NCIS"Silent Night"
Original Air Date: Dec 16th, 2008
Nicola - TheTwoCents Reviewer
nicola@thetwocentscorp.com
‘Tis the season for red and green. However, when a delivery man arrives with a wreath at the house of the Taylors, he sees a little more red than he bargained for. Through the window he spies the bodies of the old couple, the husband Avery in a pool of blood. He also sees a not-so-dead face peering back at him.
Continue Reading...
[photo: CBS]
Posts
NCIS
ReplyDelete"Silent Night"
Original Air Date: Dec 16th, 2008
Nicola - TheTwoCents Reviewer
nicola@thetwocentscorp.com
‘Tis the season for red and green. However, when a delivery man arrives with a wreath at the house of the Taylors, he sees a little more red than he bargained for. Through the window he spies the bodies of the old couple, the husband Avery in a pool of blood. He also sees a not-so-dead face peering back at him.
And what does the murder of an innocent old couple have to do with NCIS? That’s what the gang wants to know when they hear that Detective Justin Kemp, an old acquaintance of Tony’s (Tony used to date Kemp’s wife), shows up to tell them about the case. It turns out that fingerprints were found around the house belonging to Ned Quinn, a former petty officer. The delivery man looked at a picture and IDed Quinn as the face he saw in the window. There’s only one problem – Quinn supposedly died in a fire seventeen years ago. A little more prodding reveals that Ducky was the one who signed the death certificate.
From Quinn’s file we learn that he was in Vietnam, and when he returned he became addicted to meth. His wife Connie divorced him and he never saw his four-year-old daughter Melissa again. Ducky reviews the autopsy he did on the body and remembers that the damage that the meth did to Quinn’s teeth made dental ID impossible. The body was too badly burned to identify. Ducky made the call based on the victim’s height and bone structure, and the fact that the body was found in Quinn’s room. However, it’s now looking like maybe Quinn killed someone else and used the fire to cover it up. Ducky also talks to Dr. Prior, who treated Quinn for survivor guilt after the war. Evidently Quinn switched assignments with a friend, and that friend was killed because of it. Every Christmas Eve Quinn visits the war memorial to pay his respects, so Gibbs goes to the memorial to meet him. From there he’s taken into custody.
It seems that Quinn’s been living the simple life since he faked his own death. He lives in a long-term hotel room, paying cash for everything, which he gets from doing odd jobs. He is no longer a drug addict. He says he didn’t kill the Taylors, that they picked him up to help them decorate their house for Christmas. He was in the garage digging out boxes when they were killed. The husband was already dead but Quinn tried to give the wife CPR, but it was too late. As far as faking his death goes, he says another drug addict was in his room at the time of the fire but Quinn himself was out at the time. He decided his ex-wife and daughter would be better off with him dead so they could collect his benefits.
Even though it seems like a pretty clear-cut case, Gibbs doesn’t think that Quinn did it. While searching for other possible suspects, McGee comes across a lawsuit filed by Avery Taylor against a company called Paradigm, which is owned by Justin Kemp’s father in law. Convinced that this is enough to take another look, Ziva, Tony, and Gibbs go to reexamine the crime scene. Ziva finds fibers, hair, and a button on the couch, where Mrs. Taylor must have been lying before Quinn moved her to the floor to perform CPR. Tony finds a safe with a print on it – it looks like the motive might have been a simple robbery. He also finds the murder weapon in the garage – a bloody hammer with Quinn’s prints on it.
Quinn continues to claim his innocence, and Gibbs still believes him (mostly). He has Abby do what she does best, and she discovers the button is the kind found on military and police uniforms. She also finds that the print is a glove print, and if they find a glove, she can tell them if it made the print. They return to the crime scene to discover the real identity of the killer. It was the security guard, who came to rob the safe. He handcuffed the wife on the couch where she had a heart attack. That’s where the button came from. After a brief attempt to get away (he tasered McGee), the security guard is taken down and everyone is able to enjoy a merry Christmas. Well, everyone but the security guard at least.
A happy little Christmas episode for TV’s most cheerful crime fighting team. I thought it got a bit saccharine when Abby became determined to reunite Quinn with his daughter, but I suppose that’s what Christmas and Abby are all about. As usual, the team was more affectionate than any TV family I know, so it was nice to see them all settle down for some Christmastime bonding at the end.