NCIS recap: Why is Gibbs unraveling at the crime scene?

While the team works on the mystery behind two murders, Gibbs unravels at the seems. Here’s everything that happened in NCIS Season 16, Episode 23.

The penultimate episode of NCIS Season 16 got extremely personal. While the team figured out the murder, the main focus was on Gibbs unraveling at the crime scene. With that in mind, we’ll keep the focus on the recap on Gibbs’ story.

To be honest, the murder was pretty normal. Guy turns up dead, the team gather their information — and find out there was $3m in stolen Taliban money turned into a broach — and figure out the murderer. The focus was on Gibbs unraveling.

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If you thought it was going to be over the reveal from the previous episode, you’d be right. With his secret out, he decided to turn to Dr. Grace Confalone. He wanted her to drive him to the police station to turn himself in for his actions.

Of course, Confalone was never going for that. She knew that Gibbs wanted to actually talk. After all, his unraveling hasn’t just started and she knew that. All this has been building since he burned Rule #10.

Confalone realizes what Rule #10 has been the trigger. She theorizes that Gibbs has been holding onto the cases personally all this time. Thousands of cases have been buried deep down and burning the rule has brought it all up, along with the idea of retirement. Is there ever a right time for retirement?

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It’s not that Gibbs doesn’t want to ever retire, but that he’s not sure what life would be like without NCIS — and we wonder what life would be without it too. Maybe some of this actually stems from Ducky considering retirement, which did happen around the same time as burning Rule #10. We don’t have to worry, though. Gibbs isn’t thinking of retirement, but Confalone does question how he wants everything to end.

While Confalone manages to talk Gibbs out of turning himself in, he is concerned about how his team will look at him. They now know that he killed someone in cold blood and they also know he’s unraveling because of that. It’s something he needs to face with them.

It wasn’t all about Gibbs, though. Jack had some talking to do, too. She was also talking to Confalone about her feelings about her daughter, as well as a hint that she has deeper feelings for someone in the office — Gibbs or Vance?

If only we were over with the questions and the worry. At the very end, just as it looks like Gibbs gets to go home without any worry, Vance shows up with a look of panic. Fornell is in the hospital and Gibbs needs to get there immediately. I guess we’ll need to wait for the NCIS Season 16 finale to find out what that’s about.

What did you think of Gibbs unraveling? Was it everything you needed? What do you think is wrong with Fornell? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

NCIS Season 16’s finale airs on Tuesday at 8/7c on CBS.