NCIS recap: What’s so special about McGee’s high school computer?

Flashbacks of McGee give us more about who he is and what he wants in NCIS Season 16, Episode 14. The big question is why did someone want his old high school computer.

When McGee was in his senior year of high school, he built his first computer. And just a week after taking it out of storage, someone tries to steal it in NCIS Season 16, Episode 14. What was so important about it?

The episode, titled “Once Upon a Tim,” is the annual McGee episode. Yes, the dead bodies in the apartment came up (Delilah finally found out about them) but more importantly, we got flashbacks of Tim at high school.

Trying to steal the computer

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We start with McGee bringing his old computer into the office. When called out on a case, the body has the password to one of his computers written down. There’s no way it’s a coincidence, especially when Tim’s old high school comes up.

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Off McGee and Torres go to Tim’s high school, which is where we start getting flashbacks of one of his high school teachers. However, things get crazier when, at home after plugging the computer back in, a chat opens. Someone wanted McGee on his own to lure him out and then steal the computer.

It didn’t work because Delilah was in the house. Her scream altered Tim to someone in the apartment so he goes back and shoots the suspect.

The DoD-hacking computer

With the computer becoming part of evidence, Kasie plugs it in and connects it to the internet. That’s when it starts running a virus program, which was designed to hack into the Department of Defense. The plot thickens when it turns out that McGee programmed the virus to get back at his bullying, Navy-pushing dad.

However, the code has been adapted slightly. There was only one person who knew about the code: his former computer science teacher, the one who supposedly didn’t remember McGee.

Of course, the teacher did. The only reason he pretended not to know McGee was because he run illegal Navy gambling sites. Now that’s out, the teacher works with McGee and gives him an IP address the Navy contractor who turned up dead wanted.

It all links back

Throughout the flashbacks, we got to know McGee’s high school sweetheart, Chloe. Of course, she’s the one that the IP address in high school belonged to. Kasie also shares that the IP address is where the mutated virus originated from 25 years ago. That’s how long it’s been running for.

McGee refuses to believe that it was Chloe but to prove it, he needs to find her. After another flashback, McGee realizes he can figure out where Chloe is. The data corruption that had originally been on the computer wasn’t corruption at all. It was the secret code Chloe and McGee once used and translates to an SOS message with a GPS location.

When McGee and Gibbs find Chloe, it turns out she did unleash the virus. The virus was tweaked to steal money from the DoD and not crash the system. Someone had found out about the stolen money and took Chloe to get all the information. All Chloe knows about the man is that he has beady eyes and a bushy mustache.

Catching the auditor

Throughout the episode, NCIS was being audited. It turns out the auditor was the one after the money. When McGee had turned the computer on, alerts went out abuot the missing money and it all lead back to Chloe and McGee.

And after an episode of McGee questioning whether he was making the right choice, the episode ends with him realizing that he’s in the right place after all. Flashbacks end showing that McGee’s father finally understood his need to tap dance, write, and do anything other than joining the Navy.

What did you think of NCIS Season 16, Episode 14? Did you expect all those twists and turns? What did you love about the McGee-centric episode? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

NCIS Season 16 continues on Tuesdays at 8/7c on CBS.