NCIS 5.02 ("Family")
I'm not going to try and modulate my enthusiasm for this episode in any way, so be warned of that, too. It's just a quick bullet-point list of awesome.
- Tony had the line of the episode with, "Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, the boy who cried wolf and must now suffer peritonitis as a result." Line, of course, subject to my faulty memory.
- Tony overracting to calling all of the victim's marks and McGee reacting to Tony's overreaction and asking Gibbs if they could take him off it.
- Tony supergluing McGee's fingers to his keyboard. (Note: Don't feel too bad for McGee on that one. I once superglued my hand to a scrap of fabric by accident. I had no fingerprints for a week, but it wasn't really that painful. As to the exact how and why I ended up supergluing my hand to fabric, that's a long story for another day.)
- Ziva attempting to cheer Tony up and then talk some sense into him with her usual lack of tact. And, as mean as Tony's inevitable comment was, I also loved it--because he lost it, because she excused him from it without letting him off the hook, because they had sexy bickering afterwards, and because Tony apologized and Ziva let it go. I was really seeing the Tony/Ziva in this episode. Which I'm on-board with, as long as they let chaletian write the scripts.
- The fall-out from Tony's fake dentist trips, with everyone staring at him, the e-mail excuse, and him backing down. Followed, of course, by the Line of the Episode, listed above.
- McGee finally realizing that Tony was in love with Jeanne.
- Tony getting wet and sneezing because of it.
- McGee's technobabble, particularly when it gets the great reactions from Tony and Gibbs.
- The reappearance of bathroom!guy.
- Tony's reliance on old-fashioned police work and the ever-present jelly donut that he apparently just had sitting in his desk drawer.
- The plot of the episode (which always gets ranked this low, because I never care about it as much as I care about everything else) was solid, complete with engaging victims and a baby for Gibbs to emote over.
- The ending. Honestly, everything about the ending, from McGee lighting the fire for Tony to Tony huddling up beside it to the gorgeously rendered choice between his two families: the real and the potential. I always get ridiculously warm and fuzzy over team!love, and there was so much of it in this episode that I think I might have to declare it my favorite of all time.
- No Director. I'm right about that, right?
- No more Jeanne. I didn't hate her quite as passionately as everyone else did, because I spotted the potential a mile away for her breaking Tony's heart (which, while bad for him, produces excellent and interesting results on screen and in writing), but I hardly wanted her to stick around so that she and Tony could have babies and a house with a picket fence. She was just--dull. Also, she gets in the way of my hypothetical Tony/Ziva that occasionally interrupts my gen.
Only downside, really, was that there could have been more interaction between Tony and Gibbs. I did like how they bonded over the old-fashioned police work, how we had another Gibbs-right-behind-Tony moment, and how Gibbs tried to help Tony past his guilt by calling the marks. At least, that's the way I saw the last one. It seemed like equal parts punishment and tough love.
Really, really looking forward to this season.
Also, under no circumstances do I have, say, 550 words written on a story where the team ends up stranded in The Iliad. And of those hypothetical 550 words, none of them involve Ziva saying, "So that's where the condoms come from." Or, for that matter, Tony saying, "My name is Anthony DiNozzo. You killed my ancestors with a giant wooden horse. Prepare to die."
Obviously, this would be silly.
Almost done with the next chapter of The Third Day and it should be up a little earlier than usual--Thursday night, I would imagine.