NCIS saw the return of Tony DiNozzo’s father while the team worked on a case in which their witness faced deportation.
At the beginning of the episode, a couple go into the convenience store to recreate their first date when they see a man leaning over a body.
We then see Tim entering Tony’s old apartment and he greets Abby and Ellie. They have all been asked to come thanks to Tony’s father, Senior. He tells them Tony and his granddaughter, Tali, have decided to make their stay in Paris last longer and he’s joining them. Tony wanted to lease the apartment and Senior decided to ask the family first before putting out an ad. All three immediately vie for the apartment and Senior is hoping they can work it out as a group.
Before they can continue, Tim gets the call from Gibbs about their case and they are all summoned to work.
At the convenience store, Ellie and Tim discuss the apartment as Torres wonders what they are talking about. Their victim is Seaman Troy Willis. They are informed that a witness had said an armed robber came in and he called 911. But before the police could keep him there, the witness fled.
Nick, Ellie and Gibbs go into the back room and find a towel with blood on it and a murder weapon.
Back at the bullpen, Quinn keeps staring at Gibbs’ desk like she had been staring at him at the crime scene. After the others notice, she admits she had a dream about Gibbs and it wasn’t the innocent kind. Before she can give complete details, Gibbs comes in and they go back to work.
Their witness is Victor Medina, a former Marine who was once in prison after getting into a bar fight. He had said the robber was wearing a mask and fled in a white sports car. Ellie tells them a BOLO found Medina in Pennsylvania so she goes to get him with Nick.
Ducky, Palmer and Quinn discuss dreams before getting back to the autopsy. The ME informs Quinn the victim had injuries to the ribs consistent with being given CPR. Someone, likely Victor, was trying to save him.
Abby tells Tim and Gibbs there is no registration on the gun or prints. She is distracted and trying to get them out of her lab. She also tells them surveillance from the store showed the door opened three times after the robbery. There is also a footprint from the scene that shows a brand name she doesn’t recognize. Senior comes in and Tim realizes that Abby is trying to talk him into the apartment. Abby plays it off as though she needs his help finding the shoe brand. Tim leaves and Senior asks Gibbs for advice. Unfortunately, he has none.
Ellie and Torres discuss the apartment and she tells him the reason why Tony could afford it. She knows he has an aversion to dead bodies in apartments but he thinks he could get over it. They interview Medina, who tells them that he was working when he saw the robbery. Before he could stop it, the sailor was shot when he tried to intervene. Medina had tried to go after the robber, even getting on top of his car, but he wasn’t successful. He went back in to try and save Troy. When he saw the gun, he hid it in the back room so no one else would get injured.
Quinn and Tim tell Gibbs the shoes Medina was wearing were not a match to the tread at the crime scene. As they are speaking, an Immigration officer comes in for Medina. He says because Medina is a witness to a crime, he is facing deportation.
Quinn is upset to discover that Medina, despite having parents who came legally, is being deployed since he had once been convicted of assault. There is not much they can do.
Gibbs calls Ellie and tells her to take their time getting back to the office with Medina. He asks for his effects and she hands him a compass, which was broken. He talks about his mom in Ohio and how he won’t get to say goodbye. Ellie tells Nick to turn around but he is not willing. When she begins singing, he finally heads toward Ohio.
Tim and Senior are in the apartment where the former ends up trying to suede Senior to his side with a photo book of him and Delilah. Senior quickly changes the subject to tell Tim the shoes are Cassanos.
Abby is preparing to fix Medina’s compass before telling Gibbs she was able to find three suspects who had bought Cassanos recently.
Upon arriving at Medina’s house, Ellie and Nick watch him reunite with his mother. Nick lies and says Medina is deploying so he will be gone for a while.
Quinn and Gibbs go to one of the houses where she is still acting weird. Their suspect’s son gives Quinn a flirtatious look before they go inside. The man informs Gibbs and Quinn he got rid of the Cassanos and he has an alibi for the night of the shooting. He shows them his gun collection and Quinn becomes distracted when Gibbs mentions the wood on the case. She leaves to go help Tim.
Tim and Quinn track down their third suspect, who runs when he sees them. His name is Arthur Jankowski and he is a known identity theft. Their other suspect also checks out so they think Jankowski is their guy.
Ellie and Nick have dinner with Medina and his mother. When she leaves to get the recipe for Ellie, Medina tells them the only reason he got involved in the bar fight was because the guy was yelling at his girlfriend. They both then lied and said he attacked for no reason. He is worried about what he will do going to Mexico and leaves to talk to his mother.
Abby runs a search for Jankowski but not before talking with Senior about Ellie’s apartment essay. Senior has decided to do a drawing and Palmer is the unbiased drawer. While Palmer gets ready, Abby tells Gibbs she was able to pull Jankowski’s plates and is using traffic cams to find him. She discovers he is at a motel. Palmer draws a name and it turns out to be Torres. Senior has no idea who he is and Abby is appalled.
In interrogation, Quinn is still acting weird as they read Jankowski’s “memoir,” which he wrote to try and be the author whose identity he had stolen. Jankowski swears he did not commit the robbery. When Gibbs reads an ellipses out loud, Quinn is stunned. He leaves the room frustrated only to find out from Tim that Jankowski’s shoes don’t match the tread at the crime scene.
While in a diner with Ellie and Nick, Medina has his phone and calls his mom. Ellie wonders why he is acting differently than he did on the way there. Nick admits that he didn’t want to get close to Medina because he relates to the possibility of deportation. As they talk, Nick sees a man preparing to pull a weapon. After alerting the patrons, Ellie and Nick go after the man, who drops his weapon. When Ellie gets close enough, she identifies herself. But when the man pulls his weapon on her, she shoots him straight in the heart.
In autopsy, Jimmy tells Gibbs the man is Carl Dixon, a hit man who was sent after Victor and had found him through his cell phone. The team is working to find out who hired him. Abby tells Gibbs that Medina’s compass became depolarized when he had jumped on top of the white sports car. There is only one out of their entire suspect list that has earth-metal magnets that would have done that.
Phillip Conway, the rich father from earlier in the episode, was not the robber but his son was. When his son committed the robbery, Phillip got rid of the evidence and hired Carl Dixon to kill the only witness. Even though he denies it, Ellie and Gibbs inform him they are tracking a payment deposited into Dixon’s account.
Tim and Quinn arrest Brandon Conway, who believes his father will get him out of his predicament. After he’s in the car, Tim warns Quinn that Gibbs knows she is acting weird. Quinn then tells him that she is over the whole thing after Gibbs read an ellipses out loud.
Medina tells the team that his mother told him that home was a privilege. Gibbs comes with the immigration officer and tells Medina that he has a lawyer friend who can try to help.
Later on, Torres and Tim are in the apartment and gives him the scrapbook he had made for Senior. Torres tells Tim that he had been trying to find a home since arriving at NCIS and didn’t feel he had earned the privilege yet. He gives Tim the key to Tony’s apartment and tells Tim he is ready for it.