9.21 Rekindled

Okay, then. Who wants to take a guess at how long I'll keep this going? Until the end of the season? I think even that is giving more credit than I deserve.

Let's embark on a visual journey of Rekindled's delights. And oh, there are many. Many of them centred on Ziva's face.

But first: Tony's wearing what he calls Practical Playboy boots. Is that American slang? Here in Australia we call those Fucking Ugly Old Man Shoes.

And OH MY GOD his pants are TUCKED INTO them. I will try to give him a pass on that only because they're at a crime scene. But I think Ziva's first awesome facial expression of the night sums up what we're all feeling:

"Are you shitting me with those things?" Sadly, my dear Ziva, he is not. And this is not the last fashion faux pas our dear boy will commit tonight.

But before we get to those, we need a B plot to carry the case. Actually, the cases on this show haven't actually been the A plots since about season three. So we're actually after an A plot. Tonight? Hot arson investigator dude gets his hackles up at the sight of Di-OH-NO-zzo (see what I did there?). It's got nothing to do with the shoes. Apparently they have a history. Something to do with the lovely city of Baltimore. Tony's all awkward and uncomfortable and hot arson investigator dude (Jason is his name) is all prickly, and because Ziva's been an investigator for seven years now, she makes this face:

The plot thickens. At least that's what Mark Horowitz told her.

Meanwhile, Ducky's poking around the charred remains of an unfortunate fellow who got caught in the fireball that opened the episode. In case you're wondering what a septuagenarian looks like while he's working an arson scene, here's your answer:

He's ROCKING it. Bow tie, jumpsuit and hard hat. Ladies and gentleman, David McCallum is the shit.

Best visual reference of the night (on a night where there were more than a few)? The Japanese Anime cushion.

The thumbs up sealed it for me. Less awesome was Tony's conclusion that the Anime chick was kind of hot, but that gave Ziva the opportunity to make this face:

"For the love of God, kill me now." Indeed. Tony's hard on for Anime was then followed by an admission that The Little Mermaid was one of the characters who got him through puberty, if you know what he means and I think you do. And while that in and of itself is kind of icky, more offensive is the suggestion that Tony was going through puberty when The Little Mermaid was released in 1989. Apparently this week the PTB have decided that Tony's only about 35. Yeah. Ziva? Help me out here:

Exactly.

Meanwhile, let's pause for a Fashion Sidebar. Is anyone else concerned that Tony's wearing this in this scene?

Open-necked white shirt with no tie? I don't like it. It's sloppy. Not hot sloppy, just sort of "It's the end of a hot day and I seriously don't care how I look anymore" sloppy. I am displeased.

But this is quickly wiped from our screens so that we may be presented with the night's second best visual of the night:

I would very much like to watch this spin off show. I expect the premise of this show will be that Ziva and McGee go undercover in a variety of lab-related scenarios, and they're always getting in trouble because although McGee totally looks at home, all the geeks look at Ziva like, "Hey! What's the hot girl doing in the egghead get up? Something's fishy about this!" And then Ziva only has about two minutes to plant a bug in the lead geek's office before he comes back and busts her, and McGee is always turning up in the nick of time to distract the lead geek with geek speak, allowing Ziva the precious seconds she needs to slip outta there. And there's also a lot of slapstick comedy. It's got Emmy written all over it. Don't you dare steal it. It's mine!

The third best visual of the night is in Abby's lab:

Hello, random gentlemen who like blowing things up but who are never mentioned by name.

And hello Ziva's peach shirt, which I covet, but could never wear because it would totally wash me out with my skin tone. Cote looks hot, though.

Meanwhile, Ziva takes her pretty peach shirt and puts eyes on Tony because he's turned into the work machine he always turns into when kids he saved from fires get snotty with him, or when one night stands drive themselves into trees, or when the plot otherwise deems it necessary for him to be a responsible agent. Ziva's clearly been watching the same episode we've been watching this week, because she was curious about the Tony/James backstory and did some digging. And McGee is also there, because Sean Murray seems to be less sick these days (yay!):

Spies like us. This could also be a scene from the aforementioned spin off show, but Ziva would need to wear a bun, glasses and a lab coat, and McGee would need to be carrying a clipboard.

They settle around the campfire that is Tony's desk and ask him to tell them the story of the time he saved that nine-year-old kid from a burning building. Tony obliges, and in flashback we are introduced to a 20/21-year-old Tony:

WHAT SATAN-SPAWNED HELL CREATURE IS ON HIS HEAD?

(Pause to catch my breath.)

Okay. So, if you can force yourself past that and the hysterical laughter you experienced upon setting eyes on a be-wigged Weatherly, the story he tells is actually kind of horrifying. He ran into a burning building and saved a kid (hot arson investigator James), but as they were leaving they heard screams from another room and hot arson investigator James started screaming for his little sister who was still trapped. Tony started to go back to save her but part of the roof collapsed and blocked his path, and he had to make a choice about whether to go back and get her and risk getting her, James and himself killed, or to save James and leave the little girl to die. He choose the latter, and Jesus, that's brutal. Seriously. I might've cried a little if they hadn't put me so off balance with Tony's wig.

Ziva can only imagine his 21-year-old hair while he tells his heroic (yet humble) story though, and she's clearly imagining something much better than the reality because she makes this face:

"I want to have your children" is what I got from that.

Then they all work out who the bad guy is, and go to arrest him. But he blows up in his car. Oh noes! But it turns out there was also another bad guy, the dude from the lab where Ziva and McGee shot their pilot episode of their spin off show and who accused McGee of looking for "extra nerd credit" when he expressed interest in...I don't know. Whatever geek thing they were doing. And they find out that guy was lying to them, which gives McGee the opportunity to exclaim "geek bastard!" and make this face:

But he still says it so politely. Oh, Tim. I do love you. And it's nice to see you on screen a little more these days.

Funniest (intentional) moment of the night soon followed, when the dramatic music kicked in and the camera started spinning around the bullpen which was a hive of activity and extreme seriousness as all agents in the vicinity worked to track down further targets for explosions, including Vance and Sec Nav. Ziva and McGee are urgently and intensely talking to people on the phone, and so is Tony as he barks down the line, "Four cheese, four pepperoni, four mushroom!" pizzas.

Look at his face! SERIOUS! This is a SERIOUS PIZZA SITUATION! Honestly, that made me laugh so hard.

So all we're left with is three more things. One, this is what Tony wore on day two of the investigation:

That right there is a season three-style shirt. And it makes me think back to the episode Baltimore when Tony's partner (Scott Grimes) was dressing in suits with waistcoats and made the comment along the lines of you have to start dressing snappy when you start getting older and more insecure about losing your looks. And I thought that was a general comment about Tony's growing insecurity with his life in seasons six to eight in particular. Those seasons were the height of his snappy suit-wearing days. But this season he's been a little more casual. A bit more of a return to the Tony who seemed more comfortable with himself in the earlier seasons. And I'm wondering if it's because he's worked out in his head what he needs in his life, and he's confident in that decision, if not confident with the actual obtaining of the specific needs yet.

Of course then he ends the episode in this piece of hot:

See? Much better with the tie.

The last thing to mention is this. Excuse me for a moment as I turn into Perez Hilton.

Tony's American flag, which he used to 'stake a claim' in Ziva a couple of episodes ago is back on his desk. I choose to believe that this is irrelevant.

Well, this was fun!