If you’ll indulge me for a moment….
At best, tonight’s entire episode was laughable. At worst, it negatively colors things going forward.
And in reality, after more than ninety episodes, the writers recreated the character of Ziva David in the blink of an eye. Anything to box their way out of their current corner.
She’s a liaison; she’s a member of the team; she’s Mossad through and through; she’s haunted by a single life taken; her father’s evil incarnate … and on and on.
Since the beginning, resolving this situation in any way that left Ziva as a member of the team would have stretched my sense of plausibility, but I would have accepted a reasonable explanation, partly because I’ve always enjoyed her. But to handle it in one of the few ways that leaves no loophole for believability? Get ready for a lot more on this story in the weeks and months to come, because the writers unknowingly just led themselves into another tight spot that will come back to haunt them soon.
Enough!
Well, there really isn’t much more to say. The remains of a marine discovered by a fishing boat in Tanzania leads NCIS to find the Damocles, the ship Ziva was on that went down off the coast of Africa, and that’s how the above kicked off. It was cool to see Erik Palladino as the dead former marine; he doesn’t get enough time to shine.
I was surprised that Gibbs and Vance waited as long as they did to grill Ziva, and that the Mossad waited so long to come and get her, the events coinciding either coincidentally or as a result of her interrogation. I don’t buy into the myth that the show, and fans, are floating about Ziva’s father (it’s Eh-lee, emphasis on the soft first “E,” as opposed to how they mangle it on the show, by the way); forget about family (which would matter) — he wouldn’t see his agents as being so expendable.
Be realistic for a moment here: Israel’s invested a lot in these people, from their three years in the army starting at the age of 18, to continuous stops and training, until they finally made it into the field with the Mossad — potentially 10-15 years. Senator McCarthy treated blacklisted Hollywood writers better than the wild accusations being hurled at Director David.
But it is curious that Mossad team leader Officer Ben-Gidon (T.J. Ramini) only showed up now. Nevertheless, his presence should have cut short any interrogation of Ziva; she is Israel’s before she is America’s, and in fact she is not even a citizen of this country…. I’m sorry, it’s simply ridiculous of the writers to just decide that Gibbs’ say-so determines this thing. I’m a big fan of his, but Gibbs vs. the US Government, in the case of National Security, isn’t going to go his way.
Please, writers: some effort at something I can accept regarding Ziva. Just give it a shot, okay?
Anyway, with Ziva detained and Gibbs busy with her, we did get some more straight McGee and Tony time … too bad most of the episode was short the two of them. Their best exchange came at the beginning, and involved Ziva as well (she was NOT starting a joke):
“What is blue, black, and red?” – Ziva
“Zebra in a blender.” – Tony
“That’s black, white, and red all over.” – McGee
“Newspaper.” – Tony
“Penguin with a sunburn.” – McGee
“Nun falling down stairs.” – Tony
I wouldn’t mind more of that.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Oct 13, 2009 @ 21:59 EST5EDT
So that’s where Coach Marty was during Nationals: rotting at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
I believe Malach had the authority to bring Ziva out of NCIS, but no actual power (or documents). When Vance and Gibbs stonewalled him, he could have left, contacted his government, had them file an official protest with the U.S. State Department, had State contact the Department of the Navy, and had the Navy order NCIS to release Ziva. Of course, Gibbs’s interrogation would have been long over by that point, and Malach would have been aware of that, so he opted to offer Gibbs the information instead. Even if he had gone the official route, Ziva would not have left with him in the end, so it makes little difference.
Don’t worry: NCIS fans will forget all about these machinations until and unless they’re brought up again on the show.
*POST AUTHOR*
:) And the circle gets the square!
This is just hypothesizing for the sake of hypothesizing: since Ziva’s not a US citizen, or an employee of NCIS, wouldn’t Gibbs and Vance have needed official reasons for holding her in order to stop Ben-Gidon from pulling her out of there? Not that they didn’t have one – material witness, let’s say – but the issue was never raised.
Also, it’s not really a matter of whether or not Ziva would have left with him, but if Ben-Gidon, representing her government and agency, ordered the interrogation over, that much he has control over. Yes, he couldn’t then forcibly remove Ziva from the building, but he certainly should have been able to stop her from answering any questions, without necessitating his own questioning.
I just think this is another grey area that the writers are just glossing over. I want to buy in, I just need something to hang my hat on, as it were.
My machinations, or the shows? ;)
Ben-Gidon anticipated that they might use a flimsy excuse like that, and preempts it with a line something like “You’ve had more than enough time to debrief her” in his opening barrage. Gibbs and Vance didn’t need to say it after that.
I don’t think we’re as far apart as you might think. I’m saying that Gibbs and Vance were wrong to refuse to cooperate, but when they did, Ben-Gidon had only de iure (sic) control over anything, not de facto, so could not compel them to comply on the spot. When they refused to stop the interrogation/debriefing, his proper recourse would be to go through official channels, as I’ve outlined in brief above. He would be vindicated in the end, but that would have taken far too long, so opted to try to give them what they wanted instead.
Actually, Ben-Gidon only has as much standing in the U.S. as the State Department would have allowed him, Mossad or not. And if he hadn’t stopped to arrange his authority with State before coming to NCIS, he might not even have had the power to order them to stop when he did so.
And all Vance would have to tell State was the truth: that Ziva had not been forthcoming about the operation before but had then volunteered to be openly debriefed by NCIS. It was not a hostile interrogation, and she could have stopped it at any time if she gave up applying to be an NCIS agent.
As an aside, they did drop a line about Ziva needing to get her citizenship cleared up. I assume she’ll have dual, and they don’t give any details as to where she is in the process. Being NCIS/JAG reality, I assume it’ll happen much faster than in real life.
As to Eli, it’s not like it was a needless suicide mission. The target is the leader of an operation that spanned multiple nations, and had been built up to be a very important threat. When the Mossad agents get the continue mission order from Eli on the Mogadishu docks, someone mentions the limited window of opportunity they have for the strike. I can see a commander sacrificing 1-3 elite troopers in order to eliminate a high-value target. Since Ziva managed to get within a “fingernail’s” reach of him by herself, a team would certainly have succeeded.
*POST AUTHOR*
I think you’re right. Here’s where I think we differ: I guess it could be labeled as steps that we don’t necessarily need to see, but I’d imagine that as soon as Ben-Gidon arrived and verbally requested the interrogation stopped, NCIS would need to have made a formal declaration of the status of the questioning, be it material witness, person of interest, whatever. That probably would have been done quickly, and could have involved nothing more than notifying the Secretary of the Navy, but something should have been required there. I’m just saying, as she was only a foreign national, with no working relationship with the US government, her government, in the form of Ben-Gidon, should have a lot of leeway to yank her out unless NCIS made it formal.
Yes, I heard the citizenship line, and I laughed; it felt like they dropped it in because they realized their oops. Re the dual citizenship, it’s an interesting question. If this were the reverse, most government jobs in Israel require you to denounce your foreign citizenship. I wonder at what point that’s called for here.
That’s very different; you’re talking about putting your men in harms way to achieve a goal, where you recognize that there’s a good chance they won’t make it back out again, but see the collateral damage as acceptable. I’m referencing people who are saying that Director David decides that he wants an agent to die, and so sends them to their death. Period. That’s more like negligent homicide, at best, and is very different than regular course of business stuff.
I don’t think NCIS would have needed to do anything in that situation to justify themselves, since they’re in no way directly subject to Ben-Gidon. Normally they would cooperate as a courtesy, which Vance neglected to extend to him. Vance would also be the one to blow the whistle if Gibbs had refused on his own, but here they were in lockstep, and seemed unconcerned about any official fallout that might result later from their actions.
Basically, I think Ben-Gidon had to be the one to make it official, as no one else would be bothering SECNAV about this incident. And since he doesn’t have a direct line, he would have had to go through all the normal red tape before he could enforce his request. To attribute more power to him that that within NCIS smacks of extraterritoriality.
I’m not one of those arguing that Eli intended to murder them, but if he was, I’m sure as Director he could find plenty of worthwhile missions that were hazardous enough to bring it about.
*POST AUTHOR*
I just hope the “Probie” thing doesn’t turn dumb, like they go from ignoring that she’s a liaison for X years, to pretending like she’s a brand-new recruit. If they’d just get back to normal, with a smattering of working towards clarity on the Ziva end, things would be great.
I would agree with you Aryeh, I guess we will have to see what happens in the upcoming episodes. I guess I am hoping for a better episode that catches us by surprise.
I figured his showing up was prompted by the “Dear Father” email. Up until then dad would have believed she was 100% loyal to him.
As to whether Director David would consider any of his people expendable, I think that occurs in any military/intelligence organization. If you get too attached to your people you would never send them into harm’s way which kind of defeats the purpose of having them in the first place. Perchance that is why you hear someone referred to as an “asset”? Writers whether it be for tv, movies, or books got the term from somewhere.
*POST AUTHOR*
Good point. Forgot about that. Thanks!
But aren’t you kind of equating consciously sending them to their death with merely sending them into dangerous situations? I’m not implying that the latter isn’t done all the time – I’m saying, all the people who believe that Ziva was sent on the mission FOR THE PURPOSE of her being killed are assuming that Director David sees his agents (or assets) as completely expendable. That I can’t believe. That’s not sentimentality; that’s good business. Why would you want to go to the time, effort and expense of bringing someone else up to speed as a replacement, when the original is fine?
I was thinking macro while you are thinking micro. On the micro level I can easily see David sending his daughter on a suicide mission. If I am remembering correctly (not always a sure thing I will admit) this is the guy who sent Ziva to the US to kill her half brother.
*POST AUTHOR*
So you’re saying you could see it being feasible on both a macro and a micro level? ;-)
Yes, that’s true, but Ari wasn’t just someone who Director David was tired of. The implications behind his sending Ziva to kill him are a whole other story – in the beginning Ari was nothing to her, so it meant nothing, but now that supposedly they were always close the show has scrambled to course correct that – but he didn’t see Ari as expendable, he saw him as a threat that needed to be dealt with.
I see that as a very different situation. The theory that the agents are expendable would have him ordering their death for not wishing him a happy birthday (yes, I’m exaggerating) – an idea that’s made even more absurd when you consider how highly Israel values life. I just don’t buy it.
After reading your reviews for this season, I’m starting to think we’re twins separated at birth. *g* Ditto everything you said, plus it’s worth repeating this one word: Enough! I’m sick of watching NCIS: Ziva.
I didn’t really care for her intro into the team because it didn’t make sense (I still have this theory that it was originally intended to tie in with Sheppard’s vendetta but was later scrapped), but could mostly ignore her unless she got really annoying. The more they’re trying to “fix” the character, the more I dislike her. She really needs to get over herself and the writers really need to make a decision over what her character is and stick with it instead of trying to play on both sides of the fence.
*POST AUTHOR*
Yes! I knew among 15-20 million viewers I couldn’t possibly be alone. At least two of us know the truth. Thank you! :-)
It would make sense to have liason agents with both International and other Federal Law Enforcement agencies, but I seriously disbelief that they would have one that works on all investigations with a particular team.