolf "Mr. Happy" (in his accent!) and Tony's "We're all perfectly fine" did make me lol.
- Wolf saying that "all but a few NCIS personnel survived the bombing" felt like a really callous way to speak about those who'd died.
+ Tony telling Palmer that he was "getting too cocky in Ducky's big boy shoes," then smiling at him when Palmer thought he was being serious. Aww, that was a cute moment.
- I really wasn't feeling the scene with Wolf and Abby in her lab. She was acting very immature and whiny, and he really did sound like a greeting card. His mention that Abby had suffered nightmares years before threw me; research revealed that it happened during Kate-era, which I don't watch.
+ Gibbs's reaction to finding Ducky in autopsy felt a little harsh, but I liked it. He really does care.
+ On a more shallow note, it was nice to see casual clothes on Ducky (which we almost never see him in). This episode kinda shook things up in the wardrobe department. There were more casual suits on Tony and McGee, and Gibbs wore a jacket in a checked pattern! It was dark and kinda hard to notice, but it sure weirded me out when I did. I liked this brown polo in the second half, though.
+ Tony and Ziva playing rock-paper-scissors to see who would eval with Wolf next. So cute!
+ Gibbs offering to talk to Abby about her nightmares after she clammed up with Wolf. We all know how much Gibbs, the functional mute, hates talking, especially about stuff like this (didn't he offer very reluctantly?) but he's willing to do it for her. So sweet.
- Abby telling Gibbs that she only met her brother Kyle once and that didn't tell him who she was. Well, at least the writers finally remembered Abby's brother! But remember when she first found out about him, back in Enemy on the Hill? Remember how upset it made her, and how concerned Gibbs was? Yeah, so WHY are they only having this conversation NOW?
- More points lost for Abby telling Gibbs that she couldn't talk to her brother Luca (the brother she knows and was raised with) because "he's busy." What, too busy to be concerned that his one-and-only sister almost got exploded? Williams was really reaching to find a reason for her to contact Kyle again.
- Midge called her daughter and told her she was okay before she went missing. That makes a really big difference in a missing-persons case. Why didn't we find this out sooner?
- Ziva: "Your mother never failed to make me feel as though she had my back." Yes, which is why we've never seen or heard of her before now. You're failing, Williams, you're failing! (It reminded me of how we never saw or heard of Monique, Ziva's BFF who "like a sister" to her, before The Missionary Position and likely never will again.)
- Ziva and McGee listing reasons why Midge didn't like Tony and found him "annoying." Ugh x 100!
+ That yellow shirt Ziva was wearing in the second half of the episode. From here on out, I kept thinking, "You know, I really don't like this episode... but how can I hate it when Ziva looks so good?"
- And the color of the walls isn't going to change, per Vance's orders. Yeah, writers, blame your aversion to change at any costs on Vance. We all know it's really you!
+/- Vance snapping at Wolf in the bullpen. I guess he's still in a bad mood because Dearing planted the bomb in his car, and he feels guilty. But geez, Vance, get the hell over it! I did admire how Wolf bounced right back, though.
+ Gibbs and Ziva both trying to avoid their evals with Wolf. So them.
+ Gibbs's "I feel better already" to Wolf, and Abby's theory on a time-traveling assassin. Lol!
- Gibbs saying "Like that's possible" when Abby worried that Kyle wouldn't like her. Barf. Oh, it's possible, Gibbs -- very, very possible!
- "Maybe Kyle doesn't know he's adopted." Why is Abby so quick to assume this? Maybe Kyle wasn't adopted! If she really wants to prepare herself for being hurt, she should consider the possibility that their biological parents kept and raised Kyle and abandoned her, which I think would be the hardest scenario.
+ Ziva's reaction when Wilson called her a "feminazi" in interrogation. I liked how mad she got, and it felt good that the writers remembered oh yeah, Ziva's Jewish. That's been kinda swept under the rug lately. It made me flashback to Ravenous (such a solid Season 3 episode -- ahh, the good old days) when that redneck made an anti-Semitic comment to Ziva and Tony practically had to hold her back.
- A major ugh, though, for Wilson assuming that Tony was Ziva's "whipped boyfriend." Gag me! But I guess I should've expected a Tiva anvil like this from the man who wrote Housekeeping.
+ Palmer asking Gibbs to call Ducky in to help him. So cute.
+ Jon's "We knew we were better as friends" comment about him and Midge. I don't ship Tiva, and I'm glad he said this to Tony and Ziva.
- Kyle remembers Abby "like it was yesterday" from one brief meeting with her almost a year ago? Oh, as if. But then again, maybe some biological siblings do have an instant connection like this. It felt very unrealistic to me, though. Ugh.
- I snorted when we saw Jon's gun case lined with crushed red velvet. Are these guns, or scantily-dressed heroines on the cover of a romance novel?
+ The look Gibbs gave Ziva when she started to leave to call the hospital.
+ So Judy was Jon's girlfriend, and the one who killed Midge! This was a good twist that I didn't see coming. I loved how Tony solved the case by recognizing her smell. He gets written as a goof too often, and this was good detective work on his part.
- Yeah, Judy, if you bat your eyes at Tony, maybe he'll let you get away with murder.
+ Ducky calling Palmer out for asking for his help not because he really needed it, but because he felt sorry for Ducky. Their scene was so sweet and so sad, especially when Ducky said, "I must take my leave." God loves that duck!
- And now we have to another scene of Vance whining. Why won't he shut up?! Well, the second episode of the season is usually when the previous season's finale arc gets over and done with, so this will probably be the last time we hear anyone mention the bombing.
- I'm kinda split on the final scene, but for the most part, I didn't like it. It annoyed me that we didn't see the conversation between Abby and Kyle, with her telling him who he was. It couldn't have been an easy conversation. It had to be hard for her to say, and probably hard for him to hear. But instead of showing it to us, the writers cut straight to Kyle happy and smiling and hugging Gibbs. It felt so unrealistic and cheap. Do you honestly think most reunions between adult adoptees and their biological families are really this sweet and syrupy?
At my birthday lunch under the sukkah -- fun times!
From there, we walked (yes, walked! but it wasn't far and the weather was so nice and cool) to the downtown art gallery. There was an exhibition there by Bennett Sewell, who makes incredible sculptures of animals (mostly dogs) out of regular household items, like a space heater, utensils, light bulbs, etc. It was a very cool show and a very great day.
And tonight, there were two more things to be excited about: Liam Neeson on Inside the Actors Studio (the first decent guest they'd had in some time) and a new NCIS! I wasn't loving this one, though.
Notes on episode 10x02 Recovery
Featuring Kyle, Abby's brother, last seen in Enemy on the Hill
Writer: Scott Williams (Housekeeping)
- Ugh, that opening scene. The shots and lighting were so cheesy, and I'm sorry, but Pauley Perrette didn't do panicked well. I wasn't sure I liked how she called Gibbs when she woke up, either. On the one hand, it seems so childish (especially since she's apparently called him before), but on the other hand, Abby can be very childish, so this is the sorta thing she would do.
- Tony flirting with Judy -- I spent the entire scene going, "What? What is this?" It felt so weird coming right after all the Tiva anvils in Extreme Prejudice last week. Yes, I tried to ignore them, but we all know they were there. Michael Weatherly also made comments that this season would be Tiva-heavy. And Ziva's semi-jealous reaction to Tony and Judy -- ugh!
+ Saving graces: Ziva calling Tony "brother," and... SHE DOESN'T HAVE STRAIGHT HAIR! It's curly again! There are no words for how happy this made me.
+/- McGee: "Seems like everything's gone back to exactly the way it was." Which is exactly how it should be! I don't practice the Status Quo Is God religion, but I did kinda like this line because it seems like the writers are embracing it, rather than pretending not to notice that everything stays the same.
+/- Dr. Wolf felt very hokey, especially in his first scene. But at least they didn't bring back that UGH-inducing Dr. Cranston. (Yes, she warrants an all-caps UGH. I suspect they only didn't bring her back because the actress who plays her is shooting in Atlanta.) And Ziva calling Wolf "Mr. Happy" (in his accent!) and Tony's "We're all perfectly fine" did make me lol.
- Wolf saying that "all but a few NCIS personnel survived the bombing" felt like a really callous way to speak about those who'd died.
+ Tony telling Palmer that he was "getting too cocky in Ducky's big boy shoes," then smiling at him when Palmer thought he was being serious. Aww, that was a cute moment.
- I really wasn't feeling the scene with Wolf and Abby in her lab. She was acting very immature and whiny, and he really did sound like a greeting card. His mention that Abby had suffered nightmares years before threw me; research revealed that it happened during Kate-era, which I don't watch.
+ Gibbs's reaction to finding Ducky in autopsy felt a little harsh, but I liked it. He really does care.
+ On a more shallow note, it was nice to see casual clothes on Ducky (which we almost never see him in). This episode kinda shook things up in the wardrobe department. There were more casual suits on Tony and McGee, and Gibbs wore a jacket in a checked pattern! It was dark and kinda hard to notice, but it sure weirded me out when I did. I liked this brown polo in the second half, though.
+ Tony and Ziva playing rock-paper-scissors to see who would eval with Wolf next. So cute!
+ Gibbs offering to talk to Abby about her nightmares after she clammed up with Wolf. We all know how much Gibbs, the functional mute, hates talking, especially about stuff like this (didn't he offer very reluctantly?) but he's willing to do it for her. So sweet.
- Abby telling Gibbs that she only met her brother Kyle once and that didn't tell him who she was. Well, at least the writers finally remembered Abby's brother! But remember when she first found out about him, back in Enemy on the Hill? Remember how upset it made her, and how concerned Gibbs was? Yeah, so WHY are they only having this conversation NOW?
- More points lost for Abby telling Gibbs that she couldn't talk to her brother Luca (the brother she knows and was raised with) because "he's busy." What, too busy to be concerned that his one-and-only sister almost got exploded? Williams was really reaching to find a reason for her to contact Kyle again.
- Midge called her daughter and told her she was okay before she went missing. That makes a really big difference in a missing-persons case. Why didn't we find this out sooner?
- Ziva: "Your mother never failed to make me feel as though she had my back." Yes, which is why we've never seen or heard of her before now. You're failing, Williams, you're failing! (It reminded me of how we never saw or heard of Monique, Ziva's BFF who "like a sister" to her, before The Missionary Position and likely never will again.)
- Ziva and McGee listing reasons why Midge didn't like Tony and found him "annoying." Ugh x 100!
+ That yellow shirt Ziva was wearing in the second half of the episode. From here on out, I kept thinking, "You know, I really don't like this episode... but how can I hate it when Ziva looks so good?"
- And the color of the walls isn't going to change, per Vance's orders. Yeah, writers, blame your aversion to change at any costs on Vance. We all know it's really you!
+/- Vance snapping at Wolf in the bullpen. I guess he's still in a bad mood because Dearing planted the bomb in his car, and he feels guilty. But geez, Vance, get the hell over it! I did admire how Wolf bounced right back, though.
+ Gibbs and Ziva both trying to avoid their evals with Wolf. So them.
+ Gibbs's "I feel better already" to Wolf, and Abby's theory on a time-traveling assassin. Lol!
- Gibbs saying "Like that's possible" when Abby worried that Kyle wouldn't like her. Barf. Oh, it's possible, Gibbs -- very, very possible!
- "Maybe Kyle doesn't know he's adopted." Why is Abby so quick to assume this? Maybe Kyle wasn't adopted! If she really wants to prepare herself for being hurt, she should consider the possibility that their biological parents kept and raised Kyle and abandoned her, which I think would be the hardest scenario.
+ Ziva's reaction when Wilson called her a "feminazi" in interrogation. I liked how mad she got, and it felt good that the writers remembered oh yeah, Ziva's Jewish. That's been kinda swept under the rug lately. It made me flashback to Ravenous (such a solid Season 3 episode -- ahh, the good old days) when that redneck made an anti-Semitic comment to Ziva and Tony practically had to hold her back.
- A major ugh, though, for Wilson assuming that Tony was Ziva's "whipped boyfriend." Gag me! But I guess I should've expected a Tiva anvil like this from the man who wrote Housekeeping.
+ Palmer asking Gibbs to call Ducky in to help him. So cute.
+ Jon's "We knew we were better as friends" comment about him and Midge. I don't ship Tiva, and I'm glad he said this to Tony and Ziva.
- Kyle remembers Abby "like it was yesterday" from one brief meeting with her almost a year ago? Oh, as if. But then again, maybe some biological siblings do have an instant connection like this. It felt very unrealistic to me, though. Ugh.
- I snorted when we saw Jon's gun case lined with crushed red velvet. Are these guns, or scantily-dressed heroines on the cover of a romance novel?
+ The look Gibbs gave Ziva when she started to leave to call the hospital.
+ So Judy was Jon's girlfriend, and the one who killed Midge! This was a good twist that I didn't see coming. I loved how Tony solved the case by recognizing her smell. He gets written as a goof too often, and this was good detective work on his part.
- Yeah, Judy, if you bat your eyes at Tony, maybe he'll let you get away with murder.
+ Ducky calling Palmer out for asking for his help not because he really needed it, but because he felt sorry for Ducky. Their scene was so sweet and so sad, especially when Ducky said, "I must take my leave." God loves that duck!
- And now we have to another scene of Vance whining. Why won't he shut up?! Well, the second episode of the season is usually when the previous season's finale arc gets over and done with, so this will probably be the last time we hear anyone mention the bombing.
- I'm kinda split on the final scene, but for the most part, I didn't like it. It annoyed me that we didn't see the conversation between Abby and Kyle, with her telling him who he was. It couldn't have been an easy conversation. It had to be hard for her to say, and probably hard for him to hear. But instead of showing it to us, the writers cut straight to Kyle happy and smiling and hugging Gibbs. It felt so unrealistic and cheap. Do you honestly think most reunions between adult adoptees and their biological families are really this sweet and syrupy?