Retrospective: 3.12 Boxed In

Let’s kick off our NCIS hiatus retrospective with the season three bottle episode Boxed In. I’ve picked it because I was reminded of it in the dying minutes of season nine when Tony and Ziva ended up trapped (one assumes) an in elevator after an explosion. Trapped, I say! Their spaces are getting smaller and smaller. Next time I expect they’ll pay homage to Out of Sight and have them stuck in the trunk of a car together. Cool.

Boxed In begins with Tony and Ziva wandering through a huge dock filled with shipping containers. Tony’s relating a tale about his previous night’s activities, and telling Ziva she should have been there. “You would have loved it! Two warriors squaring off in the rain!” I was going to say that didn’t sound like a date, but I can actually see Tony getting behind the idea of Ziva participating in a chick fight in the rain. Ziva says she had plans with McGee, and Tony continues for a moment on his story (“Mud glistening off their thongs…”) before his brain catches up with his ears. He can’t believe she was with McGee, and Ziva explains that she made him dinner. She likes to cook. And she throws in that Jimmy seemed to like it. Tony is appalled. “Palmer? I’ve never even been to your place, and you’re cooking dinner for McGeek and the autopsy gremlin?” My God, this is so early in their partnership. It’s like they’re two different people. Except not really, because this happens:

NCIS on hiatus, but I won't be

Here we are again, my friends. We’ve arrived in TV purgatory for another year. That place between the excitement, stress and joy (or fury, depending on your viewpoint) of a season finale, and the excitement, stress and relief (or fury again, some more) of a season premiere. It’s a difficult time for a fan. You feel empty. Directionless. Frustrated. Bored. You spend weeks pouring over the finale for any clue to next season’s direction that you might have missed. You have a ‘great idea’ to start watching the show right from the beginning again, only this time you’ll note every important piece of character information and put it all on a website. You read fanfic, write fanfic, and complain that there’s no good fanfic. You make fan videos, argue with other fans via whatever form of social media happens to be ‘hip’ at the time, and read all the spoilers that the interwebs throw up. And when you’re done with all that, it’s still only July.

You could fill your time by flirting with other shows. There’s probably a stack of shows that people are always telling you that you have to watch. The Wire is always on that list. So is Breaking Bad. And Deadwood. Justified, Mad Men, Sherlock. “You haven’t seen Game of Thrones yet? Oh my God, you’ve got to watch Game of Thrones. It has all the incest, boobs, dragons and dirty people going medieval on each other you can stand! And you better be able to stand a lot of those things, because that’s, like, literally all the show is. Total Emmy bait.”

But should you try to fill your time with these shows? I don’t know. What are you asking me for? I haven’t seen any of them. I swear they’re all on my list, but…you know. I’ve just been so busy. And I expect I will be for the entire TV season hiatus, because I’ve had another ‘great idea’ to recap old episodes of NCIS.

“NCIS? But…that’s not even on HBO.” I know it’s not. Get over yourself, snootypants. It’s just for fun. And, okay, sometimes blind rage, but lately…fun! And it’s not like I’m going to recap the episodes I hated. Although you might hate them. But I can’t help that. You have you own weird opinions and you’re entitled to them. But maybe you’ll enjoy the recaps anyway.

So stop by every now and then to read a new recap of an old show. It might make TV purgatory easier to deal with.

Coming up first: season three’s Boxed In, wherein Tony and Ziva get stuck in a shipping container. 

9.24 Till Death Do Us Part

Welcome to the finale! Can I say upfront that this time last year I was so ready to dump this show. I resolved to give season 9 four episodes to convince me to stay. It did, and I can honestly say that I've been surprised and relieved by this season. Just my opinion, but this one has been streets ahead of the last three. Tip o' the hat to Gary Glasberg. You've done a bang up job.

We begin with Team Gibbs combing Vance's abandoned SUV for clues to his whereabouts. Tony thinks it's necessary to go through the guy's luggage. He says he doesn't want to do it, but because Ziva has known him for longer than five minutes she's able to call bullshit. Tony *loves* snooping in peoples' private belongings. But Tony insists that he actually doesn't want to find out if Vance is a boxers or briefs man. I'm placing my bet on boxers or nothing. Strangely, McGee offers to do it for him. But no, Tony won't let anyone else near Vance's drawers.

Meanwhile, Tony's wearing this shirt:

9.23 Up in Smoke

Two in one codeine-infused day! Woohoo!

First thing's first: it's a Dorneget episode! Yay for Dorney!

He's having an implant tooth pulled at the dentist because he got some popcorn stuck in there. But what should be a routine visit ends in DRAMA when the dentist finds a microchip thing implanted in the tooth. EWWWWWWW! Someone's been bugging him through his teeth! That's unbelievably gross.

9.22 Playing With Fire

I didn't do this last week because I didn't think I had much to say about the episode. Then I fast forwarded through it this morning and realised I actually *did* have some snark and/or insightful commentary (mostly the former) in me, so I may as well do this one while I'm waiting for the new ep to load.

Also I have seen the number of page views this thing got and I'm quite surprised to know that there seem to be quite a few people reading. So...hi, random people! Let's get started.

You know what really grabbed me from the beginning of the episode? Not the massive CGI explosion. It was when the sailor who ends up dead (spoiler alert) drops his phone from, like, ten feet and it breaks into a bunch of pieces, and he just clicks it all back together again and it works just fine.

WHAT? I want to know what kind of phone that is, because I need one.