My apologies for missing last week’s second episode of NCIS, “Restless,” but here’s what happened: it took me a week, and multiple attempts, to get through the entire thing. It was just soooooooo boring, and I kept on falling asleep. I went into week three hoping for some series redemption.
I love when the show explores the personal life of a team member, and it’s about time we got back to McGee. After meeting his sister, learning he’s a published author, and even having a case that involved his writing, it was great to meet more of his family and get to know more about him.
And of course it’s awesome that Lily Tomlin was cast as his grandmother, Penelope Langston. To be honest, Tomlin is one of those actresses who I know to be great mainly through reputation. As far as firsthand knowledge goes, I only know her from The West Wing, where she was super as flighty Deborah Fiderer. And that’s good enough for me.
But the thing is, while there was plenty of exposition regarding Tomlin’s Penelope — at least enough that we were provided with a foundation for the case — what was missing was actually learning more about McGee. I wanted more along the lines of the brief story that Penelope shared at the end of the episode. For instance, why has McGee not spoken to his father in seven years? (And, by the way, I don’t care how much he loves his grandmother; no way would he immediately sit down and call his father after so long. And are we to believe that she hasn’t prodded him similarly in all the intervening years?)
Unfortunately, what we did get to know about McGee is that he’s kind of a whiny baby. Did we know that before? Maybe, but his “Enough!” to Gibbs came after Gibbs had barely been questioning Penelope, let alone pressing her. And the constant quiver in McGee’s voice sounded more childish than hurt.
As for Tomlin, she was okay. I think I’d like to see more of her — and Tony’s and Gibbs’ fathers — in order to get a better feel for her and her relationship with McGee. It would seem that McGee both could and does see her regularly … why not give us a five minute scene once a month with them having dinner together? This show has always thrived more on the characters than on the cases — which once again was only so-so for me — so why not capitalize on them as much as possible? I’d also accept seeing Penelope more due to her dating Ducky seriously … how awesome was that!
And as for the super secret defense research that everyone was looking either to profit from or expose? Maybe it’s because there’ve been so many TV shows and movies that focus on this stuff, but I feel like I’ve heard or read about some man-made crop killing bugs that either are being made or have already been used in the course of war. Whether or not that’s the same focus as the technology from last night’s episode, I didn’t expect something as, excuse the desensitization, mundane as that for the big reveal. Was it supposed to shock us? Did I miss something in the explanation of the horror level?
Week three: good character episode (save for McGee himself), weak case. Oh, well.
![NCIS flubs its premiere [51eRnHz2DHL. SL160 ] (IMAGE)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eRnHz2DHL._SL160_.jpg "NCIS flubs its premiere [51eRnHz2DHL. SL160 ] (IMAGE)")
![NCIS flubs its premiere [517viGC516L. SL160 ] (IMAGE)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517viGC516L._SL160_.jpg "NCIS flubs its premiere [517viGC516L. SL160 ] (IMAGE)")
![NCIS flubs its premiere [51yRekuK3tL. SL160 ] (IMAGE)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yRekuK3tL._SL160_.jpg "NCIS flubs its premiere [51yRekuK3tL. SL160 ] (IMAGE)")
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Oct 05, 2011 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
I actually do not remember what last week’s episode was about…and I can’t blame my memory since I remember what Castle was about last week.
As to McGee I thought the actor might be sick – he sounded like my dad when he gets his yearly strep throat.
I think we did get some insight into his background when he described his father’s reaction to the birthday card. Not to mention the comparison’s between Gibbs and his father. Could it have been shown better – absolutely, but at least the attempt was made.
*POST AUTHOR*
The card … that’s one of those cliche moments. My wife and I both said, “Has that seriously ever happened?” You can do better? I think if they’d downplayed the rejection a bit I might have found it more enlightening.
What in this episode wasn’t a cliché?
It’s just my personal pet peeve, but hated that they started another episode with a murder instead of discovering the body.
Thought it was kind of weird that after discovering the other woman was McGee’s grandmother, the episode became all about her, and we were expected to forget about the victim and his poor pregnant widow. They didn’t even mention him in the third act, so what was the point of humanizing him at all in the teaser?
Also was surprised that Grandma lived long enough to have children, the number of times this episode McGee had to physically pull her away from her own stupidity. There’s stubbornly principled, and then there’s just plain dumb.
So they track down the Messiah-complex founder through his very limited edition .45 ACP Hush Puppy because he was stupid enough to enlist in the army under his own name for Iraq after he had faked his death? Weak.
They should have left the position paper (written by an outside think tank, and not the actual government) that was pure evil and would change our way of life as a MacGuffin. Real war plans are, of course, much darker and more horrifying, but from the writer’s three previous NCIS episodes, I wouldn’t expect verisimilitude to be important. But the Anax Principle doesn’t even stand up to TV logic. They’re cyborg caterpillars, controlled through technology, as was said in the episode. There was a picture of a circuit board inside of a caterpillar. How exactly are these rapidly-breeding organics supposed to replicate more electronics to pass onto each of their larvae? Since the plan first originated in the late 1960’s, there wouldn’t have been any micro-automation to speak of, so were they going to implant each caterpillar surgically? The last Syfy monster movie of the week I saw made more sense than this.
Agree with everything you said, except for this being a good character episode. I learned very little new about McGee, I wouldn’t care if his grandmother ever reappeared, and the rest of the cast was barely there at all. I also have no idea why Gibbs didn’t go apoplectic on McGee out in the hall after the fairly mild interrogation, but instead rewarded his subordinate for his insubordination by allowing him to take over the questioning. Was it just to motivate the probie to get his head out of his ass?
*POST AUTHOR*
As shallow as the depth may have been, I still enjoyed the excavation that they did into McGee’s past by bringing on his grandmother. If nothing else it gave us color on how he belongs in the lonely puppy group with the rest of his teammates: his father never showed him any affection, and his grandmother is super crazy! :)