WARNING: The following contains spoilers for NCIS Season 19, Episode 2, “Nearly Departed,” which aired Monday on CBS.
After NCIS‘ Season 19 premiere, Gibbs is hurt. Still, he’s doing pretty well considering he was nearly blown up only days before. He has also accepted help from his team in the hunt for the serial killer he and Marcie have been chasing after. With their combined resources and intel, it’s not long before they are off to the races and hunting the killer down together, like old times — well, almost. Gibbs is presumed dead after Vance announced that NCIS suspended the search for his body, so Gibbs is operating as a ghost for most of the episode.
“Nearly Departed’s” intro finally reveals the killer that has caused so many problems. He is buying bleach and a lot of paper towels, which can only mean one thing on a show like this: he’s got blood to clean up. Sure enough, he has someone tied up in the back of his van as the show cuts to the opening credits.
It’s not long after that that NCIS finds that victim dead in the woods. Her murder follows the MO from all of the other killings: red duct tape and blunt force trauma from a hammer. Except, there haven’t been the normal one hundred days between murders, so the killer is upping the ante. They finally catch a break with this victim, though. She was wearing a pace bracelet when kidnapped, so Kasie can track where she was taken, leading them to the killer’s hideout. He is there when they kick the door down but flees from the pursuing agents.
They have trouble using facial recognition on the killer, but they find that he’s been all over town using surveillance camera footage. They also find a suspicious figure that is almost always in the frame with him. They track down this new figure only to find out that he’s Special Agent Alden Parker from the FBI. After a rough introduction, they agree to share information and work together.
Kasie keeps using the surveillance photos to track the guy down and eventually finds him. Gibbs arrives first at a mausoleum as the killer is grabbing a duffle bag of money out of a tomb. Gibbs surprises him with the fact that he’s not dead. Then, they fight, and Gibbs eventually gets a bead on him. As the team arrives, Gibbs wants to shoot him as vigilante justice but finally relents and lets the team take him back to NCIS.
There, Agent Knight interrogates the man who plays things way too cool for comfort. He asks for a lawyer, but the team soon finds out that the phone number that he has given them has been disconnected for years. Meanwhile, Kasie discovers the killer is actually being paid to kill people from an offshore account. When Agent Knight goes back in to inquire about the shell company that’s paying him, the killer kicks the table into Knight, who hits her head on the two-way glass, shattering it. The killer dives through and makes it to the squad room, where he finds Kasie as a hostage. All of it ends when Gibbs comes out of the elevator to shoot the killer in the back without a second thought.
It seems like everything is over, but it’s not. The promo for the next NCIS episode shows that the killer survived the shooting. Now, it seems like he still has some kind of a personal vendetta against Gibbs. It also looks like he and Gibbs disappear together at some point in the episode.
To find out what happens when Gibbs and the serial killer go missing, watch CBS’ NCIS on Monday nights at 9 pm. ET.
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