A Year of NCIS, Day 262: Choke Hold (Episode 12.4)

Episode: Choke Hold, Episode 12.4.

Air Date: October 7, 2014.

The Victim: Sofia Glazman, NRL.

Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: We get a “Previously on NCIS,” to remind us of the events of Twenty Klicks, Episode 12.1 and the threat from Sergei Mishnev: Russian mercenary, terrorist abettor, and friend to dead NCIS supervillain (and murderer of Kate Todd) Ari Haswari way back in Twilight, Episode 2.23.  Sergei shot down the helicopter Gibbs was traveling on in Russia and he and his men chased Gibbs, McGee, and an NCIS systems analyst-turned-traitor named Kevin through the forest.  It ended with all of Sergei’s men dead at Gibbs’s hands, and Sergei himself shot and also seemingly dead. Sergei survived, though.

In the present, two cops are patrolling the National Mall.  One is laughing at how he scared a 12-year-old girl smoking a cigarette.  The other is laughing at him.  They find a woman on a bench.  Since the park is closed, that’s not kosher.  They tell her to get lost, but she doesn’t move. She’s dead, with clear marks of strangulation.  Or she appears to be.  In reality, she is holding the wound in her neck closed in a desperate attempt to stay still and not bleed out.  Her eyes open as the cops begin frantically calling 911 and she begs them not to touch her.  We see from her badge that she works at Naval Research Labs.

Plot Recap: McGee is reading GSM.  We haven’t seen that in a while.  It’s an article about exotic sex moves that Tony has not only heard of but…boy, he’s really reverting to form without Ziva!  Anyway, McGee doesn’t want to know.  Mostly.  Bishop arrives and they try to change the subject.  Sadly, from a legal standpoint, they only end up changing it to the subject of whether she’s the sex police.  So now she feels obligated to open the magazine and point all the stuff she has done with her husband.  As a management-side employment lawyer, I am quite literally cringing. 

Fortunately, Gibbs arrives to manage this (in a way he never did in earlier seasons).  He confiscates the magazine with a glare and tells the agents to “Grab their gear.”

At the scene, we learn that the victim did not survive.  The team interviews the Mall police.  When they found the victim, as we saw, she had the wire cutting into her neck.  When neither the police nor the EMTs could get at the wire, they had to take her to the hospital.  She passed out from blood loss in the ambulance…and then the cops get cryptic, talking about a device and about how they now understand why the victim didn’t want to be touched.

Gibbs approaches Ducky at the ambulance without getting any resolution.  And since Ducky has two body bags, it’s clear that NCIS is uncharacteristically in the dark. 

Awp.  Inside the ambulance, there’s blood everywhere and our victim, Sofia Glazman, is in the unfortunate state of having her head separated from her body.  Th head is lying by itself on the floor of the vehicle.  The blood is so extensive that McGee and Tony know that they will have to wear rain gear to process the scene.

Ducky reports that the head and the body will have to be transported separately, per procedure.  Hence the two body bags.  Tony picks up a device that Gibbs describes as a motorized garotte.  Tony pantomimes how the device works: a motorized noose that keeps getting tighter until it closes.  Hence the cervical vertebra on the wire and the spatter from the carotid artery.  Tony figures the motor must have jammed, which is why the victim didn’t want to be moved.  But once they loaded her onto the ambulance…wugh.

The takeaway is that this was a slow enough and brutal enough killing that someone wanted to send a message.

In the conference room, an elderly gentleman named Dr. Havana states that Sofia was like a granddaughter to him.  And, in light of the setting of the interview, he is not a suspect.  So why the hell Bishop is showing him grisly crime scene photos?  He declines to look, but that’s not going to be much of a tell given the state of the corpse.  I’d decline too. 

Dr. Havana demands that Sofia’s laptop and such be returned immediately, and Bishop and McGee are nice enough not to laugh at him.  He exposits that they have a test to run the next day.  The lab is working on laser technology.  But for data transfer, not weapons use.  McGee flexes his Hopkins/MIT pedigree and lays out the current state of laser data transfer technology.  Bishop calls this a “humble brag,” demonstrating that she doesn’t understand the concept.  She’s being nice.  There wasn’t anything humble about it.  Especially McGee’s smirk when he announced his alma maters. 

But now Dr. Havana, as a CalTech man, wants to have nerd school beef with McGee.  Bishop thinks they should get along and asks if both schools have a beaver as a mascot.  I honestly don’t know because neither CalTech nor MIT is good enough at sports for me to pay attention to them.  And my kids aren’t old enough to apply (and will be forced to go to UPenn School of Engineering and Applied Science regardless- Go Quakers).  But both McGee and Dr. Havana stare at her like she said something irrelevant-stupid, not incorrect-stupid, so I guess she’s right.  She changes the subject back to the case.

Good scene.

Anywho, the laser tech isn’t cost-effective at present, according to Dr. Havana.  This is all still just proof of concept.  We get some background that Glazman’s parents died when she was young and Dr. Havana recruited her from Moscow Institute of Technology.  So she’s Russian.  She later became a U.S. citizen.  Dr. Havana says she spent all her time in the lab and had no social life.  Still, Bishop has Sofia’s effects, and they include a photo of Sofia with a girl named Nellie Benin whom Dr. Havana identifies as Sofia’s lab partner in Moscow.  Nelly stayed in Russia, but the two had a professional rivalry despite being best of friends.

Abby has mannequins in the lab again.  She is testing the motorized garotte.  It uses a braided alloy wire that is very difficult to cut.  Every cog and coil is custom engineered for size and strength.  Gibbs is not so impressed since it broke.  Abby has been looking at that too.  There was a sticky substance inside.  There were no prints or hair fiber, but the substance that gunked up the device is from a marijuana derivative.  Meaning whoever built it must have smoked a lot of pot during the process.  If Gibbs can find the killer’s stash, she can match it to what she found in the device.

Tony calls Gibbs and reports that Vance wants them to meet him at the Pentagon.

We go to the Pentagon.  Or rather, a non-descript concrete hall of the Pentagon.  Vance is also in the dark as to the purpose of the gathering.  SecNav wanted an off-the books meeting in a secret Pentagon war room, so that’s where they’re headed.  And by “War room,” they mean “Men’s room.”  Tony is only along to guard the entrance, which was Vance’s idea.  Tony’s hopes that SecNav personally requested him are dashed.  Gibbs manages not to smirk.

Inside, SecNav is vaguely disgusted by urinals and says so.  She calls it “pigs at a trough.”  Gibbs correctly points out that, at some places, it literally is a trough.  Fenway, Wrigley- Vance nods in approval and seconds the stadium theme.  For what it’s worth, the men’s room at my high school football stadium had a trough.  We thought it was hysterical when we were kids.

SecNav probably regrets starting all of this and moves on.  SecNav mentions the Glazman case and says her office was contacted by a foreign embassy claiming to have helpful intel.  Vance wants to know which one, but SecNav promised (then) Secretary of State John Kerry that she’d fly this plane below the radar.  Gibbs doesn’t give a shit and asks which embassy.

Outside, Tony has a meet-cute with a gal exiting the lady’s room.  He claims he’s waiting on a buddy.  This gets interrupted when Anton Pavlenko of the Russian Embassy appears with a security escort.  Tony knows him from MTAC conversations during Twenty Klicks, Episode 12.1.  Pavlenko knows Tony is NCIS but at least purports to blank on his name.  Once he gets the name, he knows that Tony led the Finns onto Russian soil at the end of Twenty Klicks to rescue Gibbs and McGee.  Tony affirms his role and points out that it was a necessary rescue mission because the Russians were just sitting on their dicks at the time.  Ironically, SecNav invites Pavlenko into the men’s room before he and Tony can measure more.

Tony’s new female friend laughingly asks, “Was that the Secretary of the Navy?” and I think SecState is not going to be too impressed with the secrecy on this one.

Back in the john, Pavlenko expresses relief that Gibbs survived his “accident” with the helicopter.  Gibbs, with muted anger, questions this choice of words.  SecNav says they have other fish to fry.  Pavlenko is there for help.  Pavlenko hands over a photo of Nellie Benin.  He calls her a valued asset but thinks she is now working for terrorists.  Working for Sergei Mishnev specifically.  Benin’s colleague was found in Moscow, decapitated like our victim.  Pavlenko says Benin is in DC.  Pavlenko wants NCIS to find Benin and stop her by any means necessary.  Vance figures in return, the Russians will want it all kept quiet.  SecNav cuts through some of the tension and announces a joint NCIS/FBI manhunt for Benin.  A subtle, quiet, joint manhunt.

Outside, Tony is still talking to that girl.  She’s lightly inquires about the Cold War-era pow-wow in the men’s room, but Tony calls the meeting need-to-know.  Also, he needs to know her phone number. 

Enh, SecNav comes out of the men’s room and steps on Tony’s johnson.  The girl Tony is talking to is FBI Special Agent Pendergast.  She’ll be handling lead for the FBI in the joint manhunt.

What?  No Fornell?  Bah, I say!  Bah!

Gibbs just looks at Tony.  Because he knows Tony has been working moves.  It’s pretty funny, as throwaway scenes go.

Now we’re in MTAC.  Bishop has checked on Pendergast and she’s a former US Marshall turned joint terrorism task force leader and FBI manhunter.  Pendergast joins and banter ensues.  She calls McGee “Gumby.”  She says her first name is Leia and she hates Star Wars because of it.  Gibbs arrives and Pendergast starts a briefing on Benin.  She’s a scientist suspected of ties to a Russian terrorist group and of murdering two people.  She entered the US with her passport before it was flagged by Interpol.  A BOLO is out for obvious reasons. 

Now it’s NCIS’ turn.  They’ve looked at Benin and she does not fit the profile (wait, that’s  another show…).  She was a model citizen and while she got a ticket for streaking at the Sochi Olympics, streaking is not one of the early indicators of murderous propensities.  Gibbs is less trusting of Russian intel than Pendergast and refuses to be led by the nose.  Pendergast wonders what NCIS has that the FBI doesn’t.  Gibbs smiles.

And we head down to the lab.  Gibbs sent Pendergast down alone because he figured she and Abby would get along.  That may have been sarcasm and there’s some light beef over Abby’s animal rights stance and the fact that Pendergast has a lucky rabbit’s foot next to her badge.  But they move past this.  Abby found a deleted email sent to Sofia in the hard drive sent over from Dr. Havana.  It’s from a junk account but mentions a meeting at a nearby bar.  Sofia was headed to this meeting when she was attacked.  Abby can’t identify the account holder, but she traced the email to Russia.  Pendergast thinks it could have been a lure by Benin. 

In the squad room, Tony is smitten by Pendergast, and the others think she’s manipulating him.  Gibbs arrives and wants an update on something relevant.  And it turns out that his agents found Benin in the airport security line during an unforeseen delay that the Russians couldn’t have known about.  Meaning, Benin was stuck in line while Sofia was being murdered. 

McGee’s computer chirps, and he reports that Glazman is getting a call on her cell phone from the bar mentioned in the email Abby found.  Tony thinks trap.  McGee and Bishop have a better idea.  They think Benin is trying to defect.  The call may be an SOS since Benin has to figure Sofia’s cell is monitored.  Or, Tony counters, Benin could be strapped to a bomb waiting for NCIS to show.  Gibbs breaks the logjam and says they will go to the bar and at least start by asking nicely.  They will not notify the FBI.

At the bar, a bar mitzvah is taking place.  Gibbs makes Benin at the bar.  Gibbs and Bishop sit at tables nearby to cover and McGee approaches.  It’s a good approach.  His dialogue over what she’s drinking sound like a pick-up, but contains just enough hints about whether she’s dangerous to let her know it isn’t a pick-up.  He shows his badge and says he doesn’t believe she’s a killer.  She opens her purse and shows a device and calls it insurance in case she doesn’t like what he has to offer.    

 McGee nods Gibbs over to the bar and then says they can help her defect.  Benin wants to know why he didn’t lead with that.  She tells them she is seeking asylum.  She says she didn’t kill anybody.  But she does need to pee.  McGee is understandably concerned about the bomb, but Benin just pulled out the insides of an old calculator for show. 

Gibbs and McGee lead Benin to the restroom, but a lady is watching them.  We don’t get a sense of whether Bishop made the tail.

Back at HQ, Tony is awkwardly stalling Pendergast.  Pendergast sees the perp wall and thinks it’s weird that Sergei is their #1 target.  Tony, not wanting to give anything away, plays it off.  She asks if the team has desks in the room and Tony lies says they’re all stationed in the Stephen J. Cannell annex.  Sadly, Pendergast is familiar with The A-Team and The Rockford Files and The Greatest American Hero, so Tony’s fake reference doesn’t work.  Pendergast catches on that NCIS found Benin and cut her out of the collar. 

Benin and Bishop are in the bar bathroom.  Since Bishop has her hand on her gun and a frowny face, it’s clear that she’s not sold.  Everybody is jumpy and Benin accidentally spills open the paper towel holder.  Like a good citizen, she bends down to clean up.  We see in the stall the lady from the bar.  She is sitting on the toilet, pretending to pee, but her pants her up.  She has another one of those motorized garotte devices. 

So, I guess Bishop didn’t make the tail after all.  Although how the assassin thinks she’ll garotte a lady with three federal agents in earshot, one in the room, is mystifying.  She’s gonna go for it, though, when Gibbs walks in to hurry the ladies along.  Recalculating the odds, our lady says “Pardon,” and walks past Gibbs.  Gibbs pauses, his Gibbs sense tingling.  Also, he smelled marijuana.

Man, who tokes up before a killing spree?  That’s ice cold.

Gibbs tries to follow the assassin out the back door, but she has creatively used the garotte to jam the door. 

Off to break.

Gibbs throws (one of) the garotte(s) onto the table in interrogation.  Benin has no idea who the lady is, but she knows she’s working for Sergei.  Benin had no idea who Sergei was until he approached her the previous week.  Sergei wanted to hire her.  But he refused to say for what.  She politely declined.  Gibbs shows the picture of Benin’s decapitated Russian colleague.  She calls him, “Mikhail.”  She told him about the job, and he said Sergei made him the same offer on the same day.  Benin got a call saying Mikhail was murdered and she could either take the job or be next.  Now she wants asylum, but Gibbs notes that murder suspects don’t get citizenship.  He thinks Benin is holding back on him.

Benin says she and Sofia had been competing on the same research and Sofia was the only person she could turn to.  It never occurred to her that Sergei would kill Sofia too.  Gibbs says, somewhat naively, that Russia has police.  Benin says Sergei made clear he had enough friends in the police department to shut that down.  Gibbs thinks this is all sketch, but Benin demands to know who told him she murdered her friends.

Cut to Pavlenko.  He is in Vance’s office.  Vance has surrendered the desk chair to SecNav.  Pavlenko says he knows NCIS has Benin.  Vance and SecNav play close to the vest, but Vance lets drop that they know Benin isn’t a killer.  SecNav calls Pavlenko out for his bad intel.  Pavlenko blames his superiors.  But, since Benin is no longer a suspect, he’d like her back.  Vance still hasn’t acknowledged that they have Benin.  Pavlenko threatens international repercussions and doesn’t figure the U.S. will burn the political capital over a scientist.

Pavlenko leaves and SecNav admits he’s right.  Vance is more concerned over how the Russians founds out NCIS had Benin, and calls for Gibbs.

Outside interrogation, Pendergast is pacing the hall.  Tony joins.  He admits they had Benin but they couldn’t tell Pendergast until they interrogated Benin.  He invites her into an interrogation room and jauntily insists they talk about it.  Tony wants to know if Pendergast ratted them out to the Russians.  Pendergast puffs up about being accused of treason, but Tony calls it “light treason.”  Tony did some digging.  Pendergast has been assigned to protect three Russian emissaries and the Russian embassy even specifically requested her for this assignment.  Tony has the goods too and shows that $28k was deposited in Pendergast’s account at the beginning of the month from an offshore account.  Pendergast doesn’t cave.  She grabs Tony’s coat and says she could kill him, and then denies being a traitor and a murderer.  For what it’s worth, Tony believes her, but she needs to come clean about the money.  She tells him to go ahead and trace it.  Then she says her father has a lot of money and sends her cash once per year.  They lightly bond over trouble with fathers.  But then she’s all business and tells Tony that Benin has a plane back to Russia to catch.  Tony sort of sniffs at Pendergast’s mercenary nature.  It’s clear that all of the team thinks she’s more a bounty hunter than someone concerned with justice.

Benin is freaking out in the garage.  She figures she’s dead if she returns to Russia and the Russian government won’t do a thing to stop Sergei.  Vance is sorry.  Pendergast is stone-faced.  Gibbs keeps his counsel. 

I’m not sure how, “You should admit me to your country or I will end up being threatened into sharing my vast scientific knowledge with a terrorist group hell-bent on killing federal agents” isn’t a more dispositive argument.  But we still have twelve minutes left.

Pendergast will drive.  Vance puts Benin in the car.  Gibbs just stares.  But then Bishop comes rushing out of the elevator.  Too late.  They identified the assassin as Renata Atal, a Russian expat with a reputation for killing people with unusual weapons.  Bishop thinks knowing the killer’s identify means they can get Benin back and protect her.  Vance disagrees.  Gibbs wants to know if Tony and McGee have this information.  Since they weren’t at their desks, Bishop says they do not.  Gibbs says to inform them immediately and hurries off.

In the car, Benin is still pleading her case to Pendergast.  Pendergast gets it, but Benin isn’t worth starting a war over.  Pendergast makes a tail.  Then she makes the questionable decision to leave the public street and head into a deserted parking garage.  Tony calls and tells Pendergast to stay in the car.  She is indeed being followed.  Both by Tony and McGee and the assassin.  Pendergast is a little surprised Tony was tailing her too, but now is not the time to fight about it.

Renata the assassin is casing the deck.  She locates Pendergast’s car.  But then she sees Tony and McGee pull up and stare her down.  Foiled again, she rabbits.  But not far before NCIS cuts her off.  She might have tried to ram her giant SUV through a couple of federal agents, but it’s a low percentage play given how close she was when they cut her off.  No momentum and no time to get any before the hail of bullets hit.

The boys tell Renata to put her hands on the wheel.  She complies.  Pendergast and Benin exit the car behind her.  Then Renata simply says, “I know” and kills herself with her own garotte.  Benin asks the obvious question as to how Renata knew she was being transferred.

Back at the squad room, Benin is still understandably irate.  Her asylum has been refused.  She was used as bait.  Now her asylum is still being refused.  Pendergast identifies a lack of proof of Russian government complicity in the attack.  Benin notes that only Pavlenko knew she was being transferred. 

Gibbs would like an update.  Ducky has what’s left of Renata.  Abby has Renata’s SUV.  So far, a lot of nothing.

Vance calls after Gibbs, but Gibbs dodges it.  He takes Pendergast with him to go see Ducky.  He has a lady’s body with no head laid out on his table, and man this is a gory episode. 

Ducky doesn’t have much beyond being able to favorably compare Renata’s injuries to Sofia’s injuries.  But Abby appears to report that the weed residue on the third garotte matches the other two and ties Renata to the original murder.  The SUV is clean so far.  Abby also ran deep background on Renata and Pavlenko.  Renata was a pro, so if she’s connected to Pavlenko, there’s no paper trail.  Abby needs more time. 

But SecNav appears and reports that time is up.  They have the murderer and it’s time to give the Russians what they want.

In the garage, Gibbs and Tony meet Pavlenko.  The plane is waiting for Benin, but Pavlenko wants to talk.  Gibbs laughs and tells Pavlenko to tell Sergei hi.  Pavlenko denies a connection.  Gibbs notes Pavlenko’s history of lying.  Pavlenko calls it motivation.  Pavlenko denies having anything to do with the deaths.  He offers his card and better relations going forward.  Gibbs says, “I know where to find you.” 

Pendergast delivers Benin.  Benin is freaking out.  Pavlenko is making smarmy assurances.  Benin manages to get Pendergast’s gun and aims it at Pavlenko.  She speaks some Russian and says she is not going home.  Gibbs and Tony gets their guns out, but Gibbs tells Tony to stand down.  Tony makes a confused face, but listens.  Pavlenko is begging Gibbs to do something as Benin continues to point the gun.  Gibbs tries to talk her down.  “This isn’t the way,” Gibbs says.

He speaks Russian to her, telling Benin that they’ll get Sergei, but not like this.  Benin looks like she’s lowering the gun, but Pendergast has a side piece.  As Pavlenko begs someone to do something, Pendergast puts three in Benin’s chest.

Gibbs checks Benin.  Tony is angry.  But Pendergast says she was just doing her job.  Gibbs doesn’t find a pulse.  He approaches Pavlenko, silently furious.  Pavlenko, still afraid, says that Benin was dangerous after all, and that he will tell Moscow the truth and that the Americans were helpful and Benin is no longer a threat or Russia’s concern.  Pavlenko stresses that it didn’t have to end like this.  Then he gets in the car and leaves.

NCIS is processing the scene.  Bishop thinks that Pavlenko wanting Benin dead proves that he’s part of Sergei’s group.  Not really- she’s speculating.  But McGee throws the ice water of diplomatic immunity on Bishop’s speculation.  SecNav appears and demands to see Gibbs.  Gibbs gets out of the NCIS van parked nearby.  SecNav is pissed and wants to know how this happened in their own house.   

McGee gets a call.  It’s base security reporting that Pavlenko is gone.  Gibbs beats on the van door while SecNav is still yelling at him.  Ducky is inside and jovially greets her.  Also inside, an alive Benin, being treated by Ducky.  Well, he’s not so much treating her as to try to get the stains from the fake blood squibs out of her shirt. 

I bet you saw that coming, didn’t you?

SecNav looks stern.  Gibbs responds, “You said give the Russians what they want.  We did.”  SecNav gives a little smile. 

Pendergast is telling Tony about shooting blanks.  Tony is mad that he was left out of the loop, but Pendergast says it was her one condition for going along.  Guess she’s still mad about Tony stalling her while the team picked up Benin.  And accusing her of treason.  They squabble over who is a better agent.  It comes out that Pendergast used her contacts with the Russians to sell this op.  Uhhhh…well, see below.  It ends with Tony asking for her number and Pendergast telling him that he is the detective.  But…she says it with a smile.  She’ll take his call.

She leaves.  McGee isn’t buying it.  Gibbs would never leave Tony out of the loop.  He didn’t.  Bishop wants to know why Tony bothered fighting with Pendergast.  Tony smiles and says, “She fights back!”  Then he frowns and says, “I have a type.”

Quotables:

(1) Cop #1: Did you see that kid’s face when I flashed my cuffs?

Cop #2: She was 12 and sneaking a smoke in the park. That was probably her first cigarette.

Cop #1: Eh, thanks to me, she’ll think twice before smoking a second one. You’re welcome, health care system!

Cop #2 [sees a woman sitting on a bench): Park’s closed, ma’am. Move along.

Cop #1 [holds up cuffs]: Hey, unless you want to put your hands together for old Simon and Garfunkel here… move along.

                                    -It’s fun when the extras are entertaining.

(2) “There’s a bone stuck in this.”

                        -Tony copes with the horror of finding a lightly used motorized garotte.

(3) Abby: When I processed the sticky gunk, it’s actually… a smoke residue, specifically from a strain of cannabis sativa.

Gibbs: Grass?

Abby [chuckles]: Yeah. Grass. If you grew up in the ’60s. Um, and our killer must’ve smoked a lot of it when they were building this thing.

Gibbs: Yeah, we used to call that a “stoner.”

Abby: That term’s actually still culturally relevant.

(4) Gibbs: What do we got?

Bishop: A problem with the timeline.

McGee: And airport security.

Tony: Ugh. Here we go again. Just ’cause your wee little McGee shows up on the full body scanner.

McGee: Hey, it’s an invasion of privacy. But that’s not what I’m talking about here.

(5) Tony: Am I updating the FBI?

Gibbs: No. No, not yet.

Tony: Got it. Uh, if Leia asks?

Gibbs: Geez, DiNozzo, make something up. She’s your girlfriend.

Tony: Why? Did she say something?  Did she mention me by name?

(6) Benin: First you refuse to grant me asylum. Then you use me as bait to lure my assassin out into the open. And now you still plan on turning me in to those responsible?

Pendergast: We don’t have proof.

Benin: Outside of this building, Counselor Pavlenko was the only one who knew I was being transferred.

Tony: It does appear someone tipped off the hit woman.

Pendergast: Yeah, and it still wasn’t me!

Tony: I ask about treason one time.

Time Until Sexual Harassment: Around the three-minute mark, Tony and McGee are openly discussing a magazine article about sex positions and Tony’s experience with the listed moves.  Bishop walks in and they awkwardly change the subject, but then a discussion ensues in which she insists they don’t have to change the subject because she’s not the sex police.  They tell her she kind of is the sex police.  She takes effort to prove she is not.

Once that discussion is happening in a place of work, things are already off the rails.  It means that while her discomfort has been made clear in the past, now the female employee is in the going-along-to-get-along phase.  And still getting mocked for being the sex police.  That’s a classic fact pattern that often leads to (often justifiable and successful) litigation.  And don’t let Bishop’s subsequent participation fool you.  That can be a defense in an administrative charge or lawsuit, but it’s not the slam dunk the lay public thinks it is.  Don’t believe me?  You go say, “What? She wanted it!” to a jury and watch what happens.

Tony Awards: Tony mentions The Counselor (2013).  Star Wars references naturally ensue from the revelation of Pendergast’s first name.  The Stephen J. Cannell annex is a reference to the television producer of shows like The Rockford Files, The A-Team, Renegade, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, and The Commish.  And dozens of others.  Cannell died in 2010.

In addition to the above, Tony also mentions Hardcastle & McCormick. 

Abby Road: Abby stays both straight and narrow.

McNicknames: McGoo.  Gumby.

Ducky Tales: Ducky talks about the guillotine.  And ancient Norse combat techniques and demeanors.  And hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Bishop Be Crazy: Bishop holds it together.

The Rest of the Story:

–GSM is the Maxim of the NCIS universe.

-Rule #2: Always wear gloves.

-I know, “because it’s in the script…” but it feels a little strange that, if the police and paramedics tried to get the wire loose, they couldn’t find the motor part of the device.  And if they did, how was that not a perfect place to cut the wire?

Future me: Ahhh…per Abby, the wire was made of a substance that would resist pedestrian cutting tools.

-Give the special effects people and the camera direction a prize.  As Tony ponders the motorized garotte, there’s a prominent piece of bloody meat attached to it and constantly in the shot.  It is gross-to-quite-gross and I couldn’t unsee it once I noticed it.

-Tony should be over getting attention from SecNavs after Nature of the Beast, Episode 9.1.

-Hopefully the Finns had admitted the incursion onto Russian soil at this point, because, otherwise, Tony sold them out to score points on Pavlenko.

-Why doesn’t Benin have a trace of a Russian accent?  One sort of appears when she’s yelling at Vance in the garage, but that’s pretty late in the game.  And then it disappears again.

-A full accounting of Tony’s troubles with his father would be its own post.  But Flesh and Blood, Episode 7.10, Broken Arrow, Episode 8.7, Sins of the Father, Episode 9.12, and You Better Watch Out, Episode 10.10 will get you most of the way there.

-Sergei not calling off the hit is a little wasteful.  If Benin is headed back to Mother Russia and she’s correct that the Russian government doesn’t care to protect her, Sergei has a pretty persuasive argument that she should come work for him.

-Pavlenko denies knowing Sergei, but we know better because we saw the opening to Twenty Klicks, Episode 12.1.  I wouldn’t call them friends, or even allies, but there’s something there.

-Gibbs speaks fluent Russian.  See, e.g., Faking It, Episode 4.4.

-SecNav should look at all the things that have happened in NCIS’ own house: See a probably not exclusive list of Bete Noir, Episode 1.16, Frame-Up, Episode 3.9, Bloodbath, Episode 3.21, Trojan Horse, Episode 4.23, Ex-File, Episode 5.3, Murder 2.20, Episode 6.16, South by Southwest, Episode 6.17, Kill Switch, Episode 8.16, Till Death Do Us Part, Episode 9.24.

-This is good Cold War TV fun.  Fake the dissident’s death, keep the dissident.  I feel like I’m watching Scarecrow and Mrs. King.  But…well, my first thought was that it’s a little ridiculous that the Russians wouldn’t eventually want to examine the body.  I resolved it by acknowledging that, once someone smarter than Pavlenko points out that he got played, there’s too much plausible deniability for Russia to get tough.

But then Pendergast’s remark makes it sound like the Russians went along with this.  Why would they?  If they know their ambassador is dirty, they should throw him in jail and keep their lady scientist.  If they knew Benin had a good asylum claim and this was better than losing face in public, that makes some sense.  But that means they accept that Pavlenko is rogue.  Are they going to do something about it?

I think it makes more sense that the Russians didn’t know about the scheme.  I guess you could assume Benin isn’t working on anything super-critical.  But then why would Sergei want her?

Casting Call: Pendergast is Stephanie Jacobsen.  She has been in a lot of key shows, but nothing I really watched.                                                              

Man, This Show Is Old: Former Senator and Presidential candidate John Kerry was Secretary of State from 2013 to 2017.

MVP: Gibbs bucked orders and schemed.

Rating: As noted above, the diplomatic backdrop was not realistic.  But the episode was good.  It was suspenseful, the dialogue was solid, it was gory, and it advanced the Sergei plot, however obliquely.  I’ll give it seven Palmers.

Next Time: CGIS power player Abigail Borin makes her seasonal appearance and the team goes up against pirates on the high seas.

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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 exults over Atlanta sports (Go Dawgs! Go Braves!), 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.