NCIS Season 7 Episode 4--"Good Cop, Bad Cop"

In the season seven premiere of NCIS, viewers learned that the Jordanian ship Damocles, on which Ziva David was travelling on the way to Somalia, went down presumably with no survivors. Agent DiNozzo took on the charge of finding out what happened to Ziva, successfully rescuing her from a terrorist camp. However, this episode changes what the NCIS team and what the viewer knows about the ship, its passengers, Ziva's actions onboard and the potential other survivors of the ship.

The past has a way of resurfacing and making trouble in the world of NCIS. This time the trouble is headed directly for recently-resigned-Mossad Officer Liason-turned-potential-hopeful-newbie-NCIS candidate Ziva David. The body of a dead Marine is pulled out of the Indian Ocean by a shrimp trawler run by two yabos. The Marine, Daniel Cryer, had gone AWOL and classified as a deserter. The discovery of his remains and the knowledge that he was travelling on the Damocles puts Ziva directly in the line of fire with Director Vance (who is in the middle of a bad day and who we learn is not superstitious but "a little stitious" in a nice little character moment).

Abby discovers the weather patterns do not match Ziva's report of what happened on the Damocles and that it would be impossible for the ship to have been taken down in a storm. Or as Gibbs later remarks when he finds out Vance keeps his top shelf liquor on the bottom shelf in his office, "everything is upside down." Not just the weather reportage, mind you, but the entirety of Team Gibbs ever since Ziva left at the end of last season. Abby's lead allows the Navy to find the remains of the Damocles and eighteen other bodies, all executed.

The discovery of the rest of the crew is not good news for Ziva, who has been trained to kill by Mossad-it wouldn't be a stretch to think she was capable. She is put in interrogation where Director Vance tells her she hasn't yet been charged with a crime, but that there is such a thing as a crime of omission. The episode is titled "Good Cop, Bad Cop", although we've yet to see anything other than "Bad Cop" out of Vance.

Indeed Ziva is treated more as a suspect in this episode by Director Vance than as a teammate (and by proxy Gibbs, who is relegated to observation on the big screen-echoes of viewing DiNozzo's interrogation by Eli David in "Aliyah"). It is understandable given that Vance's primary goal here is to find out exactly what happened to Cryer. However, David's application to become an official NCIS agent has been red flagged, so I have to wonder if this is not just another attempt to manipulate Ziva or prove to Vance that she is too damaged to serve NCIS. If she wants in on Team Gibbs again, "the price of admission" (as Vance terms it) is to spill about what happened on the Damocles, thus giving him the real story on the fate of Daniel Cryer.

Ziva is the only one who has the answers to what happened to Cryer and we get that answer, discovering what kind of man he was and his connection to Ziva onboard the Damocles while also discovering through flashback exactly how it was the Ziva began in Israel and ended up captured in Somalia.

Cryer was a specialist who deserted his crew and became an informant / courier. By the time Ziva met him he was known as Daniel Shalev and had been AWOL for over two months. How much of a traitor he really was is up for speculation, as Ziva notes that she has learned from Gibbs that no matter what, there will always be a Marine in an ex-Marine. It was Daniel who helped to obtain passage for David onboard the Damocles. She is no alone-she is accompanied by Ben Gidon, Mossad team leader for the Quidon, their special ops division. The captain of the Damocles is impressed with their money offer, but the rest of his crew are not so happy and not so trusting to allow three outsiders passage.

Gidon finds himself the outsider again as he arrives at the NCIS Naval Yard. He claims that NCIS is holding David "hostage" (although Mossad Director Eli David and his interpretation of that phrase differs greatly from Director Vance's). He claims to be there in support of Ziva and sets the record straight. According to his story, Gidon felt there was too much talk about their presence and that there was no choice but to change plans should their intentions be discovered. That means if attacked, they were to wipe out the crew onboard the Damocles. As it turns out, the crew shoots first and in the melee they are all killed.

According to Gidon, this includes Ziva shooting Cryer. If it were the case, that Ziva shot a Marine that would shoot down any possibility of her joining the team. She would be headed back first thing to Israel.

Luckily for the viewers and Team Gibbs, that story is not the truth. Thanks to some fine detective work from DiNozzo and a follow up forensics investigation from Abby, they determine from a smushed bullet that Ziva's shots missed or were not targeted at Cryer. We soon learn the truth-that Gidon killed Cryer, without remorse from an advantageous position, even though it looked like would pose no threat to Ziva. He killed Cryer because of the orders from Mossad were to leave no survivors.

Eli David's gambit to bring his daughter back into the fold looks to have backfired big time. The manipulation turns out to be one more example of how Eli looks out for Israel first and his family whenever he feels it most convenient to serve Israel. Ziva no longer wants any part of that kind of relationship with her father. As Gidon apologies to her at the end of the episode for "failing her" (and what a twisted way of trying to save her that turned out to be), she responds with Gibbs Rule 26: "Never apologize, it's a sign of weakness." BA-DAM.

A moment later, when Ziva explains what happened during her siege of Saleem's camp, she says she had "death in her heart." She wanted to kill Saleem, at any cost, even her own life. She came close, but she was overpowered. Ziva tries to apologize to Gibbs, but he whispers Rule 26 back at her, sweetly pecking her forehead. It seems all questions of loyalty and trust between the two has been resolved. He is giving her the chance to make a fresh start, to let that part of her go.

In the end, its Director Vance who gets to play both "Good Cop" and "Bad Cop". He places "the blame" for Ziva's desertion of Mossad on Gibbs, all the while Gibbs is in the office at the same time. That's good for a chuckle. Seems like Vance has put one over on Eli David, for now. Eli promises that it isn't the last time he will talk to Vance about it, and I have no doubts we'll be seeing the Eli-Ziva relationship resurface at some point later on this season or next.

Ziva had been acting differently ever since returning, the result of the traumatic experience of being a prisoner in Somalia. However, Ziva is finally allowed to smile at the end of the episode as her application to become an NCIS agent is officially accepted. Back on Team Gibbs, she is greeted with DiNozzo and McGee trading barbs as well as a simple declarative from Gibbs, "Get to work, Probie." Sweeter words have never been spoken.

P.S. Next week is the annual NCIS Halloween episode-typically one of the highlights of the season. It's going to be tough to beat last season's "Seven" murder mystery send up episode "Murder 2.0."

P.P.S. Those of us wondering where Director Vance went during episode three may not need to look further than next week's episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, where Vance makes an in-person appearance in the LA offices and Abby (Pauley Perrette) is set to guest star as well.