Tuesday night’s episode of NCIS opened with Ellie arriving at a suburban house dressed in camouflage. She greets the neighbors, who mention getting together for a barbecue. As she walks up to the house, Tim walks out and greets her with a kiss before saying hello to the neighbors as well. They go inside, where Ellie messes with him for calling her “sweetheart” before they begin surveillance on the couple they were just talking to. Tim remarks that they do not seem like they are killers.
Jumping to earlier in the week, we see Ellie is on the phone while Tim works. When she hangs up, she tells him she is planning an anniversary trip with her husband, Jake. The conversation on having a long weekend turns to Tony, who is apparently having issues with his girlfriend, Zoe. Tim is surprised to hear this since Tony didn’t bother talking to him about it. Tony comes in and tells the teammates about using TrackMyDNA.com to see if he is related to British royalty.
Gibbs comes in just as Tony is putting on a bad British accent. He tells Tony they are going to Quantico and he is not to use the accent or Gibbs will shoot. He informs Tony that Major Sussex Newton called him the night before to get together. Tony is not thrilled at all since he found Newton annoying and is surprised when he finds out Newton used Gibbs as a reference to join NCIS.
Tony and Gibbs go to where Newton had been staying, just as the receptionist is in the middle of a call. When she finds out that Major Newton was meeting with NCIS, she tells them he was found dead. They go to the area where he was found and see some soldiers around him. They are confused to find NCIS there since they had only just discovered the Major and Gibbs tells him they were supposed to meet.
Ellie and Tim are searching the area and talking about how much more annoying Tony will be if he finds out he is related to royalty. A soldier who found the body asks if he can help.
Tony and Gibbs talk as Ducky is preparing to load up the Major’s body. Tony tells Gibbs that he was the last call Newton made and Ducky said he likely died around nine the night before. He had been jogging and Ducky mentions that he does not like it as the body was not made for such strenuous activity. Ducky informs Gibbs that he has a broken neck and a gash on the forehead he intends to examine. Gibbs sends Tony and Ellie to search Newton’s room while he works with Tim.
Ellie and Tony search the room, where Tony finds photos of Newton’s dog. She wonders why Tony didn’t like the Major much and as he speaks, he discovers in the other room that there is an envelope with a plastic knife that is wrapped in a napkin.
Tim and Gibbs meet in MTAC where they talk to Corporal Stefanie Collier. She tells them she had not seen Newton in a while and they ask if he had still been working on an armory robbery case that occurred in Lejeune. She tells them that he had been working unofficially. Newton always believed there was an accomplice in that robbery. Gibbs tells Tim to look for anyone who was in Lejeune two years previously who now is at Quantico.
Abby is in the lab working on a traffic test. She apparently accidentally tapped a cop car when she was pulling over to send a text safely. Ellie and Tony give her evidence from Newton’s room, including his fitness watch that he was wearing when he died. As they work, Tony gets a message that his results from TrackMyDNA were available. Abby pulls it up on the monitor and they discover that Tony is related to a historical British figure. Tony immediately says yes to paying almost $30.00 for the results.
Tim is in the squad room when he sees Ellie’s phone ringing and it’s Jake. He picks it up to say hi and tells Jake that Ellie isn’t available. Then he mentions the trip Ellie had been planning just as Gibbs comes in for information. Tim excuses himself and tells Gibbs he found a few people from Lejeune who are now at Quantico, including Ramsey Dillon, who works at the Quantico Armory. Gibbs tells Tim to take Tony down to talk to him when Tony arrives to work.
Abby is in the lab with Ducky telling him how the watch works to keep track of your heart rate and other bodily functions during activity. Ducky is amazed and mentions that if someone had told him that 30 years ago, he would ask what an e-mail even was. Gibbs comes in and Abby mentions that the Major had left his room and went for a jog for 1.1 mile, but then the watch stopped recording his movements and his body was still moving. They realize someone had moved the Major and that the gash on his forehead occurred postmortem.
Tony and Tim go out to talk to Dillon and he is willing to offer up his alibi, but he prefers to talk in private. When they bring up NCIS headquarters, he tells them he was in a theater group and part of a play in which he may have performed as a drag queen.
Gibbs comes in and Abby tells him she was able to match prints on the knife to Lauren Hudson, the wife of Captain Dean Hudson. She also informs him the knife came from a restaurant for military bases and that Hudson had just received a driver’s license.
Tim tells Gibbs that Dean worked at Lejeune and Tony thinks that maybe Newton was bringing the knife to Gibbs. There are no disciplinary records on Dean and he has no connection to either the armory from the robbery or at Quantico. Gibbs has Ellie and Tim do background on Lauren Hudson while Tony and Gibbs go to speak to the Hudson’s.
Gibbs and Tony arrive at the house and meet with the Hudson’s. They both are surprised to hear about Newton, who Dean claims to not have seen in a while. It is obvious Lauren seems to be hiding something, but Gibbs doesn’t call her out on the fingerprint. When Tony questions this in the car, Gibbs says he wants to make them wonder why they are asking.
Ellie is on the phone and she looks upset. Tim tells Tony that they did find something, but he’d rather tell him with Gibbs. After getting off the phone with Jake, an upset Ellie tells Tim that the trip she was planning was a surprise and she is never able to surprise him. She is upset he ruined her anniversary, but Tim points out she never said anything after he apologizes.
Tony gets information that he is related to Archibald Drummond, the 17th Earl of Trent, which leaves him very confused and curious. Gibbs comes back and Tim tells him that they found surveillance footage of Newton having lunch with Lauren. In the footage, Lauren appears nervous and Newton seems to think something is up when Dean leaves with her. They watch as Newton picks up the knife carefully. Tony realizes Newton may actually have been on to something. Gibbs mentions they need to keep an eye on the couple and he remembers the neighbors across the street had been moving. He tells Tim and Ellie they are going undercover as a married couple.
Tony calls his cousin Crispian and asks for information on who their ancestor may have been. When he sees Gibbs, Tony informs him Lauren grew up in a wealthy family and her mother died when she was young. Tim appears on video link and tells them Ellie is at work where Dean is at work and Lauren is home gardening. He says he will introduce himself to her.
Tim introduces himself as Tim Donen and mentions needing help for the Internet service provider. Lauren invites him in so she can get him some information. Meanwhile, Ellie is at the office when Dean comes to introduce himself since Lauren had told him about her. He gives her tips on required reading at work and invites her to their home for a barbecue.
Gibbs talks to Lauren’s family lawyer, Worthington, who tells him Lauren had always been a trustworthy person. They didn’t talk much and only really worked together when Lauren’s father died and were going over the financials since she was left with everything. He also tells Gibbs that Lauren’s father didn’t like Dean and felt he only wanted the money.
Tony goes down to autopsy and asks Ducky if he can talk to Newton. He feels bad that he never believed he had found something. Ducky says he can and then Tony asks if he knows anything about Archibald Drummond. The former says no before leaving.
Ellie is on surveillance when Tim comes in. She is still ignoring him and he realizes she is not just upset about the issue with the trip. Ellie confides that things between her and Jake have been different and she was hoping the trip would be a way they could talk. They see Dean come home and thanks to the bug Tim planted, they hear something being discussed between Lauren and Dean that sounds suspicious.
A despondent Abby tells Gibbs that she should have dug deeper into Lauren Hudson. She began to wonder about the new license and did some digging and found the old driver’s license for Lauren Hudson. She compared their faces and realized that the Lauren Hudson they know is not the real Lauren.
Ellie is surprised to hear the information that Lauren is not real and Gibbs thinks the real Lauren could be dead. Gibbs believes Newton was really onto something and Ellie tells them Tim is trailing her. As Tim is following Lauren so he can run into her, he gets a call from Ellie, but ignores it so he can have coffee with her.
While Gibbs and Tony are heading toward the house, Ellie is on videoconference with Abby. Since Dean is not home, Ellie decides she is going to search the house. Abby tries to get her to stop, but is unable to as Ellie leaves without her phone.
Gibbs and Tony are driving when Gibbs asks about the DNA thing. Tony mentions that with his father getting old and possibly never having kids of his own so he was just thinking about having some sort of family out there.
Ellie is in the Hudson house when she finds a box of hair dye in the bathroom. Then she looks in the cabinet and finds a prescription bottle for Rita Applegate. Meanwhile, Tim is having coffee with Lauren when the soldier who found Newton makes him. An angry Lauren runs away and calls Dean to tell him about Tim being an agent. Before she can drive off, Tim stops her with his weapon drawn.
Abby is working when she hears on the surveillance monitor that Dean is home. She desperately calls Ellie but does not get a response. She calls Gibbs instead and tells him what happened. Gibbs hangs up and speeds up to get to the house.
Ellie is opening boxes when she comes across a dead woman stuffed inside a vacuum-sealed bag. Just then, Dean comes in and tries to attack her. Luckily, Ellie is able to grab a pair of scissors she had been using to stab him in the back. He collapses onto the ground just as Gibbs and Tony enter the house. Ellie calls them up to the stairs where Tony draws his weapon.
Back in the squad room, Ellie tells them the woman is Rita Applegate, a waitress Dean met in a bar located near Lejeune. Tim tells the team Rita wanted to cut a deal and informed them Hudson had killed Lauren and they planned on disposing of her body once Dean had retired and they would go off to live off Lauren’s money. Ducky also tells them Lauren died the same way that Newton had, which meant Dean killed Newton.
Tony seems flowers on Ellie’s desk and thinks they are from Jake. She informs him they were from Tim as an apology. But she also lets them know Tim saved her since Jake ended up needing to go out of town the weekend she had chosen. She doesn’t know where in Asia he will be since it is on a need-to-know basis. Gibbs comes up to Tony and refers to an earlier conversation in which Tony said he would be going out of town to Britain. Tony tells him he isn’t taking a leave and isn’t into the DNA stuff after all. When pressed by Tim, Tony informs them that Crispian told him that Drummond was a con man and a thief who may have been Jack The Ripper.