Another NCIS Season is underway!

Know Your Medal of Honor Recipients:

Sergeant Dennis W. Hickey (US Army) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on June 29, 1864, at Stony Creek Bridge, Virginia. His citation reads:

With a detachment of 3 men, tore up the bridge at Stony Creek being the last man on the bridge and covering the retreat until he was shot down.

Second Class Fireman John Hickman (US Navy) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on March 14, 1863, on board the USS Richmond. His citation reads:

Served on board the U.S.S. Richmond in the attack on Port Hudson, 14 March 1863. Damaged by a 6-inch solid rifle shot which shattered the starboard safety-valve chamber and also damaged the port safety-valve, the fireroom of the U.S.S. Richmond immediately became filled with steam to place it in an extremely critical condition. Acting courageously in this crisis, Hickman persisted in penetrating the steam-filled room in order to haul the hot fires of the furnaces and continued this action until the gravity of the situation had been lessened.

Corporal Nathan E. Hickok (US Army) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on September 29, 1864, at Chapins Farm, Virginia. His citation reads:

Capture of flag.


It’s a new season, so that means it’s time to update our favorite NCIS Episodes. In honor of a new season of NCIS (Season 10) starting last night, I will give you the I’m just sayin... 10 favorite NCIS episodes (as voted on by the staff at I’m just sayin.... While I really enjoyed last night’s episode, it wasn’t good enough to crack our list. Still, that could change by next season (I sometimes have to watch an episode multiple times to really like it).

*Note: Episode info comes from Wikipedia

The I’m just sayin... 10 Favorite NCIS Episodes

7x01 “Truth or Consequences”
¬Several months have passed since Gibbs left Ziva in Israel, and no one at NCIS has heard from her since. Concerned that something may be wrong, Tony, McGee and Abby track down her last known whereabouts, and discover that she was on a mission to take out terrorist Saleem Ulman in Northern Africa. Tony and McGee track him down to get answers about Ziva’s disappearance, but are quickly taken prisoner by Saleem. Unfamiliar with NCIS and Tony’s mission, Saleem administers a truth serum and questions Tony extensively about the inner workings of the agency, how he was able to find his base of operations and why he traveled so far in his quest. Unable to keep quiet due to the serum's effects, Tony recaps the three months at NCIS since Ziva disappeared, and reveals that NCIS is under the impression that Ziva is dead. He tells Saleem that he traveled to Northern Africa to seek vengeance on the parties responsible. Saleem then demands that Tony reveal the identities of all NCIS agents in the region, and threatens to kill a hostage if he doesn’t speak. To Tony’s surprise, the hostage is Ziva. However, just as Saleem is about to execute Ziva, Tony tells Saleem one last thing: Gibbs is in Northern Africa too, and Saleem is about to die. Gibbs had been lying in wait the entire time, and just then takes a sniper shot and kills Saleem and the other guards watching over Ziva, Tony and McGee, allowing them to escape. After they all return to the office, everyone stands up and welcomes the team back.

5x07 “Requiem”
The episode begins with Tony retrieving Gibbs from the water and trying to revive him. It is revealed that Maddie, a childhood friend of Gibbs' deceased daughter Kelly, comes to him for help after being stalked which leads to the events of Gibbs' car driving into water. While unconscious Gibbs hallucinates that he is visited by his dead wife and daughter and is reassured that everything is fine.

8x22 “Baltimore”
After sending the NCIS team a message in the form of the eye in "Two-Faced" - revealed to belong to a person whose identity is classified - the Port to Port Killer seems to have struck with another victim: Danny Price, formerly DiNozzo's partner in the Baltimore P.D. homicide squad. Believing that the Port to Port Killer may have a connection to DiNozzo, the team begins to concentrate on his time in Baltimore. Inconsistencies in the autopsy reports lead them to suspect there is a copycat killer on the loose, and it is eventually revealed that a mistake caused by Palmer in a report on the Port-to Port Killer by E.J. Barrett to law enforcement agencies is how the copycat killer managed to replicate the Port-to Port Killer with near perfect accuracy. Because of Palmer's mistake, NCIS is able to catch a would-be copycat before he can kill, as well as find Price's murderer. The episode is intercut with flashbacks showing DiNozzo's first meeting with Gibbs in which DiNozzo arrested Gibbs while he was working undercover on a money laundering case. DiNozzo joins NCIS after finding himself unable to work with Price in the Baltimore PD, but unwilling to expose his former partner.

2x22 “SWAK”
All hell breaks loose at the NCIS office when Tony opens a mysterious letter containing a small puff of white powder which may be a deadly bacteria. Kate calls for help and as a precaution, she and Tony are put into a bio-hazard isolation room while McGee and Gibbs are left to discover who sent the envelope and their reasons for doing so while searching for a cure to help their friends before it's too late.

2x07 “Call of Silence”
A former Marine, and Medal of Honor recipient who fought in World War II (played by Charles Durning), confesses to having murdered his friend in battle. Gibbs does not believe this is the whole truth and goes on to prove his innocence. The team become personally involved with the case, with Gibbs using deceptive tactics to pull the truth from the elderly man.

9x24 “Till Death Do Us Part”
After investigating Vance's car, the team locates Vance at a family plot where Vance finds himself next to the body of a sailor killed along with Dearing's son. After picking him up, the team finds another message with a horse jaw that leads them to a retired NCIS agent who handled a case that sent Dearing's son to the destroyer that claimed his life. However, Dearing blows up the agent's house and leaves them a message, soon confronting Dr. Ryan by threatening her son and forcing her to flee when he buys out a judge to release her ex-husband on a technicality. Meanwhile, Jimmy is nervous on whether or not to go through with the marriage with everything going on and with no one else being able to attend, but Ducky tells him to go through with it, and that he will join him. However, Jimmy asks Breena to advance the wedding so he could return to assist with the case and so his friends could be there.

Gibbs decides to recruit Cole based on Ryan's profiling of Dearing to lure him into a trap. It initially seems to have worked when Dearing tells Cole to meet him a cafe retired Navy officers attend, but Dearing doesn't show up to the meeting and instead leaves a phone for Cole. The former calls and tells Cole to relay a message to Gibbs that he was never interested in Director Vance and is really interested in justice. Back at headquarters, analyzing the call makes the team realize there is a bomb in Vance's car, installed when he was abducted, meant to blow up NCIS Headquarters at the Navy Yard and the whole building is evacuated. Cole attempts to defuse the bomb but is killed in the process (assumed) when the bomb detonates, damaging part of the NCIS building with Gibbs and his team still inside. Ziva and Tony are in an elevator with debris falling on them after evacuating people, Abby and Gibbs are stuck in her lab, and Tim is just leaving his desk after securing a backup drive from his computer. Ducky receives a phone call about the attack and is asked to autopsy the bodies, but the shock and stress of the call causes him to have a heart attack and collapse alone on a beach, leaving everyone's fates unknown.

3x09 “Frame-Up”
A pair of legs are found on a Marine base, and the team is dumbfounded and shell shocked when every piece of evidence in a murder points towards Tony as the prime suspect. In an effort to help their colleague, the team compiles a list of people who may have grudges against Tony, providing them with a long list of suspects. Abby is upset that she may have incriminated Tony through the forensic evidence she provided and refuses to give up until she's proved his innocence.

2x23 “Twilight”
While the team investigate a double murder where the victims were shot in their car, Kate kicks Tony onto the ground and he notices a bomb on the car, saving Todd and McGee. Tobias Fornell of the FBI arrives at NCIS and notifies the team that Ari Haswari has returned to the US and may be on a personal vendetta to assassinate Gibbs. While McGee starts attempting to disarm the drone, Gibbs, DiNozzo and Todd take the warehouse and begin searching for Haswari. However it's not an easy approach as they're forced to engage in a vicious and bloody gunfight with members of Ari's terrorist group. All seems to be going well until Todd takes a bullet in the chest for Gibbs. It is soon shown that she's wearing a bullet proof vest but just when it seems to be all over, Kate is brutally murdered, having shot in the head by Ari, who's been waiting on a roof waiting to strike.

6x02 “Agent Afloat”
Now stationed on the aircraft carrier USS Seahawk, DiNozzo finds that a Navy Lieutenant's apparent suicide may be connected to a larger, deadly scheme. His wife is discovered in D.C to be the victim of a fatal beating, before the Lieutenant boarded. Yet it turns out that the Lieutenant was murdered in Cartagena, Colombia within 24 hours of his wife's death, and several days before he was scheduled to board his ship. It seems that someone else took his place, and may have the intentions, it is initially believed, of exposing the ship's crew to anthrax. Gibbs and Officer Ziva David take off for Cartagena to help Tony with the investigation, and in the end DiNozzo is allowed to return to Washington D.C. despite Director Vance's apparent wishes to the contrary.

3x08 “Under Covers”
When it is discovered that two married assassins, who were fatally wounded in a car crash, were planning an assassination at the United States Marine Corps Birthday Ball, Gibbs sends Ziva and Tony to pose as the married assassins in order to find out who the couple had planned to assassinate and who had hired them. After the team finds out that the couple were expecting a baby and may have been planning to retire, they realize that the assassination plot could have been a set-up and that the married assassins were potentially the real targets. Meanwhile, an attraction between Tony and Ziva surfaces.

Honorable Mention:

9x1 “Nature of the Beast”
Set over the course of several months, the episode follows a series of events surrounding the investigation given to Special agent Tony DiNozzo by SECNAV in "Pyramid", culminating in the death of an NCIS agent. Secretary Jarvis assigned Tony to the investigation after a dead Navy Captain was found with an incision in his arm. After Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard discovers security footage of Special agent Erica Jane "EJ" Barrett removing a microchip from the body of Special agent Gayne Levin, suspicion falls on her.

The Major Case Response Team begin to suspect EJ is the target of Tony's investigation, but EJ confides to Tony that Levin asked her to remove the microchip. The team learns that the microchips provide access to a classified Navy fleet, known as the 'Watchers'. Tony is lured to a meeting with EJ and her buyer, revealed to be Barrett's other team member and the target of Tony's investigation, Special Agent Simon Cade, although he claims that he was framed. During the meeting, all three are shot. Cade is killed, Tony is knocked unconscious and Barrett is missing. As Tony recalls the meeting, he realizes they were set up by the shooter, an FBI agent in league with the Office of Naval Intelligence's Director of Special Operations, who places the microchips up for auction.

1x19 “Dead Man Talking”
Special Agent Chris Pacci is brutally murdered while investigating a cold case, prompting a guilt-ridden Gibbs to step in and take over the case while attempting to find Pacci's killer. The team follows the trail of millions of dollars, and is led to a woman with ties to the thief. The agents take shifts conducting a stake-out on the woman's house, until Tony is caught raiding the mailbox. Forced to improvise, he introduces himself as a resident of the neighborhood and strikes up a conversation based on what he had heard via surveillance. This gives him a chance to get close to the suspect in order to find out more, as he goes on a successful date with her. Meanwhile, Abby makes a shocking discovery which leaves Tony horrified and vulnerable to an onslaught of merciless taunts and teasing from Todd: the suspect they've been trailing, Amanda Reed is in fact Lt. Commander Voss, the Petty Officer who faked his own death in a car accident and who's responsible for stealing money from the Navy. Things come to a head in the bar where Voss/Reed attempts to kill Tony in front of witnesses but Gibbs gets there just in time and shoots the former Petty Officer dead, avenging Pacci's death.

9x14 “Life Before His Eyes”
During a routine stop in a diner for his morning coffee, Gibbs finds himself shot. He then suddenly finds himself inside a spectral version of the diner where he sees various characters from the past and present, both living and dead. He meets Mike Franks, who tells him that this is an opportunity for him to reflect on his past actions. He shows him an alternate future where Kate hadn't died, where Kate and DiNozzo are married with a newborn baby, but as a result Ziva stays with Mossad and is eventually arrested by NCIS. Gibbs then meets his mother, and he reaffirms that he had always loved her. Disgraced NCIS Agent Riley McCallister then appears and questions Gibbs' decision to murder Pedro Hernandez. Gibbs has Mike show him the future where he had never killed Hernandez, and it is revealed that he would have left NCIS and become a broken, reclusive alcoholic who pushes away any attempts to reach out to him. Finally, he meets Shannon and Kelly, who show him a future where they had never died. Gibbs would have stayed a Marine, but would have been killed in action overseas. Through this experience, Gibbs learns that he should not regret the choices he has or had not made.

This experience is related to a case one day before the shooting, where a Petty Officer and civilian contractor are found shot aboard a drydocked warship. They were attempting to steal the ship's military hard drives and sell them to the Chinese. However, the third accomplice, Michael Rose, eventually balks and is forced to kill his co-conspirators in self defense. Michael's son, Steven, pleads to Gibbs that his father was trying to do the right thing, and he was just misguided. Gibbs decides not to help Michael. On the day that Gibbs is shot, he draws his pistol but refuses to fire when he realizes that the shooter is Steven. Steven fires, but only hits Gibbs in the shoulder. Steven is subdued by several bystanders and he apologizes for shooting Gibbs. The next day, McGee tells the rest of the team that he turned down Director Vance's offer for a promotion to Okinawa since he feels there is still a lot of good he can do where is right now. Despite being injured, Gibbs returns to work, freshly inspired by his near death experience.

6x25 “Aliyah”
Ziva's homecoming to Israel with Gibbs and the team is not a happy reunion with her father, Eli David, the enigmatic and powerful head of Mossad. As tensions rise, and based on information he gets from McGee and Abby, Gibbs decides to leave Ziva in Tel Aviv. Ziva is later captured by the terrorists in Somalia that Rivkin had been investigating.

8x1 “Spider and the Fly”
Following Jackson Gibbs' (guest star Ralph Waite) confrontation with Paloma Reynosa (guest star Jacqueline Obradors), he is put in NCIS protective custody at his son's house. A few months later, the death of a helicopter pilot leads the team back to the Reynosa Cartel's vendetta with Gibbs, leading team members to become targets. Paloma Reynosa, head of the cartel, plays a game of cat and mouse with NCIS as she makes a wide trail through the US, expanding her cartel's influence. Tensions erupt when Alejandro Rivera (guest star Marco Sanchez), calls Abby on her bluff over the sending of the report on the Pedro Hernandez murder and threatens her in front of Gibbs. Knowing of his involvement in the Reynosa Cartel, NCIS lead Alejandro Rivera into a trap at a safe house by tricking him into thinking his sister is dead and those responsible are in protective custody. Rivera takes the bait and intends to exact revenge, but ends up fatally shooting his own sister. Meanwhile, Leon Vance, whilst putting the report implicating Gibbs in a place no one will find it, receives a mysterious text message from Eli David, Director of Mossad claiming "I found him".

7x02 “Reunion”
¬The team investigates a bachelor party where all three guests are murdered and left in very mysterious circumstances. One of the victims is found hanging, another is found drowned in the toilet, the third suffered from alcohol poisoning and all three are found with their heads shaved, post mortem. After a thorough investigation the team zeros in on a suspect, a police officer that had been bullied by the three victims during high school. The way that all three victims were found corresponds with the way they had tormented the cop, right down to shaving his head. They also discover that the three victims had used their Navy connections to set up the illegal sale of a decommissioned aircraft, and that the bachelor party was actually a front for the deal to go down during. The team figures the police officer had finally taken his revenge and not only killed his tormentors, but also stole their profits from the aircraft heist. However, after the officer turns up dead, the team learns that the real culprit also attended the same high school as the original three victims, and had framed the cop so they could steal the money from the aircraft job. Meanwhile, Ziva deals with her feelings towards Tony and apologizes for ever doubting him.

9x10 “Sins of the Father”
Tony's father is accused of murder and Tony is sidelined during the investigation. After searching for clues, the team discovers that DiNozzo Sr was actually framed for the alleged death as a lawyer had committed the crime with his assistant who had drugged DiNozzo Sr, resulting in temporary memory loss. The episode ends with both DiNozzos spending Thanksgiving at Gibbs' house.

4x01 “Shalom”
After witnessing a Mossad agent perform an assassination, which was not authorized by Mossad, Ziva is suspected by the FBI to be a double agent. Now a fugitive and on the run, Ziva is forced to ask for Gibbs' help, who is in Mexico after retiring from NCIS. Tony finds his leadership skills being tested to the limit as he leads the team to search for Ziva and to prove her innocence before the FBI can arrest her.

7x24 “Rule Fifty-One”
Gibbs' captor is Paloma Reynosa, the daughter of the drug dealer, Pedro Hernandez who Gibbs murdered twenty years previously after Hernandez ordered the deaths of both Kelly and Shannon Gibbs. Paloma wants revenge against Gibbs for robbing her of her father and threatens to kill everyone Gibbs has ever met, starting with Mike Franks and ending with his father if he does not start working on her behalf. It is revealed that Alejandro is Paloma's brother and that he opened the case of his father's murder in an attempt to keep Gibbs out of his sister's reach whilst still delivering justice, but things are complicated by the loss of Abby's report from "Patriot Down" - which has been intercepted by Allison Hart to prevent it from reaching Mexico. Meanwhile, Ziva has passed her citizenship test and is expecting Tony and Gibbs to attend her citizenship ceremony. Tony is forced to break his promise to her when the situation escalates, and he is tasked with shadowing Rivera, meeting Mike Franks during the assignment. The episode ends with Paloma traveling to Pennsylvania and entering the store owned by Jackson Gibbs, leaving his fate unknown.

Note: It is revealed that Gibbs started writing down all his rules after a suggestion by his late wife and in this episode creates a new rule, the eponymous rule 51: "Sometimes - you're wrong". Tony also mentions that all rules "in the 40s" are for emergencies only.


The I’m just sayin… Quote of the Week

Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it. - Bill Cosby