World News – CA – ‘NCIS’ Episode 400: The Beginning of Gibbs & Ducky’s Beautiful Friendship (RECAP)

NCIS is celebrating a major milestone (a well-deserved achievement) with episode 400 and must be considered one of the best in the series (not quite top of the 300. what perfection was and exactly what a milestone was supposed to be) simply because it focuses on one of the core relationships of the drama and highlights how well the actors who portray the characters – past and present – work together.

« Everything Stars Somewhere » takes place in two pasts (1980 and December 2019) when Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and Ducky (David McCallum) experience an explosion from the past as the same family they were in the US for a case past comes back. Mark’s son Sean Harmon and Adam Campbell repeat their roles as young Gibbs and Ducky for the flashbacks, and they’re as good on-screen together as the regulars.

In 1980, NIS (later NCIS) was at a crime scene where someone was driving a Mercedes on the wrong side of the road. The victim, a civilian accountant in the Department of Defense with the rare LEOPARD syndrome, dodged to avoid him. However, he died as a result of injuries sustained prior to the accident (he was stabbed). . He also had a bag of cash and a gun in his car . . . together with Sergeant Leroy Jethro Gibbs in his trunk!

This introduces Gibbs to NIS and the zucados, a family of criminals, including victim Ringo, who used a pseudonym to get this job with the Department of Defense. Ringo also had a mysterious key card with him, and while NIS is hoping Gibbs can shed some light on the darkness, he can’t. He’s only in town for a friend’s wedding and was forced into the trunk (he didn’t want to risk fighting back with civilians). He has to thank the man who drove on the wrong side of the road for his continued survival: the young Ducky.

To repay him, Gibbs will buy him a drink . . . in different pubs in town for three days. Ducky is the one who talks a lot while calling Gibbs « a man with a few words ». « You speak everything, » says the sergeant. (And that’s how this relationship begins!) It eventually turns out that Gibbs broke up with his girlfriend Shannon (who would later become his first wife and be killed along with her daughter). . Just as he is about to drown his worries even more, Jonny Zucado lets his men pick him up and Ducky.

Gibbs is beaten while Jonny demands information about his cousin. Is there anything that is not on the report (Gibbs’ official NIS statement)? Did she get « Freckles »? Ringo stole something very valuable from Jonny, but since he died before NIS was there, he couldn’t share anything, Ducky throws in. Jonny sees no use for her, but Gibbs warns that if he kills her the Marines won’t stop looking for him.

While being regrouped at Ducky’s new house (where Gibbs now lives), the sergeant wants to investigate the likely NIS mole (where Jonny Gibbs’ testimony has). . But the former doctor knows Gibbs has not been the same since breaking up with Shannon. He accuses him of running, and Gibbs throws that back as Ducky moved across the ocean to become an ex-doctor.

The future medical examiner is the one who realizes who the mole is after noticing Ringo’s LEOPARD syndrome and a construction worker in NIS with the same freckles. While confirming his theory, he meets with the current NIS ME, Dr. . Magnus (Thomas Crawford).

Gibbs later begins his steak tradition in the fireplace of this house when he stops by Ducky’s for a safe trip. Jonny left a free man because there wasn’t enough evidence, and Ducky accuses Magnus of missing out. Gibbs then suggests that he should try as a medical examiner; In this profession he would help the dead find peace and have a captive audience for his stories.

Ducky, in turn, convinces Gibbs to give true love a second chance (complete with a comparison to a ship in a bottle, fitting the guy who will one day start building boats in the basement). . « You’re a good man, and I hope we meet again, » says Ducky, and Gibbs has a feeling they could. (And hopefully we’ll see more of Sean Harmon and Campbell together in the future. )

With that, Gibbs calls Shannon before he goes to Stillwater: He has a question for her « that a gentleman doesn’t ask over the phone. « 

In the present (2019), the team doesn’t have to go far for the corpse: the victim, whose ID says he is NCIS agent Ronald Calloway from the Carolinas office, is in the basement. He suffocated and there is a burned notebook next to him. But his credentials turn out to be fake and he burned his fingerprints. He died of a severe asthma attack because he did not want to carry an inhaler that could identify him.

So who is he and what did he do? McGee (Sean Murray) thinks she has an idea about the latter: trying to hack into the NCIS network. His identity is Maurice Zucado. As Ducky puts it, « Just when we thought we were out. « He and Gibbs know Jonny must be involved, and it just so happens that the other zucado’s construction company (from the Carolina field office) is being investigated for bribery. Did Jonny send Maurice to access these files?

If so, it’s a sore point for Gibbs. (He still has the tooth that Jonny knocked out of his mouth in 1980 ?!) He’s « the one who got away, » says Ducky. « It seems that its reappearance excavates old memories that are better not remembered. « It’s not easy for the former coroner either. As director Vance (Rocky Carroll) puts it, « I tried to talk to Dr. . Mallard, but for the first time since D-Day he has nothing more to say. « 

And it doesn’t help that Jonny is so smug when they track him down (after he turns on his cell phone) and throw him into an interrogation room with Gibbs. He wishes he’d thought of sending his cousin to steal the files, he says, because it was less risky than what he did. In addition, they cannot even hold him because the bribery allegations against him have been dropped. « You couldn’t get me 40 years ago and you won’t get me now, » he boasts of Gibbs. « Reunions are fun, aren’t they? »

Don’t worry, Gibbs tosses that right back on him. Sure, Jonny is clearly responsible for the star witness’s death, but that was a week ago. What was Maurice doing in NCIS and with a notebook that contained a map of the building? When they discover that the manuscript in the book belongs to another zucado, Emilio, better known as « Freckles », the « construction worker », they have their answer, as he is more than willing in exchange for protection from his cousin speak. Forty years ago, Emilio had retrieved what Ringo Jonny (the key card) had stolen, but when young Ducky pointed out an NIS agent to him, the zucado hid him behind a drywall and made a hasty exit.

McGee likes to cut into the wall to get the card, which is a key to a Swiss safe in which Ringo hid the money he had withheld from the Navy while he was an accountant. And with Jonny’s DNA under Ringo’s nails, you’ve got enough to arrest him for murder. « Reunions are fun, aren’t they? » Gibbs notices when Jonny is arrested.

Ducky thinks Gibbs’ grudge is not only with the zucados, but with him too, because if he let the sergeant go after Jonny at the time, he would have died and not have lost Shannon and Kelly. « No, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me, » assures Gibbs. « I’m not blaming you. I owe you. You gave me time with them. Time is all we have. « 

But as Ducky reminds him, Shannon and Kelly aren’t his only family. With that in mind, he calls McGee, who is 20. Celebrates the anniversary of the day he decided to become an NCIS agent to see if the team isn’t there yet. It reminds of the dinner of the 300. Episode, but admittedly isn’t quite the same weight just because the team has changed over the years.

And a quick update on the mission to kill the leader of the drug ring whose counterfeit opioids nearly killed Fornell’s daughter: The former FBI agent is a week out of the two weeks he told Gibbs at the end of the year premiere.

So, overall, the case was nothing special, but the cast’s accomplishments and focus on Gibbs and Ducky make the episode a memorable one.

NCIS, Mark Harmon, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Donald Mallard, CBS, Sean Harmon