#still an incredible season overall and i trust the writers to continue the show faithfully to the themes and setup this season

[unsteadylilactree]

I finished the finale about an hour and 1/2 ago and honestly, I enjoyed it as an episode. Yea the stakes felt kinda odd at some points and the pacing was kinda funky (and there was no buddie) but honestly I don't mind. Looking at it through the lens of it potentially being the last episode ever, i understand the tone. I really thought the intense kerfuffle that was the emergency was interesting and well-planned. Buck taking charge where he could while while also handing captaincy to Hen, and being okay with handing the baby over to connor and kameron showed just how much he's developed as a character and that alone makes me happy. Jeff coming back was fun and sweet. the ending was kinda cool. I genuinely understand why buck ends up with natalia (even if im a little salty about it - i'm sure buck will figure it out eventually). At least eddie being terrible at asking marisol out was consistent with his character. I won't lie the meditation had me cackling for some reason but its not like they don't need it. All in all its not the worst episode by a long shot (in my opinion) and its impossible for every single one to be perfect - some of them have to have flaws and this one just kinda happens to be one of them. but even then, the biggest 'flaw' for me was there being no buddie moment(s) which like its not the buddie show so whatever.

[seawolvesanddragons]

NCIS - Season 16, and Why I Still Watch

Guys, this season has been a goddamn blessing. As someone who has watched NCIS for nearly ten years, I’ve seen almost every major cast change, excepting Kate and Jenny. The show stayed stable enough to keep me on after Ziva left, after Tony left, but I was having my doubts about NCIS without Abby, especially after season 14/15. Not that those seasons were bad, but they lacked the spark NCIS usually has. It was at the point where my buddy and I were preferring NCIS LA episodes over the original ones. But this season? My god, this season has been wonderful, in terms of dynamic, episodes, development...I just love it.  Full disclosure - this is about to get weirdly personal and also all over the place, and LONG, because I have thoughts that are demanding they get out. If you want full in depth and clinical analysis of NCIS, look elsewhere. 

These last few episodes, “Her” “Once Upon a Tim” and “Crossing the Line” hit particularly hard. I don’t cry easily, and I didn’t here either, but my heart absolutely did the whole “constrict with emotions” thing several times during those three episodes, particularly with “Her.” And let me say, those who stopped watching the show because Cote or Michael or Pauley left, because these new guys can’t be as good as the nostalgia colored dream team, because the writers/producers “aren’t as good, are riding the coattails of past success” etc...I think you’re making a mistake. Quite plainly, I think you’re wrong, or as Vance would say, I disagree with your opinion. Like I said, I’ve been a fan NCIS for years. I remember the very first episode I saw - it was where Vance had his face off with Kai, the assassin. My dad was  a fan, and it was just a custom in my household that on Tuesday nights, he would watch it while my mom and sister watched Glee in a different room. I wandered in one night, and thought that, as a high school freshman, I could try out some of these “grown up” shows. I remember the line that made me fall in love with the show - “kai-jacked.” I remember thinking “I get that joke. It was funny. I understand this show’s dialogue and jokes.” And that was it. I was hooked. It became a thing, between my dad and I - sure, mom watched it more often than not with us, and my sister was aware of the characters, but it was our thing. Tuesday nights, NCIS. More then once was I quizzed on whatever test I had for Wednesday during commercial breaks, because we didn’t want to wait until Friday to see the episode. It was our little in joke that my dad, former Navy, was listed as “Gibbs” in my contacts back when having nicknames for everyone’s contact was a thing in high school. My dad wasn’t nearly half the taciturn, tunnel visioned, “the second b is for bastard” person Gibbs could be - practically the only thing they shared was a past in the Marines/Navy and a soft spot for family - but somehow it fit. Dad was the Gibbs of my teenaged years. More then once he referred to me not as Ziva, the badass Ninja I admired so, but as Tony, the one I had silently noted was probably the most like me - and that my Dad had noticed as well. I never got an actual head slap, but Dad got the Gibbs stare down pat. Scarily well. I’ve met a few other friends over the years that have watched the show, but most dropped out in the last few years. I don’t blame them - for most it was a time commitment, though some weren’t willing to give the new characters a chance. Others just let watching it slide somewhere around season 14, when the show had a rough patch. I noticed some of the lower moments myself, and its been years since I’ve watched it faithfully every week. But I could never quit it entirely. Even now, when in a different country, I end up sitting down and bingeing on it. Cause a decade down the line, that was dad and mine show. Our connection. Overall, season 16 has been a turn around from the last few years. The development of the characters is consistent, but not rushed. Seeing Jimmy continue to be established as a self confident, intelligent and well trusted confidante makes my heart swell in happiness. He has come such a long way, and the scene this season where he and McGee discuss Vietnam, paralleling Ducky and Gibbs, was wonderfully done. McGee is also doing an amazing job, his role as Lead Agent/Mentor as well as father now reaching a more static position. Remembering his early days back in season 1/2 is incredible. Casey is a great addition, and I love that while Nick is still learning a little to play with a team, his obvious feelings for Ellie are part of his development, not hers. But it was these last three episodes that really cinched the season for me. “Her” was just terrific overall - like I said, I admired Ziva and saw a lot of myself in Tony. Any mention of them gets a thumbs up for me. But it was more of the acknowledgment of how far this show has come in recent years - Tony and Ziva being replaced by Torres and Bishop, Abby by Casey, Ducky slowly by Jimmy. Its largely a new team, just with the same leader. This change eerily paralleled my life - Cote left just as I was starting college. Tony left when I graduated. Abby mere months before I moved continents. My own team, my sphere on influencers back when I started watching the show, is somewhat different now than it was 6 years ago. New people entered my life, and others took on a backround role, or disappeared entirely. As Gibbs’ team changed, so did my stages of life. It’s a somehow comforting parallel, and one that “Her” really drove home for me. “Once Upon a Tim” was just great for some classic Tim character development and storyline - Tim often got overshadowed by his teammates backstories and arcs, so its have a very Tim centric episode, especially one that includes Delilah and the twins as central to his life but isn’t focused on them.

But “Crossing the Line?” That was the episode that hit me where I wasn’t expecting it. All through the episode, you get the feeling that Max is clearly more than he appears. The twist that he’s the son of an agent killed in the bombing? That was the unseen bullet. See, I remember that season finale probably better than any other NCIS season finale I have seen or will ever see. The bombing. Chaos. Ducky’s collapse on the beach with the phone call. The uncertainty I had of if everyone was going to survive this. It’s burned into my memory, because not three weeks after I watched Ducky collapse from a heart attack, my Dad died unexpectedly from one. Its become a part of life I’ve had to accept, but needless to say NCIS always brings up memories of my father, and certain episodes are harder to watch because of it. I’ve never seen that season finale after it aired - I can’t bring myself to. But Tony leaving the show a few years later felt like reopening the wound, as if Tony and Gibbs no longer being on screen together was another nail in the coffin of my own “Gibbs and Tony” chapter. This episode had a similar impact. Watching Max, six years later, try and deal with his own pain, mirroring my own similar journey...it affected me in a way tv shows rarely do. Particularly about deaths - hollywood is terrible at writing teenagers with dead parents, and death in general, and NCIS is not always an exception. Listening to Torres open up to Max, hearing someone talk about how this pain of six years sucks, but also isn’t going away, meant something to me. This wasn’t writers phoning it in or riding coattails. This was actual, genuine writing, acting, and emotion. Even if the dead parent always having a “saying” is an age old cliche - of course the dead relative always said some wise adage that fits the situation. Because people talk like that, right? The line “I’m not my father” was another emotional hit, particularly following Tim’s episode. I had actually been hoping that the writers would take a different route with it though - following the dead parent’s footprints is another cliche, and NCIS loves it. That instead of Max agreeing with Torres that he could consider an agent, that not being his father was meant that he was lesser or couldn’t live up to him, it was Max saying he could remember and honor his father in different ways. Because I know those words, “I am not my father.” I’ve been running with those words as far away from his shadow for five years. After his death, everyone wanted to see my father in me, at the expense of my mother’s traits, and my own personality. From my looks, my voice, my sense of humor, my morals, random little things I did or that happened to me - all of it could be traced, somehow, back to one half of my genetic code. I tried to follow his footsteps - did the whole navy path for a year or so, struggled with the difference between what I wanted, what I thought I wanted, and what was expected - just as 16 year old Tim did in “Once Upon a Tim.” But I wanted different things out of life. I learned that I could love and remember my father’s memory without going down some pre-trodden path of mirrors. And I wish that NCIS had taken that risk with this episode, and acknowledged that kids don’t have to become their parents, especially their dead parents. So yeah, this post is long and rambling and has no set structure and is strangely detailed on my emotional state and family troubles circa 2012. But the moral is, NCIS is not past it’s prime. It’s not recycling characters or plots. It’s not going downhill because people left. It’s growing and changing, staying dynamic with time. And it is still capable of creating amazing episodes, characters, and seasons; Season 16 is certain proof of that.