Season 8, Episode 20
Ice Queen
Directed by Donald P. Bellisario
Written by Bellisario & Don Mc Gill
A Boy Scout Finds the decomposing body of Lieutenant Singer in a tree, and Harm becomes the prime suspect. Part 1 of the NCIS Backdoor Pilot.
During an innocent outing in the woods, Boy Scouts are practicing their archery. One misses the target and goes to retrieve his arrow in the woods... but much to his and his troop leader's horror, he finds it embedded in a corpse, taking away all pretense of innocence.
Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS) is called in to investigate the death, discovering that the victim has lost both her face and her unborn child, meaning two lives have been snuffed out. Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and his team work to uncover the mystery behind the death of Loren Singer, and find themselves entangled with JAG Headquarters.
Commander Harmon Rabb, Jr. quickly becomes the top suspect. Agent Blackadder (Robyn Lively) thinks Gibbs should read Rabb his rights. But Gibbs thinks Rabb is too brilliant a lawyer that if he's tipped off too early, he'll figure out a way to get off on a technicality.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: Nobody felt particularly sorry for Lt. Singer's passing.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Rabb dares Gibbs to ask him a question to determine if he's lying about not having killed Singer.
- Harm: If you can tell when a person's lying, ask me!
Gibbs: Would you kill for your brother?
- Bus Crash: Lt. Loren Singer is killed offscreen - in fact, she was retroactively killed months before - and does not appear in the episode. Nanci Chambers' last credit as Singer is in the next episode, "Meltdown", where she appears only in flashbacks to previous episodes.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Vivian Blackadder is the Special Agent set up as a main character, but ultimately doesn’t appear at all in the actual series, with Kate Todd and later Ziva assuming her place on the team.
- Tony has his hair dyed black and is not making constant movie references
- Abby's trademark pigtails are very small and unremarkable and her gothic qualities are low-key
- Ducky is more of a Creepy Mortician here, joking about the appearance of his dead victim in contrast to his later tendency to pay Due to the Dead, after trying to flirt with an agent old enough to be his daughter while standing over said dead body at it’s dumping location.
- The autopsy lab looks a lot less metallic than it does in NCIS proper, while in the squadroom, the infamous orange walls are not quite as prominent. Additionally, MTAC seems to be in a seperate space entirely rather than being located on the mezzanine just above the squadroom.
- Furthermore, Team Gibbs’ desks seem to be placed in the middle of the squadroom space near some stairs as opposed to being near a wall with a large window
- Ducky arrives at the scene ahead of Gibbs and the team, whereas in the series the opposite would generally be true
- When introducing herself, Agent Blackadder uses the full agency name, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, rather than simply NCIS as most agents would do in the series proper.
- Friend to All Children: After Tommy panics from finding the dead body in the Cold Open, Gibbs demonstrates this by giving him his NCIS hat.
- Miranda Rights: Rather, Article 31 rights. Gibbs reads them to Rabb as he's declared a suspect.
- Perky Goth: Abby.
- Poorly Disguised Pilot: The episode not only spends most of its time on the stars-to-be of NCIS, relegating the main cast of JAG to guest stars in their own show, it's shot, edited and scored very differently to a typical JAG episode, easily standing out as a Backdoor Pilot.
- Real Men Take It Black: While interrogating Rabb, Gibbs asks for black coffee, and offers Rabb some, which he accepts.
- Rule of Three: As he's being interrogated, Gibbs addresses Rabb by his last name. He retorts by giving him three different titles to address him by.
- Harm: That's Commander Rabb, Commander, or Sir, Gunny!
- Special Edition Title: The starring roles are in a different font and gray filling rather than yellow.
- They Call Me Mr Tibbs: Rabb insists he be addressed by his rank.
- Rabb is invoking That's an Order!, since he surmises that Gibbs is a Gunnery Sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserves. Gibbs corrects him by saying his status as a Special Agent with NCIS trumps the military protocol.
