'NCIS' season 12: Donna Kauffman recaps episode 9

It's Thanksgiving week and thus begins the season of Very Special Holiday Episodes on our favorite TV shows. To the surprise of absolutely no one who knows me, I'm a total sucker for those. NCIS joins in the seasonal fun tonight with their tribute to the day of gobble gobbling. AND we finally get to meet Mr. Emily Bishop! So there's that.

Before we dive in for the turkey and mashed potatoes with extra gravy please, one quick note from last week. I missed a recap moment in the first Gibbs' Favorite Diner scene when he speaks to an older gentleman, ending their brief convo with, "See you in Norfolk." Seeing as I'm typing, watching, typing, watching, it's not a surprise that the occasional moment goes unnoticed, but thanks to the sharp eyes and keen curiosity of you guys — the best darn viewers anywhere — it was brought to my attention. Mostly by folks wondering, "Hey, who the heck was that guy anyway?" Turns out he's Ray Mabus, the actual real-life SecNav. Don't you love stuff like that?

OK, so where were we? Oh, right. Pumpkin pie and don't hold back on the whipped cream! (Sure, sure, you're still on the turkey and mashed potatoes, but for me, it's all about the pie. The rest is just holiday feast foreplay, really.)

As much as I hate to stop talking food and start talking dead people, we need to find out who our Murder of the Week is going to be so we can get to the good stuff. And by good stuff, I mean, well, you know. Gibbs. With or without the whipped cream.

We open with a shot of a snowstorm raging over our nation's capital and a newscaster voiceover about how the city is being hit with a huge holiday storm. Now, this episode was taped who knows how long ago, and it's pretty rare that we get snow here this early in the season. In fact, a local newscaster said just this evening how D.C. has had snow on Thanksgiving only six times. Six. However, we have a huge snowstorm headed our way this very night! How prophetic!

Our episode title this week? Grounded.

So, we tune in on a guy in a motel room, listening to the weather while talking to a loved one on the phone, promising to be there in time to carve the turkey. There's a knock on the door and our, I very much fear, soon-to-be-dead guy smiles, thinking it's his taxi. Only he opens the door … and takes two in the chest. More interesting, with the exception of the facial hair, the shooter bears a striking resemblance to our poor dead guy. Related? Mmm, I don't think so. As our shooter strips the body of glasses, wedding band and the like, we're already pretty sure this is no simple robbery, either. Our hunch is confirmed when he slides on the glasses and the ring, then takes out a shaving kit and removes that last doppelganger obstacle. Ruh roh. Will Aunt Tilly notice that Dad is really a homicidal maniac at the Thanksgiving dinner table?

While we ponder that, roll awesome opening credits and theme song!

Snow is falling outside the windows of the Very Special Agent Bullpen as McGee is lamenting to Bishop about white Thanksgivings not really feeling all that festive to him. Abby runs in all, "Is he here yet?" and then, without further ado, we finally meet Mr. Special Agent Bishop! Only, in this case, his last name is actually Malloy. Jake Malloy. Abby thinks he's adorable, and well, he pretty much is. He goes in for the handshake, but we all know Abs goes straight for the big hug. As has been mentioned, Jake is with the NSA, which was his wife's former stomping grounds. We hear that the two are slated to leave for Turks and Caicos to spend the holiday with Jake's family. Enter Gibbs, who instructs them to get going before they get snowed in. We get the Jake-Gibbs meeting, as the former is all thanking him for all he's done for his wife and joking about Turkey Day in Turks, and, yeah ... Gibbs is just doing that thing where he sizes the guy up in two seconds with a simple onceover and says nothing at all. We just get that enigmatic almost-smile and wonder what he's thinking about the guy … Initial thought? Mmm, not as much as he'd like.

As husband and wife head off to the airport, we learn that Tony is already there, awaiting arrival of Senior, who is flying in from London for the holiday. Will they all happen to meet? Is this a murder-mystery-of-the-week show? Of course they will! The only question is how soon. And the answer? Right away! An ever-so-dapper Tony pops up as our married pair is checking the flight listings. He's stuck waiting for Senior's delayed flight, and ever-so-twinkly to see he has fresh meat to roast over the open fire of his acerbic wit. And by meat, I mean, the long-elusive Mr. Malloy. As it happens, they hit it off rather well with a bit of back-and-forth. I don't know how I feel about Jake. And I know even less about how I feel about the two of them as a couple. I mean, they're cookie-cutter cute and all, but that's just it. It's almost too cookie cutter. As is Bishop's asking him if he's OK, noting he's been on edge lately, and it all comes off rather surfacey. I mean, if Bishop's marriage is only ever going to be surfacey on the show, then fine, but when has the show ever given us a window into the personal lives of any of the main cast and crew and not made it meaningful and real? So … I'm left wishing this felt a little more honest and real with them, and not so scripted.

Bishop heads off to change their seats after discovering the other guy in their row is a bit on the odiferous side, leaving Tony to gab it up with Jake. Only instead we shift to Bishop gabbing it up with a random woman as they both look out the window at the snow-covered tarmac, then she turns and runs right into … our Motel Murderer! There's a bit of a contrived, "Hey, I said excuse me!" from Bishop when Motel Murderer pushes on without an apology for banging into her. Jake steps in, and MM relents, becomes hapless apology guy and moves on. Jake and Tony share Chinatown quips regarding Jake's name, and to the surprise of no one, the flight crew announces all flights in and out have been delayed. Oooh, so the airport is going to be our Chinatown this evening, it appears. Sit back and strap in. Also? When Jake leaned in to Bishop all, "Are you OK?" after confronting our Motel Murderer over his rudeness to his wife? Yeah, he shifted briefly from adorable puppy to Mr. Intensity. I like intensity guy. More of that please. Jake heads off to finish the seat-changing mission while Bishop wonders why it is that the Motel Murderer looks familiar to her.

Back from commercial, Jake and Bishop are regaling Tony with their meet-cute story, while Tony is looking at all the couples in the airport and wishing there weren't so many of them in his immediate space. We hear he was at a couples-only resort the previous Christmas and how it's changed his perspective, and not, as we gather, in a good way. He starts to do his little synopsis on the couples in their immediate vicinity, assigning them all little stories, and Jake joins him in the game with his own take. Motel Murderer strolls by, and Bishop asks Tony for his take on him as she continues to try to figure out why he seems familiar. There's a bit of marital byplay, which should make their union feel more real, but I'm still holding out on that, as is Tony, who escapes the back-and-forth by looking for coffee.

And as do we, by shifting back to headquarters with Abby and Jimmy, who is talking baby names as the two prepare to leave for the night. They try to corral McGee to head out with them, on their way to the elevators, but he's all serious face at his computer monitor. Abby tries to lighten the mood talking about snow angels, and in comes Gibbs prompting Jimmy to grin and ask him, "When was the last time you made a snow angel?" I think we can all immediately picture Gibbs' expression in response to that one. Heh. Gibbs deflects by asking McGee what his issue is, and we find out there is terrorist chatter being reported, centered on the East Coast region airports. Gibbs was going to shrug it off until that last bit, which has him yanking up the phone as we bounce back to the airport.

Bishop contrives a way to bump into MM and mentions he looks familiar. He brushes that off, but she persists with the friendly chatter, of which he's having none, and heads off as soon as he's able. Thinking maybe she read him wrong after all, she heads back to Tony, who is on the phone with Gibbs, being filled in on the elevated terror threat. He puts it on speaker to bring Jake in, as Gibbs asks if the NSA has heard anything, and Jake does admit to them hearing the chatter as well, but that's all he says. Bishop gets a little testy that her husband kept that from her, given they were boarding a flight at one of the possible risk airports, and he's all, "It's just chatter," and Tony breaks in and goes back to his assessing the populace around them, continuing to give each their own story as only Tony can. Bishop goes back to looking at MM, wondering once again if her gut is right about there being some connection there and mentions what looks like a gun strapped to his ankle. "We have guns," Tony says, and they all pop up and follow the guy. Jake says Bishop isn't wearing hers, and she corrects him, and Tony is all, "He might be law enforcement," adding they'll show him theirs if he shows them his. "Guns?" Bishop wants to know. "Badges," Tony replies as he and Bishop press their coats into Jake's arms and head off, leaving him looking more than a little disconcerted about his wife, the former NSA analyst, now a special agent.

Bishop comes up on MM first, from the front, flashes her creds, asks to see his. He blows her off, only to confront Tony, who shows his creds and his gun. This leads a local airport cop into playing, well, cop, and everyone is forced to show their creds, including MM, who is, aaahhhh! He's an air marshal. Lovely. Because, you know, not really. He killed the actual marshal. Clever that. We shift to a closed room where they all agree to let bygones be bygones, and as MM leaves the room, Tony jokes about his last name, Beers, saying they could all use a few. MM doesn't get it at first, then nods with a belated smile at the joke and heads out, but not before Tony's radar is engaged. Gibbs phones in and tells them the threat level has been increased and is specific to the D.C. airports. Tony confirms that the air marshal heard about the chatter, too, and Gibbs tells them to keep alert and let him know if anything changes. Bishop tries to insert her concerns about the air marshal having some other connection she can't place, but Tony cuts her off and ends the call. Then he calls McGee directly (and we get a hilarious shot of McGee's phone showing a youthful and not very flattering photo of Tony on the incoming call screen. Ha!). With Gibbs seated just behind him, he has to keep his responses to Tony generic so Gibbs doesn't know who he's talking with. Tony wants McGee to look into Beers and is told TSA files take longer, but McGee will do his best. He clicks off only to have Gibbs look over his shoulder and say, "Don't look at me. Just do it."

I love this season. The perfect blend of humor and murder. Gets me every time.

Back at the airport, Bishop brings Abby in on the situation, taking a selfie with MM in the background and sending it to her. Then we're in Abby Lab with her and Jimmy, who is still bantering about baby names in that ingratiating he'd-make-me-crazy-after-five-minutes kind of way. Gibbs comes in wanting to know about the air marshal, prompting surprise from Abby that he knows and Jimmy revealing that Tony didn't tell Gibbs because he didn't want Gibbs to know he'd blown the marshal's cover. Banter ensues. Mostly with Jimmy. Gibbs just stares. I smile. We move on. McGee enters with a handful of MM info, pauses when he sees Gibbs, prompting Jimmy to tell McGee that Gibbs knows all about their little marshal investigation because, "I talk too much." Gibbs prompts McGee to get on with it. He sent Abby Beers' official marshal photo, which she puts into facial rec against the photo of the guy Bishop took. Abby comments on liking Beers' glasses, mentioning they'd look cute on Gibbs, earning her a sideways glance. "I mean, not that squinting isn't totally super cute on you, too," she adds in that Abby adorbs kind of way she does. Then it's back to work. We learn Beers had a wife, two kids, which is awful since we know he's dead and they're waiting at home for him to carve a turkey. McGee finds the local motel info on the guy, but no checkout, prompting Gibbs to send him to follow up on that, just as Abby's facial rec results come in, and yeah, they look a lot a like, but one of these marshals is not like the other.

Cue the airport with Gibbs telling Tony about the fake marshal and that he's sending them backup. They spy MM heading into the men's room as backup in the form of one airport security head and two airport cops. They help secure the area before the team goes into the men's room to detain the impostor. A few men are seen leaving the bathroom as the trio are talking that through, but none look like MM or anyone he could easily and quickly change himself into impersonating. When the team finally enters the bathroom, they find MM in the last stall … stabbed to death. (I say the white-haired Dapper Dan guy did it! The guy Tony pegged when he was playing Guess Their Story earlier. He was one of the guys shown walking out after MM went in. I don't know why, but he feels obvious to me.) Tony tells the head security gal that it's time to lock down the airport, only to be told they already did that when they announced all the incoming and outgoing flight delays. We find out that MM's gun is gone, prompting Tony to lament about them being snowed in at an airport filled with cranky passengers, a dead fake air marshal, and a murderer on the loose with a gun and a knife. "Anybody else feel like they're playing Clue?" Fade to black and white.

We come back to Gibbs and McGee at the motel with dead actual air marshal as Ducky and Jimmy arrive. They are talking with Bishop, who is giving them info on the dead fake air marshal as Jake continues to wonder who this special agent is he's now married to. Gibbs finds Actual Marshal's wallet still on him, which means Fake Marshal only needed his work creds to get the gun into the airport, apparently to do something with it, only he was killed before that happened. Shift to airport with Tony and Lieutenant TSA Security Gal discussing how best to out the killer and realize they have security cam footage of the men who exited the bathroom after Fake Marshal went in.

Back with Bishop, she recruits Jake to help her print Fake Marshal using baby powder and a bandage. He's still boggling over this new side to his wife and realizing he shouldn't have doubted her about knowing the guy. She reminds him she still doesn't know where she recognized him from, and McGee reminds them both he is still on the other end of the open speaker phone. Heh. And OK, so the married pair is growing on me.

Back in the airport with Tony and Lt. TSA, they discover gum was stuck on the security cam, rendering it ineffective. Simple but effective sabotage. The natives are getting restless from being trapped in the airport and now the bathroom is shut down. Lt. TSA tells them someone had a medical emergency and to calm down, prompting Dapper Dan to push to the front, saying he's a doctor in a suave Brit accent. Tony gives a nod to DD's tailor, but otherwise tells him they've got it under control. I'm all, "It's him! Tony, it's him!" but, alas, he isn't listening to me. Back at Abby Lab, they find out who Fake Marshal is from the print Bishop got. He's notorious chameleon Norman Dobbs, jack of all murderous-type trades and constantly on their most-wanted list, which is probably where Bishop got a whiff of him. However, he doesn't have any terrorist affiliation, so that angle doesn't play. But wait! Now it's being reported that the terrorist threat is an assassination on an incoming passenger, which means Fake Marshal was likely just delivering the gun to the shooter. So McGee is looking at the manifests of incoming passengers to see who the target might be, as well as the killer, while trying to also get eyes on the gang at the airport via one of their surveillance cams, only TSA won't let them hack on to their cameras due to Homeland rules. Then up pops Jake with his laptop and maybe he can help them with the needed camera. Finally, he comes in handy!

Back at Ducky's Digs, we get flickering lights as the power grid is taxed by the storm. They have the dead actual marshal on the table and photos of the dead fake marshal from Bishop to go over. Jimmy is still parsing every name and ponders the meaning of Jethro. Yeah, resist that, Jimster. That one's taken. Meanwhile, back at the Special Agent Bullpen, Jake has his laptop up and running, connecting them to HQ visually, as Ducky comes in to give Gibbs his report about the cause of death, which was exactly as thought. Gibbs is mostly concerned with giving those flight manifests a look-over to try to pin down killer and target, and instructs Ducky to look at the incoming laptop feed from the airport to see if he can use his psychological profiling skills to weed out anyone who looks suspicious. On the good-news front, the snow is letting up.

At the airport, Homeland is pushing to force Lt. TSA to start screening every waiting passenger for the gun as the snow is letting up and incoming flights are going to start landing. Three will be on the ground in 15 minutes, one of them the London flight with Senior on board. Lt. TSA uses the ruse that the delay has forced them to re-scan everyone and urges the cranky passengers to line up for another scan as Tony texts his dad to stay on the plane (and out of danger) and he'll explain later. Then Abby finally finds something on one of the manifests. The incoming flight from London has two Colombian federal agents escorting an unnamed passenger, who could be anything from a wanted felon to a world leader. They are changing planes in D.C. on their way to Bogota, which could be a vulnerable moment. Turns out, the passenger is a cartel kingpin who did bad things to another cartel kingpin and was found in Wales, now begin escorted back to Colombia. See? Dapper Dan the British Man, I'm telling you! It's him! I don't know why, but somehow, that's the connection.

Gibbs gets the gang to try to cross-reference anyone at the airport with Colombian ties, and eventually a face pops up that triggers Gibbs. He has Abby remove the facial hair and lighten the hair and BINGO! Dapper Dan! I knew it! I just wish I knew how I knew it! Or why! I'm feeling so Bishop right now. Tony and Bishop race to the gate and try to stop them from letting any passengers off the plane, but it's too late, and here comes the Colombia agents, just waltzing Mr. Cartel Drug Lord in handcuffs right off the plane. (How conveeeeenient.) Tony gets the photo of Dapper Dan on his phone and scans the crowd just as Dapper Dan steps up and draws his weapon and fires it, but Tony takes him down with two to the chest. Screaming and running from passengers as Tony kneels over Dead Dapper Dan and slides something from his jacket pocket. "Oh, lookee here. Dr. Dapper, in the men's room, with the carbon-fiber knife. Happy Thanksgiving."

Back at HQ, McGee gets a text from Tony saying he just found out Senior missed his flight and he could have skipped the airport altogether that day. He has to go back to the airport again the following day. Our married couple makes their flight to Turks, as Ducky invites the rest of the gang out for a drink to celebrate the holiday. Abby is all on board, then stops them and says she has a better idea. Snow angels. Everyone glances at Gibbs. He stares them down, then abruptly says, "I'll give you one!" and holds up one finger. At Abby's stunned expression, he chuckles and looks back at his computer.

Love. This. Show.

A Very Special Holiday Episode for the ages, indeed. I want a group hug! With all of them. And all of you! Let's all go out and do a big, group snow angel, what do you say? But first! I promised a Very Special Holiday Book Giveaway last week, and I have a winner to announce. Thanks to all of you for the enthusiastic entering and bantering about last week's episode. (I love hearing from you all! Want to gab about this week's ep? Need to vent? Share a favorite moment? You can always find me at dmkauffman1@gmail.com.) OK, back to holiday swag. I wish I could give a prize to each and every one of you, but this particular week, it's going to be up to Kimberly K. Davis to represent for all of you. Boy, I hope she's up to it, because, you know, you guys are awesome, but you can be a handful! (Hey, it's Thanksgiving, there's always that one relative at the table who makes you wish you were siting at the kids table this year, am I right?) Congratulations, Kimberly!! Drop an e-mail to dmkauffman1@gmail.com with an address and your signed copy of The Sugar Cookie Sweetheart Swap will go right out in the mail to you. Just as soon as I shovel my way off my mountain out here in the Blue Ridge. I swear.

I hope everyone has a happy, safe and pumpkin-pie-filled holiday this week, whether you're eating with every member of your extended family and a few folks you swear you've never seen before, or pulling the solo Netflix marathon with Chinese takeout. (Hey, we all have our traditions! Don't diss the solo holiday. There is a LOT to be said for those!)

No new episode next week, so relax, enjoy, pig out, get your Black Friday on, then meet me back here in two weeks for a new recap and a big, blowout giveaway!

Want to know more about the books that happen when I'm not busy recapping the most awesome show ever? You can find out more than you ever wanted to know about all 50-plus titles at www.donnakauffman.com (Psssst! They make great stocking stuffers! Just sayin'! I mean, you can be all, "Yeah, I know her, we're likethis. We talk Gibbs every week." I'll vouch for you, honest!)

Happy Thanksgiving!