'NCIS' season 12: Donna Kauffman recaps episode 5

It's Captain Phillips night on NCIS. I say we dispense with the preliminaries and get right to it, shall we?

The show apparently agrees with that attitude. We open with Bishop skulking around a Navy ship, apparently on the prowl for some baddies, only when she finds them, she hesitates a millisecond too long, and wham … she's dead. Or she would be, if it wasn't a training exercise and the would-be masked baddies weren't actually DiNozzo and Gibbs. Now she only wishes she were dead, given how badly she just disappointed Gibbs. And herself.

She and DiNozzo are exiting the training scene, still aboard ship, as he tries — in that way only DiNozzo can — to make her feel better about her recent death, when they bump right into Coast Guard Agent Abigail Boren. Yay! Welcome back, Agent Boren! And she immediately tells DiNozzo that she's heard he's "knocking boots" with Agent Pendergast (Agent SAS, for you dedicated readers). Tony asks who told her this, and apparently it was Pendergast herself, sharing the info while she and Boren were soul cycling. "It's a form of exercise," Boren clarifies, all dry tone and arched brow. Tony looks to Bishop and explains it was more of a "dalliance," but Boren pokes in and tells him she's not his conscience. Oh, Abigail, how we've missed you and all your acerbic get-a-gripness.

We shift from Bishop's continued lamenting of her training screw-up to Boren joining Gibbs above deck at the railing. Gibbs immediately points out to sea, saying he sees something, then a second later is yelling, "Man overboard!" Aaaaand, we're at our awesome opening credit sequence, BAM! I tell ya, the show ain't foolin' around this season. Twelve seasons in, and they're not taking any breathers. I like that about them.

No commercial break as we dive right into what is now a murder as we shift to Bishop, Gibbs and DiNozzo looking at the man overboard, who is now on the deck, wrapped in an orange body bag. No one is missing from the crew, Bishop tells him, and DiNozzo chimes in with the news that the man's credentials show him to be from another vessel, civilian. Gibbs grills Bishop on her take on what happened to make the dead guy dead, giving her a chance to redeem herself. Not so sure she helped herself there with the few tentative responses she gives him, but we're shifting belowdeck again, to the command center as Boren tells Gibbs the other vessel is a cargo ship that left port three hours ago. DiNozzo wonders if they noticed they were a man short, but as they aren't responding to contact attempts, no one knows. Boren also notes that the ship is not on course to its intended destination. She's sending her closest Coast Guard vessel to check it out, but it's several hours out. Gibbs tells Bishop to pack her bags. She'll be escorting the body back while Gibbs, Boren and crew go after the off-course cargo ship.

Back from commercial, we're at NCIS headquarters with a returning Bishop complaining to McGee about her helicopter ride in lieu of talking about her training failure, as McGee puts up Dead Man Overboard's info on the Screen of All Knowing. Turns out he did 15 years in the Navy, now civilian, recently employed by the cargo company as security for their trans-Atlantic runs. McGee probes a bit on Bishop's training run, but she doesn't want to talk about it. Then, naturally, starts to talk about it. She's still hung up on the fact that she did everything right, completely textbook, and shouldn't have failed. McGee tells her everyone fails, that it's a textbook Kobayashi Maru. Bishop needs clarification, but I don't. Please tell me that you don't either, because otherwise it's official: I'm old as dirt. OK, OK, so for those of you who, like Bishop, need an assist, Kobayashi Maru was the training mission on Star Trek that everyone failed … except Captain James T. Kirk. (I feel redeemed that my spell check actually knew this term and accepted it without hesitation.) Bishop is further perturbed by this, feeling it's unfair, that it's cheating, then asks how Gibbs did on the test. "Oh, he passed." She wants to know how. McGee looks at her. "Because he's Gibbs." Yeah, he is!

We shift to the deck of the errant cargo ship, with Gibbs and Boren now on board and approaching the first mate. He's a chucklehead, all, "Were we speeding, officer?" and maintains his folksy charm as he explains, after they ask to speak to the captain, that he's a little busy "captaining" but will certainly be up soon. Unsurprisingly, this doesn't fly with either Gibbs or Boren, the latter of whom asks if he's aware the ship is off-course. First Mate Chucklehead blames it on avoiding bad weather, then continues to make excuses as they ask why the ship hasn't been responding to their contact calls about their radio being out. We note that both Boren and Gibbs are unobtrusively scanning the deck as they become more convinced that something isn't as it seems. They ask Chucklehead if all his men are accounted for, and he says yes, but his charm is starting to fray a little, so he asks them to get to their reason for being there. Gibbs explains about Dead Man Overboard and asks if maybe now they can see the captain?

Cut to belowdeck as they talk to the tobacco-chewing, spitting-in-a-cup, somewhat grizzled cargo ship captain as he complains about being cursed. First with the weather, then losing their radio, and now this. He plays it off as an accident, that the guy must have slipped overboard. Boren tells him they'll know soon enough as the body is being examined, then asks for a manifest and crew list as Gibbs explains they'll need to talk to everyone. The captain is all slack-jawed and "Now?" causing Boren to roll her eyes and grow more impatient. "Yes. Now." Captain Spittoon tries to deflect them, acting conciliatory when reminded a man is dead, but he's behind schedule and he has to get things done, and — then he starts tottering off, collapsing on a nearby bench. Which is when Boren sees that he's been stabbed in his side.

We leave Captain Spittoon gasping and shift to Ducky and Bishop standing over the body of Dead Man Overboard. Ducky explains he has defensive wounds from fending off someone with a knife, but he wasn't stabbed, it was death by drowning. However, it wasn't seawater in his lungs. Ducky is waiting for confirmation from Abby, but seems certain they'll find it was water from on board the ship, meaning he was drowned on the ship, then tossed overboard. More problematic, however, is that Dead Man Overboard is not the guy whose credentials they ran, as that guy had two functioning kidneys if he served in the Navy for 15 years. Dead Man Overboard has only one functioning kidney and wouldn't have passed the medical requirements for military duty.

Back on board the ship, Gibbs is with Chucklehead as they go to the radio room, only to find the bloody evidence of a violent scuffle and a sabotaged radio. Gibbs has the crew member who has been shadowing Chucklehead this entire time removed from the room by the petty officer he brought with him from the Navy ship, and then cuts through Chucklehead's lame excuses by noting that the guy shadowing him, who he just ejected from the room, wasn't wearing proper footwear for a cargo ship crewman, so what the heck is going on and who is that guy?

We don't get to find out right away, as we go back to the command room on board the Navy ship where Boren has taken the captain for medical help. There, she tells DiNozzo that the captain has lost a lot of blood, and DiNozzo shares what we've already learned from Ducky. DiNozzo goes to contact Gibbs to bring him up to speed, only his own phone rings. It's Abby, with a report on the identity of Dead Man Overboard. He's a Venezuelan criminal wanted in five countries for piracy. She's e-mailed info to him, and bingo, there in her dossier is the guy who was shadowing Chuckles. Boren leaves to head back to the cargo ship to help Gibbs as DiNozzo radios Gibbs and brings him up to speed. Before Gibbs can respond, Shadow Pirate bangs back into the room and he's got Gibbs' petty officer pinned to his chest with an arm across her throat and a big ol' gun aimed at Gibbs. Fade to black/white screen.

Did I mention the show wasn't taking a breather this season? Whew!

We return to find Boren and DiNozzo teleconferencing from the Navy ship with Bishop and McGee back at headquarters, bringing them up to speed on the compromised cargo ship, as Bishop wants to know how a U.S. cargo ship is boarded by pirates without anyone noticing. They find out that Dead Pirate Overboard got on the ship impersonating the real former Navy guy hired to do security and apparently orchestrated the takeover of the ship. Not clear how he got dead. The real security guy he was impersonating was last seen at a bar back on shore 10 days ago. Now they are concerned with who else is on board impersonating actual crew members.

A call comes in from shore, and both Boren and DiNozzo step forward at the request of "who's in charge," but it's Boren who ends up taking the call. Meanwhile, Bishop finds out that the last time Dead Pirate Overboard stole a ship was two years prior, where he held the captain for 10 days in a standoff against the Brazilian Navy before escaping when they won and boarded the ship. Turns out, the captain he held hostage then was none other than good ol' Captain Spittoon.

DiNozzo puts McGee in charge back at headquarters as we shift back to the command room on the cargo ship, where Gibbs and Chuckles are being held, sitting on the floor as Shadow Pirate glowers and other also-pirates mingle at the door. Gibbs questions Chuckles on how many crew were taken hostage and how many pirates, and Chuckles responds, but they are quickly shut down by the gun-waving Shadow Pirate. He then leaves one of his pirate crew in charge and heads off with the other pirate, so Gibbs immediately questions Chuckles again on where he thinks the real crew is being held, only Chuckles is pretty intimidated at this point. We find out Petty Officer is sitting on the other side of Gibbs, nursing a pretty decent head wound from her encounter with Shadow Pirate. Gibbs does what Gibbs does best and calms her down, makes her laugh, gets her name — Patricia — when Shadow Pirate enters again and tries to stop him. Gibbs isn't intimidated and continues offering care to Petty Officer Patty, while barking at the pirate to lead if he's now the leader and get on the damn walkie-talkie, get his ransom, and get off the damn ship. This is why we love Gibbs. He's so deliciously … Gibbsian.

Shadow Pirate seems to think this is a great idea. He gets on the walkie, signals DiNozzo and Boren on the Navy ship and tells them he wants 10 million, unmarked of course, and, oh yeah, in an hour, please. Sure. We'll get right on that. Hope so, because he's threatening to shoot a hostage. Boren tries to find out the status of the hostages, but she's cut off when Shadow Pirate disconnects.

We shift back to home base, where Boss McGee and Bishop are at the home of the impersonated Former Navy Security Guy, only to find it's been turned into pirate headquarters, where they grew their weapons stash and made the false ID's to get on board the cargo ship. They also find FNSG dead in the bathtub.

Back on board the naval vessel, Captain Spittoon is being prepped for a medevac chopper ride back to a hospital on dry land. DiNozzo is having a little chat with him before he's loaded on board. DiNozzo wants to know how the captain missed that one of his crew was actually a pirate, coincidentally the same one who took him hostage two years prior. The captain said he did indeed recognize him, that he tried to stop him, which was how he got stabbed. He was the one who tossed Dead Pirate Overboard hoping someone would find him and do exactly what DiNozzo and crew did. Even with one pirate dead, however, the ship was already compromised and the captain's crew was still being held hostage.

DiNozzo is back in the Navy ship command room now telling Boren that Captain Spittoon has taken off and asking what she intends to do next about Shadow Pirate's demands. Hostage Negotiation 101. "Keep him stalled, keep him calm, keep him talking." DiNozzo smiles. "Just like dating." Boren opens communication with Shadow Pirate, but he's having none of her negotiating tactics, prompting Tony to jerk the mic from her hands and try to talk, but he's shut down as communication is abruptly cut. Back on board the cargo ship, Shadow Pirate goes to jerk Petty Officer Patty from the floor. To his credit, Chuckles tries to stop him but gets kicked back to the floor. "Do you want to take her place?" the pirate shouts. Gibbs stands up as the pirate swings the gun toward his chest and simply says, "I do." With that stare. You know that stare. That calm, deceptively calm Gibbs stare? Shadow Pirate is going to know that stare. Intimately. And we're all going to enjoy it when he does. I love this show.

We return from commercial as Tony is telling Shadow Pirate he'll have the money to him in 30 minutes, then amends that to 40 as he hears Boren on her own phone trying to negotiate getting the money together. We see that, as they are talking, Shadow Pirate is manhandling our Gibbs through the cargo ship passageways at gunpoint, threatening to use bullets to prove how serious he is. Specifically, on Gibbs. Tony's alarm increases at this news as does his resolve, as he continues his fast-talking. Gibbs uses the moment to turn on his abductor, and we see a scuffle begin as we shift back to Tony and Boren. They hear the scuffle, then a gunshot. Tony demands to talk to Gibbs, but there is no response. For a moment. Then Gibbs comes on. "I'm fine." We can't say the same for Shadow Pirate, however, who is presently bleeding from a gunshot wound to the leg. See? I told you it would be satisfying. But we still have a quarter hour left, so the show, it ain't over yet.

Back with Ducky, McGee walks in, all Gibbs-like with coffee in hand, only to be asked to set it aside, please, before coming closer. Heh. We find out that FNSG was strangled then put in the tub with a combination of water and chemicals to slow down decomp so his killers could use the place as a pirate headquarters to set up the cargo ship takeover. Ducky smiles as Boss McGee strides from the room.

Back on board, Gibbs drags Shadow Pirate to the command room and uses the tourniquet he ties on the pirate's gunshot leg as his leverage for getting him to talk. He wants to know where the other pirates are on the ship and who was in charge. Shadow only knew that Dead Pirate Overboard was in charge, but when his fight with Captain Spittoon took out the radio and got him dead, that their whole plan went awry. Ya think? Back on land, Bishop is in Abby's lab, going through the laptop taken from the FNSG's pirate lair, trying to discover who masterminds the entire pirate operation. McGee enters the lab, still doing his Gibbs' impression, which he really needs to stop because it's not so much charming now as it is annoying. Abby runs down all the info she's gleaned from the forensic pirate lair and adds that she's still trying to decrypt the number that Gibbs took down from a scrap left on the floor of the room where Captain Spittoon and Dead Pirate Overboard scuffled. Then she's all, "You're turning into McGibbs," and he's all, "Noooo. " Yeah … it might be working for her, but it's really not working for me. I was hoping it wouldn't work for her either, so she could shut that down for the good of us all. But no. Ah well, Show. We can't kick a goal every time, I guess.

We're back on board the Navy ship where Boren is looking at the ID's that Abby found on the computer revealing who the other pirates are, but they're young guys with barely there criminal records who seem an odd choice for being turned into pirates. Back at the agent bullpen, more of McGibbs, and … it's creeping me out. Also? Seems disrespectful to the actual Gibbs. Like McGee could even hope to capture a hint of the flavor? I get it's supposed to be the humorous byline, but I'm just going to gloss over it because … glecchh. Bishop is trying to track down the money and has tracked it to a local site as Abby runs in with the info on the numbers Gibbs wrote down from the scuffle scene. After a moment being distracted by McGibbs standing behind the actual Gibbs' desk, she tells us that it's a tracking number for a shipping container, owned by a company under investigation for smuggling drug money via cargo containers all over the world. Tens of millions of dollars. Not a chump-change organization. McGibbs is all "Rule No. 70. Keep digging until you hit bottom." Fine, except there is no Rule 70. He made it up, and Abby is having none of that. FINALLY.

Back on board ship, Gibbs drags Shadow Pirate into the mess where Other Pirate is holding the hostages at gunpoint. Gibbs uses Shadow Pirate to overtake him, and the hostages are finally freed. All except Petty Officer Patty, who is not in the room. Chuckles tells him the other pirate took her, but he doesn't know where. We then see Gibbs dragging Shadow Pirate down to the container that coordinated with the number he wrote down. Shadow thinks the remaining pirate took her there. Only when Gibbs looks into the container … yeah, it's empty, and lookie there, there's a bomb attached to it. Wha? Why? Gibbs is talking to Tony on the walkie, only at the sound of a gun cocking, he spins to find young remaining pirate dude with Petty Officer Patty in yet another chokehold. Also? "Just to be clear," Shadow Pirate tells him, "that's not our bomb."

Twisty, turny. Season 12, you're sooo good!

Back on board after commercial break, we're at the stand-off. Young Pirate wants Gibbs to put his gun down, Gibbs tells him to turn off the bomb first. He's reminded by Shadow Pirate that it's not their bomb, but that in two minutes and 53 seconds, it's still going to go off anyway. "Not if I disarm it," Gibbs calmly tells him. Young Pirate is all, "You can do that?" Indeed, he can. He's Gibbs. He tells Young Pirate to drop his gun, and he'll get right on that. Young Pirate is learning The Look, too. Shadow Pirate tells YP in Spanish not to trust Gibbs. DiNozzo and Boren are approaching, call out, only to be told by Gibbs that there's a bomb and they need to evacuate the ship. DiNozzo makes that call, then he and Boren join Gibbs, three guns to one Young Pirate gun. YP and Shadow keep sticking to their story that they were just there for ransom then off they'd go on their escape boat and that the container was empty when they got there, they don't know nuthin' 'bout no drug money.

Boren tells them that, you know, funny thing, that when they found all the plans on the heist on the computer in the pirate lair, there was no mention of an escape boat. Just, you know … that bomb. The one that's set to go off now, in, oh, two minutes or so, and counting. Tony's all, "It's like Die Hard, on a ship," as they try to impress upon the pirates that they were just being set up to take the fall so the cartel the head honchos were stealing the drug money from wouldn't go after them, the actual thieves. Dead pirates tell no tales. At a minute and counting, Shadow Pirate finally calls off Young Pirate, who still wants to argue until Gibbs tells him, "You can drop your weapon and I can diffuse the bomb or I can shoot you and diffuse the bomb." Young Pirate takes his time as DiNozzo and Boren count the bomb alarmingly all the way to zero … and nothing happens. Gibbs, who is restraining Young Pirate now, calmly holds up the red wire he took from the bomb earlier. That Gibbs. Boren doesn't look nearly as amused as Tony does by this revelation. In fact, as she takes over cuffing Young Pirate and Gibbs asks Petty Officer Patty if she's OK, Boren socks him in the chest. "Ow," he says as he hands over the walkie-talkie. Heh. This is why we love her. Who else would punch Gibbs and get away with it?

Gibbs notes that someone had to have taken the money off the ship already, and Tony spies a bit of spittoon spit on the floor. Oh, Captain. Back on land, DiNozzo and Boren track down Captain Spittoon and cuff him as they read off the long list of offenses of how they figured out he concocted the whole thing. Dead Pirate Overboard decided Captain Spittoon was going to be his new business partner after their initial run-in. Captain went along with it as he had no choice, then stole the money and killed Dead Pirate Overboard, except, yeah, that didn't go as well as he'd planned. All in all.

We close out with Boren inviting DiNozzo to join her team. He's not impressed with being her No. 2, only she confides that she already has a No. 2. "But you're make a solid No. 3." Smiles as she departs and DiNozzo heads into the agent bullpen. McGee is still being … not McGee and annoying me. Bishop enters and has studied up on all things Kobayashi Maru and plans to ask Gibbs how he rigged his test. "You're going to accuse the boss of cheating on an official test," Tony wants to know. "Yeah. Sounded better in my head." Tony leads Bishop off to the elevator as McGee moves over to Gibbs' chair and smiles, thinking maybe he will be the next Gibbs. Mercifully for us all, Gibbs is standing behind him, coffee in hand, and that dream dies a quick death. "Really. Rule 70, McGee?"

Heh. My show. The love grows.

You know what else grows? The list of winners in my weekly Recap Giveaways! Last week I put a copy of my recent release, Sandpiper Island up for grabs, along with a bookmark charm designed exclusively for the book by The Cotton Thistle! Thanks to everyone for the enthusiasm for the giveaways, and for the show itself. Love the notes and letters and your dish on all things Gibbs & Co. Keep those coming! And this week's winner is? Come on down, Elizabeth MacGregor-Kirkcaldy!! Drop me an e-mail to donna@donnakauffman.com with an address, and your prize will go out to you.

Now, all you Not Elizabeths are already over last week's giveaway and wanting to know what the swag is this week. Well, it's some good stuff. Audible.com has the complete Bachelors of Blueberry Cove series for sale, and I happen to have a few to hand out to interested readers. Would that be you? If so, drop me an e-mail to donna@donnakauffman.com with "I'm all about a Blueberry Cove audiobook!" in the subject line. That's it! As always, please feel free to include any and all thoughts on the show in the note as well. Love hearing your take on the episode. I'll draw three winners, one for each book, and announce them here in next week's recap. Don't forget to check back!

In the meantime, if you want to know more about my books, check out my handy website at www.donnakauffman.com. And for all the day-to-day frivolity, join me on Facebook. I'm also on Twitter and Instagram because social media is way too fun to pass up. See you there! Then see you back here!