NCIS 8.22: "I'd Rather Have a Lead"

That, for some reason, was my favorite line in tonight's excellent NCIS 8.22 - "I'd rather have a lead" - maybe because although there seem to be some leads about the identity of the port-to-port killer, we're really still not much closer to knowing who he or she is.

The line is spoken by Gibbs, in response to Tony saying he wished that they had a pre-crime unit - as in Minority Report, where pre-cogs (psychics) can foretell who will commit crimes.  But Gibbs is not always allergic to DiNozzo's movie references, as we find out in the other part of tonight's episode, which features Tony and Gibbs first meeting, 10 years ago.

The acting and make-up is great - both do look and act a little younger, DiNozzo more than Gibbs, which is just right, since DiNozzo 10 years ago was a much younger guy than Gibbs was then.   Gibbs' heart is big, as we would expect it to be.  When DiNozzo lets his corrupt partner go - in the Baltimore police department - Gibbs, already with NCIS, understands, because he believes in loyalty to partners, and he doesn't stop DiNozzo.   But DiNozzo is disgusted enough by the events that he leaves the Baltimore PD, comes to work at NCIS, and gets a sexy human resources babe and his first slap on the head from Gibbs as his reward.

Turns out that DiNozzo's boss back then on the Baltimore PD is also a bad guy - worse than DiNozzo's partner - and in fact kills DiNozzo's partner, who is no longer his partner, in the present.  Not only that, the bad lieutenant masquerades as the port-to-port killer.  Ducky figures that part of it out.  But the bad news is that catching this guy brings the team no closer to getting the real port-to-port killer.  That's what I was getting at when I said that the team could use some leads in this p-2-p case looming ever larger.

The faux p-2-p killer - that is, DiNozzo's boss from 10 year ago - did at least provide us with the benefit of seeing DiNozzo and Gibbs back then, and I forgot to mention Gibbs' movie quip from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid right after Gibbs hires DiNozzo, but who the hell is this port-to-port killer?

In fact, who are each of these three people:  (1) the person with the blue eye who had lasik surgery, male in his 30s, whose eye opened MTAC, (2) the person at NCIS who may be in that medical examiner's wagon  that we see in the coming attractions for next week, and (3) the port-to-port killer?

We do learn this week that the port-to-port killer is someone very close to NCIS, maybe working right there - because the killer knew that DiNozzo's bad former boss was pretending to be the p-2-p killer - but we already knew that the real killer was close to NCIS.

I can't even hazard a supportable guess at this point.  But I've got a feeling - just a feeling, no evidence - that McGee is more a part of this than, ah, meets the eye.


5-min podcast review of NCIS

See also NCIS Back in Season 8 Action ... NCIS 8.2: Interns! ... NCIS 8.3: Tiff! ... NCIS 8.4: Gary Cooper not John Wayne ... NCIS 8.5: Dead DJ, DiNozzo Hoarse, and Baseball ... NCIS 8.6: The Written Woman ... NCIS 8.7: "James Bond Movie Directed by Fellini" ... NCIS 8.8: Ziva's Father 
... NCIS 8.9: Leon's Story ... NCIS 8.10: DiNozzo In and Out ... NCIS 8.11: "The Sister Went Viral" ... Bob Newhart on NCIS 8.12 ... NCIS 8.13: The Wife or the Girlfriend ... NCIS 8.14: Kate ... NCIS 8.15: McGee and DiNozzo's Badges ... NCIS 8.16: Computer Games ... NCIS 8.17: Budget Cuts ... NCIS 8.18: Gibbs vs. the Kid ... NCIS 8.19: The Deadly Book ... NCIS 8.20: CIRay ... NCIS 8.21: Mask and Eye

And see also NCIS  ... NCIS 7.16: Gibbs' Mother-in-Law Dilemma ... NCIS 7.17: Ducky's Ties ... NCIS 7.18: Bogus Treasure and Real Locker ... NCIS 7.21: NCIS Meets Laura ... NCIS Season 7 Finale: Retribution

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

---

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...