'NCIS' season 12: Donna Kauffman recaps episode 7

It's been two lonely weeks since we've dealt with murder and mayhem, NCIS style, so let's not waste any additional time, shall we? Who is our poor unfortunate Dead Soldier of the Week this time, Gibbs?

Well, our favorite show doesn't waste any time either. We open with two suburbanite youngsters sneaking into their neighbor's garage hoping to steal something of value to buy video games with, and my first thought is … haven't we tweaked the kids-finding-dead-bodies about as much as we ever need to this season after the last episode? Apparently not. My second thought was, well, perhaps finding this dead body will steer these two from a life of crime, because, really? They don't look all that hard up for extra cash. They find a cache of military stuff, then they find the owner of said stuff dead on the garage floor. They don't seem too freaked out by this, so I'm guessing spending a chunk if not all of their teen years in juvie is still up for grabs.

Not the most scintillating opener, but hopefully things will get more gripping from here. Cue awesome opening theme song and credits!

Even more awesome, we open with McGee and Tony walking in from the elevator to the Super Special Agent Bullpen as Tony talks about a stray cat who followed him home for two blocks, and who is currently residing in his apartment until the landlord can find a home for him. He's given the landlord 48 hours or back on the street the cat goes, but then he goes on and on about the cat, and, well, we all see where this is headed. HA! I love the idea of Tony with a pet. We'll get this guy domesticated one way or another. McGee is as skeptical of this happening as you and I are, but wait! We find out Tony already has fish. Named Kate and Ziva. You know, after the two agents who sat at the desk that Bishop now occupies. Did we know this before and I missed it? Hmm … I'm not sure what to make of that.

We shift to Bishop, who, freshly at the end of her nine-month training period, holds her final probie evaluation from Gibbs. She's afraid to open it, but McGee and Tony tell her that low scores are common, then share theirs (63 and 58, respectively) as well as Kate's score (60) and mention Ziva wouldn't tell them her score. So, is it just me, or are we suddenly talking a lot more openly about the MIA Ziva now? I like it. Glad we're not tip-toeing around that topic any longer. Now that Bishop's expectations have been sufficiently lowered, she tears open the envelope, and beams at her 82. Tony and McGee? Yeah, not so much with the beaming. But before we can discuss, Gibbs corrals them to our crime scene.

Shift to Dead Grumpy Military Neighbor Guy and Bishop telling Gibbs that the locals all say he kept to himself, worked in his garage a lot. We find out from McGee that he was a 67-year-old retired master sergeant and a career Marine. He has two gunshot wounds to the chest and is gripping dog tags in his hand that McGee discovers belong to another Marine who was killed 45 years earlier in Vietnam.

Back from commercial, we're in the Special Agent Bullpen with McGee and Bishop. Tony volunteered to process the crime scene so he could have some "alone time to process cat issues." Heh. Bishop prompts McGee to help her prep for their rundown of the case update for Gibbs, feeling perhaps a teensy bit smug about her 82 and wanting to continue her over-achieverness. No time, however, as Gibbs strides in and over we go the Screen of All Knowing. We learn that our deceased Old Grumpy Guy served with the owner of the dog tags he was found clutching in death. Turns out, Dog Tags was his superior officer, but also his best friend. The two were in an ambush and Dog Tags was killed along with three others, only his remains were never accounted for and that status hasn't changed, even after a recent excavation of the ambush site. Nothing of Dog Tags' was recovered, including his dog tags, so no one knows how OGG happened to have it.

McGee informs Gibbs and us that OGG has been in contact with Dog Tags' daughter and that she is waiting in the conference room for Gibbs. He sends McGee out to help Tony at the crime scene and Bishop to go see what, if anything else, Ducky has found, as he heads to speak to the daughter. We go there, first. There is an instant liking between Gibbs and the young woman as they talk military. She's known OGG since he came back after her father was killed. She was an infant then and he felt it was his duty to watch over her. She is surprised when Gibbs asks her how he came to have her father's dog tags, as she was unaware they'd been recovered. Apparently, OGG had been researching and looking for DT's remains in the hopes of bringing him home for an honorable burial and closure, for both him and the daughter, who is now distraught over having to tell her own 8-year-old daughter that OGG is dead. They both loved him and were close. Apparently, OGG was only grumpy to wannabe thieving adolescents, which … can't say as I blame him. We learn that OGG saw DT get hit, held his body, then it was gone the next day, never to be recovered, and OGG has been obsessed with solving that mystery ever since. Gibbs promises her they will find out who killed OGG.

Then we go to Ducky and Bishop and learn OGG had pancreatic cancer and not long to live. Then Ducky imparts some wisdom to Bishop on her nine-month training graduation day. He tells her that Gibbs gives low scores to those he sees as having the most potential. "So, if you got a high score?" she asks, frowning now. Ducky laughs. "Might as well turn in your badge." So, are we playing mess-with-the-graduating-probie, or …? Either way, I'm a fan.

Next, we shift to Tony, who is watching the tapes the decidedly not grumpy OG has made for his dead Marine comrade's granddaughter so she will know who her grandfather was. Aww. Tony tells McGee that being in the garage that had been turned into a sort of headquarters for OG's search for his dead comrade has made him think about the importance of friendship. McGee thanks him for the sentiment, only … yeah, Tony was talking about the cat. Ha! He's named the cat Rick Blaine after Bogart's character in Casablanca, because the cat's fur looks like a tuxedo. To the surprise of no one, he's keeping the cat. "Look around, Tim. You can't fight the male bond. It's epic." Classic Tony line. Which McGee poops on with his Eeyore-like negativity. "Epic and expensive," he adds, noting the expense OG went to in his search for DT, and the lack of motive he's finding for anyone wanting to kill the old man. Tony decides they're going to hand over all the files to the awesomeness that is Abby and hope she can find the trace of something … or someone.

Cue the Abby Lab and her excited "Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs!" as he strolls in. She's determined that DT's dog tags are fake, manufactured recently, and made to look old and weathered. Also, the blood type on the tag is wrong, which after all the research OG had done, he would certainly have known. Abby also figures out that the drag mark of blood on the garage floor was made by OG dragging himself across the floor after he'd been shot, where he reached up and grabbed the dog tags from the counter as his final act. Why would he use his last moment to grab fake dog tags? "To send us a message," says Gibbs.

Back from commercial break, it's the following morning and Tony is huffing and puffing as he races into the bullpen. Apparently, Rick Blaine sat on his alarm clock and turned it off. Cute, and also? Tony is still looking so very mighty fine this season. McGee brings him up to speed that they've been compiling a list of everyone OG used to help him investigate DT's missing remains, some paid private investigators, some charitable organizations, some for-profit outfits, any of whom could have given OG the fake dog tags, passing them off as real proof. They opt to each take part of the list and run them down, only Bishop isn't paying attention. She wants to know why they didn't tell her a high eval score was a bad thing. Tony is all, "Only a fool would interfere with Gibbs' methods," followed by Gibbs walking in and handing Bishop the task of looking into finding out what the latest info is on tracking down DT's remains. She doesn't see this as relevant to OG's murder, to which Gibbs responds, "A missing Marine is always relevant."

We shift to Bishop in MTAC talking to the colonel who oversaw the recent dig on the ambush site. She reveals that nothing of DT's was found and that oftentimes the Viet Cong would move dead bodies as a way to lure Marines into a trap, aware of their "no man left behind" rule. She surmises that might have happened in this case, but if so, they have no proof of it.

Switch to Abby Lab and Abby's report after going over all the stuff Tony had hauled in from the garage. She found rust particles in an empty envelope marked with OG's name, and the particles match the rust on the fake dog tags. In trying to find out any links to where the envelope come from, Abby has pieced together the torn corner to reveal a travel agency logo, earning her a peck on the cheek from Gibbs. I'm still liking our warmer, more balanced Gibbs this season. Liking him a lot.

Shift to said travel agency with McGee and Tony talking to the dude who runs the place. He comes off a bit shady, or at least not all that likable, then Tony discovers a note pad with handwriting that matches some of the distinctive lettering from the envelope. Shady Boss Guy tells them the note pad belonged to a guy he fired the week before for stealing from petty cash. He goes to look up the last-known address as Tony tries to talk cat ownership with him, only for McGee to interrupt and tell him Abby already has the address along with a host of information on the guy. Apparently, he's been busted for fraud more than once, so, not a stretch to think he was behind the fake dog tags. Except for that part where we're just halfway through the show, so it can't be that easy.

Cut to Gibbs and Bishop at the fired guy's residence. He comes out wanting to know why they're looking at his car, then runs when Gibbs flashes the badge. Gibbs goes in the front after the guy and sends Bishop around to cover the back. She hears a crash inside and is going though the kitchen, gun raised, when Gibbs comes in from the front. He realizes immediately the crash was a distraction, one that worked, as the bad guy has gotten away. He's not happy with Bishop, who is feeling the disapproval rather sharply, on the heels of her oddly not-good high score on her probie eval.

We're back in the bullpen, and night has fallen outside. We hear that Fraud Guy is still in the wind as Gibbs strolls in asking for an update. No murder weapon found anywhere, but they do discover FG was working a scam, supposedly helping people locate the missing remains of their relatives. Nice guy. Bishop tries to make amends for losing FG, but Gibbs brushes it off, puts her back to work. She's not feeling any better for it. Instead, she's in Ducky's lab watching OG's tapes for DT's granddaughter. She thanks Ducky as he comes in for the quiet place to work. He tells her he was in Vietnam as part of an exchange and gets a bit watery looking at the photo in the video freeze frame of DT and a local youth whose parents he helped to bury. Ducky rises to leave, but asks if she wants to talk about the real reason she's in the morgue. She confesses her role in losing their suspect that day, and Ducky tells her recovery from disappointment comes in accomplishing one small thing, which will lead to another. He leaves just as Bishop notes that the youth in the freeze-frame photo is wearing a necklace with a medallion that she now knows was recovered at the ambush site dig.

We shift to McGee and Tony trying to track down FG at a pharmacy where he will need to get his insulin, but no luck, only Tony is agitated for another reason. Rick Blaine has escaped. Aww. Tony can't figure out why the cat would want to leave him, just as FG comes strolling in and they snag him. Cut to the interrogation room with Gibbs. FG tries to talk his way out, but Gibbs backs him into a corner, as he so often does, and we find out that FG didn't kill OG, nor did he run the fake-dog-tags scam alone. He gives up his partner in crime … which happens to be the head honcho at that travel agency. See? I told you he was shady.

And we cut to the bullpen where McGee is telling Gibbs that they can't track down the shady travel agency guy, but that his roommate told them he does have the same kind of gun as the one Abby determined shot OG, which they found under a floorboard. Then McGee goes into hunt-the-guy-via-cellphone mode, but instead finds out he boarded a flight after they left the agency earlier and is now in Vietnam. Tony matches Shady's bank statements with FG's account and proves they were working together, then Abby finds Shady's fingerprints all over the gun and proves it was the same gun that killed OG. Gibbs tells McGee to get them a flight to Vietnam. Things aren't looking good for Shady. Bishop comes in with the info on the medallion the boy in the photo was wearing and thinks he might have been the one to move Dog Tags' body. She asks to go to Vietnam with them so she can question him. Only, Gibbs tells her to hand the info over to the team who did the dig on the ambush site instead and let them do their job. She tells Gibbs she was up all night researching it and wants to go so she can prove herself to him. He shoots back about her proving herself by letting FG get away, and she's all, "What else am I supposed to do when you don't believe in me?" and tells him she knows what her high score on the eval meant. Gibbs rolls his eyes at McGee and Tony, who immediately find somewhere else to be. Heh. Then he tells Bishop he's doing things differently now, and a high score means she did good.

She doesn't let up, gets right up in his face, as he does in hers, but she holds her ground, claiming she knows he's been going easy on her, has been since day one, and she wants to understand why. Only, there's no answer, and she stalks out, leaving Gibbs to look upward and shake his head, clearly disturbed. With her? With himself? Hmm. I like this new turn of events! We need for Bishop to be more than the vanilla filler she's been up to this point, so I'm glad to see something developing here.

We come back from commercial to Tony and Gibbs in a crowded market in Vietnam, talking to the team leader on the ambush site dig as they give her Bishop's findings. She shows them the booths in the marketplace that sell dog tags, some real, most fake, and tells them about the tag-making machines the locals took long ago, left behind when the war ended. So far, though, no direct lead on Shady.

Back in Abby Lab, she is initially stumped on why Shady wouldn't just bring the tag machine back to the States, then tracks down a second reason why Shady had to be running a scam out of Vietnam. He's been swapping love letters with a woman there. The next thing we see is Gibbs getting the drop on Shady in his gf's residence. Realizing the gig is up, Shady tries to tell Gibbs that killing OG was self-defense, but all he gets are those cold, penetrating baby blues of Gibbs telling him that giving people false hope and killing a Marine? "There is no defense for that." Tony drags the guy out in cuffs as Gibbs takes a call.

We next see Gibbs and the Colonel who led the ambush site dig go into a village to talk to the boy — now a man — who moved DT's body that long-ago day. He had left his medallion at the ambush site to bless the place where DT died. After DT helped him bury his mother and father, he wanted to thank him, but didn't know how, so he followed their unit, then saw DT get shot and killed in the ambush. He moved the body to bury him next to his parents, to honor him, and never knew his family had searched for him. He takes Gibbs' hand, shakes it, and Gibbs smiles in approval.

We briefly watch then listen to OG's final video clip, talking about DT and fighting for what matters, as we watch the team dig up DT's remains, recover his real dog tags, then Gibbs passing them along to his daughter and granddaughter back at headquarters. OG tells us how his best friend mattered, how we all matter, and if your eyes are tearing up right now, well … I'm not ashamed to say mine were. Oh, Show. You got me again.

Sitting on the bullpen floor, Bishop switches off that last video file as Gibbs comes in and goes to his desk. She glances up at him, but says nothing. Gibbs looks perturbed as he punches keys on his keyboard, then finally looks to her and asks after Tony and McGee. She tells him they left just moments ago. He asks after her, and she tells him she's finishing up her report for the dig site crew. He tells her that DT's family was grateful, and she looks up again as he tells her she did good work. She thanks him. Then he comes around the desk and looks down at her, still sitting on the floor, and tells her she was right, he has been going easy on her, but that it doesn't have anything to do with her. She doesn't understand. He says, "It's about that desk." And walks over to the desk where Kate sat, then Ziva, now Bishop. Emotions running a little high, he tells her he lost two people off that desk, good people. He says that's on him and comes back to look down at her and adds that he was doing something wrong and when something's wrong, "Change it."

She looks up and tells him the job is hard and that it's inevitable that he will lose people along the way, but that doesn't mean his method of teaching is wrong. She points out that Tony and McGee are amazing, and she tells him she wants to be like them, to be like him, and asks him to push her to be like him. He gives a short shake of the head, that half smile, and says, "OK. Back to the old way." She thanks him as he grabs his stuff from his desk. Then he stops and looks down at her. "This floor is for standing and walking." She's all "What?" And he barks, "Sit in your damn chair, Bishop," as he heads out.

And Gibbs is back! I just hope that doesn't mean we lose that little bit of compassionate, occasionally humorous Gibbs we've been treated to thus far this season. Bishop goes back to her desk, a small smile playing around her mouth as we see Gibbs in the elevator in the rear of the shot, folding his arms, as the doors slide shut. Freeze frame, fade to black and white. Nice ending, Show. Nice ending.

I'm liking the blend this season of humor, pathos, empathy and compassion, along with the standard grittier fare. (See: the last episode. Shudder!) We're moving personal story lines forward and deepening the bonds of longtime characters as well. Twelve seasons in, that's not easy to do, so good on you, Show. Good on you.

Now, before we were so rudely interrupted with a week of repeats (though I still stand by my assertion that watching an NCIS repeat is oftentimes better than first-run eps of other network shows. KnowwhatI'msayin?) I was offering up some pretty sweet swag to three of you happening recap readers. Winners receive a copy of my current release, Sandpiper Island, and a bookmark charm to go with, designed exclusively for the Bachelor's of Blueberry Cove series by the lovely and talented Joyce Taber of The Cotton Thistle fame. (There's a whole line of fab items for this series of books and, you know, the holidays are fast approaching. Just sayin'.) Drum roll please … come on down: Sharon Schofield, Sandie White and Christine Hernandez! Drop me an e-mail to donna@donnakauffman.com with an address and your prizes will go right out to you. Woo hoo!

Now, the rest of you, don't go feeling all loserly. There's more. There's always more. (Hey, it's good to have a recap bestie who's also an author, am I right?) As it happens, this week marks the audiobook release for one of my more popular series of books, The Unholy Trinity over at Audible.com. Even more awesome is the narrator is none other than absolutely OMG amazing Sebastian York. If you haven't heard him, trust me … you'll want him reading to you every night. And morning. Possibly an afternoon quickie. Really, go check out a sample of the first book in the series, Black Sheep & The Princess.

But grab something cold to drink first. Possibly something in a tasteful fan. You can thank me later. Right now, you can enter to win an audio copy of your very own! All three books in the series are up for grabs, and all you have to do to be in the running is drop me an e-mail to donna@donnakauffman.com with "Sebastian York is the voice of the Unholy Trinity? OMG, pick me!" in the subject line. That's it! Well, if you want to dish about this week's episode, please do. I'm all ears! I'll name the lucky three in next week's recap.

In the meantime, to learn more about those books and all the other ones I've written when I'm not dishing about all things Gibbs, check out my website, www.donnakauffman.com. And for the daily fun and frivolity (and additional giveaways!) drop by my Facebook Fan Page and don't be a stranger!