NCIS – Love Boat

By starrymag | October 15, 2016

By: Danielle Cox

 

On a Navy Destroyer, Navy Seaman Jennifer Baxter (Madalyn Horcher) wakes up to start work. She wakes up her mother, who is sleeping in the bunk below her, in the process. They’re both part of a Tiger Cruise where friends and family get to experience Navy life first hand. In the trash room, Baxter is doing her job and compacting cardboard when the machine breaks. She opens it up to fix it and finds a woman’s body at the bottom.

 

At NCIS HQ, McGee (Sean Murray) is explaining his complicated proposal plan for Delilah to Bishop (Emily Wickersham). Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) thinks McGee should propose sooner rather than later because McGee is already getting nervous and on edge ever since he bought the ring – at which point Bishop likens him to Gollum. McGee asks what he should do when Gibbs (Mark Harmon) enters and tells him to “ask her and stop talking about it,” again proving he either has super hearing or some other magic quality that allows him to know everything even when he isn’t there. Gibbs and Quinn (Jennifer Esposito) along with Palmer (Brian Dietzen) head out to catch a helicopter to the Navy Destroyer.

 

On the Destroyer the team is greeted by Commander Eleadora Rey (Andrea Grano). She recognizes Quinn’s name, remembering she was an Agent Afloat who was named “The Heartbreaker” by the crew. The Commander explains that the Tiger Cruise is a two-day cruise that’s due to make port the next day and the Navy wants answers before then. The team learn that the victim is Lieutenant Vivian Mills, a navigator on board and her cousin, David Kemmons is her “Tiger” on board. They enter the ships War Room to notify him quietly but find the room full of people speculating and asking questions about a murder; people have even posted on social media.

 

In the bullpen, Bishop reads a tweet posted by Kasey Powers, a celebrity on board the ship where she mentions the murder and even hashtags #MurderBoat. The victim, Mills, has a spotless record and is a model officer. McGee asks Bishop to hold onto the ring for him, hoping not having it on him will calm his nerves. At first she refuses, but he then asks her “Can you please be my Frodo?” Who can say no to that?

 

Back on the ship, Quinn and Gibbs are questioning Mills’ cousin, David (Michael McMillian). He last saw Mills the night before and doesn’t appreciate being interrogated by them.

 

Ducky (David McCallum) is video conferencing Palmer from NCIS while he secures the body for transport. They both notice something metal compacted into the skin which they find odd considering the body was found in a paper goods machine, meaning the body and metal object could have been dumped at the same time. Abby (Pauley Perrette) enters autopsy to tell them that the mystery metal looks to be an antenna from a remote control.

 

On the ship, Quinn and Gibbs are working through everyone and are currently questioning Merrick Gomer (Andrew Bowen) who’s alibi is that he was up on deck due to seasickness. He talked a friend into sponsoring him for this Tiger Cruise, saying it was a cheaper way to travel to Norfolk. Gibbs then questions Petty Officer Brown (Mike Wade) who worked with Mills. According to him, she just joined the ship so no one knew her personally. An argument breaks out after this and Quinn and Gibbs find Curt Shapiro (Darin Toonder), Kasey’s agent, arguing with a dad just asking for an autograph for his young daughter. The CO is looking for Gibbs down in maintenance and when he gets there she has a list of everyone on board. They notice a discrepancy after drill. It seems one tiger, Stuart Baxter, is unaccounted for. Seaman Baxter explains that her brother never boarded because he had car trouble. An imposter boarded as Stuart Baxter.

 

At NCIS Bishop and McGee are arguing over where to store the ring. They’re still arguing when Delilah (Margo Harshman) enters to meet Bishop for lunch. This causes McGee to panic, but he’s saved by Torres flying a drone into the bullpen saying Abby found something. He goes on to distract Delilah from McGee’s weird behavior by talking about drone street races then says the metal found on the victim is from a drone remote. McGee leaves the room to call Gibbs rather than use his desk phone which leaves Delilah very confused.

 

Quinn uses a card game to try and get Baxter’s cousin to talk. She casually brings up drones and asks if he brought one on board. David thinks he’s being interrogated, but Quinn goes on to say her nickname was actually “Queen of Hearts” because she was always playing cards and thought it was a good, relaxed way to get to know each other. She wasn’t interrogating him but she sure is now. David asks for a lawyer.

 

In the NCIS garage, Abby is checking out Stuart Baxter’s car and she informs Torres that it was tampered with. Torres reports that someone stole Baxter’s ID and that’s how the imposter got on board.

 

Back on board, a search team is looking for the imposter with no luck and they’re running out of time. Quinn asks the Commander to delay making port so they can find the killer, saying the closer they get to land the likelier it is he’ll get away but the Commander refuses.

 

In Abby’s lab, she sifts through all the trash and plastic recycling and found the drone. It had a detachable camera and she managed to get the footage. It recorded Kasey Powers in a restricted area of the ship.

 

On the Destroyer they question Kasey (Hayley Erin) and learn she had surgery on her vocal chords and can’t sing for month, which is why she’s on this Goodwill Tour to raise awareness for the Navy. Anything sensitive was turned off or removed before she entered any restricted areas, but she wasn’t the only one allowed access; other tigers were there too.

 

Torres is inputting names from the ships manifest to the NCIS system to see if anyone pops when Bishop says she’ll store the engagement ring in her locked desk drawer because where is safer than a government building full of agents? McGee says no and that he’s broken into that drawer multiple times when Kate and Ziva worked there. McGee also has a lead. He has security footage of Baxter’s gym locker when his ID was stolen. They run facial recognition on the offender and get a hit. The name is Wayne Cribbage (Wilmer Calderon), who also happens to be the tiger dad after an autograph earlier.

 

Quinn and Gibbs are notified, but alarms start to go off. It seems Cribbage has jumped overboard in the hopes he can swim to shore since they’re close to the pier. Quinn and Gibbs grab a helicopter to shore to catch him and turn up just as Cribbage gets to shore.

 

In interrogation he explains he’s a paparazzo. He overheard Baxter at his gym bragging about the cruise and boarded to get exclusive footage of Kasey Powers. He didn’t kill anyone, but was in the trash room setting up his drone when Mills entered, arguing with a man so he stashed the drone in the trash and hid. He didn’t hear what they were arguing about but saw the man hit Mills then dump her body.

 

At NCIS, McGee notices a restraining order for domestic abuse pop up in the system against Merrick Gomer, the man wanting a cheap ride to Norfolk. It seems that is where his ex-wife, a Navy Lieutenant, and six year old son happen to live on base. The Navy would never let him on base so he used the cruise as a back door.

 

Gomer picks his son up at the park without his ex-wife knowing. Gibbs stops him before he can drive away and arrests him discretely so his kid won’t see. He also asks the boy if he wants to go for coffee while they wait for his mom to show up.

 

In the conference room, they inform David that Vivian recognized Gomer and knew he was denied visitation rights to his kid because she was friends with his ex-wife. Vivian died trying to do the right thing. They also know that David isn’t Vivian’s cousin and he is actually her boyfriend. They kept it secret because partners weren’t allowed on this Tiger Cruise, but they didn’t want to wait six months for the cruise he was allowed on. He says his only regret was not giving Vivian a ring.

 

McGee rushes out, breaks into Bishop’s drawer (with her watching) before running to the elevator where he finds Delilah. He kicks someone out and waits for the elevator to move before pulling a ‘Gibbs’ and pushing the emergency break. He’s so nervous he starts rambling before telling Delilah he doesn’t want to waste any more time, gets down on one knee and asks her to marry him. She tearfully and ecstatically says yes as the episode ends.