2.02: "The Good Wives' Club"

by Sammie

At the crime scene, when Gibbs introduces Kate first, then McGee, than Tony...and Tony gets all insecure. Kate doesn't help: the reason for the order? "My guess would be level of intelligence and general competence." Ouch. But very funny.

It's a dried up body in a wedding dress in a fifties-style room. EWW. Poor Palmer is claustrophobic...and Ducky "helps" by telling a story about how one of his medical colleagues literally scared himself to death trying to overcome his phobia. Ducky means well, Palmer. He really does.

McGee reads Redbook. McGee, what is wrong with you? I don't know a single woman my age who reads Redbook - either that, or they don't want to admit it. I think a few women my parents' age read Redbook. How on God's beautiful green earth did McGee EVER get a date with Abby?

TONY. Question for you, probie. Redbook. Why?
McGEE. Redbook was and still is the definitive magazine for today's young woman. ... Since I've always been interested in women, I figured the best way to know about them was to, you know, know about them.
TONY. McGee...the best way to know about them...is to know them.

The dead woman if P.O. Carolyn Figgis, who disappeared a year and a half ago. Her disappearance was a Pacci case - she just poof and disappeared.

Can I say something? It sucks to be Chris Pacci. No, I'm serious. EVERY cold case is his. EVERY one. It's like no one else works at NCIS headquarters in Washington but Pacci and Gibbs' team, and apparently only Gibbs solves cases - his own and Chris' cold cases. Poor Pacci is turning over in his grave right now.

Kate's in profiler mode. I love it. She says the killer's was most likely abused as a child and witnessed it, too. "He's trying to create the perfect relationship. And control's the name of the game." Tony guesses that Figgis didn't live up to expectations, and Kate is unimpressed: " Why y was I sure you'd understand that part?" The killer's going to keep looking for the perfect woman.

Kate has recreated the room from McGee's photos, but Gibbs keeps insisting something's off. She's starting to get annoyed. He crooks a finger at her to come over, she steps to the side, and he moves the lamp over...about an inch. ANAL RETENTIVE. OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE.

Kate is back in profiler mode: she's sure it's a younger guy (the furniture isn't authentic) who's trying to return to the simpler time of the '50s. She thinks she can get deeper into the guy's head if she sees a reenactment.

GIBBS. Put someone in the wedding dress.
KATE. Tony would look cute. (lol. Tony would be my first choice, too. Maybe a silk Vera Wang with a veil. Then I'd take a million picture and blackmail him with 'em. Abby'd get one, McGee would get one for sure.)
GIBBS. No. He's interviewing the victim's parents. (Too bad!)
KATE. Well, McGee, then.
GIBBS. Nope. He's with Tony.
KATE. Abby? GIBBS. No. Up to her tats in forensics tests.
KATE. Well, what about you? You won't have to wear the dress. (This I gotta see....)

Poor Tony. I know Tony is sometimes insecure about his position with Gibbs, but this is getting ridiculous.

Um, considering Abby's earlier comment about chaining her boytoys up, you'd think tptb would try to AVOID the implications of this: Gibbs is chaining Kate up. "This is not what I had in mind, Gibbs. I wanted to observe." Kate, Kate, Kate. This is GIBBS. He wouldn't let you chain him up. Kate can figure out that the bride can make it to the toliet, to the mirror, to the bed, but not OUT. She's starting to look a little peaked as she gets into the victim's mindset. The two of them notice round, worn holes in the carpet; she was kneeling repeatedly. They get the same idea: "Praying."

Abby figures out there's some kind of beetle from Florida who ended up with a little trip of a lifetime into the crazy house where the poor woman died. So they check: Barbara Swain, petty officer, is missing.

Down in Florida, the NCIS agent Jane Melankovic bonds with McGee over Ladies' Home Journal. LADIES' HOME JOURNAL?! McGee - are you seeing someone behind Abby's back? Because this is Abby who made gunpowder perfume. They pick up a thermal signature...it's a petty officer growing weed. Way to go, sport. Abby's reporting about the clothes fibers and the dust - there's some kind of purple fibers, and she thinks it's an ascot. Kate is unimpressed: "How many guys wear ascots today?" Turns out Tony does. He borrowed it from Abby.

Second stop to check if she was seeing a Navy therapist. Nope. Gibbs makes a point...after divorce #2, he went to talk to the padre. Kate nods: they don't keep records!

They talk to the chaplain she was talking to. They're leaving when they get a call. Tony, McGee, and Melankovic have figured it out - the killer was the chaplain. The purple was from his vestement fibers. Gibbs and Kate don't make it back in time, though - the guy kills himself. With MPs all over the place, they talk to the Catholic chaplain, but he can't tell them much - didn't know him well.

They figure Swain has to be around here someplace, most likely the bunkers (considering the room needed to hold her). They go in, and Tony finds her - and she clobbers him with a vase or something. When the rest of them arrive, she's about to kill herself because she found out (Tony said it) that the guy is dead - Stockholm Syndrome. Kate coaxes her out of doing it, by pointing out that the good wife was to go on in her husband's absence.

Back home, Tony's huge honking headache suddenly is better after Gibbs calls them into MTAC - and names him first. Suddenly he feels lots better.

KATE. Beatnik gone?
TONY. Yeah.
KATE. Cool. [SNAPS FINGERS RHYTHMICALLY.] (Hehe.)

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Crazy Credits

• Kate Hodge (Agent Jane Melankovic) is credited in "Crowfoot," a movie written by DPB.