A janitor is mopping the floor of a federal building while his son watches. After talking about taking pride in the work, he gives his son the mop before they hear the sound of clattering and a man grunting. The janitor has his son call security before going to check on Lieutenant Pine. He finds the man on the floor covered in glass and blood.
In the squad room, Tony is hurriedly putting away paper work since he has a date with Zoe to make bread. However, Gibbs comes in to tell the team they have a dead body at the Defense Logistics Agency.
Tim tells Gibbs the victim is Lieutenant Dominic Pine and he was an aide to Vice Admiral Janet Kleibor. They are trying to reach her and Tony tells them the janitor’s son saw a blue sedan leaving from the window where he was hiding. Ducky comes in to tell the team baby Victoria is fine after having a fever and Gibbs is surprised when Ducky says he has “grandfatherly worries.” Apparently the baby will call him Grand-Ducky when she is older.
Tim tells them that nothing was taken from the computer and Tony says there are no signs a robbery took place. They hear Ellie grunting and she quotes Rule 20 (“Always look under”) before showing them a wrapped box that has a pen inside. After telling them to continue working, Gibbs tells Tony to go home, who is excited about making bread with Zoe. However, when he arrives, he sees his father, who is listening to his “breakup mix.” He reveals his fiancée, Linda, left him, so Tony has to reschedule bread again.
Tim is telling Ellie about Senior DiNozzo being so broken up that he forgot his phone and Tony comes in. Ellie wonders why Linda left him and Tony says she probably found out his real job and Tim admits that he’s a con man. Ellie suggests that Tony do something to help distract his dad like Tim has done in the past for DiNozzo. When questioned, Tim tells Tony about when Ziva stayed in Israel and he asked Tony’s help to wallpaper his home.
The team gives Gibbs an update, telling them the killer used a reprogrammed key card that caused the security system to go down before Pine arrived. They got a hold of the vice admiral, who was on the USS Madison and couldn’t find enemies that were after Pine. Tim tells him that Pine’s girlfriend, Gloria Hernandez, is in the interview room.
While the team goes to work, Tony is still at his desk as his dad calls him. His dad wants him to come by with some nice paper so he can write Linda a note asking for her to come back. Tony tells Gibbs who it is and he responds by suggesting an activity since Tim does the same. Tony asks his dad to re-caulk his bath tub, much to Gibbs’ dismay, and it appears to work.
Gloria Hernandez is telling Ellie and Tim about Dominic. They had only been dating for a short time, but she loved him a lot. Even though they don’t know who killed him, she tells him she will fight to get him answers since he had no family. Tim assures her they will, too.
Kleibor talks to the team via video monitor. They discover that the gift that they found was for a friend on the USS Madison and Pine had only gone to the office so he could pick it up for her. She blames herself for his death.
Gibbs goes to see Abby, who has sewed Senior DiNozzo a pair of pajama pants since he won’t get out of his other ones. Abby gives him an update on the case, in which she found something strange about a famous painting. It didn’t get hit with any blood spatter and even though the painting is supposed to be from the ‘60s, the paint isn’t that old and the tag on the back was only aged with tea, meaning the killer had been stealing the painting when Pine must have arrived.
The team discusses the case since they now know Pine wasn’t intended to be a victim. Senior DiNozzo comes in despondent and he tells Tony he paid a kid at the hardware store to help with the tub. He tells his son, after revealing that he paid the kid using money out of his moisturizing drawer, that he doesn’t want to be alone. Then, he spots the photo of the painting and recognizes it from his old dealings in the art world underground. He offers a tutorial, but Tony tries to get him to leave. That is, until Gibbs takes up the suggestion.
The team is in the interview room discussing a sting to get the art dealer who stole the painting. Tony arrives late to discover his dad put out “feelers” to let the seller know he was interesting in buying The Chesapeake painting. Tony isn’t thrilled about this, especially when he finds out his dad is going with Tim to show an art forger the fake painting.
Ducky talks to Gibbs about the Cantor Howell painting that was stolen before moving on to Pine’s body. He tells Gibbs that Pine was in an accident as a child that killed his entire family and he grew up to be a great guy despite his pain only to be killed over a painting.
Senior and Tim go to meet the art forger and he tells Tim that since the man doesn’t like police, he should pretend to be his son. As far as Senior’s associates are aware, Tony is a model. They ask the man about the painting and he tells them he recognizes the template as a base he did that caught on. When he spots the evidence bag label, Tim manages to cover to say that he got the bag online and he wants to hurt the owner because he stole his girlfriend. The forger says he will look around.
Jimmy comes in to greet Tony and to let him know the baby is okay. He hears a brief summary of what is happening and asks Tony to talk. Tony tells him that he thought he would connect with his dad, but seeing him work the case makes him feel like it could be a scam all over again. Jimmy gives him advice from the perspective of being a dad and tells him to cut his own dad some slack. Tony thanks him for the advice since it helped and he considers Jimmy well put together and his idol. As Jimmy listens to Tony tell him about there being a hit on the blue sedan they are looking for, he feels annoyed since he’s not in the loop.
Tony goes to meet Gibbs and finds out the killer had thrown away the license plate. Tony figures someone has to go through the dumpster, but Ellie is already inside. She shows them a broken frame before groaning about standing in chili and then she finds cockroaches. Tony thanks Gibbs for the probie while Ellie finds a blue flashlight.
Abby tells Gibbs the flashlight is the murder weapon, but she got no match in AFIS on the prints. She tells Gibbs she found a different blood profile on the painting’s frame that belonged to a deceased CIA agent named Brian Khosa.
Ellie and Tony talk about Tim, who they haven’t heard from yet. Tony is waiting on Tim to call since he might be delicate after being exposed to Senior. Ellie asks if he smells chili on her shoes just as Gibbs comes to ask about Khosa. He had been infiltrating a terror cell called Al-Zalim in Pakistan when he was killed. The group worked with technology such as reprogrammable devices, like the one used to break into the DLA. Abby is looking into the travel history for the painting and they find out it was in a US Embassay when Khosa was killed. She couldn’t get information on his death since it was compartmented, so she called his supervisor, a Dale Harris. Gibbs says they are going.
Senior and Tim arrive back at the apartment where they seem to be having a good time. Senior wants to check his e-mail, but Tony’s laptop is locked, so Tim guesses the password. Tony’s dad talks about wishing he could make Tony proud and Tim ends up putting his foot in his mouth when he suggests Linda left because he’s conning. He finds out Linda left because she met someone else and Senior seems shocked that Tony would call him a con artist to people. Tim apologizes and leaves to go to work.
Gibbs and Ellie meet with Harris, who tells them that Khosa had been chosen to take part in a mission with Al-Zalim with Saleem Aziz as the lead of the mission. They were going to break into the US Embassy in Islamabad to plant a device and Khosa was caught trying to alert Harris. They never found out what the device was and he had his doubts that Khosa stopped the mission.
Abby tells Gibbs Harris was right and that Al-Zalim had planted a small bug inside the painting that was voice-detected and would have recorded anything it picked up. She tells him that the painting was inside the Secretary of Defense office for two months so there could be intel worth stealing the painting for. Tim, who came in at this point, tells them they are waiting on a call, but Gibbs sends him to get Tony.
Tim tells Tony about the forger thinking he is a model and then he admits what happened at the apartment. However, Tony seems more surprised that he had a civil conversation with his father. Before they can finish, the forger comes in and Tony introduces himself as “Timothy McGeegerson.” They talk to Swann and Tony discovers Tim’s number in the trash. He realizes Tim was made right away and they demand to know who the owner of the painting is. They are shocked to find out it is Gloria Hernandez, Pine’s girlfriend, and that she has Tony’s dad’s e-mail address. They rush back to Tony’s apartment to discover he’s missing and there are two empty wine glasses.
The team discusses Hernandez, who has apparently worked at art houses and would swap out original paintings for her own. Tony is seriously worried about his dad and even more so when Abby comes to tell them Hernandez’s fingerprint on the wine glass matched their murder weapon. Tim finds an email exchange between Hernandez and a buyer named Smith. He is able to track it to Senegal and Abby steals the computer to discover the buyer is Aziz. Hernandez has no idea the buyer is a terrorist.
Tony gets a call from his dad, who is at The Adams House. He tells his son he is okay, until Tony tells him about Gloria being a murderer. Senior turns and spots a gun in her purse and alerts his son. Tony tells them what is going on and they all rush out.
At the bar, the team takes part in a sting to take Gloria down. Gibbs gets Senior out of the way while Tony sits at the bar near Gloria. However, Senior wants to put his skills to use while Tony tells him to get going. Then, Aziz shows up to the table, so Gibbs goes back with Anthony, making sure to give him the safe word. As this is going on, Tim and Ellie watch from the security room. Gloria begins getting who she believes to be Smith to start bidding since she had to do a lot to get to the painting and they find out Pine was only a mark and she used him to acquire the painting. Then, Tony sees Aziz hold a gun under the table toward his father and Gloria says she has her own backup. Gibbs distracts them with a story about a friend of his who paid his dad’s hotel bill and had a lot of love for him, before using the go word to arrest Aziz and for Ellie and Tim to come in to arrest the man Gloria brought, who was just there as a cover.
Abby is scanning the real painting for the recording device as Palmer talks about being worried that he might not be a cool father compared to other dads one day. She wants him to keep talking so she can find the device and she does. Harris comes in to take the evidence and calls them both heroes. Abby points out to Palmer that his baby girl’s daddy is a hero, making him smile.
Tony makes a date with Zoe before he talks to his dad. His dad is on his way on a European getaway and he explains to his son that he is an entrepreneur and not a con artist. When he talks about believing in the things he sold, Tony gives him a look that Senior realizes is what Gibbs had been talking about and they share a warm father and son moment.
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