4.19 - Grace PeriodThis is a featured page

◄ Previous Episode Season #: 4
 Episode #: 19
 Air Date: April 3, 2007
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Grace Period
Synopsis:
When a weekend call to the NCIS tip line from an unknown source about possible terrorist activity results in the death of two agents sent into a trap, the NCIS team will have to find out who was responsible, with the help of Agent Paula Cassidy, who holds herself responsible for the tragedy.

Episode Recap:
Gibbs has taken Mann to a batting cage to teach her how to swing a baseball bat. She patiently listens and accepts his hands-on approach to showing her the moves, including the nuzzling of her neck and the kisses (isn't she lucky!). She pays close attention to Gibbs' lesson and then he leaves her to try it for herself. She lets two balls go past without swinging. He points out you have to swing to hit it. So she does. She hits, and hits and hits and...she is clearly an ace with a baseball bat. Gibbs is rueful. Gibbs gets a call from McGee. Cassidy's team, on stakeout, has been blown up. Hollis complains that they were going to spend the whole weekend together, but Gibbs says he has to go.

At the bomb scene, Cassidy is injured. Although she wasn't seriously wounded physically, she's very upset. Gibbs tells her not to come in, but she still follows him into the scene. She relays that while she was parking their car, her agents followed a man, who had phoned the 'tip line,' into an empty store. As she was getting out of the car outside, her agents and the store were blown up. Cassidy keeps saying she ought to have been with them. Gibbs removes her from the scene and counsels her to get a grip and to save the grief for after the suicide bomber's accomplices are caught. Inside, Ziva and Tony are trying to find the missing head from the suicide bomber. Ziva finally locates it and drops it to the floor just as two men who identify themselves as coworkers walk up.

At NCIS headquarters, the two men who worked with the bomber are questioned. They have an alibi. Cassidy and Ziva needle each other. Ducky discovers that the bomber was dead a day before the bomb went off. Abby matches the voice on from the phone call that came in 10 minutes before the bombing with a recording of the dead man. Somehow the bomber was alive and dead at the same time. Who is right?

Gibbs sends Tony and Cassidy back to the bomb scene to discover how a third party could have been there and escape so quickly from a seemingly exitless room. This splits up the fractious Cassidy and Ziva. When Cassidy departs, Gibbs accuses Ziva of going soft: Gibbs recognizes that Ziva is purposefully giving Cassidy an object on which to focus her anger. Gibbs warns Ziva that the cost of such altruism is usually that the person hates you for life, but Ziva is willing to live with that if it helps Cassidy get through the situation.

After spending time trying to find where the 'mystery door' was, Tony had the bright idea of lighting a cigar and trying to find where the smoke went, and eventually they found the hidden door operated by a spring mechanism which opens the wall into an office on the other side. They now knew how the bomber's accomplices escaped.

Ducky and Abby have an intellectual war over the dead/undead issue regarding the bomber. And Abby thinks that Ducky has to be wrong that the man was dead a day earlier. The phone call is traced to a firm that specializes in computer-aided technology for disabled people. Eventually they figure out that the voice of the dead man was replicated using advanced technology and computers. Both Ducky and Abby were right.

A memorial for the dead people is organized at the bomb site. Gibbs' team acts as security detail for the ceremony. While there, Ziva is sent outside on guard duty, so Gibbs, Tony and Cassidy are inside the store when they realize that one of the two workers (who spun a good line as a peacenik) is actually a suicide bomber. The trap door opens, revealing the bomber. Cassidy throws herself on him and knocks him into the other room. The very solid door in the wall swings shut. The bomb explodes, but Gibbs, Tony and the others are safe. Wisps of smoke come through the cracks in the wall. Tony is devastated, having bonded with Cassidy when discussing his problems about admitting to Jeanne, his girlfriend, that he loves her. Cassidy's last advice to Tony was that life is too short to not tell someone that you love them.

The episode ends with Tony looking exhausted turning up at Jeanne's flat to tell her that he loves her, whilst, in the background, Jeanne's stereo blares out REM's "Everybody Hurts".

New Character Development / Insights:
  • Cassidy predicts that she was meant to die with her agents and, in the end, sacrifices herself. The episode aired Easter week, the season of remembrance of sacrifice to save others. A clear distinction is drawn between the suicide bomber (who sacrifices himself to kill others) and Cassidy (who sacrifices herself to save the lives of others).
  • McGee knew one of the dead agents: they went to training school together and McGee attended his wedding two months earlier. McGee is hit by the realization that it could have been Gibbs' team that was bombed instead of Cassidy's. He is affected by Gibbs' news that their team was, in fact, meant to be on the 'tip line' duty that weekend (Gibbs had arranged the weekend off so that he could be with Mann - not very professional, but a useful plot device).
Funny Moments:
  • Gibbs and Mann, having bonded over baseball, have dinner together in Gibbs' basement. Mann tells Gibbs that she is thinking of retiring to make room in her life for people who are important to her. The look of dismay on Gibbs' face is priceless.
  • The fights between Ziva and Cassidy.
  • Cassidy purposely saying "Day-vid" instead of "Dah-veed".
  • McGee points out that the dead/undead conundrum is like Schrodinger's Cat. He draws blank looks from the Director and Ziva. Embarrassed, he mutters that its quantum physics: two opposite states existing at the same time. Sometimes it's hard to be an educated man who understands a bit of science.
Trivia:
  • When they were going through some of the words Yazeed had put in the computer for people to use, two of the words, in this order, were "Yankee" and then "White" - the name of the very first NCIS episode!
  • This was the sixth episode with Jessica Steen playing Paula Cassidy.
    Paula's first appearance was in Season 1 in "1x08 Minimum Security". Since then, she has been a friend of Tony.
    Tony admits to     Kate in episode 2x08 Heart Break, that Paula was one of the few women who was really 'important' to him. However, Tony and Paula's relationship doesn't seem to be anything more than a heavy flirt.
    Working for and with Gibbs was not that easy for Paula, because Gibbs let her know that she was not 'good enough' as an agent. Paula Cassidy was member of the team for one week in the episode 3x03 Mind Games.     Other than this one, Paula appears in two other episodes (1x16 Bete Noire and 1x23 Reveille).
  • Tony says to Yazeed about his shirt: "Thanks. It’s from the George Peppard collection." George Peppard played Hannibal in the TV-show "A-Team".
  • Michael Weatherly recorded an audio comment on the DVD for this episode. He says that during the scene where he was searching for the hidden door in the wall with the help of the smoke of a cigar, he needed to smoke 12 cigars before the scene was finished shooting.
  • The song at the end of the episode is from "R.E.M." called "Everybody Hurts".
  • The bracelet Tony is wearing at the end of the episode was from Jeanne in 'Friends and Lovers'.
  • When Gibbs and Mann are at the batting cages, he is wearing Joggers that say 'Notre Dame XXL'
Recurring Cast: Guest Starring:
  • Scottie Thompson (Jeanne Benoit)
  • Susanna Thompson (Army Lt. Col. Hollis Mann)
  • Jessica Steen (Special Agent Paula Cassidy)
  • Ankur Bhatt (Salman Umar)
  • Shaun Duke (Azid Abu Selom)
  • Jacory Gums (NCIS Agent Jim Nelson)
  • Dominic Rains (Jamal Malik)
  • Sasha Roiz (NCIS Agent Rick Hall)
  • Haaz Sleiman (Abdul Wahid)
Written By: Directed By:
  • John C. Kelley
  • James Whitmore, Jr.




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