NCIS: Difference between revisions

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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.

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== A-E ==

* [[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.

* [[Affably Evil]]:

** The merchant of death, René Benoît.

** The Reynosas, a Mexican [[Brother-Sister Team]] that declared a [[Feuding Families|feud]] on Gibbs. They are actually among the series' most sympathetic villains.

* [[Alone with the Psycho]]: Usually resulting in a [[What Kept You?]]. Sometimes, it's been subverted, as the obvious person in danger isn't actually. In one case, an undercover Ziva {{spoiler|killed the guy before help arrived and moped for the rest of the episode}}. Also, this seems to happen to Abby about once a season.

* [[Anyone Can Die]]: {{spoiler|Kate Todd, Jenny Shepard, Mike Franks}}... that's not counting the multitude of other NCIS agents and the like who have died, or the spinoff series.

* [[Artistic License Geography]]: ''NCIS'' erroneously believes Chechnya to be Russia's neighbor, apparently in-universe invaded in some sort of Russian anti-terrorism police action, and while it is surprisingly regular in recognizing Chechen insurgents as terrorist groups, it stubbornly refers to Chechnya as if it were an independent country, with its own passports recognized by the international community, and so on. The only way to enter the United States from Chechnya is carrying a Russian Federation passport with a US visa, because Chechnya has been a province of Russia for the last several hundred years.

** Note as this takes place in the JAG-universe, JAG made this error first and for continuity's sake was kept.

* [[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]]:

*** 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.

* [[Backstory]]:

** All characters have some, such as Gibbs having lost hist first wife and daughter.

* [[Badass]]: Gibbs, Ziva (who's a [[Badass Israeli]]). All of the main cast get at least one badass moment over the course of the show's run, though.

* [[Badass Adorable]]: Abby.

* [[Badass Grandpa]]:

** Mike Franks, literally.

* [[Badass Mustache]]: Gibbs sported one for a few episodes after his short "retirement". It freaked out Tony and McGee.

{{quote|'''Gibbs''': I need you to look at something before you leave.

* [[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.

** 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.

* [[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.

* [[Beauty Is Never Tarnished|Beauty/Handsomeness Are Never Tarnished]]: The team averts it regularly, but especially in Season 7's premiere.

* [[Berserk Button]]:

** For Gibbs:

:::Abby actually [[Lampshade|lampshades]] this in the same episode.

{{quote|'''Gibbs''': Why didn't you come to me, Abby?

*** People who do harm to kids, especially their own.

*** Messing with his coffee, although his reaction to this is fairly minor in comparison to the others.

** In "Seadog", Ducky goes ballistic on a local LEO who contaminates a crime scene so he can get in good with the news reporter on the scene.

* [[BFG]]: Ex-Watcher operator Casey Stratton uses a Desert Eagle chambered in .50 Action Express against the NCIS team in "Housekeeping".

* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: Ziva is Hebrew, even though it's sorta mangled. Also, Abby and Gibbs using sign language. Gratuitous second-year undergrad level Russian for a lot of characters. Passable French and some level of Arabic.

** Averted hard in the episode "Primitus Victor". "Victor" isn't Latin for "victim;" it's Latin for "victor".

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[Bottle Episode]]: "Trojan Horse" takes place largely in NCIS HQ, aside from a few location shots of Paris and a hospice.

* [[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}}.

** 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.

** 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.

** 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]].

* [[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.

* [[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.

** Tony, McGee: "On it, boss."

** Abby: "I hate it when he/she/they does/do that."

* [[Cat Fight]]:

** Ziva and Abby get into one in the first "Hiatus" episode; see [[Intimate Healing]] below for the resolution.

* [[Caught on Tape]]: The premise of the episode "Dead Reflection".

* [[Cerebus Retcon]]: In what may be record time, this show pulled it off in a 50 minute span. In one episode, Abby uses her refund check to buy everyone else iPods. Gibbs is less than enthused, because he only listens to five songs. This is treated as a joke until the end of the episode, where it's revealed that {{spoiler|the five songs he listens to are recordings of his deceased daughter learning how to play the piano}}. [[Tear Jerker|Damn]].

* [[The Chessmaster]]: René Benoît.

* [[Choke Holds]]: One victim of the week died of this.

* [[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."}}

* [[Coast Guard]]: In "Jurisdiction", the CGIS (Coast Guard Investigating Service) features in a major way.

* [[Cold-Blooded Torture]]:

** 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.

** Averted, however, {{spoiler|when he took revenge for his murdered wife and daughter. Hard to be emotionless after that}}.

** Ari is portrayed as one.

* [[The Commandments]]: The fifty-or-so Rules that Gibbs uses to run his team.

* [[The Consigliere]]: It's revealed in one episode that whenever Tony is left in charge of a case, he secretly has meetings with {{spoiler|[[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|Palmer]]}} to help point him in the right direction whenever Tony feels that he's lost on what to do next.

* [[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.

** 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.

** When Abby produces her ID in "Hiatus", she explains that she was wearing the more standard outfit in the photo (in contrast to the goth gear she was in) because she was heading to court. It's the same court outfit from "Bloodbath", two episodes previous.

** Ziva has repeatedly worn the orange hat of {{spoiler|the late}} Lt. Roy from the episode "Dead Man Walking".

** "Enemies Domestic" is jam-packed with these. Two words: {{spoiler|[[Chekhov's Gunman|Anatoly Zukov]]}}.

* [[Contract on the Hitman]]: Tony and Ziva pretend to be a pair of married assassins in the beginning of the episode in order to find out who their target was. When its revealed that the couple was in fact the target, [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* [[Cool Boat]]: Gibbs always seems to be working on one in his basement; it's implied to be therapeutic for him.

** 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.

** 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!}}

{{quote|'''Abby''': {{spoiler|''Now'' can I work alone?}}}}

* [[Crusading Widower]]: Gibbs.

** Monkey-wrenched every which way in "Kill Ari".

** We see it again after (and even some before) {{spoiler|Mike Franks gets killed}}.

* [[Death Glare]]: Gibbs, bordering on [[Once an Episode]] in earlier seasons.

** Don't forget Karen Bright from "Smoked", when she's exposed as the actual serial killer. She flashes Gibbs and Fornell a look that would ''vaporize lead''.

* [[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.

** 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.

*** 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.

** On the Headscratchers page, someone makes a complaint about Jimmy Palmer's lack of a medical degree. This is a legit complaint as a medical degree and certification as a pathologist (which usually comes 3-8 years after obtaining the degree) are required for this job.

** In the episode "Toxic", McGee and Tony are attempting to do work in Abby's lab using Ethidium Bromide. As McGee has a Biomedical degree, he should know that Ethidium Bromide is highly carcinogenic (cancer-causing) - it even says so on the bottle - and he should have used gloves and proper disposal. Not only that, but when Abby sees that it has poured on the floor she makes him clean it with just tissues. Even if McGee somehow didn't know about the carcinogenic nature of the chemical, Abby surely should have and should have told him. On top of that, Ethidium Bromide doesn't suddenly fizz up like they showed, making this scene the most cringe-worthy ever for anybody who has worked in a lab.

** The episode "Kill Screen" is full of this. McGee makes nonsensical comments about MMORPGs (high scores?!) and the [[Hollywood Hacking]] is atrocious.

*** It is, however, very likely that Gibbs was making the entire thing up to bug Director Shepard.

** "Reveille" features a terrorist who rides a [[Cool Bike|Ducati 749]]. However, the sound dubbed over is from an inline-4 motorcycle. Ducati almost exclusively uses v-twins, which give a very different sound.

* [[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.

* [[The Don]]: René Benoît.

'''Gibbs''': Don't call me sir.

'''Abby''': Thank you, ma'am. *walks off*

*** If you call Ziva "Ma'am"...

{{quote|'''Franks''': You got old, Marine.

'''Gibbs''': Have you looked in the mirror, lately?

''Franks reaches around to slap the back of Gibbs' head, but stops.''

** Gibbs isn't the only one to use it; it's been done by both Tony and Abby on McGee, Tony on Ziva, Ziva on Tony...even characters ''on themselves'' when Gibbs is not around, but they know they've done something monumentally stupid. Gibbs has also done this to himself {{spoiler|after he compromised evidence to let a Marine (who normally wouldn't have gotten in, due to health reasons) avoid confessing to a crime he didn't commit}}. In an episode where Gibbs {{spoiler|had [[Trauma-Induced Amnesia]]}}, Ziva {{spoiler|takes his hand and uses it to slap her own head, which triggers his memory recall}}.

** In one episode, the team had to attend a mandatory [[Sensitivity Training]] seminar. Tony casually asked if it would be okay to receive such a slap from a coworker, and received the predictable reply that it was workplace harassment. Cue a round of shifty looks from the entire team and a hasty backpedal from Tony when the presenter asked if such a thing had actually happened.

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]]:

** Gibbs has shifted into this mode more than once to intimidate suspects, especially if they're Marines.

* [[Drives Like Crazy]]: Gibbs, Ziva, and Tony in the earlier seasons. When Kate is in a car that a very angry Gibbs is driving, this conversation ensues:

{{quote|'''Kate''': Gibbs is driving.

** A quote by Shepard about Ziva is telling (this is after she drove the team's van like a maniac and made Tony puke):

{{quote|'''Shepard''': I forgot to mention, I think she may have been an Eastern European cab driver in a past life.}}

** Ziva tries to make this a [[Justified Trope]] by saying her driving style is good for avoiding ambushes and IEDs. It's pointed out to her that neither scenario is likely to be encountered in the US.

{{quote|'''Eli''': With traffic, I wasn't expecting you for another hour.

'''Ziva''': I drove.

** We find out from Eli in "Enemies Foreign" that we have Ziva's mother to thank for it.

* [[Dropped a Bridget On Him]]: In one episode, {{spoiler|Tony dates a woman who turns out to be a male seeking gender reassignment surgery. This is made all the more awkward by the fact the "woman" had killed a Marine and was intending to kill Tony before the night was over}}.

* [[Dude in Distress]]: Generally, Tony is the resident dude in distress, but he usually manages to get himself out of his situations by himself.

{{quote|My name is {{spoiler|Mike Franks}}! I figure I got one last fight left in me!... You want it?}}

* [[Easter Egg]]: In one episode, the team finds a voice synthesizer speaking individual words, including "...yankee, white...". "Yankee White" is the pilot episode.

* [[Emergency Impersonation]]: Ducky impersonates the deceased arms dealer to try to capture La Grenouille.

* [[Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas]]: [[Complete Monster|Ari]] is implied to have cared for his late mother and believed his father is responsible for her death. He used that as his [[Freudian Excuse]] for joining Hamas, as his father was a Mossad director.

* [[Everything Is Online]]: Seriously. Everything. Including pacemakers.

** Gibbs having a longer-than-Marine-regs haircut gets made fun of in "My Other Left Foot" by a gunnery sergeant Gibbs met years before as an MP.

{{quote|'''Gunny''': (trying to remember Gibbs) He was high and tight then.

'''Gibbs''': (rubs hair) Not exactly shaggy, Gunny.

** "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.

** One episode was kicked off by someone being sent a pair of human eyes.

** [[CIA Evil, FBI Good|CIA agent]] [[Smug Snake|Trent Kort]] got his eye gouged out by the Port-to-Port Killer.

{{quote|'''Harm:''' How long you been doing this, Gunny?

'''Gibbs:''' Seventeen years.

'''Harm:''' Then why don't you just '''ask''' me, Gunny? Why don't you just ask me?

'''Gibbs:''' ''*pause*'' Would you kill for your brother?

 

== F-J ==