NCIS recap: What makes the case so personal for Gibbs?

It’s a personal one for Gibbs in NCIS Season 16, Episode 20. Why was his blood on the victim’s uniform?

NCIS Season 16, Episode 20 gets extremely personal for Gibbs. When a body turns up at a dig site, it’s clear from the uniform that it belongs to a Marine. Jimmy wastes no time in putting a name to the body, Maj. Ellen Wallace, which brings up the personal element for Gibbs.

It also brings up an important question. How did Ellen die in the Pentagon attack on 9/11 but turn up at the dig site? She clearly wasn’t in the building after all, despite security input saying otherwise.

Getting to the personal elements

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We’re given sprinkles of the connection to Gibbs throughout the episode. NCIS soon find out that he was engaged to Ellen but that he called the engagement off. This is the only woman he’s broken up with — all his previous ex-wives had left him. However, he refuses to talk until McGee shows up at his house.

Gibbs finally admits that the night before Ellen’s death she’d called him but they didn’t talk. He refused to answer the phone, thinking that she wanted to talk about their relationship. Now he knows that she was asking for help and he failed her.

But how did the blood get on her uniform? He’d cut himself while working on a boat — because you know Gibbs is always working on a boat — and she’d used her uniform to stop the bleeding. Clearly, she hadn’t washed her uniform properly and it left traces.

Who killed Ellen Wallace?

With that out of the way, it was time to find out who killed Ellen. Before her death, she was investigating a potentially killing of innocent people by U.S. forces in Kosovo in 1998. While initially it looked like her dad was involved, he admitted that he’d asked her to investigate. He could trust her to find out the truth.

Well, that’s what happened. It was her father’s aid at the time and now a general in the corp. He killed Ellen when she figured it all out, and it didn’t take long for Gibbs to get a confession. It just so happened the Pentagon attack helped him get away with murder for 18 years.

This wasn’t an episode about the case, but an episode about Gibbs. We got a sense of his character and the regrets of the past. We also found out that he had broken off the engagement because he loved her and wanted to protect her, yet he still felt like he failed her.

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Odds and ends

• Jimmy and Kasie couldn’t help but geek out over all the old technology they came across. I can’t really blame them. I’d geek out about floppy discs.
• Kasie was reminded just how slow and terrible old technology was
• Almost everyone in the office is a geek. They were all focused on getting tickets for SDCC and I can’t blame them!
• McGee helped remind us that he’s been with NCIS for 16 years.

What did you think of how personal this case got for Gibbs? What were your favorite moments in the episode? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

NCIS airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on CBS.