SPOILER ALERT! NCIS fans stay seated! This episode is all about the one and only Timothy McGee, AKA "Probie". As the third episode of the already hair-raising ninth season opens, we meet a college professor who is arguing on the phone with his wife. After a mysterious phone call, he winds up dead. When the familiar theme music has subsided, we see that Michael Weatherly's character, Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo, still has a little daddy-drama from previous seasons. It is revealed that Sean Murray's character, Timothy McGee, also had some drama with his father in his youth. Is it required that to work for Gibbs's team, you must have some drama with a member of your family? We may never know.
Back to the show, where the first movie reference of the season was made by Tony. Our dead college professor has been revealed to be a Navy officer, with mysterious ties to McGee. During the crime scene investigation, Palmer makes his fourth inappropriate comment of the season. A sure feat to be sure, seeing as this is only the third episode. In the bullpen, we find out that the Navy officer started in the Navy in 2003, the same time that McGee started at NCIS. It is also revealed that the college professor/Navy officer was part of a secret Pentagon group to design weapons for battle. Autopsy reveals chemical burns to the victim's fingers. Viewers also are in for a shock when Leroy Jethro Gibbs gives marital advice to Palmer, AKA the "Autopsy Gremlin."
During further investigation, McGee reveals that the last call the deceased made was to McGee's grandmother—special guest Lily Tomlin. McGee's grandmother was an adviser to the victim when he was a student of hers. She was also an analyst in the same group the victim served on, only in the 60s. Tony sides with McGee for a change during the first meeting between grandson and grandmother—Tomlin's character mistakenly believes she can handle Gibbs in interrogation, to which Tony replies, "Genghis Khan couldn't handle Gibbs." Tomlin's character ends up meeting Gibbs when it is revealed that she has made plans to talk to the press about a top secret military operation that she had worked on and the same program that our dead soldier has given stolen files on. After Gibbs asks her why she was going to go to the press, Granny McGee calls him a fascist, to which McGee ends up breaking Gibbs Rules No. 10 and No. 22: Never get personally involved with a case and never ever bother Gibbs in interrogation (to be fair though, McGee did have reason to intervene in interrogation. Gibbs was pressing for information from Granny McGee). Gibbs, though, almost seems human in this season; lecturing McGee on his behavior instead of chewing him out and leaving him for dead, like he would have in previous seasons. Though, that might be due to the backbone McGee has built up over several seasons.
After many near death experiences for McGee's grandmother and the discovery of another body in a parking garage, it is revealed that the killer is a man thought dead and the creator of a project which would have made animal-machine hybrids an instrument of war. The episode ends with McGee making a very long overdue phone call to his estranged father, while revealing that Grandma McGee has a date with long loveless Donald "Ducky" Mallard, resident Medical Examiner and storyteller.
A big thumbs up to this episode and hoping that more great ones are on their way.
