‘NCIS’ Season 14, Episode 17 Recap: The Truth About Tony’s Apartment Is Revealed

I expected ‘NCIS’ Season 14 to slow down in the excitement this week, but there was more focus on an older team member. McGee becomes the focus, as we link back to Tony DiNozzo and his murder apartment.

What do you do when you find intruders in your home; intruders you believe to be connected to a murder in the apartment years ago? Well, McGee decides to shoot without question, which for me was very unlike McGee. This murder happened over a decade ago, so why would the murderers come back now?

Needless to say, McGee needs to get his NCIS family together to deal with this. Here are the important moments from the episode.

#1: McGee Hasn’t Told Delilah About the Murders

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Is omission a lie? That’s a major debate among the gang in this week’s episode. Not only has McGee shot a man, but he also reveals that he never told Delilah about the triple homicide in the apartment – has she not wondered how the apartment was so cheap?

As for why McGee shot first, it turns out that the two intruders had ripped the walls and floorboards out of the apartment, clearly looking for something. They have also stolen a hard drive of Delilah’s childhood memories, so it looks like McGee might need to tell her the truth soon. Luckily, she’s away in Dubai right now.

My big question for the intruders is why now? DiNozzo lived in this apartment for over a decade. Maybe they decided not to mess with a cop, but the apartment was empty for some time while DiNozzo Sr. found a tenant. Why not then? Something just doesn’t feel right about this story – especially taking the hard drive!

When Delilah calls, McGee only tells her part of the story and keeps out the missing hard drive. Could it be possible that Delilah was the target in all this?

Well, it turns out that the hard drive looks like a red herring – Abby finds out the identity of the two intruders and the hard drive just looked interesting.

#2: Learning More About the Triple Homicide

It was only last season that we found out Tony lived in an apartment where there’d been a triple homicide. He never had any bother, so why share the details about how he got such a cheap place in an expensive part of town?

Well, now the details are coming up. The apartment owner, Paul Triff, had been found while dismembering the bodies of three felons. It was gruesome and now explains why Tony could never get the blood stain out. He’s currently serving consecutive life sentences, so it wasn’t him! By the way, he was a “licensed furrier,” which is undercover for “smuggler.”

The dead guy, Louis Cole, paid Walter Shibberd (the other one) to break into the apartment based on a tip from someone in prison. Could it be that Triff has sent them? Well, the two were in different prisons, but Louis did work in the kitchens and was sent to train those in Maryland Correctional, where Paul works in the kitchens!

Quinn and McGee decide to pay Triff a visit, and it doesn’t take long for Triff to guess that McGee currently lives there. He starts talking about various elements of the apartment, including the bookshelves he put in. Could this be a clue?

#3: There’s a Skeleton in McGee’s Clo…Under McGee’s Floorboards!

Rule 39 has come up a couple of times in the last few episodes of NCIS Season 14. For those who aren’t up to date with the numbers, that’s the “coincidence” rule. You see, Triff says that it must have been coincidence that Louis broke into his old apartment because he never gave the address. Hmm…

It’s up to the others to get some answers, because Triff isn’t budging. McGee and Quinn go back to the apartment, where Torres and Abby are using an x-ray scanner. The only place left to look is under the bed, where a small comic book collection is stashed next to McGee’s dad’s ashes. Just how is McGee able to sleep with them there…and why are they under the bed? In what world does someone put ashes under a bed?

Well, that’s not the only thing that doesn’t belong under the bed. The x-ray scanner reveals a body. Yes, there’s been a body under the bed all this time that DiNozzo has lived there!

McGee can’t bring himself to tell Delilah everything the next time she calls, so he omits even more. This is going to come back and bite him eventually.

#4: D.B. Cooper, Anyone?

We finally get to see Ducky and Palmer in the episode, as they work together on the found body. The corpse was mummified due to the ventilation ducts and it’s Logan Pruitt, a notorious criminal who disappeared 15 years ago. Hats off to the mentioning of D.B. Cooper (even more notorious to Prison Break fans).

Everybody had assumed that Pruitt had just run away with the Pretoria diamonds he stole, and Abby is even more certain of something like that when she finds a key in his stomach. Back to Maryland it is to speak to Triff again and this time Gibbs is going.

McGee has a good theory completely on point: Pruitt wanted Triff’s help to smuggle the diamonds out and the plan was to wait until the heat on the whole case died down. Yes, Triff admits it all. Pruitt swallowed the safe deposit key and Triff decided to murder Pruitt and hide the body and key in his apartment. The guys he killed were men looking for Pruitt and the key, unsurprisingly.

Triff also knows where the diamonds are, but he’s not telling McGee and Gibbs unless he can get something out of it. Well, back at HQ, Jenna isn’t happy that NCIS won’t play the politics to get these diamonds. Honestly, it’s been 15 years! They don’t need these diamonds, do they? Best that they remain hidden for eternity and the finding of Pruitt stays quiet?

That’s not the way it is, and it turns out that Margo from the halfway house knows where the diamonds are. She and Louis were a thing and planned to use the diamonds to live a life of luxury. Off Quinn and Torres go to open the safe deposit box and find the sparkling diamonds.

Now all McGee wants to know is if there are any more surprises in his apartment. Triff doesn’t quite give a straight answer, but it looks like this case is a wrap. It also makes sense why the intruders attacked now instead of a few months ago.

In the end, McGee decides to tell Delilah everything, apart from knowing about the triple murder before he took the place. His colleagues even agree to keeping the secret for him. Yet another lie of omission but probably for the best. After all, everyone has secrets! That doesn’t mean McGee is comfortable in the apartment now. Hearing someone moving around in the dark makes him draw his gun again, only to find out that it’s Gibbs repairing the floors – bless the man, but maybe he should have thought about McGee’s reactions first before surprising him with this!

Next: 'NCIS' Season 14, Episode 16 Recap

Overall, this was a class episode. After some excellent NCIS Season 14 episodes, this one has topped it off as we finally learn more about this gruesome triple murder and why Tony got the apartment for as cheap as he did.

What was your favorite part of the episode? Share in the comments below.

NCIS Season 14 continues next Tuesday at 8/7c on CBS.