1.07: "Sub Rosa"

by Mindy

Kate’s day does not start well – she has a cold, she has Tony teasing her about it and then she accidentally spills Gibbs’ coffee. Gibbs looks stricken. Tony looks scared. Kate looks incredulous. Gibbs storms out and Tony explains uneasily:
          “I’ve never experienced Gibbs without his morning coffee before. We’re in uncharted waters here, Kate.”

A body has been found at Norfolk, made virtually unidentifiable by being left in a drum full of acid. At the crime scene, they meet the case agent for Norfolk, Agent McGee, who nearly barfs at the gruesome remains as Ducky takes a look.
          “I’ve heard stories about Special Agent Gibbs,” he tells Tony, somewhat starstruck.
          “Only half of them are true,” replies Tony: “Trick is figuring out which half.”

Gibbs speaks with one of the MP’s on scene, noting that since the victim was found on base, he was most likely enlisted. He sees protestors outside the gate where inspection procedures are being carried out. They carry placards about technology killing whales and he asks the MP why he doesn’t just shoot them. (Yes, those pesky environmentalists – always trying to exercise their democratic rights and preserve our precious planet despite our governments trying to destroy it. Bastards.)

Agents Todd, DiNozzo and McGee, all stand around Papa Bear in their first group shot, as they teleconference with Ducky and Abby. Ducky deduces from a partial tattoo that the victim was a submariner then goes into a detailed history on tattooing, while Gibbs asks McGee for the names of all those deployed on Subs out of Norfolk.

But when no one is missing, he suspects that someone has taken the place of the murdered man. He is about to pay a visit to the Submarine Squadron Commander when McGee warns him that he can be a difficult man to deal with.

Gibbs rounds on him and marches up to the young agent.
          “You don’t think,” he growls warningly, getting right in McGee’s face: “That I can be very difficult??”
Kate and Tony exchange amused/knowing looks.
          “I’m sure you can, sir,” gulps McGee, and Gibbs smiles, smug and satisfied.

Captain Veitch is unimpressed by Gibbs’ theory but allows him to check out the members of the subs still in port. Gibbs’ is more concerned about the Philadelphia which is already a day out, and suggests that he and Kate join her and interview the new crew members.

Veitch, who has been eying Kate disapprovingly all along, informs him that women are a huge inconvenience on a sub. He suggests Gibbs take another agent and Kate is blatantly shocked when Gibbs stonily tells her to step out of the room. She leaves unhappily but obediently and only when she’s gone does Gibbs extol her qualifications and insist that she come with him. Seething in silence outside, Kate rounds on Gibbs’ as soon as he exits. He smiles like he expects it, and would be highly disappointed if she didn’t stand up for herself; he allows her to rant, relishing her wrath, completely unperturbed.
          “What is this, Victorian England?? What, the men with their cigars and brandy while the women sip tea in another room? I’m more qualified for this investigation than Tony! To replace me because I shave my legs and not my face is unconscionable and certainly not in the best interests of the case.”
          “You claustrophobic?” he asks calmly when she’s done.
          “No,” she answers confused.
          “Good,” he nods and walks off into the sunset.
          “I’m going?” she asks delightedly to his back and Tony smiles, reminding her to wax.

On board the Philadelphia, Gibbs buts heads again with the Skipper who is much more interested in war games than his investigation. He and Kate conduct interviews with the newest crew members and most likely imposters but find nothing conclusive on any of them.

Back at HQ, Abby has made a visual representation of the victim based on bone structure and sends it to Tony at Norfolk. McGee asks him what Abby looks like (despite having seen her on the video conference earlier) but Tony tells him she’s not his type.
          “How do you know?” frowns McGee.
          “Have you ever had the slightest urge to tattoo your buttocks?” asks Tony.
          “I don’t think so,” McGee stumbles.
          “Then we need never speak of her again,” Tony concludes and orders him to circulate the photo.

Gibbs and Kate deduce that the records they’re checking the new crew against may have been altered so Gibbs orders Tony to check out personnel and if there’s anything hinky that end. He takes McGee with him and while Tony flirts with a redhead, McGee asks if anyone had quit recently, to which the answer is yes. So they go off to check the address of the former employee.

On the Philadelphia, Gibbs keeps shoving water at Kate and, when she asks why he tells her she needs to distract the COB (Chief of the Boat) who is guarding their quarters.
          “You don’t need to drown me,” Kate snips: “You could just ask.” She slips out and asks the COB to show her the facilities and Gibbs sneaks off to confront the petty officer he is most suspicious of. The kid lied in his interview but apparently is on the up and up and Gibbs is caught and escorted back to his cabin with Kate, both of whom are amused by their little prank. But the COB is not and when he goes Kate asks Gibbs:
          “Do people react that way because we’re NCIS, or do you just have that effect on them?”
          “I like to think it’s me,” Gibbs shrugs.

DiNozzo and McGee check out the address of the guy that quit personnel, a cabin in the woods that is completely deserted. Instead of following proper procedure, Tony suggests they play football….with a rock. McGee watches in alarm as he dodges back and forth on the grass, supplying his own deranged, one-man commentary and then hurls the rock through the glass of the door, shattering it to pieces.
          “He’s still got it,” Tony comments proudly then enters the house as McGee follows, absolutely aghast.

They find a secret room hung with posters and stuff about submarines killing whales. McGee examines the guys’ computer, telling Tony that he trained at MIT and Johns Hopkins, and pronouncing that what they’ve got is an eco-terrorist who plans on releasing a gas onboard the submarine. Tony finds a little canister that carries the poison.

They send this info off to the Philadelphia and the Commander orders the crew to surface immediately. In their little room, Kate and Gibbs are suddenly thrown against the wall, as the pressure in the sub increases. She lands on top of him, clinging onto him with both hands and wondering what’s happening.
          “Emergency blow,” Gibbs tells her with a strangled voice as he glances down at her plastered onto his chest. The sub rockets out of the water and they jolt back to earth.
          “Wow,” breathes Kate, not moving.
          “Yeah,” shuffles Gibbs awkwardly: “that’s what they all tell me.”
She purses her lips and pulls away, giving him a little shove on the chest as he grins and heads out to speak to the captain.

Back at HQ, Abby has dug up photos from independent sources to match against her own representation and finds the one that doesn’t match up with the altered service records. She sends a message to the sub that the man who has been replaced is Petty Officer Drew. But when Abby’s message comes through, Drew has run to the head and when Gibbs and Kate try to find him, he’s in his bunk, with a plastic bag over his head, suffocated. Apparently he and the personnel dude were part of a small radical eco-terrorist set. Tony shows Abby the device they found at the cabin and she analyzes it, saying it is triggered by cold to release gas.
          “Is Agent McGee cute?” she asks, amid all the case-related talk.
          “Can a guy be cute to you without body art?” Tony asks skeptically.
          “Sure,” smiles Abby: “I’m not a snob.”

On da Philadelphia, Kate asks Gibbs what’s bugging him and he says he is convinced Drew would have had a backup plan. A steward interrupts their speculation, bringing them a tray full of ice cream because they need somewhere to store the body and the freezer is all they’ve got. Gibbs sits down to eat then, stops and rushes out of the room.

They pull the body out of the freezer, realizing that Drew swallowed the device, knowing he would be put in there and that the device would be activated by the temperature to release the gas. They haul him out and shoot him out into the ocean like a torpedo.

Back at HQ, McGee turns up to hand in his report and take Abby to lunch. Tony laughs and says he’ll show him the way. At the elevator, he gently suggests that Abby’s not his type but McGee grins that he’s take care of it.
          “Remember that urge we were talking of?” he confesses proudly, indicating his buttocks:
          “I went with ‘Mom’.”

Tony’s face freezes in shock as Gibbs and Kate watch from afar. Kate wonders how he rendered Tony completely speechless and Gibbs smirks:
          “He told him he got a tat on his ass.”
 

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Crazy Credits

• article "More than the sum of its body parts" by David Kronke:
  "Each cast member has specific memories of the scene in which his or her character's place in the series became clear, and it's usually through deviating from the original script. Interestingly, Bellisario agrees with their assessments.

  Weatherly remembers, "We had to break into this house, and they had written that I threw this rock through the window. I was feeling a little randy and went wild with a little improv. Harmon was a (college) quarterback - he wasn't there that day, but to make the crew laugh, I did this thing: 'He's in the pocket, he's looking downfield - look at the alacrity with which he bounces to and fro!' The next day in dailies, I got in a little trouble for veering from the script, but it worked in the episode, because it became clear that DiNozzo is not dumb but an enthusiastic guy who has some left-of-center ideas about things." "

  The scene was in the opening credits for Season 2.

• article "Weatherly and Murray are brothers in arms on 'NCIS'" by Kate O'Hare:
  Weatherly recalls Murray's first episode, when the nervous newcomer was earnestly delivering his lines.

  "While we're rolling," Weatherly says, "I'm just feeling up all the material in his jacket."

  "He's playing with my lapel," Murray says.

  "I'm checking the labels," Weatherly continues, "checking the material. Not for a moment am I listening to what the man's saying. I just want to know what his thread count is."

  Later, after throwing a rock through a window, Weatherly broke into an impromptu victory dance of sorts.

  "That's when you knew I was out of my mind," Weatherly says.

  Murray sighs. "Yes. I remember they cut to a shot of me going, "What?' And that was really me going, "What the hell are you doing?' "

• article TV's Top Everymen" by Bill Keveney:
  Murray, who got married in November [2005], is more vague about his character's odd-couple relationship with Goth lab genius Abby (Pauley Perrette). It started as a gag at the end of Murray's first guest appearance and was much more obvious before he became a regular. Now, "we like it to be ambiguous," he says. Besides, the two brainy characters "are having love affairs with our own computers."