A Year of NCIS, Day 24: See No Evil (Episode 2.1)

Episode: 2.1, See No Evil

Air Date: September 28, 2004

The Victim: Julie and Sandy Watson, the wife and daughter respectively of Captain Mike Watson.

Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: Not applicable this week.

Plot Summary: The opening is part of the ploy to start Season Two.  A little blind girl is playing piano when a man arrives at the door and tells her mother that her father has been in an accident.  The man offers to transport them both. 

We quickly shift to Captain Watson, a Navy Captain in the office of the Comptroller.  Dialogue and a photo prop establish that this very uninjured Captain is the little blind girl’s father.  That uneasy feeling the audience gets when shenanigans are afoot is justified when Captain Watson’s computer begins talking to him with a creepy, distorted voice, and displays a video feed of his wife and daughter held captive.      

Cue the credits.  New season, new credits!  But same awesome theme song.  And McGee makes the credits.  So, we are no longer contractually obligated to shout “McGee!” when he arrives on screen.

We’re back at the Pentagon, in Captain Watson’s office, where he is receiving instructions.  The mysterious voice tells him to put a camera on his computer so the person on the line can monitor his movements.  The voice tells him not to leave his office.  The voice wants $2 million from the special operations fund, and Captain Watson had better find a way to do that, or it’s curtains for his wife and daughter.

Cut to NCIS HQ where the AC is broken, and a wife-beater clad Tony is very angry about it.  Kate shows up and screams as she finds McGee under her desk.  He’s staring up her skirt, but not intentionally.  This isn’t Porky’s, and that’s more Tony’s gig anyway.  Rather, he’s under her desk doing computer things.  That doesn’t really mollify Kate, though, so she pulls him out by his ears, which is a strong play.  Gibbs arrives and tells Tony to put his damn shirt back on. 

Gibbs also wants to know why McGee is still around (since last Spring?)  McGee spews technobabble about how he wanted the new computer network up and running before he went back to his real job at Norfolk, but the union guys won’t do the hook-ups until the AC is fixed.  So McGee is crawling around doing it himself.  Gibbs asks McGee what he believes thinking like that will do for him, and Tony and Kate are definitely enjoying the show and piling on.  McGee shrugs, and Gibbs says, “Promotion,” and gives him Tony to assist.  Tony waits until Gibbs wanders away and refuses to help.

Kate informs Gibbs that there’s a Navy secretary in the lobby who claims her boss is being held hostage by his computer.  Gibbs, in the process of smashing his phone, seems to agree that evil tech is within the realm of plausibility and leaves to inquire further.  He tells McGee to reboot the smashed device, but Tony just quietly hands McGee a replacement from a file cabinet. 

The agents interview the secretary, Ms. Wallace, in a non-AC interrogation room with a fan.  Captain Watson slipped her a note, which she delivers to the team, letting them know the story.  They start up their due diligence.  Captain Watson is the comptroller for JASOC which manages special military units.  They determine that Sandy, Captain Watson’s daughter, did not arrive at school. 

Physically, penetrating the Pentagon to get to Captain Watson would be impossible for anyone but an inside man; but McGee pipes in and speculates that his computer might be under the control of a trojan virus that allows a hacker to control Captain Watson’s computer remotely.

Gibbs sends Kate and McGee to search the Watson house.  He tells Tony to do a background check on Captain Watson, while Gibbs heads to chat with the Captain.  Discretely. 

Gibbs puts on his Marine uniform and strolls into the Pentagon.  Meanwhile Captain Watson is trying to stall for time by building $2 million out of tiny little transfers.  Gibbs enters in disguise, makes clear who he is by referencing meetings that didn’t happen, observes the web camera, and bugs the office.  It’s all very slickly done with a continual stream of exactly the kind of banal conversation that Captain Watson would get from ordinary co-workers.

Kate and McGee head to the Watson house.  They see no signs of anyone observing the place, but they still need to get into the house.

In Abby’s lab, Gibbs’s bug is transmitting the conversation between the bad guy and Captain Watson.  Abby decloaks the perp’s altered voice.  Gibbs also tells her to hack Captain Watson’s computer.  Abby balks at the degree of difficulty of hacking the Pentagon, and suggests they ask DOD for permission.  Gibbs correctly notes that this will give the game away when the Pentagon severs the connection between the hacker and Captain Watson.  He offers to call McGee, and this shames Abby into saying she can handle it. 

Back at the Watson house, a straining McGee is trying to boost Kate from his shoulders onto the roof, so she can access the house.  Given their size differential, McGee must be really out of shape.  McGee is also closing his eyes because he’s (understandably) scared to see up Kate’s skirt and get yanked around by his ears again.   We learn that once he opens his eyes, McGee can indeed military press the weight of a small woman, and Kate manages to get on the roof and into the house.  There’s no sign of forced entry, and the front door was locked behind the Watsons, so it seems they left under their own free will (which we, the audience, know).  Our agents don’t find anything, so one wonders if this whole scene was designed for the comic relief of McGee crawling out the window head first and rolling off the roof (which he does).

In Captain Watson’s office, he has procured $900k, but only has five hours left.  Tony shows up with Chinese and banter, and slips the Captain an earwig communication device (how are even Gibbs and Tony casually getting past Pentagon security without having to alert someone higher up as to what’s going on?)   Hilariously, Tony makes Captain Watson pay him for the Chinese and even coughs for the tip for authenticity’s sake.  The bad guy wants to see inside the bag, but it’s actual Chinese food, and Captain Watson slips the device into his ear.

Gibbs makes contact and tells the Captain to call the bluff and tell the kidnapper to give his daughter back as a show of good faith or else he takes his chances with the FBI.  Gibbs tells the Captain he is not alone.

Captain Watson tells the kidnapper that he has isolated nearly $1.3 million and now wants a gesture of good faith: release of his daughter.  They argue.  Captain Watson asks to speak to his daughter, and wonders if his family is already dead.  The kidnapper moves into the camera, masked, and threatens to put an ice pick into the girl’s ear drum.  Kate thinks it’s too big a risk.  Gibbs says call the bluff.  Captain Watson calls the bluff, and the kidnapper says, “I was never good at taking orders,” before signing off.  Captain Watson starts second-guessing while he waits for the kidnapper to call back.  Kate and Gibbs stand off over the plan, but Gibbs makes the point that mom and daughter are dead anyway once the money is handed off.

Time passes and the kidnapper’s voice returns, telling Captain Watson to answer his ringing phone.  He does, and it’s Sandy.  The kidnapper let her go and he tells Captain Watson where to find her.  Gibbs tells Captain Watson his people are on it.  This is a great scene- the little girl’s scared, sobbing voice is incredibly moving, and Captain Watson, Kate, and even Gibbs are affected by it.  It’s wrenching to see how helpless this father is to help his little girl, especially when the kidnapper makes him hang up.  Then, the scene shifts to Sandy in a phone booth, and the actress is killing it with the sadness and the fear and making you feel awful for her.  We also learn that the kidnapper put her near train tracks, so now there’s the added tension of a blind child walking out in front of a train. 

Abby needs help hacking the computer, and McGee joins.  We get the traditional TV effect of people typing really fast to demonstrate hacking acumen.  But hacking the Pentagon is no easy task.  Abby and McGee brainstorm and realize the trojan isn’t systemwide.  If it were, the kidnapper would just swipe the money himself.  So, Abby and McGee have been trying to hack the wrong place.  Technobabble ensues, and Gibbs magically arises from the ether to throw shade motivate his people.  But Abby has good news because they’ve hacked Captain Watson’s computer.  Now all they have to do is back trace…

SQQQUUUAAAWWWWKK. 

No, that wasn’t the sound of the kidnapper catching Abby and McGee.  That was the sound of the plot machine deciding that Abby’s computer should overheat to extend runtime.  And she’s not going to be able to fix the problem because the building is too hot from the aforementioned broken air conditioning that is finally playing its intended role in the plot.  Although if it’s that hot, shouldn’t our leads be combusting?  Computers aren’t made of taffy. 

Gibbs is tired of excuses, so he sends Abby and McGee down to autopsy (which I guess has a separate HVAC system), and they work out of a body cooler.  As a side note, Ducky and Palmer are still trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again and reassemble the man Agent Balboa found chopped up in a drum at the end of last season.  They have since determined that Jigsaw Man is three Jigsaw People, and the show is clearly setting up a subplot to address in future episodes.  Otherwise, it’s a lot of effort just to give Ducky and Palmer a project.  Also, it seems unlikely NCIS would just say, “Jigsaw People- that’s weird,” and move on to the next rave where some stoner trips over a dead petty officer.  Ducky recaps the provenance of the Jigsaw Threesome for a disturbed McGee (and the audience).  So I think this will matter eventually.

Tony and Kate go to rescue Sandy.  She actually knows what NCIS stands for.  She also overheard the kidnapper talking, and it sounds like he has more of a motive than just getting rich.  “He’s going to make my dad suffer.”

Back to autopsy.  Gibbs summons Ducky to attend to Sandy.  Ducky doctors her up, and then pulls a Hershey Bar out of his pocket, and she recognizes it by smell.  This bit is adorable.  Tony and Kate update Gibbs on the timing of Sandy’s drop-off to try and isolate the kidnapper geographically, and talk about pulling tape from the area to see if they can see the kidnapper.  Ducky comes over to chat and suggests that maybe Sandy can describe where she was.  Tony scoffs at this, and Ducky, by mumbling a question that Sandy hears and answers, demonstrates that Sandy uses her other senses as well as we use sight.

And we’re still hacking.  And now we’re working a back-trace.  Now Abby and McGee can watch the watcher, and they see him threatening a bound and gagged Mrs. Watson. 

Gibbs asks Sandy about the car she was in, and the place the kidnapper was keeping her.  She’s struggling.  And then Gibbs gets the call from autopsy and Sandy hears that they can see her mom on the computer.  And then she asks, “Can I help you?”  And that’s a very brave little girl who sits in the room while the team watches her mom on the computer and filters the audio to where Sandy can hear the kidnapper’s real voice.  The kidnapper tells Mrs. Watson that she’s dead regardless of whether he gets the money. 

At this point, you’re starting to wonder why NCIS hasn’t cracked open Captain Watson’s service record to find Navy personnel who have reason to hate him at this level.

The kidnapper calls Captain Watson, who has isolated $1.8 million and tries to bargain for his wife’s release.  Gibbs tells Captain Watson to stall, and then to negotiate with the killer for three hours of additional time.  But now Captain Watson is off the reservation and tells the kidnapper he’ll meet the original deadline.  Tony arrives and says they got a shot of the kidnapper’s vehicle at the train station.  White van, no windows, stolen.  Gibbs all but says that this information and $1.75 will get him one of his shitty cups of black coffee.  But Tony buried the lede.  He pulled prints off Sandy’s hair barrettes and we have an ID.  Former Petty Officer Kyle Grayson.  Captain Watson helped send Grayson away to Leavenworth for six years for embezzling government funds.  Tony gets his coveted fatherly smile and “Good job,” from the boss.

They play the audio of the kidnapper for Sandy, and she tries to isolate sounds they can’t hear, and is savvy enough to have Abby fiddle with the frequency to enhance certain sounds.  We’re sort of in Daredevil territory now but go with it.  Gibbs wants Sandy to listen to live feed.  Kate is not OK with that.  Gibbs points out that the trauma from growing up without a mother probably dwarfs the trauma from listening to live feed.  It’s dick, but it’s true.  Which is Gibbs in a nutshell.

Sandy says she can take it.  Gibbs gives her an NCIS badge and cuts her loose.  Interestingly, our perp is in confession mode, and he’s not working alone.  He’s motivated by his hatred of Captain Watson, but he “took this job.”  Sandy hears a train, so Tony leaves to look at schedules.  But Sandy breaks a little when she hears her mom crying, so they kill the feed, and Gibbs kisses her and tells her she did great.  He promises her that they’re going to save her mom now.

Tony finds the train.  They triangulate the train at the time it passed the kidnapper’s location, and the likely location of the kidnapper.  Gibbs tells McGee to convince Captain Watson not to send the money.  But Captain Watson has the money, and he’s ready to send.

Our agents go in hard.  McGee tells Captain Watson to stall, but Captain Watson ditches the earpiece.  He sends the money.  Abby is tracking the money and trying to tag it for later tracing.  But Mrs. Watson is about to get shot.  So, McGee does the only thing he can.  He voices in over the computer and tells Grayson that the FBI has him surrounded.  Grayson sees the agents out a window and, luckily, doesn’t hit one when he fires.  But now they know where he is.  Gibbs tells the team to take Grayson alive.  Which handicaps everyone from earning today’s VIP. 

Grayson takes Mrs. Watson as a hostage.  Gibbs is going across the tops of train cars with his gun, and it’s badass.  Tony and Kate work from within and take fire.  A standoff ensues, with Grayson holding Mrs. Watson at gunpoint, and Tony and Kate locked on Grayson.  He knows his SOP and demands an FBI negotiator.  Gibbs gets the drop on Grayson from close range, draws a bead on his head, and says, “We’re not the FBI, dirtbag.”  He takes the hint.

The happy family is reunited at HQ.  They thank Gibbs, and he tells them to thank “Special Agent Watson” and taps Sandy’s badge.  The relieved family leaves.

But we’re not done.  Grayson isn’t smart enough to work this scheme himself.  And he’s not going to roll for a deal because Gibbs doesn’t deal, at least not with the low-level perps.  And, well, perps who don’t know who hired them.

McGee and Abby are still tracing the money.  It heads back to DC on the computer screen, and we cut to an unseen man piling cash money into a suitcase.  Ugghh.  If he were some rando, they’d show his face.  And this episode hasn’t had enough guest-stars for the main bad guy to be anyone other than…

Captain Watson.

Who walks out and meets the barrel of Gibbs’s gun.  Dude had his own family kidnapped to cover stealing $2 million.  Instead of calling his lawyer, he’s so annoyed at getting caught that he confesses, with the usual clichés of “It’s not what it looks like,” and “Nobody was supposed to get hurt,” and “I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for you meddling NCIS agents.”  Captain Watson tries to rationalize it all and, finally, Gibbs has had enough, throws him up against the wall, and tells him not to dare bother trying to explain why he threw away what he had.  Captain Watson opens his lips to speak, but then figures getting pistol whipped into unconsciousness in a bank lobby isn’t a good look.

McGee is packing his bag at HQ.  He tells Tony and Kate that the network is up and running, and that he’s headed back to Norfolk.  Gibbs tells McGee he has good news and bad news.  Good news: McGee has been promoted to full time field agent.  Bad news: he belongs to Gibbs now (like he didn’t before).  Tony and Kate congratulate him, and they also both smack him in the head, Gibbs-style. 

And now our team is complete.

For a while.

Quotables:

(1) Abby: I love it when you talk geek.

McGee: I love it that you love it.

Gibbs [appearing from behind]: I’ll be sure to mention that to Captain Watson.  Right after we’re done burying his family!

(2) “Next time, you might want to send your note to the FBI.” -Kate lets Captain Watson know that inviting NCIS to his fake kidnapping/embezzlement party was his first mistake.

Time Until Sexual Harassment: 4:30.  Evidently not enough people complained in the offseason, because Tony is still at it.  After McGee inadvertently sees up Kate’s skirt, Tony asks if she’s a pantyhose girl or a thong girl.  Or he asks until Kate punches him in the stomach.  Or his nuts.  You can’t really tell.

Ducky Tales: Ducky has a great uncle who drowned in a vat of alcohol.  “Of, course, he reportedly climbed out three times to go to the bathroom.”

The Rest of the Story:

-McGee has a little sister.  We’ll meet her in a few seasons.

-Kate asks for ideas on how to get into the Watson place.  McGee references the time Tony threw a rock through the window of a residence in Sub Rosa (Episode 1.7)

-Gibbs and Abby continue to use sign language in front of Tony, which they did a few times in Season 1.

-Gibbs gave Abby Caf-Pows last season, but this is the first time he treats it like a quid pro quo, refusing to give it over until she gives him results. 

-New season, but Tony’s still making jokes about Gibbs’s divorces.

-Gibbs tells Abby that if she needs help, she should just ask and says one of the smartest people he knows told him that: Abby.  Not sure if that was Ari-related, or part of the Colonel Ryan intervention in Enigma (Episode 1.15).

-We learn that only a month has passed since last season’s finale (Reveille, Episode 1.23).  We know this because Ducky is still working on re-assembling Jigsaw Man, as first referenced in that episode, and he mentions they found him in a drum about a month ago.

-McGee is telegraphing wanting to be a field agent (and it’s not like he ever goes to his day job).  Both Kate and Ducky counsel him on what it takes in this episode.

-Gibbs knows what hair barrettes are when Tony doesn’t.  That seems weird, right?

-When confronting Grayson, Tony references Colombia, when he and Kate perforated the rogue CIA agent while he held a hostage.  (Marine Down (Episode 1.9))

-I think the writers have settled in on Gibbs’s backstory now.  His skill at dealing with Sandy, and his fury at Captain Watson fits perfectly.

–Blind people don’t become Daredevil with respect to their other senses becoming superhuman.  They are better trained than sighted people to process and pay attention to their other senses; but there’s no compensatory enhancement involved, and the latter is a myth.  The episode plays a little too hard towards the “Sandy has super-hearing/super-smell” side of the equation versus simply depicting her as a very capable little girl. 

Casting Call: Abigail Breslin, 8-years old at the time, plays Sandy Watson.  She’s a pretty well-known movie actress (although I haven’t seen much of her work).  She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her 2006 role in Little Miss Sunshine.  Even at this age, she’s a great actress and her terror at being a kidnap victim really gets to you.  Ditto her resolve at helping the NCIS team.  You can see how she almost won an Oscar, and even on a show that does a solid job auditioning its guest stars, she stands out.

Man, This Show is Old: The webcam watching Captain Watson is a classic model.

Gibbs smashes a Motorola device so old I’m not even sure what it is.

When Captain Watson’s secretary describes her boss’s computer talking to him, Kate laughs and says, “You’ve got mail?”  I think that joke was probably stale even in late 2004.

A trojan taking over a computer was a lot more novel in 2004 than it is now.  Now, Tony and Kate wouldn’t have “a what now?” looks on their face while McGee described the hack.

Sandy calls her father from a working public phone booth.

How shitty are desktops in 2004 that the heat from a building with no air conditioning overheats them?  I had to leave my iPhone in direct sunlight in coastal South Georgia in July before it gave me a “Gettin’ kinda hot, bro” warning. 

VIP: Special Agent Watson, who gets to grow up with a shiny NCIS badge, and no daddy.

Rating: Maybe it’s because I have a daughter about Sandy’s age, but this one really got to me.  It’s not perfect and the NCIS team usually finds motive a little quicker than they did in this case, especially once it became obvious that the kidnapping was personal; and especially given how obvious Grayson was.  But these are nitpicks over a TV formula designed to keep the audience interested for 42 minutes.  All in all, this is a gripping, well-acted episode by all involved.  It hits you right in the feels and reminds you that our protagonists (and by extension, law enforcement in general) really are heroes.

Of course, then it completely lets you down by taking the little girl you just spent 42 minutes falling in love with, and handing her an off-screen trauma that will never, ever fade.  And all without providing any sense of Captain Watson’s motivation.  There’s no intimation of massive money problems or a surgery his daughter could get that insurance won’t cover.  When caught, Captain Watson comes off as a one-dimensional Greed-ly Whiplash. 

And yet, this undesirable outcome was a bold choice, and a character motivation that strikes the audience way harder than Grayson’s “Vengeance will be mine” motive.  Just because it makes me sad doesn’t mean it’s not good TV.  Quite the contrary.        

We’re in Season Two and the show hasn’t lost its step.

Seven Palmers.

Up Next: A serial kidnapper, a mummified bride, and NCIS goes to Florida.