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2.23: "Twilight"
by DC
opening scene: Two Navy men are shot by a "cop."
Kate is drawing a picture of Tony which McGee sees. McGee harbors his own deep sense of guilt because he let Tony take the letter with the plague. Kate and McGee both miss Tony, Kate more--Tony's charm is in his being an X-rated Peter Pan. She then tells McGee Tony told all the girls downstairs he was gay to cut down on competition. McGee is mad. He in turn tells Kate that Tony said she tried to seduce him in Paraguay ("Eye for an Eye"). Kate is even madder. Both ignore Tony when he arrives and as they prepare to go the crime scene.
One of the Navy men who was shot in the teaser is missing his hands. At the crime scene where Kate confronts Tony about what he said--and discovers he said at least one other lie, that she had implants. She is infuriated and says she can't believe she worried about him. That's when she discovers a snake at her feet, and Tony tells her it's poisonous. He pulls it away, and she acknowledges he has his moments--and then McGee arrives and wants to hold the (non-poisonous) corn snake. Kate is pretty mad to find this out, too, and uses her foot to knock Tony over. She hands McGee the car keys to open the trunk--and they discover it is wired to explode. Tony makes him and Kate run, and then there is the explosion, but no Tony. As Gibbs, Kate, and McGee look back, Kate yells for Tony, and he comes crawling up.
Back at Ducky's autopsy room, Tony's blood pressure is high; he attributes it to almost being blown up and hanging around a moody Kate. Kate wants to take him home and mother him, but it doesn't come out the way she intended (and Tony, being Tony, turns it into something raunchy). Tony is lying down behind his desk, and McGee tells him Kate was worried about him. Tony says they'd never get together because Kate is "too smart" for that. When Kate arrives, McGee silently points to Tony lying down on the floor and they decide to play a joke on him. Kate says that Tony can be charming and warm, smart and brave, and "not completely obnoxious." She and McGee are grinning at each other as Tony perks up. She says she could marry someone like Tony in another life--and then pours water over his face. Tony finally realizes he's been played and makes a moue at McGee and Kate.
He decides to find friendlier company in Abby. Much like he did in Kate's first appearance ("Yankee White"), he goes to lie down in Abby's lab. Abby is delighted to see him, unlike McGee and Kate, and jumps into his arms in a hug. She gets him a stuffed animal that farts as a pillow, and he lies down on the ground by the fridge. She lies down next to him and they discuss Gibbs' knee, Kate's boyfriend, and the case: the explosives are professionally made but not traceable.
Tony mentions almost dying again, and by now Kate has little empathy for him anymore. She tells him that he doesn't have to mention it every five minutes. Fornell comes in and tells them Ari Haswari ("Bête Noire" and "Reveille") is back. He was supposed to help uncover an Al Qaeda cell in Washington, but they think he is here personally to kill Gibbs, who is not at the office at the moment. Gibbs already thought of this and is having coffee with Ari, who tells him he's looking for the Al Qaeda cell. He also has his own mission from Al Qaeda--kill Gibbs. As he leaves, he asks Gibbs about Kate, and Gibbs warns him if he goes anywhere near Kate, he doesn't care which agency is protecting Ari--he will kill him. Ari leaves, and Gibbs barely manages to save himself and the people at the caf&eaigu; from a bomb. When Gibbs returns, he hears about Fornell and is angry with him. The FBI has known Ari was in town for a week--they only discovered his cover mission (kill Gibbs) that day. Fornell tells Gibbs that if he were in charge, he'd just kill Ari, but he isn't in charge. He said he himself won't stop Gibbs from killing Ari, though.
Morrow tells Gibbs Ari is off-limits, and Gibbs can't believe it. He's also putting Gibbs under protective custody--Gibbs thinks it's for Ari's protection, not his, and offers his resignation. (Having resigned from NCIS, he would no longer be bound under its rules and restrictions and can go after Ari freely. Also, if and when he were to kill Ari, NCIS could disavow knowledge of it by saying he was no longer with the agency.) Director Morrow then hands Gibbs over to Kate, and she has (it seems) all of NCIS guarding Gibbs at his home, and McGee monitoring all surveillance inside and out in MTAC. She doesn't care whether Gibbs likes it or not; she's determined to protect Gibbs. He solves the problem by not going home. He works throughout the night, pausing halfway to check out his agents. McGee has his suit jacket up over his chest, his head bowed; Tony is asleep in his chair; Kate is curled up on the floor. Gibbs stoops down beside her to pull up the blanket over her shoulders.
Kate wakes up the next morning and looks around. McGee has his suit jacket up over his chest, his head bowed; Tony is asleep in his chair; Gibbs' throat has been cut, and he lies with his head back in his chair. She feels a hand on his shoulder--it's Ari. Kate sits straight up, muttering Gibbs' name. Unfortunately for her, Tony is there, and he and McGee tease Kate about dreaming about Gibbs and waking up screaming his name. (She was not screaming.) Kate hands Gibbs a vest and tells him to put it on, and surprisingly, he is quite cooperative, unlike his refusal to wear a vest when he was a recruiting gunnery sergeant ("One Shot, One Kill").
One of the Navy men was the Navy liasion to Danborn Avionics, who was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle for reconnaissance and ground attacks. One of the old modulars is missing. All use biometrics (e.g. fingerprints) to operate. They are too small of missiles to damage any major ships, Abby says, but Gibbs and Kate point out they could kill people. Abby later tells Kate she had a bad dream with Tony in it (she also had a bad feeling about him being in danger when he went looking for the missing Marine ("Missing")). She saw him with blood on his face and woke up crying. When they track Ari, they find he is running the Al Qaeda cell and he has the missiles. Gibbs is sure he's not working for Mossad at all but is all terrorist. He will use the drone to kill the Navy families waiting for their loved ones to come home from deployment.
Gibbs, Tony, and Kate go after the shooters while McGee tries jamming the drone signal. They've gotten almost every single one and are reloading when Kate sees a shooter step out and aim at Gibbs. She dives in front of him, taking the bullet, and Gibbs and Tony take him down before rushing over to Kate. Tony pulls her onto her back, and they unzip her jacket; the bullet is in her flak vest. Both men are relieved; Gibbs brushes her hair away from her face and pulls her up. Tony tells her she did well, and Gibbs agrees. She smiles at Gibbs and jokes that she thought she'd die before (she heard him praise her?), but she takes a bullet to the forehead before she can finish. From a building away, Ari, holding the rifle, apologizes to Kate. Tony, as in Abby's dream, has blood on his face (Kate's); Gibbs turns around, pointing his gun at the shooter before calling Ari's name.
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Crazy Credits
- ON THE ENDING:
- from Harriet:
Well, of course, DPB is interested in the fans (as well I know from this, and my previous experience on all his "created by" series). He's asked me to reveal the following to you:
"You might tell the fans that there was an alternate ending. The script ended with Sasha getting up and being okay. The edit everyone saw at TV guide and other media ended that way. Only at the last minute did I put the rest of the scene where Sasha is killed and ship it to the network.It was a closely guarded secret that paid off. It didn't leak." Unquote.
- from Rudolf Martin (Ari Haswari) through the 4rth Ask Rudolf session (quoted here with the permission of the webmistress of the now-closed rudolfmartin.net):
"I actually had no idea [about Kate's death], it wasn't in the script be they didn't want the surprise to be ruined. As a rule I'm always surprised at whatever I do on NCIS and surprised that 'Ari' is still alive. I think he's immortal by now."
Read what else Rudolf Martin had to say about Ari here
- article "'NCIS': Kate Out, Aussie In?" by Kate O'Hare:
"We wrote the ending," [Bellisario] says, "that she was hit, and she went down, and she had the flak vest. That was the ending that went out, including to Paramount and CBS. We shot the actual ending with a page and swore everybody to secrecy, so the ending was never published. That was the only way to keep it off the Internet.
- ON WHY KATE WAS KILLED:
- ON WHEN SASHA ALEXANDER ASKED TO BE RELEASED FROM "NCIS":
- article "'NCIS': Kate Out, Aussie In?" by Kate O'Hare: According to Bellisario, Alexander came to him just as he was preparing to write the finale....
- article ".'NCIS' Ends With a Death" by Kate O'Hare: Bellisario says he came up with this idea back in March, after returning from a trip to Australia.
"Ask Ausiello" from June 1, 2005; Mike Ausiello's response to a question: Series creator Donald Bellisario told my colleague Mary Murphy that Sasha approached him in March and asked to be released from her contract.
Gibbs' dream of Kate shot in the head in "Reveille" (airing in 2004) was thus not foreshadowing. One cannot "see" the writers preparing to write Kate out during Season 2. There was no great conspiracy to "uncover".
- from LACoroner:
- Keeping the finger on ice would preserve the integrity
of the finger and lessen the chance of "skin slip"
where the outermost layer of skin, nail and
fingerprint slide right off the finger like a glove.
I would have put the finger in a plastic bag and then
when I was ready to use it, had dry towels available
to dry the digit before applying it to the biometric
screen.
We use "LIVESCAN" technology to fingerprint most
bodies and use a variety of off the shelf products to
clean the hands and keep them supple to we can get the
best print possible into the AFIS system.
- As I said previously, my guess is that the local
jurisdiction would probably take charge and that might
well be a sigh of relief for the NCIS troopers. There
is certainly nothing legal that would prevent Ducky
from doing the post if he chooses. Perhaps NCIS would
want to maintain jurisdiction over the remains or
perhaps Ducky would feel an obligation to perform this
last task on his comrade out of a sense of wanting to
do something so personal as a last gesture of respect
for Agent Todd.
He would perfom a standard, routine, full autopsy as
he would on any other homicide. Certainly recovery of
the projectile if it was not through and through. He
would then prepare a report that could be used at
Ari's trial, or filed neatly next to Ari's autopsy
report if Agent Gibbs gets there first.
The laws governing the role of the Coroner/Medical
Examiner and autopsy are pretty consistent from State
to State with a few variations here and there. This
is most likely due to the fact that the Coroner was
given to us by the Brits and the role, once evolved
from simple tax collector and keeper of the trove, to
more modern day death investigator.
In deaths where the cause of death was occasioned by
the criminal acts of another, a medicolegal autopsy is
almost always warranted. The historical basis of the
Coroner has been and continues to be the public'
"right to know". Granted, in some cases the cause of
death may be obvious to the naked eye, it is the
courts and the taking of one person's freedom that
necessitates the submission to the court, a document
that details a complete examination and a final
opinion as to the specific cause of death. Since
attorneys are the creatures that they are, you must be
able to prove in court why a person is dead and
especially if the only reason the person is dead is
the result of a knife wound, gunshot wound, blunt
force trauma, etc, that was caused by the defendant.
Attorneys do not always stipulate to the findings of
the Coroner/Medical Examiner, and therefore the
prosecutor must build the case in front of the jury.
There is no need for Ducky to recuse himself from the
performance of Agent Todd's autopsy for any other
reason that his own personal feelings about performing
the autopsy on a person that he worked with. Someone
will have to do it and it will be Ducky's job to
either do it himself or try to assign it out. Since
they were operating within the confines of a municipal
jurisdiction, I suspect that the local Coroner would
have jurisdiction. I would suspect that NCIS would be
most happy to allow the locals to do there job to
lessen further the trauma of losing a team member. I
know we would take jurisdiction in Los Angeles. We
could also release jurisdiction upon request to the
federal government and they would be free to do
whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted.
With respect to the slayings of government officials,
Federal laws were passed subsequent to the Kennedy (1)
and Kennedy (2) assassinations virtually relieving
local jurisdictions of responsibility or authority to
conduct autopsies in accordance with local laws.
Other governmental positions have since been added
like Supreme Court Justices, Senators,
Representatives, Cabinet-level secretaries, etc.
Pretty much all that is left at the bottom of the food
chain are foreign diplomats and government officials
that didn't get their jobs because of who they know or
how much money they raised.
With respect to religious/cultural/ethical concerns
regarding autopsy, the Coroner always trumps in the
case of homicide or infectious diseases, In Los
Angeles, we usually honor such requests when we can.
If we cannot, we allow the legal next of kin 48 hours
to obtain a court order to stop us. A court order
issues <1% of the time. We practice what we call
"cost-effective forensic medicine" and therefore, we
do not autopsy because we can, we autopsy because we
have to.
Because most folks are not well informed about the
autopsy procedure and the role of the Coroner, they
can get themselves worked up into quite a lather over
rumor, falsehoods, BS and exaggeration. Once you
speak with the family members, they usually come
around and appreciate what you are trying to do for
them. Only the Coroner can certify a death as an
accident and that certification could cause a
multiplying clause in the insurance to kick in.
$10,000 could go to $20,000.00 or $30,000.00 or more
with the stroke of a pen. And since insurance
companies employ attorneys whose sole function is to
limit payouts and exposure, your gonna need a document
that establishes the cause of death. Of course,
they'll probably employ their own doctor who will
testify 180 degrees from what the autopsy report says,
but that is how our legal system "works".
- If the body is viewable when the body arrives at the
Medical Examiner's Office, it will leave that way.
Remember, (as if anyone can forget) in the death of
Agent Todd, she took one in the 10 ring, so that
"defect" will remain post autopsy as well.
It will be up to a trained,talented and skilled
restorative/embalmer to make her presentable in an
open casket setting.
In real life, we always defer to the professional
opinion/ability of the funeral service provider as to
whether a particular decedent can be shown in an
open-casket setting.
In probably 99% of the cases, an autopsied body can be
shown in an open casket setting with the professional
efforts of your local funeral service provider. Unless
someone undressed the body or manipulated the body
within the casket, you will not be able to tell that a
body has been autopsied. A few exceptions, but very
few.
- Shane Conrad (Lt. Dean Westfall) acted in and associate-produced "Her Minor Thing" (Michael Weatherly).
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