'NCIS' recap- 'Grounded'

The latest episode of NCIS opened with a man packing up to leave for Thanksgiving as the weatherwoman gives her report on the rough temperatures in Washington. There is a knock on the door and the man opens it, only to be shot twice in the chest by a male standing there. After he is dead, the man walks in and takes his glasses before picking up a shaving kit.

In the squad room, Tim is lamenting the weather while Emily scolds the weathergirl who had called for a chance of rain the day before. Abby comes in, excited to meet Ellie’s husband, Jake, who is coming to pick Ellie up so they can go to Turks for Thanksgiving. Jake meets Abby, Tim, and Gibbs, and thanks them for everything that they have meant to his wife, and he realizes he missed DiNozzo, which is because Tony was picking up his father at the airport. Ellie and Jake leave so they can get their flight.

Jake and Ellie go to the airport where Jake is still amazed by the Gibbs look. Ellie is excited about being able to be in the sun when Tony speaks to get their attention. Tony stands to greet them, letting them know his dad’s flight is late. He is happy to finally meet the elusive Jake. A smelly man bumps into Ellie and she happens to see his plane ticket and realizes he is sitting next to both her and Jake so she leaves to try and switch seats.

Ellie sees a woman standing by the window and comments on the view, but the woman is annoyed at the awful weather. She tries to brighten things up, but it turns out the woman is going to Calgary so no good weather. Ellie is listening to the stewardess mention a flight delay when a man (the killer from the first scene) bumps into her. When she says ‘excuse me,’ he ignores her, which causes Jake to defend her. Ellie watches the man closely, thinking she knows him from somewhere and she asks both Jake and Tony, but neither recognize him.

Tony is listening to Ellie and Jake talk about how they met when he laments to them on the awful part of couples. He tells them about different couples he sees, including an older man and a younger woman. Jake is disturbed realizing they are not father and daughter. Ellie sees the man from earlier and is still suspicious, despite Jake wanting her to let it go since he feels she has become more suspicious lately. Tony excuses himself as Ellie keeps watching the man.

Abby and Jimmy are discussing baby names and making snow angels when they see Tim still working. Gibbs comes in and Jimmy makes a crack about snow angels before Tim tells them there is a terrorist alert for northeastern airports.

The man is walking in a shop when Ellie comes to begin talking to him. She tries to make small talk, but he ignores her, but does say “excuse me” before he leaves. She goes back to the guys to hear them on the phone with Gibbs telling them to be careful about terrorist alerts and to watch themselves. They find out the NSA apparently knew about the chatter days ago, and Jake didn’t tell Ellie about it. Tony takes a few moments to watch some people in the airport, including one he deduces rolled out of bed and another who is dressed up for travel. Ellie is watching the man once more when she sees a gun around his ankle. They walk on after him to see what is going on. They show their badges just as an officer runs at them with a gun, so they show their badges. Then the man shows his badge as an air marshal named Mike Beers.

The air marshal is cleared and Tony apologizes for the mix up before trying to make a joke about his last name, which the man doesn't seem to get at first. After he leaves, Ellie and Tony talk to Gibbs and find out the threat has been elevated some more. Tony refuses to tell Gibbs about the air marshal, but then he calls Tim a moment later and tells him to quietly look up what he can about Mike Beers. Tim looks at Gibbs, who tells him to “do it.”

Tony tells Ellie and Jake anyone with the last name Beers would be sick of the joke and he is not sure about the guy. Ellie goes to get Abby into the loop. In her lab, Abby listens to Jimmy run through the name Beers Palmer and asks if he wants his kid to like him. She runs facial recognition on Mike Beers from a photo that Ellie took conspicuously on her phone. Gibbs comes in followed by Tim, who is shocked that Gibbs knows. He tells them Mike Beers has a reservation at a hotel and he never checked out. Abby tells them that the photo of the imposter and Mike Beers are similar, but they are not the same person and alert Tony.

Tony, Ellie, and Jake follow the man to the men’s room where an investigator, Janet Lewis, meets them. She tells Jake to stand aside since he is only a lawyer and they go into the men’s room and get the innocent civilians out of there. Tony sees his feet in the stall and they try to get his attention. They clear the stalls before going in, only to find the man dead of a stab wound and his gun is missing. Tony groans out that they are stuck in the airport with cranky passengers, the dead imposter, and someone in the airport with a gun and a knife.

Ellie takes photos of the killer to send to McGee while he himself is at the motel looking over Beers’ body with Gibbs just as Ducky and Palmer come in. Ellie is figuring out a way to send the prints to McGee so he can try and get a hit. Tony and Janet leave the bathroom to check surveillance footage of the bathroom since they know the killer walked past them while they were waiting. In the stall, Jake and Ellie work on getting the man’s fingerprints. Jake and Ellie begin slightly flirting over the fact that Ellie has changed so much since joining NCIS and McGee reminds them he’s still on the phone.

Janet and Tony see that there is a problem with the surveillance camera and they have to deal with annoyed airline passengers who need to use the restroom. Once they get them to leave, Jake and Ellie come back out. Meanwhile, back at NCIS, Abby finds a match to the fingerprint Ellie lifted as McGee and Gibbs come back. The fake air marshal is a chameleon named Normal Dopps who shows up on their most wanted list weekly. Tim gets an update on the terror watch.

Tony, Jake, and Ellie are in a private room where Tony tells them that they believe this is actually an assassination attempt and Norman was likely bringing the gun to an assassin in the airport. They believe the target may be someone who is on an incoming flight so they are getting manifests. Since they can’t get access to surveillance cameras, Jake offers to help with his computer.

Jimmy and Ducky are preparing Beers for autopsy when their power goes out shortly. They check out the photos of Dopps that Ellie sent and Ducky thinks the weapon could have been made of something like carbon fiber. Jimmy goes on more about names as he gets ready to use his tablet to send information up to Gibbs.

Jake is at the charging station with his laptop where he uses video to give the squad room an image of the airport terminal. While Abby, Palmer, and Tim work on figuring out passenger information to find a possible hit man, Ducky focuses on watching the people at the airport. As Jake, Ellie, and Tony are talking about the people they are watching, they see Janet getting ready to search people. Homeland Security forced her into it and then they find out three planes are landing, including one from London. Ellie tells Jake it is the flight Tony’s dad is taking.

In the squad room, Abby tells Gibbs about some of the passengers who could be possible hit men. Tim finally comes up with the manifests of 17 flights coming into the airport and Gibbs orders them to find someone who is important enough to warrant the death of Mike Beers.

Janet tells passengers for the Calgary flight that they are doing a secondary screening and they can line up first. Bishop tells Gibbs that there is no landing error and Gibbs tells her to keep her eyes out and they are watching. Ellie goes to stand beside Jake, who appears to be enjoying himself since he doesn’t get out much at the NSA.

While searching, Jimmy gets distracted by a fact about Brussels and Ducky tells him to stop talking. At the airport, Tony is sending a message to his dad to tell him to stay on the plane. He watches some of the people in the airport again before noticing the guy he saw earlier wearing pajamas and he decides to follow him.

Abby sees on the London flight, there are two federal marshals and an unnamed third person who are boarding a later flight and Gibbs figures it has to be a witness or a fugitive. Tim finds out it is Hector Gomez, a member of Cartel Dominguez.

Tony stops the man who doesn’t want to be rescreened and finds he has drugs. Throwing them away, he orders him to go get screened as Ellie runs up to tell Tony that the subject is on the London flight. Just then, they hear that the London flight has arrived.

Tim stops on a passport photo of a man named Alberto Velez and Gibbs feels like he recognizes him. He tells Abby to clean up the photo and they look urgently at the video camera from Jake before they get a hit- the doctor from earlier who tried to get into the bathroom to help the person with medical attention.

Tony and Ellie try to get the stewardess to stop the de-boarding, but she won’t listen to them and they are extremely worried. Ellie gets a photo of the hit man and they look out into the crowd as we see Gomez being led out of the terminal. Tony sees the hit man pull out a gun and quickly fires his gun, killing the man before he can get a shot off. Once things are clear, he looks at Ellie and Jake and says, “Happy Thanksgiving.”

Tim sees a message from Tony telling him that his dad missed his flight and will have to go back to the airport the next day. Gibbs asks Tim how things are and he lets him know Jake and Ellie made their flight and Tony’s dad wasn’t on the plane and forgot to tell Tony he wouldn’t be there. Ducky comes in and asks if they want a celebratory cocktail and Jimmy and Abby come in to say they are in. Before they can go, Abby asks Gibbs for snow angels. Gibbs gives her a look before holding up one finger and saying, “I’ll give you one.” Abby gives him a stunned look as he just grins.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Image courtesy of INFphoto.com

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