A Year of NCIS, Day 208: Playing With Fire (Episode 9.22)

We got a little behind because of a Covid incident. My 8-year-old is back in fighting form after mild symptoms (and an unlimited diet of television that made quarantine way more bearable). And, so far, her brother and the vaccinated adults in the house have managed not to contract it. We have no idea where she contracted it, so get your vaccines and wear your masks, folks.

PSA over, let’s get to it.

Episode: Playing with Fire, Episode 9.22.

Air Date: May 1, 2012.

The Victim: First Lieutenant Eric Ramsey, USMC.

Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: We get a recap of the arson plot targeting the Navy fleet from last episode.  Then we get a re-depiction of the U.S.S. Brewer explosion from right before the end credits of last episode.  But with a little different perspective.  The servicemember outside the room with the bomb still drops his phone and still walks down a deck to get it.  But we have another person (another servicemember?) inside the room installing a thermite charge in a junction box.  The show juxtaposes the servicemember in the corridor re-assembling his phone and the arsonist fiddling with the charge.  The servicemember gazes, smiling, at pictures of his young family.  Our arsonist lights the fuse and then makes to leave.  But he opens the door and sees the servicemember.  So, he closes the door and runs back to defuse the charge.  We already know how it works out.  Tragically for the servicemember.  But it’s an acceptable consolation prize to watch a panicked arsonist get hoist on his own petard this time.

Plot Recap:  An Admiral is in MTAC briefing the higher-ups across various locations on the status of NCIS’s investigation into Navy ships with faulty wiring.  He concludes and Gibbs rises to approach.  We learn that the casualties on the Brewer were at a minimum and the explosion could have been a lot worse.  But Gibs doesn’t think this is the end.  The Admiral says he and SecNav will meet with the NSC and brief the President.  Expository dialogue demonstrates that Vance is at a NATO conference, but he and Gibbs are in contact.

In the squad room, McGee plans to take a helicopter out to the Brewer to secure the crime scene.  It’s heading for Norfolk, but he wants to get there early.  Gibbs asks about Bruce Johnson, the arsonist who died last episode.  Neither the parole officer nor his wife knew anything, and Johnson kept a low electronic profile.  Johnson played online video games, but that’s all he used his computer for. 

Gibbs joins Ducky.  Ducky seems distracted by something he’s writing and says it’s personal, but he can discuss it with Gibbs later.  Ducky doesn’t have much from Bruce Johnson’s body, but remains amazed by the destructive potential of thermite.  Gibbs tells Ducky that there are two more bodies to examine, and they’ll be at Norfolk in the morning.

Abby is in the evidence garage with Johnson’s car.  That’s useless from an evidentiary standpoint.  But Abby examined the leavings in a shredder found in Johnson’s garage and separated them out by color and paper type.  One of them has Korean characters, and it looks like it came from a printed email.  Abby can’t reconstruct it, but she wonders if North Korea could be behind the terrorist/arson attacks.

In the squad room, Ziva is bummed about having to cancel plans because of the alert.  She does not care to share those plans, or the identity of the person involved, with Tony.  So, the usual.

Someone named Emma arrives.  The agents know her.  We’ve never seen her before, but dialogue tells us she is a analyst and works on the Far East desk.  Gibbs joins and she informs him that there’s no chatter linking North Korea to the attack on the Brewer. 

Tony announces that McGee will be on video in MTAC.  Tony and Gibbs head in that direction but Emma distracts Tony by telling Ziva how envious she is about her weekend.  Of course, then Ziva reveals she had to cancel.  Tony doesn’t get a chance to inquire further because Gibbs angrily summons him.  The ladies laugh.

McGee is in MTAC and identifies the victims on the Brewer as Marine First Lieutenant Eric Ramsey, a combat cargo officer, and a civilian, Toney Abbott.  Abbott’s a tech rep for a company with Navy contacts.  Abbott works for Norton Turbine and was following up on some repairs made to the ship’s power plant.  McGee sounds subdued, so Tony asks if he’s doing ok.  McGee says Abbott is a suspect (which we know) because he was killed in the machine room at the point of ignition, and none of Norton’s equipment is in the machine room.  McGee has secured Abbott’s quarters but hasn’t had time to go through it yet.

Oh yeah, McGee suffers from seasickness.  We’re reminded of this when he leans away from the camera and ralphs.  Tony cringes.  Gibbs just looks away, vaguely embarrassed.  But he at leasts suggest apples and crackers as a remedy.

Tony and Ziva visit Bruce Johnson’s wife.  She’s understandably upset and is trying to scrub from her driveway the burn marks where her husband’s car exploded into flames.  They ask if Johnson read or spoke Korean.  She denies this vehemently and then angrily tells the agents that she and Johnson were in the middle of a nasty divorce.  And now she’s stuck with bills and a house she can’t sell.  The mailman walks up at that moment to deliver his condolences and more bills and it’s such a weird (but darkly funny) moment that I have to wonder how it even made it into the script.  As is routine on this show, the agents are indifferent to the human toll these cases take when it’s some perp’s family, and Ziva even laughs at Mrs. Johnson as they walk away. 

Ah.  The mailman does have a point.  Tony chases after him and asks if he has ever delivered Korean mail to the Johnson house.  The mailman says no and that he would remember that.  But he recalls they have been getting mail from Switzerland. 

Gibbs is working at his house, poring over Lieutenant’s Ramsey’s file.  Ducky drops by.  Gibbs is a little depressed at Lt. Ramsey having survived two tours with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star only to die in a terrorist attack.  Ducky agrees.

Gibbs asks what’s on Ducky’s mind.  Besides being critical about Gibbs’s version of tea.  Ducky talks about the changes in his life; his mother’s passing and selling her house.  Apparently, she was loaded, so now Ducky’s rich.  He didn’t say anything because he didn’t want anyone to treat him differently.   He’s telling Gibbs now because he’s redoing his will and he wants Gibbs to be the executor. 

Gibbs, like everyone watching the show, thinks this is a terrible idea.  He sucks at paperwork, usually preferring not to do it; he hates lawyers (and presumably judges by extension); and he’s a cantankerous asshole when made to feel impatient or out of his depth.   His moral fiber is unassailable, but I feel like Ducky could find most of that in a person who also has the other strengths necessary to execute a will.

But Gibbs says yes anyway.  How could he not?

On the Brewer, Gibbs and Ducky join McGee.  McGee hasn’t moved the body.  Tony and Ziva arrive and Tony hands McGee some barf bags.  They head to Abbott’s quarters.  While they work, Tony asks if Abby has finalized plans for Palmer’s bachelor party.  McGee says she’s keeping it under wraps.  Ziva does not understand the idea of grown men acting like fraternity boys.  She also doubts Abby would plan the kind of bachelor party that someone like, say, Tony, would enjoy.  Tony finds some jock itch medicine on Abbott’s corpse.  McGee asks about Ziva’s weekend plans and guesses she had to cancel.  Ziva silences him, and now Tony is even more peeved.

Ziva finds a letter with a Swiss stamp.  It is written in Korean. 

At HQ, Emma briefs Gibbs and the Admiral Tully.  She says the Korean letter is gibberish, at least from a translation standpoint.  Gibbs suggests a code and Emma has sent a copy to cryptographers to determine that.  And Admiral Tully says State and CIA are hearing nothing about North Korea’s involvement.     

Gibbs returns to the squad room.  The team backgrounds Abbott.  He has no record, and nothing distinguishing about him.  But Tony has contacted Abbott’s high school adviser, who said Abbott had his heart set on going to the Naval Academy and didn’t get in.  And then got rejected again.  Gibbs sends Ziva to talk to Abbott’s supervisor. 

Ducky has dropped off a tea pot and some tea leaves at Gibbs’s desk.  Tony asks, but Gibbs just smiles.

In the lab, Abby is complaining about Tony fishing her for details on Ziva’s weekend.  McGee confirms Abby didn’t tell him.  It’s just a pilates weekend with her landlady, but half the fun is messing with Tony. 

Gibbs wants an update.  Abby has traced the thermite residue from the Brewer to the fires from last episode, so it’s the same mix even if the bad guys switched arsonists.  But why didn’t it do more damage to the ship?  McGee has a theory.  Turns out the machine room was right above the munitions hold.  Had the slow burning thermite burned through the deck and into the munitions hold, the explosion likely would have sunk the ship.  But Abbott failed to account for three cannisters of flammable material in the machine room.  They blew up and killed him and Lt. Ramsey.  But the explosion also created a vacuum that sucked out all the oxygen and extinguished the fire.  “Lucky,” Gibbs says.

Abby has not broken the Korean code, but the letter did come from the same printer as the document in Johnson’s shredder.  No prints on the letter, but Abby got DNA off the envelope.  Still, no hits on military or active felon databases.

Ziva is talking to Abbott’s supervisor.  He says he was a good mechanic and actually lobbied for the assignment on the Brewer.  The supervisor figures Abbott was single and didn’t have to be away from his family, and there was a small pay bump.  Ziva asks about work friends, but the supervisor says he kept to himself.  He also doubts Abbott spoke Korean.

We move to autopsy.  Ducky found traces of a substance underneath Abbott’s fingernails that Abby identifies as the same slow-burning thermite that coated Johnson’s body.  The COD for Lt. Ramsey was blunt force trauma.  Ducky found family photos in one of his pockets.  That doesn’t improve Gibbs’s mood.

Gibbs gets summoned to MTAC.  Tony is there talking with NCIS Agent Stan Burley, who can’t believe Tony is still working with Gibbs.  He asks if Gibbs has mellowed with age.  Tony laughs.  Burley says he last spoke with Gibbs after Mike Franks died (Swan Song, Episode 8.23).  Tony looks back nervously for Gibbs and then says he keeps a lot inside.  Burley asks what’s being built in the basement.  Tony hasn’t been down there in a while.  Then Gibbs magically appears at Tony’s side and asks, “Down where?” 

Like all people who survive the demanding boss, Burley gets better treatment than the current inmates.  Respect, cordiality, fondness, that sort of thing.  Burley is in Naples doing a port threat assessment in advance of the arrival of the carrier USS Benjamin Franklin, which is on the list of ships with bad wiring.  Burley found an explosive device hidden on a pallet at a re-supply warehouse.  Gibbs notes the nuclear nature of the aircraft carrier.

Tony tells Ziva that they are heading to Naples.  Ziva runs to the elevator and Tony says it’s a good thing she canceled her pilates weekend.  Ziva wants to know who squealed, but Tony simply says he’s a very special agent and he has his ways. 

McGee and Abby are asleep in the lab when Gibbs arrives with breakfast and a caffeine re-supply.  They broke the code on the Korean message.  It was counter-intuitively simple.  Somebody typed English letters and a program converted them to Korean script, but in a way that made no sense in Korean.  “Place the thermite device on the 0-3 deck”- basically when, where, and how to attack the Brewer.  Still no luck on the envelope DNA, though.

In Naples, Burley meets Tony and Ziva.  Burley has set up a sting.  He left the bomb where he found it but replaced the thermite with an inert look-alike.  The three of them will board the ship undercover as personnel.  They’ll stake out the cargo bay where the bomb will be delivered.

At HQ, Ducky arrives in the squad room and hands Gibbs a will.  Most of the money will go to charity.  Ducky was bothered by the photo of Lt. Ramsey’s family.  Gibbs was disturbed too and says he gave the widow a call.  Ducky goes into NCIS-meta-message mode and gives an advertisement for the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.  That’s where his money will go when he dies.

On the Benjamin Franklin, a servicemember approaches the cargo hold while the agents watch. But he’s just meeting a gal for some shipboard sexytime. 

Ziva went on a food run and we see her wandering lost through the carrier.  She returns with the good stuff from the Officer’s Mess.  Tony is grumpy because Burley, in obtaining undercover uniforms, made Ziva an officer and Tony an enlisted.  Also, his stomach is queasy.  But if Ziva tells McGee, he’ll post pics of her in a bikini on the NCIS website. 

A civilian (per Burley, earlier, there are 32 on the carrier) makes an appearance.  He enters a cargo hold and checks a piece of paper.  Burley watches as the perp cuts open the plastic on a pallet.  Then he makes his approach.  But this guy is a little more of a pro than the previous arsonists.  He hears Burley and spins and throws his knife.  From Tony’s perspective, we hear Burley grunt and the sound of a gunshot.  Tony yells Burley’s name. 

And we head to break. 

We return and Tony and Ziva enter the hold.  They find Burley unconscious but alive.  His weapon is gone, though.  We see the perp has it, and he and Tony and Ziva play cat and mouse in the cargo hold.  Until Tony gets the drop on him and knocks him out with a heavy piece of equipment.

Gibbs enters MTAC to see Burley banged up in a hospital bed, but alive.  Ziva IDs the perp as Andre Fullerton, a tech rep with an avionics communications firm.  Gibbs conducts an interrogation remotely on Fullerton, who is in a neck brace.  Fullerton asks about his rights, and Gibbs angrily invokes the Patriot Act, Fullerton being a terrorist on a Navy ship.  Tony explains the impending trip to Gitmo.  Gibbs explains that no one will ever hear from Fullerton again.  Fullerton claims Gibbs is bluffing.  Ziva notes that Gibbs does not bluff.  Fullerton wants a deal.  Gibbs says he has no position for negotiation.  Fullerton hesitates so Gibbs gives the transport order.  But then Fullerton reconsiders and gives up the name Harper Dearing.  Fullerton only spoke to Dearing on the phone once, and thereafter, it was only the Korean code.  Gibbs is unimpressed and tells Fullerton to enjoy Cuba.  Fullerton tries again and says Dearing had a slight Southern drawl.  Gibbs asks why Fullerton did it.  Fullerton says he did it for the money.  A whole lot of money. 

McGee has located seven Harper Dearings in the US.  Four in the South.  He mentions a housewife, a priest, a second grader, and a CEO of a VC group who resides in Virginia.  No criminal or military record.  Gibbs suggests getting the name to Abby.  Maybe she can match Dearing, or a close relative, to the DNA sample. 

Abby arrives at work to find Gibbs in her lab.  He is cleaning his weapon while he waits for her.  She previously told Gibbs that Dearing had a son, Evan, in the Navy, so Gibbs asks if there’s a match.  Abby checks her email.   There’s a 99.9% probability that Dearing is the guy. 

Gibbs and McGee and a team invade Dearing’s office.  Vincent Maple, the president of the company, has no idea where Dearing is.  He hasn’t seen or heard from him in over a year. 

Ziva, Tony, and Burley arrive in the squad room.  Gibbs has mobilized the entire office.  He slaps Dearing’s photo over the x-ed out photo of Osama bin Laden on the Most Wanted wall.  He tells everyone to get to work.

And that’s all. 

Quotables: Nothing of note.

Time Until Sexual Harassment: About 32 minutes in, Tony blackmails Ziva with photos of her in a swimsuit.

Ziva-propisms: Ziva calls Mrs. Johnson an angry “screw,” but she means, “shrew.”

Tony Awards:  Abby references Hellfighters (1968).  It’s a John Wayne movie, so Gibbs has actually seen it.

Abby Road:  Abby keeps to business.

McNicknames: McChopper.  Ziva calls Tony “Agent Di-Nosy.”

Ducky Tales: Ducky lectures Gibbs on how to make tea.

The Rest of the Story:

-We first learned of McGee’s seasickness in Bikini Wax, Episode 2.18.

-We learned of Ducky’s mother’s death, and his efforts to sell her home and move, in Double Identitiy, Episode 7.17.

-Palmer designated Abby his best man last episode.  Rekindled, Episode 9.21.

-Hmmm…I wonder if that’s the same landlady who…well, that’s on down the road.

-Burley was Tony before Tony was Tony.  We met him in High Seas, Episode 1.6.

-Kate also got lost on a carrier.  High Seas, Episode 1.6. 

-Tony’s took photos of Ziva in a swimsuit after Director Shepard excused them from their security detail in Judgment Day, Part One, Episode 5.18.  They made a re-appearance in Agent Afloat, Episode 6.2.

-It makes zero sense that a man careful enough to communicate in Korean code would use his real name on a phone call with an arsonist.  Although, in fairness, later episodes show Dearing to be a bit on the recklessly indifferent side.

-Stan Burley has two more appearances in him.

Casting Call: Nobody stands out. 

Man, This Show Is Old: I’m not sure that Mrs. Johnson having a mortgaged house she can’t sell is a feature of a particular time period, but it would have resonated significantly in 2012, even four years after the subprime crisis.

MVP: Tony brains a perp with a large piece of machinery and out-manlys Burley in the process.

Rating: We’re still playing set-up with this one, but the episode did a good job building both mystery and tension.  That’s a seven.

Next Time: Who is Harper Dearing?

Shameless Plugs:

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Alex Barfield is an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia. When not practicing law or writing about NCIS, he chases his children around, volunteers at his church, grumbles about Atlanta sports, and looks for other television shows to obsess over. He can be reached at albarfie@hotmail.com or on Twitter at @AlexBarfield1 or on Facebook.