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Created by [[Donald P. Bellisario]] and Don McGill, ''NCIS'' is a spinoff of ''[[JAG]]'' that leaped on the [[Forensic Drama]] bandwagon started by ''[[CSI]]'', with some traditional [[Crime and Punishment Series|Crime And Punishment]] and even a bit of [[Spy Drama]] thrown in for good measure. ''NCIS'' (''[[Department of Redundancy Department|Navy NCIS]]'' for its first season) depicts a team of investigators assigned to deal with criminal activity involving Navy personnel and Marines. That means that the entire gamut of crime -- from [[Serial Killer|Serial Killers]] to fraud to international espionage to Unauthorized Absences-- can turn up. This particular team is led by Leroy Jethro Gibbs, a retired Marine gunnery sergeant, and contains (surprise!) a rather colorful collection of detectives and lab workers. The series debuted in September 2003 and is still ongoing.
A classic example of a [[Sleeper Hit]], the show was largely ignored at the beginning of its run, but has gained viewers with virtually every season and as of 2012 is the number one scripted drama on network television.
NCIS stands for "Naval Criminal Investigative Service" - like JAG, a real department of the Navy, and also like JAG, less action-packed in real life than the show would imply.
A spinoff series, ''[[NCIS: Los Angeles]]'', premiered in 2009.
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* [[Abuse Is Okay When Its Female On Male]]: Subverted in S3 Ep14, "Light Sleeper". The initial suspect in the murder of a Korean woman is her Marine husband. Their neighbor claimed she frequently heard them screaming at each other, leading her to believe that husband was abusive. However, the husband reveals to Gibbs that she was the abusive one and proves by lifting up his shirt to reveal a large burn mark where she hit him with an iron. He's actually taken seriously and released.
* [[Action Girl]]: First Kate, a former Secret Service agent in the presidential protection detail, then Ziva, whose background with the Mossad was as a spy and an assassin rather than as an investigator.
* [[Actor Allusion]]:
** In one episode, Gibbs is asked what Ducky looked like when he was younger. He responds, "Illya Kuryakin," who was David McCallum's character in ''[[The Man from U.N.C.L.E.]]'' 40 years earlier.
** Gibbs once asked Tony for help with the crossword puzzle clue "TV Drama" and Tony answers "St. Elsewhere," which Mark Harmon appeared on.
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** In the season eight double episode "Enemies Foreign/Domestic" Tony makes a reference to ''[[The West Wing]]'' by calling McGee "McBartlet". Both Mark Harmon and Michael O'Neill (who guest stars in these episodes) played secret service agents on the show.
** A combination of [[Actor Allusion]] and [[Shout-Out]]: Tony (Mike Weatherly)'s father is played by Robert Wagner. Weatherly met ''NCIS'' producer Donald Bellisario while Weatherly was filming ''The Mystery of Natalie Wood'', in which he played Wood's husband...Robert Wagner.
** In the Episode 'Light Sleeper' while on stake out Tony is reading an entertainment magazine
{{quote|'''Tony:''' Damn, I can't believe this... Mick and Jessica broke up, I'm always the last to know.}}
:::This is just after Michael Weatherly and Jessica Alba broke up.
** A retroactive one: Early in Season 7, a Metro detective who annoys Gibbs is described as having "tugged on [[Justice League Crisis On Two Earths|Superman]]'s cape".
** In the Season 9 episode "Newborn King", Jimmy Palmer, when explaining that his future Father-in-Law, Ed Slater, is visiting the NCIS building, he mentions that the first time he learned that Palmer was marrying his daughter, "[Ed Slater] laughed, and then he cried from laughing too hard". Ed Slater is played by Larry Miller, who himself used the phrase "I laughed, I cried" during his first [[Is This Thing Still On?]] moment as Principal Jindrake in the movie [[Max Keeble's Big Move]].
* [[Adorkable]]: In ''Jurisdiction'', the CGIS expy of Abby is a cute Asian [[Meganekko]] wearing [[Nerd Glasses]].
* [[Affably Evil]]:
** The merchant of death, René Benoît.
** Arguably, Ari.
** The Reynosas, a Mexican [[Brother-Sister Team]] that declared a [[Feuding Families|feud]] on Gibbs. They are actually among the series' most sympathetic villains.
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* [[Audit Threat]]: Both Tony and Gibbs occasionally make one.
* [[Author Appeal]]: Ever since Shane jumped on as Producer, there's been a lot more Abby fanservice and a lot less Abby/McGee. [[Your Mileage May Vary|YMMV]], [[Running the Asylum|but]] [[Fan Girl|some fans]] do not approve.
* [[Awesomeness By Analysis]]:
** Inverted by Gibbs in 7x09, "Child's Play", when {{spoiler|he asks the savant girl the episode has revolved around to calculate the odds that Ziva will miss a shot at the bad guy...who's holding a gun to the girl's head. She calmly works it out at 97.6%. Gibbs gives the bad guy one more chance to surrender. [[Tempting Fate|He doesn't]]. [[Boom! Headshot!|BIG mistake]].}}
*** Though really, the bad guy was just taking the genius kid at her word. According to her, there was less than 1 chance in 40 that Ziva could hit him.
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** In 7x22, "Borderland," Abby's presenting at a law enforcement symposium in Mexico. One woman insults her [[Perky Goth|fashion sense]] by asking her who told her that the Day of the Dead was in May. Abby retaliates by [[Sherlock Scan|providing very detailed facts about the woman based solely on observing her]], leaving said woman speechless.
* [[Backed by the Pentagon]]: It would seem so, but in spite of this the show has depicted some ethically dubious (and in some cases, outright criminal) acts committed by politicians and armed forces higher-ups...and NCIS personnel have not been exempt from this.
* [[Backstory]]:
** All characters have some, such as Gibbs having lost hist first wife and daughter.
** In a [[Running Gag]], Ducky is always interrupted when commenting on his life stories.
** Several characters' backstories, including {{spoiler|Vance}}'s, are brought into sync during the episode "Enemies Domestic".
* [[Bad Boss]]: Gibbs leans toward this when he's really angry or upset, as his already-considerable impatience skyrockets, his tolerance for the team's personality quirks goes right out the window, and he gets a lot snippier and [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]]-ish.
** In "SWAK", he even got mad at ''Abby''...count how many times that's happened over the course of the series.
** He explodes at DiNozzo in the episode where Ari briefly kidnapped Kate, at a point when the team's having no luck identifying Ari and doesn't know what's happened to Kate.
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* [[Badass Adorable]]: Abby.
* [[Badass Crew]]: ''Team Gibbs.'' Full stop. Even off-duty.
* [[Badass Grandpa]]:
** Mike Franks, literally.
** Jackson Gibbs is fairly badass in his own right {{spoiler|although he's not really a grandpa anymore}}.
** Ducky gets his own moments of this occasionally, like when he {{spoiler|faced Ari at gunpoint}} and had Fornell in a sleeper hold.
* [[Badass Mustache]]: Gibbs sported one for a few episodes after his short "retirement". It freaked out Tony and McGee.
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'''Fornell''': You've got that mustache in a box, don't you? }}
* [[The Bad Guy Wins]]: {{spoiler|In the Season 9 finale, Harper Dearing succeeded in using Director Vance's car as a car bomb at the NCIS parking lot, and caused some deaths besides that of Jonathan Cole, [[Heroic Sacrifice|who was caught in the explosion]] [[Redemption Equals Death|trying to defuse the bomb.]]}}
* [[Barbie Doll Anatomy]]:
** Up 'til the sixth season, characters on the autopsy table had their genitals blanked out by a [[Conspicuous CG|very bright "light"]], unless they were so mangled that it wasn't necessary. From the sixth season on, they simply had a towel covering them.
** Female cadavers are usually shown with their chest cavity already opened so that they do not have to cover their breasts too.
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* [[Beauty Is Never Tarnished|Beauty/Handsomeness Are Never Tarnished]]: The team averts it regularly, but especially in Season 7's premiere.
* [[Becoming the Mask]]: Tony in season four.
* [[Berserk Button]]:
** For Gibbs:
*** Trying to harm anyone he cares about, especially if it's a member of his team, and ''especially'' if it's Abby.
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** Averted hard in the episode "Primitus Victor". "Victor" isn't Latin for "victim;" it's Latin for "victor".
* [[Birth-Death Juxtaposition]]: In "Newborn King." The poor woman gives birth in {{spoiler|the backseat of a broken down car, parked in a gas station garage, in a blizzard, on Christmas, [[It Got Worse|during a shootout with Russian mercenaries who want to kill her and kidnap her child,]] [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|with ''Gibbs'' as the midwife.]] This is interspersed with a desperately outnumbered and outgunned Ziva singlehandedly defending them against an onslaught of Russian mercenaries.}}
* [[Black Comedy]]: ...including having the team cracking jokes while examining a body.
** Palmer has been called out when making jokes around the autopsy table several times, though, usually because they're not very funny.
* [[Bluff the Eavesdropper]]: While [[Undercover As Lovers]], Tony and Ziva have (simulated) sex because they know the room is being filmed.
* [[Blunt Metaphors Trauma]]: Ziva, very frequently. A [[Running Gag]].
* [[Bolivian Army Cliffhanger]]:
** Season 5 ended with the entire cast getting reassigned. Less fatal than the other situation, but the same effect of being able to write any character they want out.
** Season 6 ended with {{spoiler|Ziva captive in Somalia. On a list of places a Jewish woman would not want to be a prisoner, that's pretty high up there.}}
** Season 9 concludes with a [[Wham! Episode|real whopper]]. {{spoiler|Harper Deering's bomb goes off directly in front of NCIS headquarters while most of the main cast are still trying to flee from it. On a beach somewhere, Ducky gets a call about the explosion, and while he's giving instructions to whoever's on the other end, he suffers what appears to be a heart attack and collapses. We have no idea if he or anyone else is dead.}}
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* [[Bottomless Magazines]]: Averted, as the show generally keeps a tight count on the number of rounds any individual team member fires. Whenever they're shown firing all their rounds, they're also usually shown switching out the empty clip for a spare(like McGee does when pinned down behind the car in season 2's "Twilight").
* [[The Boxing Episode]]: Episode 6x18, "Knockout". Director Vance uses the NCIS team to investigate the death of a boxer.
* [[Brain Bleach]]: Episode 4x5, "Dead and Unburied" Tony wonders if a victim of a murder who apparently had three fiancees was special [[Bigger Is Better in Bed|Down There]], unfortunately for him the instruments were in a state of extreme decay. Tony asks Ducky if there is a psychological way to Unsee something.
* [[Brains and Bondage]]: Abby.
* [[Break-Up Bonfire]] In Season 5, Tony throws the letter of his Love Interest into a bonfire after the relationship went way, way, way south due to him [[Becoming the Mask]].
* [[Bulletproof Vest]]: Used and subverted in the same episode. Former Presidential-detail Secret Service agent Kate jumps in front of a bullet for Gibbs... who was ''also'' wearing a vest at the time. Moments later when the team is joking about it, {{spoiler|Ari snipes her in the head}}.
* [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|Bunny Ears Lawyers]]: All of Team Gibbs! You have Abby the [[Perky Goth]] [[The Lab Rat|Lab Rat]]; Gibbs the regularly-does-stuff-that-would-get-a-real-agent-fired-if-not-arrested guy; Tony, the sexual harassment [[Karma Houdini]]; Ziva the weapons nut ([[Drives Like Crazy|including any motor vehicle]]), and Ducky, who uses any excuse to wax poetic about his past and tells amusing but irrelevant anecdotes to his corpses... as he's dissecting them. This even freaks ''Gibbs'' out. And, of course, "Elf Lord" McGee. At this point they're in flipping bunny ''suits.''
** Which is why they often have to watch their mouths around each other.
** [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in Ducky's case; talking to the corpses preserves their humanity and helps him keep sane.
* [[Butt Monkey]]: It depends on the episode, but usually it's McGee for Tony, and Tony for multiple characters.
* [[California Doubling]]:
** A few episodes make reference to Shenandoh National Park, but the terrain and scenery don't match the real thing.
** One episode has them in a trailer park in Arlington, Virginia, an area with no trailer parks.
** The season six finale features scenes at an airfield in Israel clearly shot at Sacramento. Look for the USCG Hercules behind Ziva at the end.
** In another episode, where Tony pretends to be a convict to trace artifacts smuggled out of Iraq, they end up in a storage facility across the street from the WalMart in Lynchburg, VA; such a facility doesn't exist.
** Another episode has members of the team follow a lead in Arizona. In clear view behind them when talking to a local cop, [[Kirk's Rock]].
** An episode from season 9 ends with the team racing to a football stadium to stop an attack on some high ranking military members in attendance. The overhead shot of the stadium is of [[Ever Bank]] Field, which is in Jacksonville, Florida.
* [[Call Back]]: All the way to JAG in season 6 with Tony being Agent Afloat on the ''USS Seahawk'' a ship commonly seen in the parent series.
* [[Call Forward]]: The episode "Baltimore" has flashbacks to how Gibbs and DiNozzo met each other. There are quite a few call forwards to episodes and show tropes.
{{quote|'''Tony''': Be a Navy cop? I'd rather have the plague.
'''Tony''' (after getting his first [[Dope Slap]] from Gibbs): Did you just physically assault me? ...Don't do that again. }}
* [[Can You Hear Me Now?]]:
** One early [[Running Gag]] involved Gibbs being unable to quite figure out mobile phones. This resulted in Tony (being taught about them by McGee) offering to teach Gibbs, who angrily exclaimed "It's all backwards!" It still comes up from time to time.
** A later episode shows that each time Gibbs ''physically'' breaks his phone in frustration, he gives it to Tony or Kate to ''"reboot"''. They do this by replacing the old phone with a new one from the large supply of extras Kate keeps in one of her desk drawers.
** Averted when Tony and Ziva are trapped in a shipping container in "Boxed In"; they need to [[MacGyvering|MacGyver]] a way to communicate.
* [[Captain Ersatz]]: In-universe. McGee works on the side as a book author, and he bases the characters in his books after the members of the team; LJ Tibbs-Gibbs, Lisa-Ziva, Tommy-Tony. He even [[Ship Tease|has Lisa and Tommy]] as the [[Official Couple]].
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* [[Cargo Ship]]: [[Invoked]]; Abby ''loves'' "Major Mass-Spec":
{{quote|'''Abby:''' Ohhh, I love this machine! (''to Gibbs'') If Major Mass-Spec were a guy, I would totally marry him and bear his little mini-Mass children.}}
* [[The Cast Showoff]]:
** When some kids overthrow their football near a crime scene, Gibbs, before returning it, tells one of the kids to go long, and then he throws a perfect spiral. Keep in mind, Mark Harmon was a starting quarterback for two years with the UCLA Bruins and his father was actor and quarterback Tom Harmon, who was the first Michigan Wolverine to win the Heisman Trophy. Another bit that can be related to this is why Gibbs makes boats: Mark Harmon was a carpenter once before he started acting.
** Cote de Pablo did theater and musicals before joining ''NCIS'', and gets to show off her singing chops in "Last Man Standing", when Ziva [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX0gDdZFiJ4 performs a rendition] of [[Tom Waits]]' "Temptation" while undercover as a singer in a Moroccan nightclub. The song is included on the 2-disk ''NCIS'' soundtrack album.
* [[Cast the Expert]]: Pauley Perrette studied sociology and criminal science before becoming an actress and playing forensic specialist Abby Sciuto
* [[Catch Phrase]]: A few.
** Gibbs: "Ya ''think''?", "What's the ''point'', McGee?", "Yeah, Gibbs."<ref>his default phone answer</ref>, and "That's a good question, [Character]. Why don't you find me an answer?"
** Tony, McGee: "On it, boss."
** Abby: "I hate it when he/she/they does/do that."
** Gibbs' "Never apologize; it's a sign of weakness" is used by multiple characters over the course of the series.
* [[Cat Fight]]:
** S4 Ep4, "Dead and Unburied," had a Marine victim who was revealed to have had two fiances. When they find out about each other, they're not too thrilled and attack each other. Rather than breaking it up, Tony yells "Girl fight", and McGee proceeds to film it.
** Ziva and Abby get into one in the first "Hiatus" episode; see [[Intimate Healing]] below for the resolution.
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* [[The Chessmaster]]: René Benoît.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: When the team goes to Gibbs' hometown and meets his dad, a rifle is rather prominently displayed behind the counter of his shop. He doesn't use it in the present, but he ''did'' fire it into the air in a [[Flash Back]] to break up a fight between young Gibbs and two other boys. {{spoiler|He also killed a robber with it, offscreen, before the [[Christmas Episode]] when he visits Gibbs.}}
* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: ''NCIS'' is a bit of a repeat offender on this one. If someone gets a line but doesn't seem to be contributing to the main plot otherwise, they did it. (If the writers try to hide their non-involvement by stuffing them into a romantic subplot with a main character, they definitely did it.) It was eventually subverted in an episode where the villain of the romantic subplot had not done it, even though he was suspected by a majority of the cast.
* [[Choke Holds]]: One victim of the week died of this.
* [[Christmas Episode]]: In the tradition of ''JAG'', ''NCIS'' started doing these in Season Six.
* [[Clear My Name]]: Practically contractually obligated for every member of the team, complete with [[Lampshade Hanging]] from Tony:
{{quote|'''Tony''': "And to think I almost made it an entire year without being accused of murder."}}
* [[Clingy Jealous Girl]]: Abby plays the halves of the trope title separately with McGee. The "clingy" can kick in when she's upset or worried. The "jealous" can kick in if there's a non-team member around who pulls McGee's attention away from her (e.g. an ICE agent played by Jaime "''[[Hustle]]"'' Murray). You'd swear at times that they were still dating...
* [[Coast Guard]]: In "Jurisdiction", the CGIS (Coast Guard Investigating Service) features in a major way.
* [[Cold-Blooded Torture]]:
** In "Broken Bird", from an interrogator that Ducky had to work with during his RAF service in Afghanistan. Late in the episiode, he reveals that his repeatedly torturing one particular person that Ducky kept patching up {{spoiler|and that he knew had no information}} was {{spoiler|actually to torture ''Ducky'', as a means of breaking his spirit}}.
** Ziva has been known to threaten use of this trope on multiple occasions quite convincingly (and hints to prior experience with it as a Mossad agent).
* [[Cold Sniper]]: What Gibbs is best known for.
** In the Season 7 opener, {{spoiler|1=he takes out the terrorist holding Tony, McGee, and Ziva hostage from something like a mile away...and walks in the door about 15 seconds later}}.
** Averted, however, {{spoiler|when he took revenge for his murdered wife and daughter. Hard to be emotionless after that}}.
** Ari is portrayed as one.
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* [[Contamination Situation]]: the penultimate episode of season two, "SWAK"
* [[Continuity Nod]]: The show is quite good about referencing things that seem like one-time gags in later episodes, making the series [[Better on DVD]].
** 'The Meat Puzzle' gets cameos in several episodes before getting its own explanation/resolution.
** "Cloak" referenced both "Bete Noire" and "Trojan Horse"
** A particularly [[Faux Symbolism|meaningful]] one occurs when Ziva {{spoiler|returns to the office after having quit the team and then gotten kidnapped for several months}}. She's seen reading the same men's magazine that she and Tony joked about when she was first assigned to the team.
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** Complete with in-universe [[Fridge Logic]] on how he gets the finished boat ''out'' of the basement. Knocking down one of the walls is mentioned a few times, but it's never confirmed.
* [[Cool Old Guy]]: Gibbs, and to a lesser extent, Ducky.
* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]:
** Subverted. Tony gives this impression, especially in the early seasons, but he's not at all incompetent...if he were, Gibbs would've never recruited him.
** Palmer has a moment of this in the episode where he nearly gets shot. Towards the end, the guy who fired at him nearly gets away from the team. Palmer nixes these plans [[Ramming Always Works|by smashing his car into the bastard's truck]] while screaming like a maniac.
** Abby goes into this sometimes. One episode had her being kidnapped by a hired gun. Gibbs and Tony track her down and hear muffled screaming from the van she is in. They approach and find that Abby is repeatedly attacking him with her taser.
{{quote|'''Abby''': And don't look up my skirt!}}
** "Frame-Up" (3.09) had {{spoiler|lab assistant Chip attacking her with a knife while she was unarmed. By the time the others rush down to her lab, they find that she has hogtied Chip with duct tape all by herself.}}
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* [[Darker and Edgier]]: The Season 8 two-part finale was pretty much the darkest episode to date, as it dealt with a serial killer that was the result of Operation Frankenstein, a Navy project to create the ultimate assassin, and none of the usual comic relief exists.
** Inverted by the fact NCIS in the series evolved from the NIS, Naval Investigative Service, which is depicted as being a covert, CIA/NSA-like entity that is shown conducting assassinations and "red tests" (agents being given assignments with the aim of them committing their first kill), and in one Season 8 episode is shown recruiting Leon Vance in a manner similar to how Sydney Bristow is recruited by SD-6 in ''Alias''. Although modern-day NCIS is shown doing covert operations (particularly Tony's season-long deep undercover op), things like assassinations have so far not been part of the usual mandate. The spin-off, NCIS:[[Los Angeles]], restores some of the NIS trappings, such as having a somewhat secret base of operations.
* [[Dead Person Conversation]]:
** Monkey-wrenched every which way in "Kill Ari".
** We see it again after (and even some before) {{spoiler|Mike Franks gets killed}}.
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* [[Death in the Clouds]]: The pilot episode, "Yankee White", and "Jet Lag".
* [[Deep-Cover Agent]]:
** Tony in Season 4.
** Trent Kort, the CIA agent who also infiltrated René Benoît's arms-dealing enterprise.
* [[Department of Redundancy Department]]: The show was originally named "Navy NCIS", despite the N standing for Navy. This was most likely done to prevent confusion with ''[[CSI]]'', something which the series [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] occasionally.
* [[Determinator]]: Gibbs becomes one toward finding Ari over the course of the second season. A repeated motif is the one monitor on his desk that's dedicated to running a facial recognition program on Ari. After Ari briefly kidnaps Kate, Gibbs starts displaying Ahab-ish tendencies, which DiNozzo lampshades.
* [[Did Not Do the Research]]:
** Let us not forget "The Immortals" and its [[The New Rock and Roll|rather stupid portrayal]] of MMORPGs. There's a [[Artistic License Ships]] subset from the same episode; the ship therein is mentioned to be a Spruance-class destroyer. The external establishing shots clearly show an Arleigh Burke; look for big AEGIS phased-array radar panels on the superstructure.
*** Actually, some MMORPGs do have high scores of a sort. Usually in the form of achievements and special events. (Who kills the most of this or that monster, who gets through a certain dungeon in the least amount of time, who collects a certain number of special items first...)
** Related to the above computer example, Abby was once playing ''The Godfather'' on the PC without using the mouse...which you need to aim.
** In the first episode, Gibbs says, "Three years before 9/11, Clancy wrote a book where terrorists hijacked a plane and crashed it into the Capitol Building." The book in question, ''Debt of Honor'' by [[Tom Clancy]], was published 7 years before 9/11 and the plane wasn't hijacked by terrorists.
*** Though this could be deliberate: Gibbs is well known for his hit-or-miss insights when it comes to pop culture.
** A halfway example: In "The Good Wives' Club", part of the evidence involves a particular species of beetle. They get the beetle right, but use the wrong image.
** Pretty much anything involving liquid nitrogen in the episode "Code of Conduct."
** In the season 3 episode "Head Case" the M.E (not Ducky) stated that a 40 year old man died of arteriosclerosis causing a thromboembolic event resulting in a myocardial infarction. Unless he was 60 and his coronary arteries were suddenly undergoing fibrinoid necrosis, he died from ATHEROSCLEROSIS. Completely different pathological process. (Atherosclerosis -> rupture of atheroma -> thrombus formation -> embolus -> occlusion of coronary artery -> ischaemia and subsequent infarction of cardiac muscle). [[How I Met Your Mother|Medicine'd.]]
*** Also, Ducky mentions that the guillotine was created by French doctor Louis-Joseph Guillotin during the French Revolution. This is patently false: the guillotine was already used in Scotland in the 12th century.
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* [[Directed by Cast Member]]: Michael Weatherly directed season eight episode "One Last Score".
* [[Distaff Counterpart]]: The CGIS team leader in "Jurisdiction" acts so much like Gibbs that it's essentially [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] by the ''entire'' NCIS staff. Tony even asks Gibbs whether he had any long-lost sisters or not.
* [[Dude in Distress]]: Generally, Tony is the resident dude in distress, but he usually manages to get himself out of his situations by himself.
** Quite obvious in season 8 episode 5, "Dead Air" in which the resident [[Badass Israeli]] [[Action Girl]] {{spoiler|jumps on an oblivious Tony to save him from a bomb blast.}}
* [[The Don]]: René Benoît.
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** It's also shown to be a sort of term (or slap) of endearment. Gibbs won't bother to head slap you unless he knows you're worth it. This is demonstrated in one of the early Ziva episodes where Gibbs gives her a light-hearted version and she takes it as a sign that she belongs to the team.
** The amount of dope-slapping has been toned down as of late, because it's been reported that ''fans of the show were doing it to Michael Weatherly in public.''
* [[Double Agent]]:
** {{spoiler|Agent Lee}}.
** A conversation between Gibbs and Vance implies that {{spoiler|Ziva was this as well}}, something that was treated as pretty much a given by everyone in her first season.
** {{spoiler|NCIS attempts to have Jonathan Cole act as this to them regarding Harper Dearing in the Season 9 Finale, which Cole agrees to in exchange for a lighter sentence when he gets back to prison. Unfortunately, Dearing was [[Genre Savvy]] enough to realize what the NCIS was planning to do, so he instead has a waitress deliver the cellphone to Cole for him and then communicate with him via phone and relay a message to Gibbs.}}
* [[Double Tap]]: The show has almost without exception invoked this; both here and in real life, Federal agents ''never'' fire only once or twice. They will keep shooting you until either you fall down or they run out of bullets, whichever comes first.
* [[Dress Code]]: Forcing Abby to follow one makes her so uncomfortable that it actually hurts her analytical skills.
* [[Dress Hits Floor]]: Ziva in "Under Covers."
* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]]:
** Gibbs has shifted into this mode more than once to intimidate suspects, especially if they're Marines.
** S3 Ep11, "Model Behavior" had an actual Marine drill instructor, though he wasn't training Marine recruits. He was part of a reality TV show.
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'''Gunny''': I've seen sheepdogs shorter. }}
** "Baltimore" reveals that, at the time that Tony joined NCIS, Gibbs' haircut was similar to his look from the first couple of seasons, if not as long.
* [[Eye Scream]]: Several.
** In one episode, the victim's eye was missing. {{spoiler|He pulled out [[Squick|his own eye and ate it!]]}}
** One episode was kicked off by someone being sent a pair of human eyes.
** In "Forced Entry" {{spoiler|the guy who put together the fake online chats}} was found with his throat slashed and his eyes gouged out.
** [[CIA Evil, FBI Good|CIA agent]] [[Smug Snake|Trent Kort]] got his eye gouged out by the Port-to-Port Killer.
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== F-J ==
* [[Fair Cop]]: [[Your Mileage May Vary|Arguably]] the entire main cast. Sean Murray as Agent McGee would seem to be the only one to avert this, but then he lost a good amount of weight entering Season 7, and now we can pretty much include the whole crew.
* [[Fake Nationality]]: Israeli Mossad agent Ziva, played by Chilean actress Cote de Pablo.
* [[Family Relationship Switcheroo]]: At the end of one Season 6 episode, a young Marine mentions that his mother took care of Gibbs when he was wounded on a mission in her country. {{spoiler|Gibbs tells the Marine that his mother was already pregnant when they met. Seconds later, in Vance's office, Vance asks Gibbs if Gibbs told the young man that his mission had been to kill his father.}}
* [[Fan Service]]: Abby, mostly. At times, Director Shepard, especially after wardrobe started putting her in tight skirts and [[Sweater Girl|sweaters]]. And let us not forget [http://www.celebrity-pictures.ca/Celebrities/Cote-De-Pablo/Cote-De-Pablo-1221371.jpg Ziva in the season 6 opener]. And there's also {{spoiler|the pic of Kate in the wet T-shirt contest}}, plus numerous butt shots from [[Male Gaze|Tony's POV]].
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{{quote|'''Tony''':[[Kent Brockman News|In a tragic story of obsessive hobbying turned deadly]], an NCIS agent was discovered in his basement, crushed between a large homemade boat and an even larger bottle of bourbon. (''dramatic pause'') Film at eleven.}}
* [[First-Name Basis]]: Gibbs's father, Jackson, is the only one who addresses him by his first name of Leroy. Everyone else who doesn't call him by his middle name of Jethro
* [[Five-Man Band]]: It depends on the episode.
** Configuration one:
*** [[The Hero]]: Gibbs
*** [[The Lancer]]: Tony
*** [[The Big Guy]]: Ziva
*** [[The Smart Guy]]: McGee
*** [[The Chick]]: Abby
** Configuration two:
*** [[The Hero]]: Tony
*** [[The Lancer]]: McGee
*** [[The Big Guy]]: Ziva
*** [[The Smart Guy]]: Abby
*** [[Team Dad]]: Gibbs
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** Also, the season 3 episode Frame Up where Tony was pointed out as the killer through the evidence collected, no matter what Abby did. {{spoiler|She did clear Tony in the end, it turned out to be her lab partner Chip, who wanted revenge on Tony for costing him his job.}}
* [[Freaky Fashion, Mild Mind]]: Abby.
* [[Funny Background Event]]: In [[Milestone Celebration|Life Before His Eyes]], if you look at the foreground carefully, you can see {{spoiler|Ari and Leon Vance are playing chess.}}
* [[Gay Aesop]]:S8 Ep12, "Recruited"
* [[Genre Savvy]]: Tony. [[Wrong Genre Savvy|Pity it's sometimes the wrong one]].
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* [[The Government]]: Interagency cooperation (and competition) comes up a ''lot''. And Benoît? {{spoiler|He was working with, or for, the CIA.}}
* [[Grade School CEO]]: A bit character from one early episode runs a nightclub while still in high school.
* [[Grievous Harm with a Body]]: In episode "Singled Out" Ziva threatened a guy who grabbed her ass that she'll rip his arm off and beat him to death with it.
* [[The Grim Reaper]]: In the fourth season finale "[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Angel of Death]]", Dr. Jeanne Benoît encounters [[Creepy Child|a little girl]] outside the hospital who [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane|may or may not be the Angel of Death]]. An odd example from a show usually so completely grounded in reality, especially since {{spoiler|it's heavily implied to the viewer that she really is the Angel of Death}}.
* [[Gun Stripping]]: Ziva mentioned once that she cleans her gun every day, even when she hasn't fired it. Of course, unless someone with a gun is wallowing around in extremely dusty or gritty places, cleaning the weapon ''every day'' is unnecessary, but given that Ziva's Mossad background means she spent most of her time with her life in danger, her behavior is understandable. She was also shown cleaning her gun while hiding out in Gibb's basement during season 4's "Shalom", and Gibbs has also been shown cleaning his gun a few times.
* [[Halloween Episode]]: "Witch Hunt", "Murder 2.0", and "Code of Conduct"
* [[Hannibal Lecture]]: Jerry, a witness in a murder investigation, points out several characters' psychological problems ({{spoiler|Abby doesn't admit she likes Tim because she's [[Married to the Job]] and doesn't want to risk him being The One and missing out; Gibbs shows that he misses his late wife by keeping his house better than a single man who's never home or locks his door should; Ziva most definitely has feelings for Tony}}), however it appears he's just really good at reading people and ''really'' bad at reading the atmosphere. He later atones by {{spoiler|helping Tony rig a surprise Christmas confetti bombardment}}.
* [[Happily Married]]: Vance.
** Gibbs' first marriage was, from all evidence, happy...not so much since then.
* [[Head-Tiltingly Kinky]]: Page 57 from S3 Ep04, "Silver War". Tony shows Ziva an FHM/Maxim-esque magazine called "[[Bland-Name Product|GSM]]".
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** McGee fell for a redhead in a coffee shop. {{spoiler|She turned out to be an assassin}}.
** Ducky and Dr. Jordan Hampton.
* [[Heroic BSOD]]:
** {{spoiler|Amnesiac}} Gibbs' reaction to {{spoiler|his [[Mentor]] telling him about 9/11}}.
** Tony goes into one in the season 7 premiere when he thinks Ziva is dead.
** Everyone when {{spoiler|Mike Franks is killed in "Swan Song"}}. Everyone also had one when {{spoiler|Caitlin Todd is killed as well.}}
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]:
** {{spoiler|Agent Cassidy, who saves the team from a suicide bomber.}}
** {{spoiler|Agent Lee when she decides that [[Redemption Equals Death]].}}
** Subverted by {{spoiler|Agent Todd. She takes a bullet to save Gibbs' life, but is saved by her Kevlar vest...and then gets head-sniped by Ari.}}
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* [[Hollywood Nerd]]: McGee and Palmer.
* [[Hot Amazon]]: Ziva.
* [[Hypocritical Heartwarming]]: In the episode "Guilty Pleasure" we are introduced to Det. Philip [[Mc Cadden]] of Baltimore PD. He was a [[Flanderization|Flanderized]] [[Expy]] of Tony and the two [[The Movie Buff|movie buffs]] became fast friends. But when Tony saw [[Berserk Button|McCadden disrespecting McGee]] during an NCIS case ([[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and not caring if he got some movie trivia wrong]]), [[Disproportionate Retribution|Tony effectively ended their friendship, without even telling McCadden why]].
* [[I Call It Vera]]:
** Abby's "Major Mass Spec", and, apparently, her own ''teeth'', though they appear to be masculine names - one is Frank.
** In one episode, she gives {{spoiler|the bugs she is raising as evidence}} male names, such as George, Norman and the like. {{spoiler|George ends up being Regina}}.
* [[Idiot Ball]]: {{spoiler|They retrieve Director Vance's car when it was handled by a terrorist and since they found no prints, they don't strip it down for explosives or other traps.}}
* [[Ignorance Is Bliss]]
* [[I Know Mortal Kombat]]: Justified in S7 Ep09, "Child's Play", which focuses on child prodigies using video games, one of which is ''[[Call of Duty]] [[Modern Warfare]] 2'', in which they compare the situations in the game to real life military situations and analyze them.
* [[I Never Said It Was Poison]]:
** The killer mentions the man who (supposedly) shot the lieutenant will get away. "How did you know she was shot?"
** S7 Ep07, "Endgame", has Amanda, McGee's love interest for that episode, coming to visit him at work. The next morning McGee reveals to her that {{spoiler|he never told her where he works}}. It turns out {{spoiler|she was hired to kill the North Korean assassin the team is trying to catch}}.
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{{quote|'''Ziva''': There's nothing good on the internet anymore.
'''McGee''': [[Sarcasm Mode|Yeah, I think that internet thing has just about run its course]]. }}
* [[It's Personal]]:
** Even if a case doesn't involve anyone the main cast knows personally, Gibbs takes his ties to the military very seriously. His {{spoiler|hunting down the man who murdered his family}} goes without saying.
** Amusingly, Gibbs' Rule Number 10 is: Never get personally involved in a case. He admits he has trouble with that one.
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* [[Jerk Jock]]: Though not in high school, Tony, especially in early McGee episodes. Incidentally, his major was Phys. Ed.
* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Tony, although [[Your Mileage May Vary|depending on your mileage]], he skirts into [[Jerkass]] territory.
* [[Join the Army They Said]]: The [[Victim of the Week]] in one episode was an unscrupulous Marine recruiter who made promises that would never be met, such as promising one recruit that he would be trained as a medic. As Gibbs points out, the Marine Corps doesn't have medics; they use Navy corpsmen.
* [[Jurisdiction Friction]]
== K-O ==
* [[Karma Houdini]]:
** Ari {{spoiler|for a while}}.
** Subverted at the (apparent) end of the Benoît arc, when Gibbs, Tony and Ziva are on his boat, and figure he must've disappeared. Then the camera pans out over the water to reveal {{spoiler|Benoît's corpse in the water with a hole in his head}}. End credits.
* [[Killed Off for Real]]:
** {{spoiler|Kate Todd}}. And [[Killed Mid-Sentence|mid-sentence]], talking sarcastically about never expecting to live to see something, to boot.
** The murderer [[Karmic Death|suffers the exact same fate]] not 2 episodes later, at the hands of {{spoiler|his own sister, no less.}}
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** {{spoiler|Mike Franks}}. Like {{spoiler|Jenny Shepard before him}}, it was a choice between going down swinging or letting disease do it and preferring the former.
** Also recurring characters {{spoiler|Paula Cassidy (season four) and Agent Lee (season six).}}
* [[Know Your Vines]]: While investigating a murder in a national park McGee has to search a patch of poison ivy for a murder weapon. Tony recognises what the plant is, but decides not to tell him.
* [[The Lab Rat]]: Abby, sometimes McGee.
* [[The Ladette]]: Ziva fits this when not in combat.
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'''Ziva''': No, it was definitely a stone wall. I backed the car into it. }}
* [[Male Gaze]]: From Tony's point of view, natch.
* [[Mama Bear]]:
** S4 Ep06, "[[Witch Hunt]]", a Halloween episode. {{spoiler|A mother lays the smackdown on a kidnapper after learning that her daughter is safe}}. Ducky even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] the trope.
** S7 E6. "Outlaws and In-laws" had Mike Franks' daughter-in-law {{spoiler|shooting down a pair of mercenaries trying to kidnap her daughter}}. Franks even names the trope directly.
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* [[Manly Tears]]: Tony {{spoiler|after Agent Cassidy's death.}}
* [[Meaningful Funeral]]: New Orleans style.
* [[Meganekko]]:
** Director Shepard whenever she wore glasses, skirting into [[Hot Librarian]] territory.
** The episode "Singled Out" featured a geeky-looking Navy lieutenant as the victim who fit this trope, and in the same episode, Ziva falls into the trope when she goes undercover as a geeky girl resembling the Navy lieutenant.
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* [[Motor Mouth]]: Abby, especially when she's really stressed.
* [[The Movie Buff]]: Tony
* [[Ms. Fanservice]]: Abby and Ziva tend to rotate between this role.
** In one episode, Abby is dressed up in a vaguely [[Catholic School Girls Rule|Catholic schoolgirl]]-esque outfit, but can't figure out [[Innocent Innuendo|why everyone keeps staring at her]].
** During a Halloween episode, she dresses as [[Marilyn Monroe]]...complete with poses. That time, she knows exactly what she's doing to McGee.
** Another episode has Abby changing clothes in her office and showing a [[Toplessness From the Back|pretty, bra-strap-less, tattooed back]] to McGee (and the audience).
{{quote|'''Abby''': See anything you liked?
'''McGee''': ''(embarrassed)'' No.
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'''McGee''': ...Yes.
'''Abby''': ''(satisfied look)'' Better. }}
** Subverted in another episode when we get to see what she sleeps in; the camera does the usual panning establishing shots, then pans over to Abby...and we see she's wearing a full-length Victorian-style nightgown, complete with cap. And since it's Abby, she looks adorable.
** In the stalker boyfriend episode when Abby was staying with McGee, she was wearing a man's shirt and panties.
* [[The Munchausen]]: Ducky.
* [[Murder.Com]]: "Murder 2.0".
* [[Must Have Caffeine]]: Gibbs needs coffee to get through the day to the point where McGee has an [[Oh Crap]] moment when he accidentally knocks over and spills Gibbs coffee. Abby prefers the Big Gulp-esque drink, [[Bland-Name Product|Caf-POW]].
** Also, the terrorist who {{spoiler|captures Ziva}} at the end of Season 6. {{spoiler|His addiction to Caf-POW! is so great he has it imported, which winds up being how the team finds him.}}
* [[My Beloved Smother]]: Ducky's mom, although she's suffering from Alzheimer's and can't really help herself.
* [[My Death Is Just the Beginning]]: {{spoiler|One episode featured a paranoid submariner who killed himself by suffocation when he realized NCIS was closing in. They stow his body in the freezer...''then'' they realize he has a cold-activated nerve-gas bomb in him.}} Solution to the problem? ''' {{spoiler|[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|FIRE HIS CORPSE OUT A TORPEDO TUBE.]]}}''' And all topped off with a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]]:
{{quote|'''Gibbs''': You know what our top priority is now, Chief?
'''Chief Of the Boat''': Getting all the ice cream back in the freezer.
'''Gibbs''': Exactly. *chuckles* }}
* [[Myth Arc]]: All main characters (except McGee for some reason) have had important involvement in one. However, the dual episode "Enemies Foreign / Enemies Domestic" brought this to a level bordering on [[Continuity Lock Out]]: To wit, the earliest referenced event in the series is (former) NCIS Director Morrow's retirement, linked to Vance's promotion; the earliest ''chronologically'' referenced event in the series continuity is probably Vance's recruitment, which is essentially linked to {{spoiler|Eli David's rise into the top seat of Mossad}}.
** The cherry on top is definitively the link the entire affair has with the Season 5 finale and Gibbs's mission in Paris... also opening to question the relation between these episodes and {{spoiler|Decker's "insurance policy" that Mike Franks took away (with the explicitly stated declaration that it was for Vance to read "in my will")}}.
{{quote|'''Gibbs''' (''realizing the connection''): {{spoiler|Zukov? Anatoly Zukov?}}
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* [[Nerds Are Sexy]]: Not an in-universe example, but Michelle Lee definitely felt this way about Jimmy Palmer.
* [[Never Give the Captain a Straight Answer]]:
** Much to Gibbs' annoyance, Abby loves to beat around the bush before giving her discovery. She claims it's because she's alone in the lab all day and if she didn't give a full explanation, Gibbs wouldn't appreciate the trouble she went through.
** Ducky also has a habit of digressing into random reminiscences, though Gibbs is more prone to cutting off his babbling than Abby's.
** McGee is also frequently guilty. Hilariously lampshaded somewhat in one episode:
{{quote|'''McGee:''' All right. I think I know what happened here.
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** Ziva calls in '''''a lot''''' of favors. Then again, given her past, it's not that much of a stretch.
*** To the point where it seems if you exist in the NCIS universe, chances are good that Ziva has saved your life ''at least'' once.
* [[Noodle Incident]]:
** The start of season four, when we were told that Tony had been regularly visiting Ziva's apartment, alone, at night, for no given reason. What were they doing?
** Many of Ducky's stories get cut off before we get sufficient detail, becoming these. For instance, there was a story about a bachelor party that Gibbs would ''really'' rather he not tell Palmer about.
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== P-T ==
* [[Pac-Man Fever]]:
** Played painfully straight in "The Immortals" (see [[Did Not Do the Research]] above).
** Subverted in "Bete Noir", when Gibbs asks if Kate and Tony checked the computer of the man whose house they were sent to search. Kate says he didn't even have a [[Game Boy]]. Tony points out a Game Boy is a handheld system, and she's thinking more of an [[Xbox]] or [[PlayStation 2]].
** As a rule, this is averted wherever there's a throwaway reference or gag, as these tend to be pretty accurate. If any aspect of gaming or IT is central to a plotline, however, expect excruciating levels of this trope.
* [[Papa Wolf]]:
** '''Gibbs'''.
** Mike Franks can be considered a Grandpa Wolf.
* [[Perky Goth]]: Abby, and her actress, Pauly Perette, in [[Real Life]].
* [[Perp Sweating]]:
** Oh, can Gibbs make them sweat. One of the best examples involves taking the suspect down to Ducky's area to "prep" him. It involves Ducky and Gibbs telling the guy exactly how he's going to be ''dissected''. This is ''after'' Gibbs kills the guy and makes it look like a suicide, which it is heavily implied that he wouldn't hesitate to do if the guy didn't cooperate.
** Sometimes, when Gibbs can't make them sweat, he gives Ziva a turn. Ziva's presence is also occasionally used by Gibbs as a threat: 'Cooperate with us or we'll extradite you to Israel'. The people this threat is used on are those who really, ''really'' would rather ''not'' end up in the custody of the Mossad.
*** What makes Ziva's interrogations work is [[The Un-Reveal|almost never shown on-screen]], but it tends to quickly reduce the perp to a crying wreck. In one fairly early episode with a female accessory who won't talk, Gibbs locks her in her office with Ziva. In the next scene, as they're interrogating her, Ziva just slowly, calmly walks around her; the woman is a weepy, trembling mess and flinches like she's been shocked when Ziva lightly touches her neck. In the one instance where we do see her at work (in "Hiatus," after Gibbs is caught in the bomb blast), Ziva harshly interrogates the Turkish ship captain...at gunpoint.
** Ducky has also broken several people just by explaining anatomy to them (eg. "this is how we cut your torso open", and "this is what happens to your skull when a bullet enters the back of your head")
** Tony, meanwhile, prefers to [[Exasperated Perp|annoy suspects into submission]]. He's very good at it; in the season six finale he manages to get the better of Ziva's father (Eli David, the ''director of Mossad'') this way.
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* [[Person as Verb]]: Tony, frequently.
* [[Pet the Dog]]: ''Any'' time Gibbs is shown interacting with children, and his more gentle moments with Abby.
** Used in a literal sense at one point. Gibbs sat on a park bench in the pouring rain because he put the dog that was sleeping under the bench in the nearby gazebo so it wouldn't get even more wet. He wouldn't sit in the gazebo with it because it smelled like...well, a wet dog.
** Another literal one with McGee and Jethro (nee Butch), the German Shepherd he shot (in self-defense). McGee was wary of Jethro for the whole episode; at the end, when Jethro is vindicated and Abby's landlord has said "no dogs", Abby makes an impassioned speech to a reluctant Tim about how Jethro is the dog McGee has been wanting to get for a long time. A later episode shows that Abby did eventually succeed in this little campaign, and McGee has a very loving relationship with the dog.
* [[Plucky Comic Relief]]: Tony in the first few seasons. This gets [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] early on, with the trope even mentioned by name (that one about McGee though).
* [[Poorly-Disguised Pilot]]:
** "Legend" is a pilot for ''[[NCIS: Los Angeles]]''.
** ''NCIS'' itself was born from the ''[[JAG]]'' two-parter "Ice Queen/Meltdown".
* [[Precious Puppies]]: Dogs have featured in a few episodes, but Mortimer, the rescue-dog-in-training Golden Lab puppy takes the cake. He even cheers Ducky up {{spoiler|after his mother dies}}.
* [[Pretty Little Headshots]]:
** Several instances, most notably when {{spoiler|Caitlin Todd is sniped by Ari, although a squib on the back of her head can be seen going off, and in "Kill Ari" it's [[Informed Attribute|stated]] that the back of her head was pretty much gone.}}
** Averted in "The Good Wives' Club" with {{spoiler|the perp's suicide}}.
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* [[Rare Guns]]: In one season eight episode a Webley Revolver is the murder weapon.
* [[Real Life Relative]]: Sean Murray, who plays Timothy McGee, is Donald P. Belissario's (one of NCIS' creators and producers) step-son. Troian Belissario, Donald P. Belissario's daughter and Sean's step-sister, plays Sarah McGee, Timothy's sister.
* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]:
** {{spoiler|Kate's death}} was either because Sasha Alexander wanted to have a child, which wouldn't have worked into the episodes very well or because she was exhausted by her role.
** Pauley Perrette's [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,216205,00.html nightmarish divorce from ex-husband Coyote Shivers] may or may not have been the basis for the plot for "Bloodbath," where the team has to deal with Abby's stalker ex-boyfriend, but the parallels are impossible to deny.
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** {{spoiler|Jonathan Cole in the Season 9 finale, although he unfortunately wasn't able to start bomb disposal before Dearing detonated it.}}
* [[Reference Overdosed]]: Justified in that many of the characters are pop culture savvy, from Tony being a movie buff, to McGee being a gamer and internet surfer.
* [[Retcon]]:
** Very likely at least one element of the Ari plotline.
** The friendship between Gibbs and FBI agent Fornell - in "Yankee White", the first episode, Fornell doesn't appear to know Gibbs at all, but in subsequent Fornell appearances they're implied to be longtime acquaintances if not perhaps not-quite-friends. There's also Fornell's dickish behavior in the same episode, while Gibbs is fairly affable, which has flip-flopped as the show's gone on.
** Fornell was married to one of Gibb's ex-wives, and even had a child with her. Gibbs states in that episode that he warned Fornell about what kind of woman she was, as Fornell and Gibbs' ex-wife were also exes.
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* [[Sensitivity Training]]: Treated by the characters as a form of endurance trial.
* [[Sergeant Rock]]
* [[Sexy Schoolwoman]]:
** Referenced in "Forced Entry". Kate comments that she spent twelve years in Catholic School; Tony asks if she still has the pleated skirt. In that same episode, Abby's outfit certainly seems schoolgirl-inspired.
** Tony's "hallucination" in ''Kill Ari, Part 2.''
* [[Ship Tease]]: Tony/Ziva and McGee/Abby are two shipping groups the writers especially love to mess with. However, McGee/Abby was canon before their breakup {{spoiler|and might come back per [[Word of God]]}}. Tony/Ziva has yet to go beyond [[Ship Tease]]. (Granted, the sheer mass of [[Ship Tease]] there is so large, it's verging on upstaging the [[wikipedia:Great Attractor|Great Attractor]].)
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** Tony ships [[Portmanteau Couple Name|Bibbs]] - Gibbs/Abigail Borin. [[Right Behind Me|Borin doesn't agree]].
* [[Shirtless Scene]]: McGee's gotten two or three, and DiNozzo's gotten several. Strangely, Gibbs is absent from this unless you count the very-soapy shower scene in "SWAK", which is one for the entire Kate-era team.
* [[Shout-Out]]: So, ''so'' many.
** Several to other [[Donald P. Bellisario]] shows:
*** Tony uses the alias [[Airwolf|"Stringfellow Hawke"]] at one point; also, Caitlin Todd's first name is the same as an ''Airwolf'' character.
*** In one episode the team finds a massive collection of lunchboxes in a murdered officer's bedroom, which included ''Airwolf'', and ''[[Magnum, P.I.]]''-themed boxes, and presumably other Bellisario creations. And when Tony must provide an alibi for his evening, he says he was home watching ''Magnum PI'', and describes the specific episode.
*** Yet another crops up when searching a suspect's house in one episode, and Tony finds, among a full collection of Hawaiian shirts, a red one he claims to be an official ''Magnum PI'' shirt.
** "Hiatus part 1" has Tony at one point say, "I have a better chance of hooking up with [[Jessica Alba]] than these guys do of infiltrating Sealift." Michael Weatherly, the actor who plays Tony, costarred with Jessica Alba in ''[[Dark Angel]]'', and was engaged to her.
** Gibbs shares a middle name (Jethro) with Admiral Chegwidden from ''NCIS''' parent series, ''[[JAG]]''.
** The first episode is one big shout-out to ''[[Air Force One]]'', right down to reusing the sets and Gibbs specifically mentioning the movie by name and [[Genre Savvy|reasoning that not only would the weapons be stored in the same place as they were in the movie, but that the terrorists would infiltrate by a similar manner]].
** One episode's supporting characters are a huge [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[G.I. Joe]]''. There's FBI agent Courtney Krieger (Cover Girl), as well as Carl Greer (Doc), Shannon O'Hara (Scarlett), Marvin Hinton (Roadblock) alias Frederick LeClair (Recondo), Robert Graves (Grunt), George Barny (Grand Slam), and Blaine Parker (Mainframe).
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** In "Secrets," one of the neighbourhood-vigilante superheros being interrogated exclaims "Why on [[Marvel Universe|Earth 616]] would I kill a fellow superhero!?"
** When Tony refers to assistant coroner Palmer as "the autopsy gremlin", Gibbs' response is telling Tony to [[Gremlins|not get him wet.]]
*** After a tech developer insults McGee by assuming he's into ''dwebby'' role playing games, McGee's responses is: "[[Skyrim|I used to, but then I took an arrow to the knee.]]"
* [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]: In "Enemies Foreign" the Palestinian terrorist tries to lecture Gibbs about his war. Gibbs' response is basically "Yeah, you're right. Where's the other terrorist?"
* [[Silver Fox]]: Gibbs.
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** Also:
{{quote|'''Abby: [To Gibbs]''' Well my silver-haired fox... Gibbs... sorry.}}
* [[Similar Squad]]:
** In "Doppleganger", a Metro PD team gets involved in the case, whose members are ''ridiculously'' similar to the NCIS team, right down to the [[Dope Slap|Gibbs Slap]].
** The team has also run into "child versions" of DiNozzo and Gibbs, respectively.
** In "Jurisdiction", one of the CGIS investigators is a red-haired female version of Gibbs. Tony is the first to notice and the others are all rather amused. Gibbs is apparently the only member of the team that is not aware of this.
* [[Sixth Ranger]]: Kate is an example of this from the first episode, since the team was established in ''JAG''. Later, McGee, and then once again with Ziva {{spoiler|following Kate's death}}.
* [[Slap Slap Kiss]]: McGee and Abby in the first season.
* [[Slashed Throat]]:
** One episode involved the murderer using the Marine sentry removal technique (described in The Five Fingers example above) to kill the victim...while she was [[Out with a Bang|having sex with him.]]
** In an episode revolving around a revenge plot against Ducky, {{spoiler|when the team rescued Ducky, one of the perps slashed his own throat with a scalpel rather than go back to jail.}}
* [[Sleeper Hit]]: ''NCIS'' is one of the rare examples of a show that's steadily increased its viewing audience as it's gone on. Try to think of another show that hit a series-high in viewers in its ''eighth season''.
* [[Something They Would Never Say]]: A distraught schoolboy holds his classmates hostage so someone - it happens to be our team - will find his [[He's Just Hiding|ostensibly]] dead mother. Gibbs lets himself be taken, and Tony later tells the boy that Special Agent Caitlin Todd is looking for his mother. Out of earshot, when asked how he's going to tell Gibbs the kid's mother is dead, Tony replies that he already has: {{spoiler|Special Agent Todd is dead.}}
* [[Sorry I Left the BGM On]]: In "Power Down," a scene in Abby's lab starts out with her music, but ends with the music slowing to a stop as the CD player runs out of battery.
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* [[Southies]]: See trope entry.
* [[Spin-Off]]: Of ''[[JAG]]'', with its own spin-off, and yes, [[NCIS: Los Angeles|it's being troped]].
* [[Spoiler Title]]: {{spoiler|"Trojan Horse"}}; "{{spoiler|[[wikipedia:Aliyah|Aliyah]]}}", via [[Bilingual Bonus]]; "Shariff Returns."; "Kill Ari", the title of the two-part Season 3 opener.
* [[Staggered Zoom]]
* [[Stock Footage]]: Largely averted. For a show involving the US Navy, its hardware doesn't really feature all that much, although earlier seasons had many an obvious stock clip of various ships and sometimes planes.
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* [[Tap on the Head]]: Subverted.
* [[Team Dad]]: Gibbs.
** This is most obvious with Abby. He treats her as a daughter surrogate (even more or less threatening to spank her at one point), and she's acknowledged that he's like a father to her.
** Gibbs has also taken this role with Tony. In one episode, Gibbs even got on a suspect's good side by comparing the game he was playing to one that his "son" Tony liked to play as well. Cue a rather odd if semi-pleased look from Tony himself, who had been listening in with the rest of the team.
** Ziva's recently admitted that Gibbs is more of a father to her than her biological one. He's since acted accordingly on her behalf.
* [[Team Pet]]: Abby.
* [[Techno Babble]]: Let's just say that if you know anything about computers, you'll want to turn your brain off whenever Abby or McGee is talking. ''[[NCIS|Anything.]]''
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* [[Throwing the Fight]]: Ziva in the season 5 episode "Shalom" {{spoiler|against an Iranian Agent so she would [[Just Between You and Me|confess who she was thinking she was going to kill Ziva right after said confession.]] Ziva laughs, thanks her and promptly kills her.}}
* [[Tomboy and Girly Girl]]: Kate and Abby, and then Ziva and Abby.
* [[Took a Level In Badass]]:
** Tony, who Shepard puts in charge when Gibbs is seriously injured and doesn't appear to be coming back. Once he puts aside the smart-ass tendencies, he becomes quite the effective leader. This, of course, shows us some [[Hidden Depths]], and leads to a great exchange when he starts channeling Gibbs during a team argument.
{{quote|'''Abby''': You're not Gibbs, Tony.
'''Tony''': You're right. ''Acting'' like Gibbs doesn't make me the boss, ''being senior agent does''. And if drinking coffee, staring, and whacking the backs of your heads helps me to lead this team...live with it. }}
** McGee at the beginning of "Dog Tags" and at the end of "Caged".
* [[Too Kinky to Torture]]:
** Implied with Abby in "Bloodbath":
{{quote|'''McGee''': Now, you stay here and don't answer the door, or I will tie you up!
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** Toyed with in one episode in which Gibbs (with his coffee in-hand) becomes engrossed watching Abby and McGee (both drinking Caf-POW!) showing him evidence on the computers in Abby's lab, Gibbs sets down his coffee, drinks are shuffled around the desk, and he gets handed McGee's Caf-POW!. He takes a big, hearty drink (with the straw) while distracted; his eyes go wide, he rips off the lid, spits it back into the cup, hands it back to a thoroughly devastated McGee, takes his coffee, and walks off.
** In the Season 7 premiere a terrorist is tracked down to Somalia because he imported Caf-POW!.
* [[Tragic Keepsake]]:
** Ziva's orange cap; {{spoiler|it's a reminder of the victim from "Dead Man Walking"}}.
** {{spoiler|Kate's desk}}, for about three episodes.
* [[Trauma-Induced Amnesia]]: Gibbs after getting blowned up in season 3 finale, and DiNozzo in the season 9 premiere after getting shot. They both get better.
* [[Trojan Horse]]: [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|"Trojan]] [[Captain Obvious|Horse."]]
* [[Troubled Backstory Flashback]]
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* [[Unorthodox Holstering]]: Largely averted, as the team members almost always wear their sidearms on their "strong side" hip<ref> (specifically, outside-the-waistband paddle holsters, oriented to "FBI forward cant")</ref> though several times they have experienced difficulties when changing where or how they carry. A mini-dress wearing undercover Agent Lee once complained that she could "barely walk straight" because of the location of her gun<ref> (Get your mind out of the gutter)</ref>, and while dating Jeanne, Tony once almost blew his cover when trying to control a potentially violent situation by reaching for his gun...which he had forgotten he wasn't wearing.
* [[Urban Legend Love Life]]: Tony, starting in season five. He acknowledges in Season Six that he's going through a dry spell since falling in love while undercover. He just doesn't want anyone to know.
* [[Uncomfortable Elevator Moment]]:
** Gibbs uses the elevator (emergency stopped, of course) as his own private conference room, so this results in many of these.
{{quote|Boss using the elevator as an office again?}}
** In one episode, Gibbs essentially put McGee in "time out" by forbidding him from leaving the elevator as a punishment for a major screw-up.
** In the "Abby's ex is stalking her" episode, Abby eventually hides in the elevator because she read some statistic that elevators are about the least likely place to die in the United States. Subverted when she realizes that the average person spends just a minute a day in an elevator, and if she moves into one, her chances increase thousandfold.
** In Season 7, a massive power outage causes McGee and Ziva to be stuck in the elevator together all night.
* [[Unfortunate Names]]:
** "La Grenouille" translates to "The Frog", a very old nickname for people from France.
*** It's noteworthy that La Grenouille's real name is René. In Latin America, Kermit the Frog is named La Rana René (or René, the Frog).
** It's absolutely no surprise that someone with a name like [[Donald Duck|Donald]] [[wikipedia:Mallard|Mallard]] should have picked up the nickname "Ducky".
* [[Unresolved Sexual Tension]]:
** Tony and Kate to some degree.
** Tony and Ziva, four seasons and counting.
*** As one example for the former, they were required to go undercover as a couple of assassins. You read that right, ''couple''. As in ''married couple''. They engage in simulated sex for the benefit of a surveillance camera...and fool the guy who can tell if a person is faking an orgasm, who happens to enjoy <s>the "fake" porn</s> manning the camera.
*** The tension is taken to the next level in Season Six, where Tony is obviously pining for Ziva and clearly jealous of her relationship with Michael. {{spoiler|Of course, killing Michael doesn't help his chances, and probably kills any possibility of hooking up with Ziva in the near future.}}
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'''Boone''': *insert breakdown and screaming here*]] }}
* [[Vomiting Cop]]: An amnesiac Gibbs, being brought up to speed on recent history, succumbs to this trope when his old mentor tells him about 9/11.
* [[We Named the Monkey "Jack"]]:
** S2 Ep15, "Caught On Tape", has a Type 1. Kate names the dog of the killer, Tony, even though it's a girl. This leads to a humorous scene where Tony is listening in on Kate and Abby talking about whether Tony likes them, how cute Tony is, and how they could share Tony.
** S5 Ep13, "Dog Tags" has another Type 1. A military police German Shepard that Abby has to examine for evidence, who she names Jethro.
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** Ari fears butterflies.
* [[What Kept You?]]: Frequently.
* [[Who Dunnit to Me?]]: "Dead Man Walking". A lieutenant is poisoned via radiation and asks NCIS to solve who did it to him before he starts getting really sick. {{spoiler|He survives to the end of the episode, but dies offscreen a few shows later.}}
* [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?]]: "Why does it always have to be boats, and rats?"
* [[Wild Card]]: Tony describes himself as one {{spoiler|when captured by Saleem}}.
* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]: A guy exploits vulnerabilities in the entire Navy fleet to avenge his son, who died when a terrorist exploited a flaw in his battleship.
* [[The Worf Effect]]: Want to show how awesome a new threat is?? Have them take down Ziva in a fight.
* [[Working with the Ex]]: Seasons three through five had Director Jenny Shepard and Special Agent Gibbs, who had formerly been lovers.
* [[Write Who You Know]]: McGee's based a series of thriller novels he's written on his coworkers and miscellaneous civilians. He is a best-selling author, under the [[Pen Name]] of "[[Significant Anagram|Thom E. Gemcity]]". Despite his picture being on the back cover, he's almost never recognized. This causes problems when a [[Loony Fan]] starts killing people based on actions taken by their fictional selves in McGee's next book (the killer {{spoiler|1=had been reading McGee's typewriter ribbons to get a sneak peek}}). In that episode, McGee finally admits that he bases the characters in his books off the NCIS team (after the content of his latest book had been revealed, [[Running Gag|he'd made it a point to deny the similarities]]).
** This gets lampshaded in the episode "Friends and Lovers", when the team has to investigate a high-class nightclub. Rather than make up a celebrity to get into the place, they simply send in McGee using his "Gemcity" identity, complete with a trio of female admirers (Ziva, Abby, and Michelle Lee).
* [[X Days Since...]]
* [[You Get Me Coffee]]: Regularly.
** Played with in the "[[Doppelg Ã]]¤nger" episode when the McGee analogue fetches coffee for Gibbs ''and'' his counterpart.
** This is also played with when one of the team members (usually McGee) drinks or spills Gibbs' coffee, leaving them stammering, sputtering, and scrambling to get him a fresh cup.
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*** Director Shepard also had immunity, Gibbs GAVE her his coffee at least twice, and one time she actually stole his cup and drank from it. Considering their history, it's not surprising...
* [[You Have to Believe Me]]: The show ''loves'' subverting this one. See trope page for examples.
* [[You Killed My Father]]:
** Director Shepard to La Grenouille. {{spoiler|Later she does kill him, but no one figures it out until she's already dead...[[The Un-Reveal|or was it Trent, actually telling the truth?]]}}
** {{spoiler|The daughter of the drug dealer who killed Gibbs' family to Gibbs; it turns out she's now the leader of the gang and she's the one who's been orchestrating all the Mexican intrigue.}}
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** {{spoiler|Another variation: You (tangentially) killed my son: A young Navy recruit was arrested by Gibbs after he and a friend played a prank. The recruit's dad, a technological firm CEO, had them transferred to another ship which was blown up by a terrorist who found a flaw in the ship's design. Years later the guy blames Gibbs for his son's transfer, and he knows at least two deadly flaws in the fleet.}}
* [[You Know What They Say About X...]]
* [[You Need to Get Laid]]: Gibbs' team tries to find him the perfect woman in the ninth season episode "Safe Harbor" so he will stop making them work nights and weekends.
** Gibbs told Tony he'd made a mistake in blowing off his ex-fiancee for Christmas brunch in the ninth season episode "Newborn King."
** Tony and Ziva often push Tim McGee to ask out a girl and Tony once arranged a date for Tim.
* [[Your Days Are Numbered]]: Lt. Roy Sanders in "Dead Man Walking."
* [[You Taste Delicious]]: During the aforementioned sexual harassment training, Ziva notices Tony not paying attention, and licks him. He promptly jumps up and draws everyone's attention.
* [[Zettai Ryouiki]]: This is one of the staples of Abby's wardrobe.
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