I take it, Vance is actually Tyler.:o
It seems likely.
Given Vance’s insistence that Tyler was a Marine, without any official corroboration, and also given the story about the detached retina, I’d say you’re correct.
The episode confused the hell out of me.
Umm, except that they had a body. And the gov’t does an extensive background check before hiring for any LEO positions. Makes no sense.
Same here. I got the impression that the detached retina revelation at the end was supposed to be a clue that Vance had done some kind of identity switch, but, if so, I don’t understand how that was supposed to have worked. It was one of those situation where I can’t tell if I’m supposed to understand what happened, or if it’s intended to be a baffling development that will be explained later.
Another question: At the very start of the episode, when that guy gets drugged and pulled into a hotel room, who is pulling him in? At first I thought it was McGee, but having finished the episode, that doesn’t make any sense to me. Are we supposed to know who that was?
I, too, ended up totally confused. If I cared enough, I’d watch the scene at Vance’s house again, but what I remember is that his wife said that Vance was discharged from the Marines because of his detached retina. And then we learn that Tyler’s body has a detached retina. And then there was Gibbs’ comment about normally being able to smell a Marine.
So putting that all together, perhaps Tyler went into the Marines posing as Vance (so Vance, even though he has the official record of being in the Marines was never really a Marine, hence Gibbs didn’t smell it), then got discharged because of the retina thing. I have no clue as to why. Or how his wife ended up thinking it was him. I’m assuming that, in usual NCIS fashion, we’ll learn the answers in a week or so.
The “Another question”, though, I can answer: I clearly saw McGee and Ziva pull the guy into the room. It’s consistent, we later learn that McGee and Ziva were in Chicago with Vance, so they helped him get to the girl.
Well I’m glad I wasn’t the only one confused.
I guess Vance’s wife is in on it, and Gibbs couldn’t really go to her to find out anything useful about Vance.
Apparently there’s some juicy stuff in the Director’s CIA file.
I never did understand the story arc about the prior directors father. Was he dead or alive? What difference did it make? Why was this red herring dragged through 3 or 4 episodes?
But most importantly, when is Tony going to jump Ziva’s lovely bones???
Never. She’s mine. Mine, I tells ya.
I really wanted to see Ziva take up Vance’s challenge to spar with him in the ring- I’m pretty sure she would’ve demolished him. Maybe they’re setting that up for the future…
When she was playing a “torch singer” Yowza!!!
But in actuality, those who are great at dirty fighting and martial arts might find themselves too constrained when following the rules of boxing.
I thought the episode was implying that Vance “adopted” Tyler’s life story for his own - the boxing career, the Marine elistment and then the separation due to the detached retina. Vance’s past was perhaps something much less honorable (or impressive) - and when he needed to impress his wife-to-be (and fill out a resume?) he used Tyler’s details. Am I nuts?
I just couldn’t understand why the show thought that setting the NCIS director up as some sort of pathological liar was a dramatic development.
If Vance just adopted Tyler’s life story for his own, why were there no records of Tyler’s Marine enlistment?
I don’t think pathological liar is the end of this storyline-- I think Vance has secrets which are about to come to life.
But wasn’t it the wife who told the story of how they first met and Vance was in uniform? That would mean they are both in on the fake history.
I don’t remember her mentioning the uniform in her story - I got the impression he had told her that he’d been a Marine and no longer was. But in that case (she’d seen him in uniform) . . . I have absolutely no idea what happened in that episode.
I’m fairly uncomfortable with the idea that I am unable to parse a NCIS storyline. “Too complex for me” is not a concept I ever apply to Bellisario Productions (yeah I watched JAG . . . shh)
Thus I’m going to arrogantly assume that it was A) very badly written and B) the start of a longterm story arc so all the totally incomprehensible details from this episode with later be explained annoyingly repetitively, probably with the use of the same flashbacks over and OVER. That’s the NCIS I love.