NCIS – Rogue

By starrymag | September 21, 2016

By: Danielle Cox

 

Episode one of the new season, the first episode without Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, (Michael Weatherly) opens in Buenos Aires, Argentina with Miguel (Wilmer Valderrama) and Elena (Sol Rodriguez) in a bar when one of Miguel’s work colleagues walks in. Miguel joins him at the bar and is told that Mr. Silva sent him to send condolences about his sister in the US, that they know Miguel is an American Agent and his sister will die for it. He draws a knife on Miguel who then uses that it to kill him before leaving the bar.

 

Back in America, a family is arguing in a car when the emergency lights start to go off. The car then sets on fire causing them to crash. The mother, Lucia, (Pilar Holland) manages to save the daughter, Amanda (Ciara Bravo) but the car explodes before she can get to her husband.

 

At Gibbs’ house, Fornell (Joe Spano) is living there during his recovery from last season and it is a very strange dynamic they have going on. Fornell is wearing Gibbs’ robe and sleeping on Gibbs’ couch. Fornell mentions he’s taking some time off from physical therapy and Gibbs (Mark Harmon) retorts with “one day off” at which point Fornell chimes in that he read in Cosmo that compromise is the key to maintaining a successful relationship. At this point, Gibbs leaves.

 

At NCIS, McGee (Sean Murray) can’t settle into DiNozzo’s old desk and a new probationary agent has just been fired by Gibbs – he only lasted four days. The team then gears up as they have a dead Commander in Alexandria.

 

At the scene we find out that Lucia and Amanda are at a local hospital and the father, Navy Commander George Campbell, (Shaw Jones) is dead. McGee starts to point out that the car is a hybrid and he’s done research as to the cause of the fire, but Abby (Pauley Perrette) interrupts telling him to shush. She states that the battery wasn’t to blame for the fire and that it had been tampered with, turning the car into a ticking time bomb.

 

Back at NCIS, Gibbs wants an update and we find out the Commander worked in logistics at the Pentagon and didn’t have any enemies as far as anyone knew. His wife, Major Lucia Campbell, worked as a prosecutor for JAG and most likely had a long list of enemies. Agent Alex Quinn (Jennifer Esposito) then enters, sarcastically congratulating Gibbs for rejecting eight agents on the last three months. Bishop (Emily Wickersham) and McGee then leave, one to interview the daughter and the other to look into Lucia’s work.

 

In the break room, Quinn confronts Gibbs about rejecting all the agents she sends to him, claiming they’re “too smart” or “too timid,” anointing Gibbs as the Goldilocks of NCIS. Gibbs tells Quinn to shadow the team so she knows exactly what agent he needs with Quinn stating that Gibbs “never makes things easy.”

 

At Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre, Bishop is interviewing Amanda and learns that Lucia has been quiet since she got back from a work trip a week before. It seems she was looking into a lead on a case.

 

In the conference room at NCIS, McGee in interviewing Captain Roberts (Patrick Labyorteaux) about Lucia’s work while Quinn sits in observing. Lucia has been at JAG four years and is one of the best prosecutors they have so of course she has ruffled some feathers. It’s what they do Captain Roberts says much to Quinn’s amusement. Roberts also says Lucia never went on a work trip, she asked for personal leave as she had a private matter to attend to.

 

Down in the medical examiner’s office, Ducky (David McCallum) and Palmer (Brian Dietzen) reveal the autopsy results were as expected – massive trauma due to the explosion. However, Palmer noticed while looking through Lucia’s medical records that a blood test showed she had a neurotoxin in her system, Latrodectus Corallinus, from a black widow spider native to Argentina and that she was bit within the last two weeks.

 

Up in the bullpen, Quinn remembers McGee from when she trained him, but doesn’t remember Bishop causing a bit of a sore subject for her. The team updates Gibbs on the case and we learn that Lucia has a brother, Nick Torres (a/k/a Miguel) as we see his photo on the screen, who is an NCIS Special Agent in deep cover who vanished six months ago on assignment and that Lucia hired a PI to look into it. The PI sent a recent photo of Torres in Buenos Aires to Lucia.

 

In Vance’s (Rocky Carroll) office, he says that Special Agent Nick Torres is need to know, but Gibbs insists he needs to know. In 2014 they needed an agent to survey Global Enforcement Academy, where US Agents provide training to local law enforcement but learnt that some officers were being scouted as mercenaries. Torres went in to investigate as a student before he went off the grid, NCIS not knowing if he was dead, rogue or switched sides.

 

Back in the bullpen, Quinn still says she doesn’t remember Bishop and Bishop leaves frustrated. McGee realizes Quinn is just playing and does, in fact, remember Bishop. Quinn says she has a personality you don’t easily forget; she just enjoys playing her. A BOLO comes through on one of Torres’ aliases and he landed in DC fifteen minutes ago.

 

At the airport, Torres is accosted by two men and they fight in an alley. Torres fight back against both when one draws a weapon on him. Before he can shoot, Bishop and Gibbs turn up. Gibbs shooting the offender before turning his gun on Torres with Torres stating, “We’re on the same side.”

 

Back in Vance’s office, Torres reveals he was befriended by a classmate, David Silva (Nicholas Gonzalez) who is the son of Leo Silva (Juan Carlos Cantu), a businessman who made a fortune off the Argentinian oil boom. It seems he is recruiting mercenaries from the GEA. Torres went off the grid and started a relationship with Silva’s daughter, Elena, to get close and become trusted. He learned that Silva was planning something big, but his sister showed up looking for him and blew his cover before he could find out what. He came to DC to warn his sister, but was too late. We find out that Silva arrived in DC two days ago.

 

Torres meets up with Silva, wanting to call a truce. If Silva leaves his family alone, Torres won’t let NCIS get hold of the evidence he has on him. Torres gives him the thumb drive with the evidence on and they part.

 

At Gibbs’ house we find out that Gibbs actually does have a doorbell and we’re as surprised as Fornell. Torres enters and Gibbs asks if Silva took the thumb drive and is told yes, but there’s no guarantee Silva will open it. Gibbs is quite confident that he will.

 

In Abby’s lab she tells Gibbs that something is “hinky in hinky town” in typical Abby fashion. She goes on to say she expected a simple detonator or trigger wires, but found something much more sophisticated. A flawed 12-volt battery had been shoved into the lithium ion compartment, add friction and heat to that and BOOM. This method means it could have been installed hours or days earlier than they originally thought and the person doing so would have to be smart. This is when McGee learns Elena has the skill and knowledge to so do.

 

Torres meets with Elena and learns she didn’t tamper with the car and doesn’t believe her family is bad. Quinn and Gibbs had a bet going on whether Elena would slug him (she didn’t) and Quinn won the be. Gibbs responds with “understanding ex” as a great reference to his many ex-wives. After she walks away, Gibbs sits down and Torres says Silva knew they were meeting and he placed a bomb with a pressure trigger under his seat leading to a humorous repartee between the two.

 

Torres hands in his badge wanting to do this his way, but Gibbs tells him to see it through the right way before Bishop interrupts with a lead on Silva’s target. The thumb drive contained a mirroring virus so when Silva opened it they could see into his laptop. They found a recent search for DC’s Festival Latino and realised his target was Justice Monica Fernandez (Gina Gallego) because her rulings favored using alternate energy measures that would lessen their dependency on international oil which would impact Silva.

 

At the festival Gibbs realizes the Judge will be targeted in her car in traffic. A motorbike pulls up at her car and places the bomb on it, which also jams the locks meaning she can’t get out. Torres stops the motorbike by shooting at it, causing it to crash and catches David Silva while Gibbs smashes the window and pulls the Judge from her car just before it explodes.

 

In interrogation, Leo tries to pin it all on his son, David. After learning Elena could have been killed by the bomb left for Torres, he turned on him and recorded their earlier conversation where he confesses everything to her.

 

In the bullpen, McGee realizes it’s not the new desk that is strange, it’s not having Tony around that he can’t get used to. Torres shows up and Bishop and McGee tell him Gibbs left something for him at McGee’s old desk – his badge. Torres will need it to be part of Team Gibbs.

 

At Gibb’s house, Quinn is beating Fornell at poker, something that doesn’t surprise Gibbs. He joins the game and asked Quinn to join his team too, ending the episode on his question “You in?”