NCIS - Lockdown/Viral - Double Review: "Abby's field trip and Bishop's worries"

The latest two NCIS episodes had some great character moments. Episode 5 saw Abby go out on the field, while in episode 6 Bishop was worried about her husband's safety. Here's a double recap and review for both episodes. I am sorry I couldn't write a weekly one, but I was a bit busy.

Episode 13.05 "Lockdown"
A dead Navy Reserve Captain is found in the trunk of a car. His name was Jeremy Doblin and he was a biochemist. Surprisingly, at the crime scene Jimmy's magnetic keys stick to the victim's abdomen and upon further investigation, it turns out there is a metallic container with vials of botulinum toxin inside his body. Meanwhile, Abby finds something in Doblin's blood that she traced back to Celodyne Pharmaceuticals, so she heads out to visit that company. There she meets Dr. Janice Brown, who has quite a few things in common with Abby. Janice reveals that the compound Abby found is part of an antidepressant, but the active ingredient is missing so it wouldn't have been helpful. Suddenly, the Ebola alarm goes off, putting the lab on lockdown. However, when the women also hear gunshots, they realize there's something else going on. In fact, the alarm was false and the phone and the internet are not working either. The lab is in a hostage situation.

Abby crawls to the server room, where she hides in a closet when the captors enter the room. One of the captors turns out to be the friendly janitor Abby greeted when she entered Celodyne. Anyway, Abby lures the captors out of the room with an ugly smell and quickly calls Gibbs, locks down the computers and then goes back to Janice's office, but not before overhearing the captors saying they need to kill all the hostages, including Abby. The women then use Caf-Pow to make smoke signals to the outside world, and McGee sees it and realizes Abby needs assistance. The captors have started using the intercom to tell Abby that they will start killing hostages if she doesn't unlock the computer. Abby can't let that happen, so she builds a bomb with Janice. Sadly, that bomb fails to go off and the two are captured. Before Abby unlocks the computer though, she threatens to throw a canister poison gas to the ground that will kill her and the captors, but will keep the hostages alive. While the janitor believe she's bluffing, Abby throws the canister to the ground and they are all knocked out.

Except it wasn't really poison, of course, and the failing bomb was never meant to go off. Abby just stalled to give the team enough time to found her. And they did, after McGee finally managed to unlock the computer. The captors are arrested and Abby tells Gibbs to arrest Janice too. Turns out the fake Ebola alarm came from her computer and one of the captors ready Abby's last name correctly. Janice is a whistleblower who was working with Captain Doblin to reveal that Celodyne was falsifying data to sell drugs that didn't work. She hired the janitor to steal data from the computer, but he went nuts and killed Doblin and made it into a hostage situation. The plan went all wrong, but the company will be investigated for the fake drugs.

Earlier in the episode, Abby revealed that she wanted to move her lab to another location in the NCIS building. In fact, she wanted to swap with Accounting, but they were unwilling to change offices. Gibbs pulled some strings for Abby and after the hostage situation, he tells her that Accounting is prepared to go along with the swap since they heard what she did that day. However, Abby changed her mind, saying she had enough upstairs fun for the next decade.

It was really fun to see Abby out of her lab for once and in a dire situation. I really loved how Abby got into all the action. She was really badass throughout this episode. Her creative methods of creating a bomb or contacting the outside world are totally Abby-like. The episode had quite some twists, although some of them were pretty predictable. I kind of saw it coming that Janice was involved with the bad guys. I liked how she was actually trying to do the right thing though. It also wasn't unexpected that the janitor was the bad guy. Lastly, of course Abby decided in the end that she didn't want to move her lab. It seems that, for the last few episodes, the writers have been teasing with changes coming to the office only to get back to how things were at the end of the same episode. We heard about Tony potentially leading the team, Vance leaving the Director's chair and now Abby moving her lab, but none of these things came to fruition. On one hand, I am glad about that (especially Vance not leaving). On the other hand, the writers can't keep teasing these changes only to throw them out of the window again. We still haven't gotten a resolution to the tension between Tony and Gibbs, and while we haven't seen that for the last few episodes, I do hope the writers come back to it.

Episode 13.06 "Viral"
The episode opens with the murder of Petty Officer Adam Meyers, who is killed from a sniper's nest. The murder shows all the signs of a serial killer known as the Tri-State Sniper, with a card indicating that Meyers is the killer's seventh victim. When Metro PD arrests the serial killer, he confesses to the murders. However, the suspect couldn't have been in the area when Meyers was murdered, so the team is dealing with a copycat. It turns out Meyers was recently hit in his face and had to undergo emergency tooth surgery. NCIS Special Agent Maureen Cabot comes in to tell Gibbs about Meyers' Navy history. He allegedly took nude photos of two women with a hidden camera and put them on the internet. One of the women, Ashley Ryan, committed suicide just ten days ago. The team questions the other woman, Kara Gifford, who is the one who punched Meyers in the face because he dared to show up at Ashley's funeral. While Kara is happy Meyers is dead, she is not the one who killed him. The team also talks to Peter Woodruff, Meyers' career counselor at the time of the incident whom he confessed the crime to. Tony mysteriously itches during the conversation, probably because there was poison oak at the crime scene.

Abby, Delilah and Bishop learn that Meyers had an old phone and computer, so it's weird that he uploaded the nude pictures. Also, the day after he was arrested for posting the photos, he got a deposit of $15.000 which was later wired to a big law firm. When Tony realizes he got the poison oak from Navy Lieutenant Nick Rossmore, who shook his hand at the crime scene, Rossmore is brought in for questioning. He tells the team that he was just out for a run and didn't see the poison oak. He also reveals that Meyers' sister was arrested for drug charges and Meyers wanted to pay for an excellent lawyer. Rossmore finds it weird that Meyers suddenly confessed to planting the hidden camera. The real perpetrator is a man who hated to take orders from women, and that man turns out to be Peter Woodruff. He bought the camera and also confesses to his Captain while NCIS is listening in. Woodruff killed Meyers because he was going to come forward about what really happened.

Meanwhile, McGee and Delilah have a problem with compromising regarding moving in together. McGee is reluctant to throw much stuff away, even hiding some of it under his desk while claiming he donated it. However, their problems take a backseat when it is revealed that Jake might be in grave danger. He was on an NSA assignment in Dubai, but the hotel where he was staying was bombed. Jake is unaccounted for, but Bishop refuses to go home and wait for a call. McGee talks to Bishop and says he knows how she feels, since he went through the same thing 2 years ago when Delilah was missing following Parsa's attack on the gala. Delilah's contacts in Dubai gets them photos and Bishop fortunately spots her husband getting into a cab at the time the bomb went off. Jake is alive and Bishop later gets a call from him. However, at the end of the day she confesses to Gibbs how close she was to losing her husband. Bishop then cries in Gibbs' arms.

Let me start my review by saying that this episode was very busy. In my opinion, it might have been a bit too busy. The case was definitely a good one that had various twists. I liked how every suspect or person of interest in the investigation was eventually somehow involved: from Meyers' sister to the man Tony shook hands with at the crime scene to the Navy Captain. That made the case somewhat bigger and less predictable. The most obvious twist came at the beginning of the episode when it was revealed that Meyers was not killed by the serial killer, but rather by a copycat. I mean, who didn't see that coming? As for the other aspects of the episode, I enjoyed seeing Bishop worried about Jake. Her conversation with McGee made for an emotional moment in addition to her elevator talk with Gibbs. I never thought Jake would be so unceremoniously killed off so it was no surprise he was still alive, but it was still nice to see him alive. Jamie Bamber tweeted that he was recently filming on the show, so I suppose we will see him again soon. Hopefully they can resolve their marriage issues and maybe this event brings them closer together. I think the Delilah and McGee stuff was a bit underused, although I did like how they eventually concluded to just face the little and big things together. Again, I hope we will see Delilah some other time this season.

What did you think of "Lockdown" and "Viral"? What are your thoughts on the cases? Did you enjoy that Abby went out in the field? How did you feel for Bishop when she was looking for Jake? And do you think this near-death experience might bring them closer together? Share your opinions and theories in the comments below.

The next NCIS episode airs Tuesday at 8/7c on CBS. Here's a promo for the episode:

About the Author - Daniel van der Veer

Daniel van der Veer is a Dutch university student studying Psychology. On SpoilerTV he is a reviewer of NCIS, The 100, Madam Secretary and Quantico. He also enjoys LOST, Arrow, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, Nikita, The Blacklist, Scorpion and How To Get Away With Murder.

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