Comments | descrime: NCIS vs Lie to Me - Ziva Does Not Need Your Bullshit

descrime

NCIS vs Lie to Me - Ziva Does Not Need Your Bullshit

May 18, 2009 13:00

This past episode of NCIS reminded me quite a bit of an arc on "Lie to Me". On "Lie to Me," a show about a group of four people who have trained themselves to be professional lie detectors, the main male character (Lightman) overhears/witnesses hints of behavior that seem to suggest that the main female character's (Foster) husband is cheating on ( Read more... )

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Comments 3

rigil_kent May 19 2009, 23:14:38 UTC

The only defense I can give for Tony is that Ziva was probably on the phone when he tried to call her since we saw them cut to that scene where she's dialing the number for the Mossad guy played by Arnold Vosloo (guesting in tonight's ep). So, being unable to reach her that way, he went to her house.

That said, I'm not sure I really agree with the assessment that Tony was acting to "protect Ziva's fragile little heart." He told Rivkin, flat out, that he was there to speak to her prior to Michael's attack, which implies to me that Tony was there to tell her directly about the mounting (but admittedly circumstantial) evidence that Rivkin was a POS. I didn't think that Tony did anything wrong in this episode (apart from perhaps lying to Ziva the first time so he could have his little tete-a-tete with Rivkin at the cafe in the first place.

But then, none of these damned characters have acted in-character all damned year. They seemed pretty normal and almost close to right in "Agent Afloat," but after that, they turned into these ( ... )

descrime May 19 2009, 23:43:32 UTC

That first tete-a-tete is damning for me. It was so far over the line that it colored everything else Tony did that episode for me. Tony had no right to follow her, no right to play games to break up her date. It moved Tony's actions from "NCIS agent worried about national security" to "jealous co-worker trying to break up a relationship" and considering Tony and Ziva have gone stone cold on each other this past season, it's as out of left field as Ziva questioning Tony whether he was jealous in the cross-over episode.

Why did he go to Ziva in the first place? He should have taken the data to Gibbs when Ziva's phone was busy. The fact that he can't even wait till he sees her tomorrow to show her the evidence seems to me to indicate that he wanted to shove it in Ziva's face that he was right about Rivkin all along and she was wrong.

rigil_kent May 19 2009, 23:54:15 UTC

It was so far over the line that it colored everything else Tony did that episode for me.

Pretty much everything they do on this show is over the line, whether it is their interrogation techniques, to their less than legal methods of obtaining information (hacking, for example, at the director's order or B&E without a warrant), to the way their boss treats them (in a real federal workplace, the first time Gibbs head-slapped someone, he'd be up on charges and kicked out of NCIS so fast his head would spin), so it didn't seem any more over the line than anything else they do to me. Besides, some of what Ziva was doing back in season 4 to find out about Benoit seemed just as underhanded.

Why did he go to Ziva in the first place?Perhaps he's trying to give her the opportunity to explain? I dunno. Prior to this year (you know, back when they were actually friends), I would have assumed he was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt and wanted to let her know about the intel prior to making it official by going to Gibbs. This year ( ... )