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NCIS recap: Can Jack be trusted?

By Alexandria Ingham

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Photo Credit: NCIS/CBS Image Acquired from CBS Press Express

Is it ever okay to ask for money back from a charity? NCIS answers that question and more.

Palmer decides it’s time to collect money for a local charity called Inclusion Town in NCIS Season 15, “Trapped.” Don’t worry, it’s not a scam. However, a slight error with internet banking does mean Torres donates far more than he wants. Is it ever right to ask a charity for part of a donation back? Meanwhile, one of the team members starts to become suspicious of Jack Sloan.

Palmer and his charity

Initially I had the fear that Inclusion Town was going to turn out to be some sort of scam. Thankfully it wasn’t, and instead we learned that you have to be careful when using internet banking. Quite honestly, we’ve all been there, right? We’ve inputted one wrong figure in an account number or we’ve put the dot in the wrong place and paid $300 instead of $30.

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I don’t think anyone has been as bad as Torres though. His mistake costs him 100 times the amount he initially wanted to donate. Just to set the scene, Palmer would like NCIS to donate to a charity that builds playgrounds designed for disabled children. The charity is definitely legal and legit, and it turns out that other team members have donated $40 each. Torres doesn’t have any money on him, but Palmer says that it’s possible to donate online.

Great! Well, it would be, except Torres later finds out that he’s donated $5,000 instead of the $50 that he wanted. That’s a huge error that I personally just can’t see happening. Torres wants all but the intended donation back. You see, he’s been saving up for a new super moto. Palmer is understandably crushed, but understands the mistake. Since Torres made the mistake, he says that he will talk to the charity founder in person.

The case of the night

Before we get into the final details of Torres’ extremely generous donation, we need to cover the case of the night. When morning golfers find an abandoned lawn mower on their course, they move it. Of course, this is NCIS and they find a body underneath. That body belongs to Navy Petty Officer Second Class Jake Miller, who worked part-time at the golf course as a groundskeeper.

Palmer is instantly sure that the petty officer wasn’t killed at the location. There simply isn’t enough blood and the bruising wasn’t caused by the lawn mower. It doesn’t take too long to figure out that Miller’s time of death was around the time he arrived for work. The death was likely somewhere on the golf course and the site officially becomes a crime scene when Gibbs finds a bloody rake.

We soon learn that the victim has a broken neck and that is likely the cause of death. That’s when Abby pops up with her information. There was a lot of blood on Miller’s shirt, but it wasn’t his. We also later find out that the blood on the rake belongs to the same person whose blood is on Miller’s shirt. The rake was Miller’s defensive weapon.

Photo Credit: NCIS/CBS Image Acquired from CBS Press Express

Looking at the security footage, McGee learns that while nine cars pulled into the parking lot around 4am, only one left about 20 minutes later. That car just happened to be reported stolen.

The problem for the team is that Miller was a bit of a loner. It turns out that he had a ham shack set up in his home, which McGee is extremely impressed with. Think of a ham shack as the first social media. Before McGee can get into too much detail (thankfully for Torres, although McGee goes into more detail later), Miller’s dog walker Rhonda Collins arrives with Miller’s dog.

Miller’s ham shack may be a clue. McGee goes undercover into the airwaves to find out information and gets in touch with a guy called Ricochet. It turns out Miller’s code name was Jaybird and Ricochet wants to know if Miller is dead. Apparently Jaybird was caught up in something dangerous. Aren’t they always?

As for the stolen car, Deputy Allen Smedley has spotted it and calls NCIS in. By the time the team get there, the car is gone but there is a clue. They’re across the road from a vet clinic. The attacker couldn’t have gone to a doctor to see to his rake wounds, so he went to a vet. It looks like we have Prison Break’s Teddy around!

The vet is understandably afraid. He doesn’t want to end up dead by the attacker! This isn’t the first time a human has walked into his clinic, but lack of cameras and fingerprints makes it look like this could be a dead end. But Sloan is certain that it was pre-meditated murder and so am I when Abby has information that Miller had cocaine in his shoes, hair and on his body, but not in his blood stream.

When McGee struggles to get back in touch with Ricochet, it looks like another lost lead. However, our awesome McGee can use “direction finding” to get a location through the radio waves. It’s not quite successful, but McGee gets a clue with Miller’s year book. Ricochet is derived from a real name: Rick O. Shea.

Photo Credit: NCIS/CBS Image Acquired from CBS Press Express

The plot thickens

With the name, McGee is able to find Shea, who turns out to be an anxious man who has devoted all his life to ham radio. The guy even has a dog and it just so happens to be Benji, who had growled at McGee before. The only guy Benji has ever growled at was Miller and it’s possibly linked to the cocaine.

The sand dunes at the golf course are full of cocaine. It certainly explains why Miller was covered in it. This and the sketch from the vet help Abby name the suspect Ramon Moncada, who delivers the sand. The cocaine in the sand is actually a mistake, as both drug and sand go to the same warehouse to be separated. It doesn’t take long for NCIS to find their man and learn about the head of a Mexican drug cartel operation, Evelyn Gomez, who takes orders from El Gato. Torres is able to do some temporary undercover work to get El Gato’s number and arrest Gomez.

Who doesn’t trust Jack Sloan?

We know Sloan has a bit of a shady background and it looks like we’re not the only ones. Someone in the team doesn’t trust her.

Photo Credit: NCIS/CBS Image Acquired from CBS Press Express

Is it Abby? Well, no. Abby is just worried that Sloan is profiling her, especially with the mention of Abby’s love for Caf-Pow. That’s why Sloan hasn’t been able to meet the wonderful Abby yet—Abby has been avoiding her like the plague. We can’t really blame her!

Abby isn’t the only person who thinks she’s being analyzed. Gibbs has a sneaky feeling too, but he’s not completely suspicious yet.

It’s actually Reeves who isn’t certain about the new member of the team. He’s been looking into Sloan and come across her Army record. She was in Psychological Operations (PsyOps). Sloan furthers Reeves’ lack of truck by snooping around Miller’s apartment. Reeves clearly understands a little more about what this could mean and it’s a storyline that will play out in time.

But what happened to Torres’ money? Well, he was going to ask for it back until he watched the children playing in their playground. It pulls at the heart strings and he tells the charity to keep all the money.

Next: NCIS recap: McGee gets McMemed

NCIS Season 15 continues on Tuesdays at 8/7c on CBS.

Do you find Reeves’ suspicions of Sloan strange? Did you guess the murderer? Share your thoughts below.

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