1.21: "Split Decision"

by Sammie

Hey, whaddya know. Another group of teenagers doing dumb stuff - human slingshot. "I did the math, bro" - uh huh, and that's why you missed your target by a billion feet. Did ya fail math?

EW...body impaled on stick. The Marine was shot by a shoulder-launched multi-purpose assualt weapon...SMAW.

Back in autopsy, Ducky is wishing desperately he did not make fun of Gerald's tape players, because Gerald at least kept it to himself. Hey tptb, this is NOT the way to make us like the new guy. Palmer is REPEATING everything Ducky says into his tape recorder. (Y'know how annoying it is when your kid sibling keeps repeating what you say? Uh huh.) Then Ducky gives a "duh" solution: let him have the recorder. Palmer is quite lucky they cleaned up his character for Season 2.

Oh, guess what else. His mommy's calling him. He's how old?

Touching Gibbs' desk is like touching the Ark of the Covenant? Bit dramatic here, ain't we, Tony? McGee is running a search on all photos of Brit university grads, hoping to get a hit on the hostage-taker. Ducky provided the Brit part, and Kate provided the age - she's always been good at guessing them. One look at Tony? We now know he's 32. "Based on chronology," says Kate.

Tony is a little envious because Gibbs pats McGee on the head for a good job done, and he gets a smack. (Well, Tony, sweetie, you DID make a crack about Cary Grant movies...about the hostage-taker, Gibbs' personal Moby Dick.) "Aw, doesn't seem fair, does it," Kate replies unsympathetically. "But it is."

It's Staff Sgt. Grimm, a Marine in charge of the armory and a pugilist. Kate and Tony go to look at his apartment. Boy is that rug ugly...think if someone decided to immortalize Kandinsky paintings as rugs. But Tony likes it. "I'll add that to the list of reasons I NEVER want to see your apartment." I agree, Kate.

Abby is looking at Grimm's computer, and she can rebuild it. Last jpeg Grimm looked at? A picture of all these small arms...sitting on his ugly rug.

Grimm was calling Hargrove's pawn shop. Tony is completely desperate to be undercover and puts up a good case for it - another renegade military man "bearing gifts straight from the source" would make her suspicious. His solution?

TONY. Complete and total sleaze. Pure pawn-shop material. And let's face it, I'm a more believable scumbag than you.
KATE. [raising hand] No argument here.
TONY. Me disheveled, you high and tight, me flaky, you solid citizen -

Kate explains what Grimm does and says she'll go through all of Grimm's records and his SRB...and Gibbs replies, "Yeah, you will." Uh oh. Kate has decided it's time to do something about his grouchy attitude.

KATE. You know, Gibbs - I know you're bothered that the terrorist got away, I am too. But - but you might want to think about being less of a gloomy Gus. [nervous laugh]
[!#$%!!! If I said that to Gibbs, I would be seeing STARS right now, to quote McGee.]
GIBBS. Gloomy...Gus...?

Tony, though, loves 'Gus' as he and Abby work on his fake profile. He wants some jail time - something that fits his persona. Abby's got one: "How 'bout violation of federal obscenity laws?" Good one, Abbs.

Tony goes in to the pawnshop...he's quite good. He gets her to come after HIM to drive a bargain - very nice, Tony!

Abby is looking at militia websites to help Tony narrow down who Grimm's buyers were. Ducky said he'd pegged her for the anarchist type...Abby replies, "I used to be an anarchist. ... Too many rules." Funny how theory never works out in pragmatics. She says that the milita stuff is all repeated stuff from before - they aren't saying anything new. So those who don't learn their history are doomed to repeat it - or become the butt of Abby's jokes on a TV show.

Kate is mad. She wants to talk to Cpl. McClain - who gave her the impression earlier that she barely knew Grimm. Turns out McClain was Grimm's partner in moving weapons around the base. McClain's boxing instructor isn't impressed with her either - she won't take orders. She sasses off to Kate, so Kate stops being nice. She pulls out the handcuffs and tells her to turn around. (Go Kate!) McClain tells her that Grimm dropped her off so she could see her boyfriend before he shipped out - said he could handle the truck himself.

The pawnshop lady's running Tony's fingerprints to check on his identification...sure enough, up comes Abby's profile and...UGH. Tony tooks a lot better with hair. A LOT better. She starts to get his money when Tony pulls out his badge and gun. Only she responds in kind - she's ATF. Oops. They put her in as Hargrove's daughter hoping to catch some of his buyers. Grimm told her his name was Jeff Conklin, and that he had guns to show her - but didn't show up.

Kate is at Camp Geiger to talk to Staff Sgt. Raphael. Raphael tries to dodge her questions with stuff about procedures. "You still haven't answered my question." After a long pause, he does, but she ain't buyin' it...and orders him to Washington. Kate reports to Gibbs about Raphael - "He's holding out. I can feel it in my gut." She's going to go over her notes with him when he's ready to interrogate - Gibbs gives Raphael to her to interrogate.

Workin' up an ID...Abby tells Gibbs he's "winter", which is why he gets a Silver, not a Bronze star. Gray hair, I guess. Now for a name..."Anything but Gus," Gibbs replies. Haha. Guess he took the "Gloomy Gus" thing a little personally. Gibbs and ATF agent Melinda Stone have contacted her buyer. He puts on a watch with a GPS locator, figuring they'll take their cell phones. Sure enough, they take the phones...AND Gibbs' watch - and leave it by the road.

Sure, Gibbs opens his perenially-shut trap NOW and goes on and on about militia groups selling coffee cups and calendars.

I don't know - maybe the Marines think they can work Kate over because she's female or whatnot, but anyhow - she lays it out for Raphael, and at first he doesn't talk. She tells him how she thinks it went down, then tells him he's going to do time - how much depends on what she tells JAG about how he cooperated. She then shoves the picture of an impaled Grimm into his face and starts to leave; Raphael breaks down and starts talking. "It was a good deal for all three of us," he says.

McClain said she spent the night of Grimm's death at a motel with her boyfriend; McGee had checked it out. Did he go down there, Kate wants to know - no. He also didn't fax a picture of her over to check with the hotel clerk when he did get her photo. Poor McGee gets all nervous, and Kate tells him to put aside his insecurities for one bloody second as she continues to question him. Guess McClain's alibi doesn't really check out.

Kate faxes over a photo; hotel clerk says her boyfriend didn't sign in with McClain. McGee talked to the boyfriend on the satellite phone in Iraq - they broke up a month ago. Kate and McGee rush out, McGee still worrying that either Gibbs or Tony will find out about his mistake.

At the warehouse, the milita group is testing out the weapons as he and Stone (both undercover) wait.

One set doesn't have ANY firing pins...and the guy is so mad he shoots Gibbs and turns to the ATF agent. He wants the weapons now.

Gibbs is bleeding on the ground, and the ATF agent promises to get another supply. She calls, and it cuts to storage box...it's McClain. They arrest her.

The buyer gets a phone call, and the militia group leader walks over to Gibbs. "Time for NCIS to stop laying [LYING! LYING! DOWN!] on the job." Kate was the one who called the militia group leader to that Cpl. McClain and the weapons are in custody. Seems the militia group leader was actually ATF - ATF was suspicious of Stone concerning her last op, and I guess when NCIS approached them, it was too good a chance to pass up to really get Stone for what she did.

Both McClain and Stone say it was the other who killed Grimm.

Tony liked Stone. Tony, Tony, Tony - three times in a row, you've fallen for the killer - Pacci's in "Dead Man Talking", only marginally (but intrigued by) the killer watiress in "Missing", and now an ATF agent mixed with illegal weapons and murder. And we thought Gibbs had bad taste in women. Maybe it's mean of Kate to tease him about the Pacci killer again, but THREE IN A ROW, TONY?!

Gibbs is running the terrorist picture...still.
 

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Crazy Credits

• Tony's gun-running alias Gus Bricker has July 8 as a birthday, same as Michael Weatherly's.

• Tony has an earring as part of his Gus Bricker identity when he's at the NCIS headquarters, but not when he's actually at the pawn shop.