Home sick, I’m listening to NCIS on USA. It’s the episode when Gibbs’s father has died and he is [del]arrogantly foolishly[/del] in the incidents nphase of grief. insisting that he can work the case of the week anyone. He just mouthed off to Vance, who, in a Jobian display of patience and Jonathanian expression of friendship. refrains from having security escort him off the Navy Yard.
I was going to say that Vance should have fired Gibbs in that scene, but as I typed the words I realized I was wrong. Gibbs’s irrationality was understandable under the circumstances. But there’s plenty of other incidents in which he was incredibly insubordnate and should have been told to turn over his badge and clean out his desk What’s your favorite
Eyes still suck and surger is a while off, so I’m not even trying to fix typos.
That’s VIEWING time. There are always internal clues for that several days are passing n a given episode. After the team does its initial CSU bit at the crime scene, you’l always see them coming into the office wearing different clothes and saying “good morning” to indicate that at least one night has passed.
That’s the attitude that leads to pro sports players who abuse their wives, rape women and even murder people and get a pass because they play well.
In other words, the minute I found out Gibbs murdered a guy in cold blood (whether or not said guy deserved it is irrelevant) he’d be gone, if not being prosecuted, if there was evidence.
I like to think I would not have murdered Reynosa in Gibbs’s place, and I think he’s paid a spiritual cost, but I’m not bothered by it morally. And that crime took place in Mexico. I don’t care about the law for its own sake to care whether Gibbs ever ets prosecuted for it.
And while I think that, were I in Vance’s place and NCIS were taking place in the real world, I would have have benched Gibbs long ago – probably after the mole hunt in the sixth season, I think – it’s ridiculous to compare Gibbs’s insubordination to – I don’t know the names of any NFL players – to whhoever that player was who beat up his wife in an elevator and was caught on tape doing so. Gibbs’s many offenses do not approach that level. I doubt even Jenny Shepherd, at the height of her “I hate Jethro! I love Jethro! I hate Jethro! I love Jethro!” silliness would have hesitated to cann him if she’d discovered he was smacking around Colonel Mann.
My stepdaughter and my favorite niece (both comic book fans, they were exposed to a bad influence as little girls) were debating this once, and they decided that NCIS takes place in the Marvel Universe and that Gibbs is a closeted mutant with the powers to turn objects other htan himself intangible.
Yeah, but the thread’s just an excuse to talk about specific episodes. Or was meant to be. Nobody seems to be doing that. It’s my own fault for being cute.
Thank you for writing “flout” rather than “flaunt.”
Gibbs and his team have a 99% solve rate. Of course, so do most TV cops, so it’s no wonder they keep their jobs despite their distaste for authority and constant violations of the constitution.
The real mystery is why they are so rarely promoted out of their team and leading teams of their own.
It’s always been my assumption that every one of these cases gets dismissed at trial based on the procedural and constitutional irregularities, so they’re not actually even as effective as a real cop with a closer to 50% solve rate would be.
I always wondered how much of it was due to the fact that Gibbs has been around for a very long time, is very effective, and has a very good reputation.
With Vance in particular, I got the impression that they were peers with a whole lot of mutual respect prior to Vance’s promotions, and that as a result, their relationship is somewhat different than say… Gibbs/McGee.
You see that sort of thing plenty if you go look in the WWII history- the generals were often peers and sometimes outranked each other prior to the in-war promotions and postings. So there was a very different dynamic there than their relative ranks and postings would indicate.
I’ve never seen that Magnum ep (in fact, the only MPI I ever watched was the finale), so I won’t comment on it. But Gibbs’s murder of Reynosa is clearly supposed to be an outlier for him. While he taught Reynosa’s daughter that he’d never lost a night’s sleep oer it, I’ve always taken that to be bluster in the face of death (or perhaps his way of provoking her to kill him, so that her need for revene would be sated and she wouldn’t go after Abby, Jackson, Ducky, and the rest). He clearly doesn’t think it was the right choice now; he’s advised others against similar killings and said that vengeance doesn’t help.
I don’t think a lot of the characters know at this point. Ducky obviously does; as soon as he heard the story about Gibbs’s family being off he intuited it. Abby found out independently. But I don’t think Vance officially knows, by which I mean he , like Ducky, could deduce that it had happened, but he deliberately avoided reading Abby’s report so as to not be forced into doing something. I expect the same is true of McGee and Farnell. And of course Bishop and the probies don’t know; I seem to recall McGee and Tony being circuitious about the Reynosas to avoid giving her any conflcit.
to add to my post when I brought up solving cases in one hour.