1.21 - Split DecisionThis is a featured page

◄ Previous Episode Season #: 1 Episode #: 21 Air Date: May 11, 2004 Next Episode ►
Split Decision
Synopsis:
A Marine is found murdered by an anti-tank weapon, and the investigation leads N.C.I.S. to a local militia group.

Episode Recap:
A bunch of skateboarders find a body of a marine in the forest. When NCIS arrives at the scene, they discover that S.Sgt Grimm, an armorer who was on the boxing team, was killed with a missile. Kate meets Grimm's teammates in the gym, including Corporal McClain, who casually asks what happened and says she barely knew Grimm since they trained in the same gym.

Abby finds a serial number on the weapon that killed Grimm and traces it to the Armory where Grimm's had been stationed. Kate and Tony go to Grimm's apartment and discover his computer's entire hard drive had been reformatted. Abby is able to recover the erased data and finds the last file Grimm viewed – a picture of weapons on the floor of Grimm's apartment. Gibbs was also pulling out the pictures of the weapons on the Internet.

The team discovers Grimm had placed seven phone calls to a pawn shop the day he died. DiNozzo goes undercover at the pawn shop where the daughter of the imprisoned store owner is running the business now and is asks Tony to sell weapons to her. When they pull the guns on each other, she turns out to be an ATF Agent, Melinda Stone. Melinda informs Tony that ATF is running the operation. She talked to Grimm on the phone without knowing who he was and set up the meeting time but he never showed up.

Kate goes back to the gym and confronts McClain, who was transporting weapons with Grimm the day he died. McClain said she just signed out on the shipment that had the missing missile, Grimm dropped her off right after they left the base and she went to see her boyfriend, who was shipping off to Iraq. Later, Kate goes to Grimm's unit and talks to S.Sgt. Rafael who says everything is always according to the procedure including Grimm signing in the weapons three days earlier.

Gibbs tells Melinda to call the buyer and set up the meeting where he would be going undercover.

Kate is now interrogating Rafael, who failed to mention that he attended the Armory School with Grimm and they kept in touch. After he is shown a picture of Grimm's body, Rafael admits that Grimm talked him into signing out the weapons as a one-time deal that would be good for the three people involved. Corporal McClain's alibi doesn't check out after her picture is shown to the hotel clerk and her boyfriend says that they broke up a month ago.

Melinda and Gibbs meet with the buyers – the local militia, who take them along to test the weapons and dispose the tracking device that was in Gibbs' watch on the way. When militia starts checking out the weapons, the first one is fine, but the other models are not in working condition. When Gibbs offers to lower the price he gets shot by the militia's leader. The militia leader makes Melinda call her supplier for more weapons. The supplier turns out to be McClain and when she goes to the storage area she is arrested by Kate and Tony.

When the militia leaders receives a call, he helps Gibbs up and it is revealed that it was an undercover operation with ATF really watching Melinda Stone since many things looked wrong during her last operation. It's also revealed that Grimm was killed during an argument.

New Character Development / Insights:
  • Gibbs doesn't like peas.
  • To her surprise, Kate completes her first interrogation of a suspect, rather than Gibbs.
  • Gibbs, again, shows a warmth and bond towards McGee for helping him with tech stuff. (Probably Gibbs' only weakness besides making a marriage work)
  • Kate, as with noting Gibbs' poor eye sight, points out Gibbs' obsession with the unknown terrorist.
  • Tony,once again, is shown to be a sucker for a pretty face.
  • Tony also claims, to Kate, at the end of the episode that he looks for more "complex" things under the surface of women.

Funny Moments:
  • Palmer repeating everything Ducky says into a voice recorder until Ducky suggests he leave it on so he doesn't have to repeat everything.
  • Tony's shocked expression when he sees McGee using Gibbs desk and computer.
  • Gibbs telling Tony he is never allowed to use the computer because his fingers are always greasy from fried chicken and pizza.
  • Abby suggesting Tony's fake crime, for his fake ID file, be a violation of federal obscenity laws.
  • Abby calling the ATF agent "ATF lady"
  • After the stand-off at the pawn shop Tony asks Gibbs if he was really going to let her shoot him. Gibbs replies a sarcastic "No."
  • McGee's insecurity about Gibbs and Tony finding out he dropped the ball while busy updating Gibbs' face recognition software.
  • Kate brusing Tony's ego, once again, about the incident with the pre-operation transexual from an earlier episode.


Trivia:
  • This episode is the first appearance of Ducky's assistant "Palmer."
  • Very few UK universities or schools (if any), produce a US style year book, let alone have an electronic record of year book style photographs.
  • This is the second time in the series that Michael Weatherly's character, Tony has gone undercover with the name "Gus".
  • When Tony was undercover as "Gus," his birthdate on the fake ID was the 8th July (Michael Weatherly's birthday). It wasn't MW's actual year (1972) but 1972 corresponds with Kate's correct guess of Tony's age, which was 32, as of this episode's original air date which showed in 2004.
  • Tony once again dons his James Bond accent in reference to Gibbs' supposed tracker watch.


Recurring Cast:
    Guest Starring:
        • Brian Dietzen (Jimmy Palmer)
        • Sean Murray (Tim McGee)
        • Erin LeShawn Wiley (Corporal McClain)
        • Laz Alonso (S Sgt. Washington)
        • Sam Witwer (S Sgt. Rafael)
        • Bellamy Young (ATF Agent Melinda Stone)
        • Scott MacDonald (Militia Leader)
        • Michael Graziadei (Chuck)
        • Stuart Stone (Dillon)
        • Adam Hendershott (Josh)
        Written By: Directed By:
        • Bob Gookin
        • Terrence O'Hara




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