Donna Kauffman on 'NCIS': Trouble in paradise?

We're finally here. We're in it. The last three episodes. According to showrunner Gary Glasberg, we're in for a shocking season ender with another main character making an abrupt exit. Say in ain't so, Gary! An interview with actress Emily Wickersham (Bishop) confirms much the same. So strap yourselves in, my fellow NCIS viewers … looks like we're in for a bumpy, three-week ride!

We open with a pair of lovebirds in an all-night … pie shop? They're playing "Do you love me more than ___." (Hint: That never ends well.) She chokes on the engagement ring he so thoughtfully put in her meal, and she's all, dude, we've been on 11 dates, and he's all, so … that couldn't have gone worse. Silly dude. Doesn't he know we always open with a murder? Car comes crashing through the front wall of the joint, lovebirds barely escape with their lives. The same can't be said about the female driver.

Jump over to the Special Agent Bullpen of Orangey Goodness as carpooling Bishop and hubby Jake enter so he can say hey to "the gang," and we learn that apparently NSA lead attorney Jake Malloy has been cozying up to none other than the very-uncozy Gibbs. The gang isn't all that jazzed about the development. The banter is broken up by (say it with me now) Gibbs entering and announcing they have a dead Navy ensign.

At the crash site, we're treated to that lovely neck wound again, and I gingerly push my salsa and chips aside. (What was I thinking?) Ducky determines she actually died from that same almost-carotid-severing neck wound, which happened before the accident. She had her hand pressed over it, but bled out and rammed into the pie shop before she could make it to the nearby hospital. McGee gets an address to go with the victim's name, but when they look her up, everything is classified. Tony finds a connection to a local high school in her car, and Gibbs and Bishop head that way. They talk to the woman who coaches the girls basketball team with our Dead Navy Ensign. We learn they coached the evening before, DNE left around 11. Not in a relationship, probably doesn't have time between Navy and coaching, but doesn't talk about her day job. Something to do with computers, the coach says. Bishop and Gibbs exit with plans to figure out what DNE did between the time she left the school and the hour later when she crashed through the plate-glass windows. A call from McGee explains her classified status. She's a cyber warfare engineer with Naval intelligence — quite young for such a vaunted position — and her personnel file went dark two weeks prior. Fade to black and white.

Back from commercial, Gibbs is talking to DNE's commanding officer, who tells him she was something of a prodigy, able to break codes, hack into anything. Her recent "dark" role was helping to bust a Colombian drug ring. Her CO insists they rounded up every last member of that ring, so her death wasn't likely retribution from that quarter. Gibbs thinks that if she could hack all the way in to bust them, they could have hacked their way back to figure out who was responsible. They are left at a stalemate.

Back to our jauntier storyline, McGee and Tony exit the elevator, still ruminating over the whole Malloy-Gibbs bromance. Tony quizzes Bishop on the daily phone call thing. She assures him it's not every day. He chuckles in relief, until she adds, "On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they just play racquetball." Oh sure, Show! Gibbs gets all sweaty and athletic on a regular basis doing something other than sanding wood? Where is that storyline? OK, OK, back to the DNE. Bishop has no luck on traffic cams, and Tony says her apartment showed no signs of something untoward happening there. They did snag her laptop, but as you might suspect, it's protected exceedingly well. Gibbs wants to put Abby on that, but she's still getting the smashed-up car into evidence, so he had NCIS send over one of its best cybertechs. And check it out, it's former probie now Special Agent Ned Dorneget. Still as goofy and charming as ever. (For those not in the know, he first showed up in season nine and a few times after that. You can check his Wiki later. Suffice to say, we like him.) Gibbs is happy to see him and tasks him with DNE's Fort Knox of a laptop.

McGee's computer starts lighting up with incoming messages, all regarding DNE. Gibbs fills them in briefly on her recent case and asks them to split up the intel and see if they can find anything linking the Colombians to her murder. Tony asks if he's thinking revenge. "No. I'm thinking see what's there." Succinct as usual.

Down in Ducky's Digs, he's quietly going through the motions and Palmer is surprised by his silence. "No Jack the Ripper comments? Isadora Duncan?" To which Duckmeister calmly replies, "I'm not a jukebox, Mr. Palmer, nor do I take requests." Heh. He does, however, correct Palmer's misinformation about Isadora Duncan. (Strangled, not throat slashed.) Enter Gibbs. Ducky tells him it was a single slice to the neck, wide blade. When Gibbs questions how he knows the blade was wide, we get a lot of information and more gory wound close-ups, about which Gibbs isn't any more interested in staring at than I am. Gibbs asks Palmer what he has in his little Petri dishes, and Palmer explains, then says he was taking them to Abby. "And still, you are here?" Gibbs calls back to the now rushing Palmer and tells him, "Thank you." We're all momentarily thrown, but Ducky just smiles.

Down in Abby Lab: Garage Level, Palmer is still questioning the Gibbs gratitude. Abby is sure it's not the first time he's said it, but Palmer thinks that's only because he always thanks her. She assures him he's simply never heard him, but that Gibbs has said it all the same. Palmer launches into the Sally Fields "he likes me" acceptance speech, and my finger gets twitchy on the fast-forward button. Not because of Sally Fields. I mean, you can't go hating on the Flying Nun. But some weeks — OK, most weeks — I'm a "Palmer is best in small doses. So small he's not even on every week" kind of girl. So we need to speed things along here.

Dornie shows up to take care of that for us. He plies Bishop with junk food — which reminds me how quickly we ditched her whole "I sit on the floor and stuff myself with cheese doodles and Twinkies while I figure out stuff" quirk. He passes out the goodies to all, then explains that even for someone of DNE's job caliber, the safeguards on her computer showed her to be pretty paranoid.

McGee puts a face up on the Screen of All Knowing, explaining DNE might have been afraid of this guy, a drug trafficker-turned-legitimate-computer consultant. He makes air quotes around the last bit, prompting Gibbs to hilariously imitate him, asking what in the heck those are. Just when you think we've uncovered all of Gibbs' Luddite ways, he charms us with yet another. McGee explains that the only clients' computers our newly straight-and-narrow drug-dealing nerd handled happened to be those of the drug cartel he supposedly left behind. He's the one who created the cartel's "secure messaging system," which our DNE put the air quotes around by busting into it. Gibbs thinks our Drug Lord Computer Geek found out who hacked into his not-so-secure-after-all program and went after her. He is a man of many aliases, though, so the team breaks up the list between them in an effort to track down his whereabouts. Dornie, seeing a long night ahead, says winner buys dinner. I hope he sticks around.

We jump past all the boring tracking aliases part and go straight to Tony confronting Drug Lord Nerd at his job where he's hauling boxes. He shoves the stack presently loading him down directly at Tony and takes off. Bishop cuts the chase short with a gun aimed at his chest. He gives up, goes down on his knees and barks at them to go ahead and kill him. Tony flashes him his badge, guy shrugs, says feds can be bought, and Tony assures him, "That's not our style." Drug Nerd's quite surprised by this. Proving it was good they caught him and not the other way around.

We shift to interrogation with "Alfredo," aka Drug Nerd's latest alias, in with Tony and Bishop. He has been hiding from the cartel, and is happy he is with bona fide agents, not someone sent to kill him. He grouses about the white hat "man" who backdoored his secure client messaging program, ruined him and sent him running into hiding. This all leads Bishop and Tony to think they got the wrong guy. Vance and Gibbs, behind the glass, tend to concur. Abby buzzes in all Five-Gibbses, letting him know she found fingerprints in the backseat of the car with DNE's blood on them, meaning she hadn't been alone in the car.

Back in the bullpen, McGee and Dornie are going rounds with all the intel coming in, trying to get to the bottom of it all. Dornie likens it to playing a video game where you finally vanquish the dragon, only to step outside … and face yet another dragon. McGee assures a frowning Gibbs that the reference makes sense. Gibbs thanks "Elf Lord" — heh — then wants to know from "Dragon Priest" if he's found anything. Love it! Dornie tells him he was able to discover that someone used that computer to access a home computer located in nearby Annandale, Va., two nights ago. He gives Gibbs the address.

McGee and Bishop make the house call, but he assures them his computer is secure, used only by him and for business only. He turns down their request to look at it, closing the door in their faces. Off for a warrant they go.

Back at the Screen of All Knowing, Tony gives Gibbs, and us, the lowdown on our door-closer, the most important of which is the import-export business he set up. Tony opines if that's a cartel connection, what with his ability to import, and export. Bishop finds he's paid late-tax fees, but no criminal activity. And McGee comes up empty-handed in the warrant attempt. Apparently, some other agency has dibs on the guy, but McGee doesn't know who. Vance enters and reveals it's the NSA, who wants them to back off, as they are monitoring his dealings with Turkey. NSA head honcho is on a plane to Geneva, so Vance sends them home for some rest and he'll make contact with their director in the morning and go from there. Bishop is all, "Screw waiting," or words to that effect, and blows by Vance, presumably on her way to finesse her own NSA connection, in the form of her hubby.

We move to a scene out of "it was a dark and stormy night" as she crosses the wet pavement of the parking lot toward Jake, who thinks she's there to carpool home. Instead, she wants to know what They (aka NSA) want with Import/Export Guy. Jake isn't happy she's asking things he can't tell her about, and says he wouldn't know specifics anyway. Since 9/11 the NSA has monitored countless others and he doesn't know them all. Tensions heighten and he claims she'd never have pushed him like that before, but something has changed with her. She finally admits that she shot and killed a man on her mission to Kabul, which we learn was just a week prior to this case. He's stunned that she didn't tell him. She reminds him they don't tell each other anything anymore, now that they don't work for the same agency. He says he could have helped her. She asks for his help now, asks him to let NCIS keep the computer to help solve their case. He is upset about what she went through and asks a few questions, but, jaw tight, he has to turn down her request. He reminds her it was her choice to leave the NSA for NCIS, and he knows it's proved hard for them not to be able to talk like they used to, but he knows they can work it out. He asks her if she thinks so to, but, on her pause … we fade to black and white.

Back in the bullpen, Tony and McGee enter together, laughing as they start a new workday. Bishop, already at her desk, not so much. She responds not at all to their teasing. Then in strolls Jake, no time for pleasantries, and up to MTAC he heads. As Gibbs sails through, heading the same way, Bishop gets up, only to summarily be told to "sit" as Gibbs climbs the stairs after Jake. Bishop sits down, fuming. Up in Vance's office, he apologizes for putting Jake in whatever position he's putting him in, given his wife is an agent with them and all. And a very steely Jake reminds him that he has no problem with the assignment, this is my job, remember? Or words to that effect. He tells Gibbs they are within their rights to hold on to the laptop and are not required to say why. Jake is all, "Just doing my job," and Gibbs is all, "Well, your job sucks." It never sounds like a petulant 12-year-old coming from him. Gibbs reminds Jake that if they wait much longer to get into Import/Export's computer, the killer will just get away. Jake mulls, then turns back to Vance and says he'll clear getting them the computer and will even take any blowback onto himself. Only Vance looks surprised by this abrupt about-face. He instructs Gibbs to get the warrant, only Jake one-ups them and hands them the hard drive. Nicely done.

In interrogation, Import/Export is not having a good day. He's not happy that they are pawing through his laptop, afraid they will corrupt his files and ruin his business. Back in the bullpen, Dornie discovers there is a significant amount of trade between Import/Export and Turkey. Which, if you recall, also happened to be the part of his business that the NSA was interested in as well. Bishop wants to know where they are getting all the info, and they tell her from the drive Gibbs gave them, that they don't know how he got it, didn't ask him, and she should follow the same path. I'm guessing she has a pretty good idea of who gave Gibbs the drive.

Dornie and McGee have found Import/Export trades in clothes and accessories and everything, so far, including the vast wealth he's amassed buying and selling, is legit. McGee comes across a few files he can't open. Dornie opens them for him from his computer, then notes that the pass protection on those files was the same as the one used by our DNE on hers. One file is empty and leads nowhere, but the other leads to a now-defunct chatroom, with a list of screen names all that's remaining. McGee instructs him to print them all out.

Back in interrogation I/E wants to know how long he's stuck there. They remind him he's free to go and as soon as they get done digging through his laptop, they'll let him know. He doesn't look thrilled with that plan, but Bishop bursts in just then saying they've found something. (I know we're setting up this whole three-episode shocking season finale, but, thus far, it's a lot of engineering and not a lot of fun. Just sayin'.) Just as Gibbs goes to open the folder from Bishop, I/E caves, sits down and tells them he was sure the bags he was selling were originals, not knockoffs, engendering quizzical frowns from both Gibbs and McGee. He says once he found out, he couldn't stop as the demand was too high. He might have lost his house. They tell him that NSA wasn't monitoring him because of knockoff handbags, and he's confused, seemingly surprised by the news that he was an NSA target.

Bishop cuts through all of this, saying what she found was something completely different. She hands Gibbs the printouts from the defunct chatroom as she explains what we already know. I/E has no idea where all that came from, swears he's never seen it and seems pretty credible about it. Then he spots his daughter's screen name on the chatroom list. He explains she's not allowed to use his computer, but clearly she has. So it's I/E's daughter that NSA is on the trail of, or at least the chatroom she's using. Gibbs puts it together first, asking if she goes to the same high school where DNE coached, and if she is on the basketball team. Yes to both questions from an increasingly alarmed I/E. OK, now, we're getting somewhere.

We shift to the conference room at HQ with I/E's older daughter, who explains that yes, she did create a private e-mail account, and it was only the one chatroom. At first. There were kids from all over the world in the chatroom, and she enjoyed it. Then she was talked into joining another chatroom, only it was creepy. No one was talking about movies or music. Bishop asks what they did talk about, and she characterizes it as "a bunch of haters, complaining about everything." She said they asked her if she was lonely. Ruh roh. So, can we say "recruitment center?" And yep, they asked if she knew her "calling," if she knew who she was, if her life had meaning. Creeped out, she quit both rooms, only the messages continued to come via her e-mail as they tried to shame her into coming back. She turned to her basketball coach, as she knew she worked with computers for the Navy. DNE told her she could help and she wouldn't even have to be there, and that she wouldn't out the teenager to her dad. She said she gave DNE some passwords, and she got on in the middle of the night, deleted all the accounts and set up blocks against the e-mails. Gibbs shows her the chatroom list. She points out the few names who were in both chatrooms, specifically the screen name belonging to the guy who initially talked her into joining his chatroom, and took it very personally when she left.

Gibbs leaves and puts Dornie and McGee on the screen name as Abby comes in with no further results from car, but good results from the tissue samples. From old embedded mold spores found only in Vietnam, she was able to determine the murder weapon was likely an old bayonet. She tracked down a half-dozen serious Vietnam weapons collectors and is showing Gibbs the list just as Dornie figures out who is behind the chatroom screen name. Turns out he has the same last name as one of the collectors.

Tony and McGee visit that household and discover the chatroom name belongs to the son of the collector, a teenager. Mom wonders if they are there because he skipped school again. They assure her that's not it. McGee notes the collector's memorabilia, included a frame filled with weapons, with one notably missing. She explains it was her late husband's collection, and that though she wasn't into it, her son liked them. I bet. Kid doesn't come down, so they head up … only to find he's gone out the second-story bedroom window. They also find he has a 3-D printer. The sound of the garage door opening is followed by the kid peeling out in the family van and squealing off down the street. As McGee and Tony watch him careen off, Mom mentions he doesn't have his license yet. Fade to black and white.

Back at HQ, Tony and McGee enter, rolling in all the evidence collected from the kid's room. No luck finding the van as yet, and no luck tracking him. Gibbs wonders if the kid is savvy enough to have tracked back DNE, and McGee tells him that maybe not the kid — though he's no slouch, and they bicker over who gets the 3-D printer — but that the person running the chatroom was definitely high-end in the tech world. All dark Web stuff, which McGee found all over the kid's computer.

Gibbs hands the goodies to both Abby and Dornie, and we shift to Abby Lab and Palmer opining that he thought the deep Web would be scarier. Dornie tells him it's not an evil place, just has some bad apples, like any other place. Abby tells Palmer what he's looking at — skull and crossbones — is just her screen saver, not the deep Web. Heh. Also, enough with comic-relief Palmer. Abby must sense my needs because she sends him back to Ducky with all the info needed for them to do a profile on the kid. Palmer is flattered she included him in that, but tells her it's all Ducky when it comes to profiles. Abby tells him he's the wind beneath Ducky's wings … so "Go. Blow." I like her.

Back in the bullpen, Vance and Gibbs are looking at a photo of the kid, who, it turns out, is also in the same high school with I/E's daughter. She didn't really know him, and didn't know the guy in the chatroom was him. Turns out he didn't talk much, was a loner. They never spoke directly. Jake comes in, asks Gibbs and Vance if the delay did the job, they assure him it did. They leave and Bishop thanks him for his help. He assures her he was just doing his job, but the tension thaws, and he confides that he really wishes she'd told him about the shooting in Kabul. She smiles, assures him they'll talk later.

Down in Ducky's Digs, he tells Gibbs the profile reveals a boy who is a classic "kid with issues" who uses the chatrooms to say things he'd never otherwise say. The room is filled with kids like him, angry at the world, convinced the world hates them back. No lead on where he might be. Palmer reveals his e-mails show them when he's not in school, life is all about his room, his computer and his father. Palmer explains the father died three years earlier, suddenly, and that the son still e-mails him every few weeks. Ducky opines that a major loss at that vulnerable age can make them an easier target. Gibbs wants to know if they can tie the kid to DNE. Ducky says yes, that they knew DNE could trace their screen names back to them, so the kid "handled it" to prove himself.

In Abby Lab, Abby and Dornie find out that the kid has blueprints for a detonator and 3-D imaging files to make it. As they rush upstairs with that news. McGee announces they have spotted the van in McLean. Tony says the police have their helicopter up, along with state troopers on the ground, closing in. No sign of the kid in the car, but his phone pings back to life and McGee is on it. Gibbs hustles them all out. We're rolling now!

We cut to the kid calling his mom, but not talking. His expression is vacant, dead. Gibbs and team are all in the NCISmobile and the bomb squad is standing by, waiting for location. The signal is moving too fast for him to be on foot, and Bishop recognizes the signal moving on a bus route. Gibbs orders them to get the bus number and contact the driver, get him to pull over.

The bus pulls over as we take a look at the bus occupants from the kid's point of view, ranging from babies to seniors. Bus doors open to Gibbs, who tells the driver to step out. Then he boards the bus, gun drawn, as the other agents prepare to board through the other doors. He orders everyone off, and they start to go, but the kid stands up, hands on the detonator, and shouts at them to stop. Gibbs talks to him, quietly moving forward, so he can get folks off as he gets past them. The team gets the rest of the occupants out the back door. So it's just Gibbs and the kid. He tells him he's made his point. Then questions his screen name, and the coach. The kid says he didn't do it, didn't kill her. It was his knife, but he didn't kill her. Gibbs tells him not to do this, either. That his father wouldn't want him to do what he's doing. Gibbs tells him that his mother is outside, then lowers his gun, moves backward and tells him to "come on, just follow me out." So they can go talk to her. He keeps moving back as the team moves the other passengers a safe distance away down the block. The kid follows him, starts to put the detonator away, put the bag down. Just then a police vehicle rolls up, sirens burst, and a cop comes running along the cars, startling the kid out of the Gibbs Spell. He jerks back, and Gibbs tells him he's a good kid. He looks at Gibbs, and his face goes blank. "No, I'm not," he says, then runs toward the back of the bus as Gibbs screams no. But it's too late. The bomb goes off.

You see the bus implode, you see Gibbs thrown back through the door by the blast. Then you see Tony on the ground, rolling over to look back at the bus as we look at his smoke- and soot-covered face.

Fade to black and white. To be continued …

Oh, Show! Just when I think you're losing your mojo. I'm in. Show of hands? Where does this lead? To the ring leaders, I'm guessing. The ones recruiting the kids. How is Gibbs? Injured? (We know he's not the one kicking the bucket.)

Well, it's a long seven days until we find out! How about I offer up a little distraction and tell you who won last week's fab Book & Tote Bag giveaway? OK, I know, but it's all I got. Thanks to everyone for the enthusiasm over my upcoming May 26 release, Sea Glass Sunrise. The winner of a signed advance copy, and a matching canvas tote is, Carol Stainaker! E-mail me at dmkauffman1@gmail.com with an address and your prizes will go in the mail.

Don't worry all you Not-Carols! It's a few weeks to launch, so the celebration continues! Want a signed copy of Sea Glass Sunrise// to call your own? Bragging rights, being the first one on your block to own it and all? Well, drop me an e-mail to dmkauffman1@gmail.com with "It's my turn! Sea Glass Sunrise, please!" in the subject line. I'll announce the winner right here in next week's nail-biting recap.

In the meantime, join me for all the daily fun and jocularity over on my FB Fan Page. More fun giveaways, too!