NCIS - Twenty Clicks - Review: "Excited for the new season"

NCIS started its new season with a solid premiere that introduced us to a new bad guy, who will likely resurface again later this season.

The story starts in Russia, where NCIS Systems Administrator Kevin Hussein contacts the American embassy after having the feeling that he is being followed. Vance tasks Gibbs and McGee with bringing him back home safely, something that doesn't seem too difficult. That could not be further from the truth, however, as we already see in the opening scene that a Russian mercenary, Sergei Mishnev, is targeting the NCIS team and specifically Gibbs. Turns out Sergei was friends with Kate's murderer and Ziva's haf-brother Ari Haswari, and after his death Sergei developed an "unhealthy interest" in NCIS as a Russian counselor puts it.

Anyway, when Gibbs, McGee and Kevin are safely on the way home in a Navy helicopter, Sergei shoots their aircraft out of the sky. A lieutenant and a commander or dead on the scene, another lieutenant commander succumbs to her injuries later. The three NCIS employees survive, but have a much larger problem: Sergei and his mercenary group have come to finish the job. What follows is a heart-pounding race through the Russian forest. Gibbs and McGee are able to kill a few mercenaries, but they shoot back and injure Kevin in the leg.

Meanwhile, back in the States, the remaining team members do everything in their power to help Gibbs and McGee. Bishop pulls some strings at the NSA and Vance and DiNozzo contact the Russian counselor. However, an interesting twist is put in the case when Ducky goes to tell Kevin's sister that he's missing. Her story doesn't match up with Kevin's, who said he went to Russia to pick up the body of his deceased uncle. Now, that uncle is really dead, but unlike Kevin said his cause of death was not lung cancer. Instead, he was shot two times, which causes the team to wonder what Kevin is up to.

As he later confesses, Kevin made a computer virus for the Russians. However, in the end he refused to give it to them, after which they killed his uncle. The virus is on a microchip inside his uncle's body, but of course Ducky and Jimmy discover it and give it to Abby. Even though she built a firewall for virus protection, the virus eats right through it and infects the entire network. When the team is able to contact Gibbs and McGee, they are unable to tell them how to destroy the virus. Sergei is also hot on their heels, but fortunately the NCIS trio gets closer and closer to the border with Finland. Since Kevin is slowing them down, Gibbs stays behind to try to stop Sergei. Gibbs kills the rest of Sergei's gang, and ultimately shoots Sergei as well before quickly jumping on board of his just-arrived rescue party.

However, Vance later tells Gibbs that Sergei survived and that he will be gunning for them, to which Gibs replies: "Not if we find him first."

This was quite an action-packed premiere with various twists and turns. It was very nice to see Gibbs and McGee working together, and great to see how much effort the team in the US puts into finding the two. The premiere also had its emotional moments, most notably when Lt. commander Banks died. I find Sergei an interesting villain even though I don't think we have the full picture of him just yet. Is he really targeting NCIS because one of his friends died nine years ago?! Doesn't seem very believable to me. Besides, we have seen so many NCIS bad guys motivated by the need for revenge (e.g. Paloma Reynosa, Harper Dearing and Benham Parsa) that I feel a bit tired of that. They need to come up with something better and more original.

Overall, I enjoyed this premiere and am curious to see how the story with Sergei is handled. I'm excited for the new season and hope there will be more great episodes to come!

Side notes:
-Lol at the Russian counselor telling Vance and Tony to sit tight. As if they would even think about doing that for a second! Who does this guy think he is?
-Did anyone else have a flashback when Ducky pulled out a microchip of the uncle's body? Made me think of the whole EJ storyline back in the season 8 finale and season 9 premiere.
-I was hoping that McGee would mention his father when he and Kevin were talking about cancer, but alas he didn't. I'm still hoping to see that storyline get picked up again.
-Did Vance unintentionally promote the new CBS' show Madam Secretary? Or was that actually an off-screen crossover with Téa Leoni's new show?

What did you think of the season premiere? Did you like the introduction of new baddie Sergei? Do you think he will make for a great villain? Sound off in the comments below!

Here's the promo for next week's episode, which features Vance getting some heartbreaking news. Hmm, I'm scared too!

About the Author - Daniel

Daniel is a Dutch university student studying Psychology. On SpoilerTV he is a reviewer of NCIS, The 100 and the upcoming shows Madam Secretary, Battle Creek and Odyssey. He also enjoys Arrow, NCIS: LA, Nikita and The Blacklist. Recently gotten into LOST which he really loves. He is excited for the new shows Stalker, Scorpion, NCIS: New Orleans and a bunch of others.

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