'NCIS' Season 10, Episode 19: 'Squall' Recap

“NCIS”, season 10, episode 19, “Squall”

The Captain receives a report that a man was spotted on deck during a major squall, despite orders forbidding anyone to go on deck. He sends out two tethered crew members to retrieve him and find the man, a commander, dead.

Gibbs gives DiNozza and Ziva a new case, the body found on the USS Borealis, sans McGee.

Meanwhile, McGee acts as a Big Brother to a young boy. He is driving the boy to a field trip in Colonial Williamsburg in lieu of the boy’s sick mother.

On board, the team learns that the body has been moved into the sick bay. McGee arrives almost 2 hours late, and Gibbs sends the team into the sick bay.

Ducky finds a puncture wound, likely from a syringe, on the dead commander’s neck.

The admiral’s assistant, Navy Lieutenant Mane requests to talk to Gibbs, worried about keeping the training on schedule. The admiral, McGee’s own father, arrives and expresses his concerns about having somewhere he needs to be, and doesn’t want the ship put into lockdown.

Gibbs and McGee sit down with his father and ask him questions. Rather than answer them, Admiral McGee evades them and focuses on belittling his son. Gibbs defends McGee to his dad.

Ziva and guest agent Burley question petty officer Graves who informs them that there’s an illegal drug cocktail, a combo of amphetamine and ADHD meds, being passed around the crew, and that the victim was going to blow the whistle on it.

Burley asks Ziva how the investigation into her dad’s death is going. She says they’ve got no leads. DiNozzo opens a desk and finds a stash of drugs and Dr. Haber’s medical records. Burley tells DiNozzo to scour the records.

Gibbs visits the morgue, and Ducky finds a piece of a broken needle in the victim’s neck. They sent a sample to Abby to find what was in the syringe. Ducky finds it surprising that the attacker managed to hit Dr. Haber’s carotid artery during a storm.

DiNozzo gives his report to Gibbs, saying one recruit made repeated visits to the sick bay. Petty Officer Kevin Wyeth. He had a juvie drug possession record, and the Navy suspected him as a drug dealer. Gibbs tells him to bring him in.

On the ship, DiNozzo and Burley spot Wyeth, but he makes a run for it. They chase him down, and he attacks Burley, knocking him to the ground. DiNozzo stops him and knocks him out.

In interrogation, DiNozzo gets the blood test back from Wyeth, indicating he’s on five different drugs, including ADHD meds. DiNozzo realizes that Wyeth couldn’t have killed the victim because he had shaky withdrawals.

In Abby’s lab, she tries to hit a dummy in the carotid artery, realizing it’s almost impossible to hit. She says the syringe was filled with a slow-acting drug that caused paralysis. She’s amazed that the killer managed to hit the victim in the carotid on a shaky ship.

In the offices, McGee’s Little Brother waits for him, and eyes up Ziva. He tells McGee he took the bus from Williamsburg, because he couldn’t share his hotel room with a bully. McGee tells him he needs to learn to stand up for himself.

Back on the ship, Burley shares the team some footage of the victim getting stabbed in the neck. But they can’t see the killer’s face. However, later they see Petty Officer Graves sneaking into the Doctor’s office and deleting stuff from his computer. Gibbs tells them to find Graves.

Graves never reported for duty, and Burley says he has to be on board somewhere. He gets a call saying that a crewmember is being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. He and Ziva check it out and find Graves in the back of it, faking appendicitis, having forged Dr. Haber’s signature.

In interrogation, Gibbs informs Graves that most of the crew ratted him out, and that they have video footage of him. Graves says he was trying to get rid of the paper trail. Gibbs asks why he didn’t tell them he was responsible for making the drugs when he was first questioned. He doesn’t know why, and Gibbs figures out that he’s covering for someone.

In the office the next day, they find a payment for $10,000 in Graves’ account. They try to find the source, and realize that the person Graves is covering for would have signed in to the sick bay. They figure the ship would have upgraded to a digital tablet, and McGee traces it to John Hamilton University.

On campus, McGee and DiNozzo track down the tablet to a group of kids playing basketball. One of the students hands over the tablet saying he found it in the trash the day before.

In the office, McGee probes into the tablet and finds the last entry in the sign on sheet was Henry Newbolt. McGee recognizes it as his Dad’s favorite poet. His dad signed in to the sick bay using a pseudonym. Gibbs tells DiNozzo to bring him in, against McGee’s protestations.

In interrogation, Admiral McGee tells Gibbs that he was with his staff the moment he stepped foot on the ship. Gibbs asks about the fake name. He tells him that he’s sick, stage 4 cancer, and he had to keep it a secret, and only Dr. Haber could help him. But Dr. Haber was going to report the illness, which would mean the end of his career. Gibbs points out that it’s motive, but McGee says he’s not a murderer.

The team talks to Vance about suspects, wondering who would have the motive to keep Admiral McGee’s illness a secret. DiNozzo uses Vance’s computer to bring up Carlton Mane’s record. In his record is a letter from Admiral McGee, requesting that Carlton Mane be moved with him to the White House if he ever is appointed, which is reason enough to want to keep the admiral in his job.

Gibbs and the McGee duo pay Mane a visit, and they have questions for him. Admiral McGee asks Mane why he killed Dr. Haber. He says he did it to protect the admiral, and that commitment to success always comes first.

In the office, McGee tells Gibbs he plans to stay on as Adam’s Big Brother. Gibbs says that Adam is a lucky kid.