We’re back for another classic NCIS episode! This week Abby gets the spotlight as she becomes obsessed with a murder investigation in the season eight episode Cracked. Also? It’s one of the annual Halloween episodes! A little October in July for all.
Pauley Perrette as Abby in the NCIS season eight episode Cracked. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)
Let’s jump right in and get our spook on, shall we?
We open with a young woman rushing down a city street, clearly upset, checking behind her every few feet, crashing into folks as she continues to flee in what looks like abject terror. One man in particular seems to really rattle her, but she keeps stumbling and running along, eventually ending up at a red light waiting for the crosswalk light to come on. There are red circles around her eyes, and her pupils look huge. Something is clearly wrong with her, and in her panic, she can’t wait for the light and rushes in front of an oncoming bus.
Aaaaand … we have our Dead Guy of the Week. Or, in this case, our Dead Gal of the Week.
Cue awesome opening theme song and credits!
Mark Harmon as Gibbs and Sean Murray as McGee in the NCIS season eight episode Cracked. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)
We meet our crew of special agents as Tony exits the elevator into the Bull Pen of Orangey Goodness. He’s on the phone with his latest paramour, who is apparently offering him some saucy suggestions for their date that evening. McGee and Ziva look on as he slides in behind his desk and slides off his shades, ending his call with, “Ciao.” He goes on to wax rhapsodic about his new lady love, Edith. McGee teases him about the name but Tony thinks it’s strong, and that the two of them might have something. In fact, he shares that she’s even started talking about … role playing. Ziva is surprised they’d be taking a drama class together. Heh. McGee clarifies that in accurate assumption while Tony says Edith has promised that on Halloween, she’s going to take their relationship to a whole new level. Ziva wants to know what happens if she wants him to dress up like a ballerina? Tony just chuckles, saying a woman like Edith could even get Gibbs into a tutu and — yeah, we all know how that’s going to end. Which is with Gibbs coming in and telling that “not in my lifetime.” Tony is all, “Of course not, boss, but if you did, you’d totally pull it off.” After a steely look from Gibbs, Tony decides maybe he should stop talking and grab his gear. Good choice!
Mark Harmon as Gibbs, from left, Cote de Pablo as Ziva, David McCallum as Ducky (back to camera), Sean Murray as McGee (partially hidden by Tony) and Michael Weatherly as Tony in the NCIS season eight episode Cracked. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)
Our poor Dead Gal of the Week was a Navy lieutenant, hence NCIS involvement. Local police assume it was an accident. Bus driver says she tried to beat the light and missed. Tony quips that it’s a hell of a way to catch a bus. Oh, Tony. We find out that she was a chemical engineer, currently a reservist. Ziva reports that a witness reported our DGoW appearing paranoid before running in front of the bus. Another witness said it looked like she was running away from someone. Ducky and Palmer arrive and soon discover that her arms and torso are covered in what looks like complex mathematical equations. Fade to black and white.
Back in the bull pen, we’re at the Screen of All Knowing with our team, as we learn our DG was something of an over achiever. Graduated top of her class at MIT, spotless military record, not married, no children, no family except her mother who is already being flown in from Boston. DG was working in the private sector for a bio tech company in DC until a few weeks ago, when she was fired. They don’t know why. McGee finds no current home address, no cell phone and no credit card activity. Just a bank account with unusual activity in the form of several deposits of more than twenty thousand each.
Shift to Ducky’s Digs, where Abby is taking her own photos of the equations on DG’s body, much to the chagrin of an impatient Ducky. Abby and Palmer discuss the work Diane Arbus, famous for her photographs of marginalized people, like dwarves and circus performers. Just when Ducky thinks she’s done, Abby realizes there is a pattern to the equations. Enter Gibbs, who would love to know what that pattern is and if the woman drew them on her body herself. Abs isn’t sure yet, it’s a puzzle, but she’s intrigued by it, and rushes off to get to work on it. Once gone, Ducky tells Gibbs that DG also had some other physical anomalies that were quite disturbing and shows that she was a very sick woman. He says she was suffering from almost complete organ failure as the result of some kind of poison. He doesn’t know what kind, but whatever it was, it had been in her system for some time. He says he can’t tell how it got into her system, but whoever did it knew how to poison her and not get caught.
David McCallum as Ducky and Brian Dietzen as Palmer in the NCIS season eight episode Cracked. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)
Gibbs enters the bull pen all fired up. Tony has nothing on the bank deposits, but Tim has found a video message to DG from her boss where he calls her an ungrateful, uh, witch, and threatens to make her life hell if she dares to leave him. Nice guy. Cue Tony and Ziva talking to her former boss, who is a total smug dou—uh, jerk. He claims DG was the most brilliant engineer he’d ever worked with, and that they were close work partners, but not otherwise involved. He said her genius made her quirky and she had to do things her own way, which didn’t fit with his vision for his workplace. He also said her research project for their Navy contract was creating conflict. The research project involved finding a way to make the naval bases fuel independent, or all “green” but it was a massive undertaking with a deadline that was beyond demanding, if not impossible. A woman joins them, introduces herself as another engineer for the firm. She worked with DG for five years, they were friends. And, naturally, she’d love to stay and answer their questions, but she has a meeting. Bossman Smugly turns to leave with her, and Ziva mentions they’re not done yet. He smiles as he tells them his attorney can answer their remaining questions, then heads off.
Gibbs is talking to DG’s mother who explains that her daughter had issues with insomnia and manic behavior from childhood to her teens, then they found the right doctors and meds, and she was fine. Things changed, though, when DG was fired. She wasn’t sure what was causing the change in her daughter’s behavior, but she didn’t think it was due to her medication. She asks Gibbs if he has children (a common question in these classic summer recaps!) He says, “Did.” She asks him to tell her that the pain goes away, and we see him hold her teary-eyed gaze.
But then we zip over to Abby Lab as she examines the equation photos side by side on her monitor. She’s figured out that DG wrote all the equations on her own body, using both hands, and that they are done in a code locked inside another code. Abby is very drawn in by DG’s utter brilliance. She says she wrote it on her body — and it’s only a small part of a bigger equation — to protect it. Abby also finds coordinates written in the crook of her arm, and plugs them in to the computer. She gives Gibbs the resulting address.
Cut to Tony and Ziva entering what looks like a big cinderblock style storage facility. They note the security cameras mounted every few feet high up on the wall, then enter past a curtain hung over a wide doorway. The enter a catacomb full of notes hanging from lines like laundry, dry erase boards, desks and tables, all filled with and pages after pages after pages of more equations. Tony wants Abby to come out and look at it first-hand. Ziva finds a table with a sheet filled with the same sentence written in blue marker. Someone is trying to kill me. Fade to black and white.
Sean Murray as McGee in the NCIS season eight episode Cracked. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)
Abby and McGee have joined the team in the equation labyrinth. Ziva notices Abby’s rather preternatural silence as she moves from area to area, taking in everything she is seeing. McGee says she’s fine, just focused. She’s very focused, actually, so much so McGee’s gentle teasing goes unnoticed. Instead she says she has to find the computer and heads off. Tony finds a number of pill bottles and makes an Alice crack. Abby calls him on it, demands respect for the genius of DG. He says fine, but with all that medication, it’s possible her paranoia was medically induced. Abby discovers that DG’s hard drive has been remotely erased, and comments on how that, at least, isn’t imagined. Someone was stealing DG’s work.
Back in the bull pen, Tony shows Gibbs the first mostly green fighter jet and tells him that DG’s former company was one of many working on various green initiatives for the military. Gibbs opines that whoever gets those new technologies first could be in for a big windfall. They think DG’s research might have been worth that kind of big payoff. McGee is going through the security footage from the multiple cameras at DG’s lair, but the only person on them is DG. The motion triggered footage started right after she got fired and ended the day she died. Ziva finds notes in DG’s journal mentioning a Mr. K. Gibbs tells her to track him down.
Shifting down to Ducky’s Digs, it’s just Abby and DG, with Abby swearing to her that she will figure out what it is that DG is trying to tell her. She says she feels they are kindred spirits. Ducky comes in and Abby tells him she just wanted one last look at the writing on DG’s skin. Ducky says he understands her fascination with the case and the woman, adding that they could study DG’s brain for years and never figure out what made it tic. Ducky is worried about Abby, saying she looks peaked and needs to get some rest.
The following morning McGee comes into Abby Lab to find her almost manic as she excitedly tells him she’s had a breakthrough. Her lab is beginning to resemble DG’s labyrinth, with papers clipped up everywhere. She tells McGee that she realized it’s not about cracking the codes to the equations, it’s about cracking the code to the woman herself. McGee wants to know how many Caff-Pows she’s had. “Eleven … teen.” Heh. From reading DG’s journal, she’s figured out that DG traveled a certain path the day she was killed, and that she’d traveled it many times before, so she wants to travel that same path to see what she can learn from it, and talks Tim into going with her.
Over in the bull pen, Tony is conflicted over Ethel’s cosplay request. Tony won’t tell Ziva what the specific request was other than to say that it’s sacrilege and he needs to end the relationship. Ziva says that ending it after only two days is too short, even for him. He says there are some things a man should never do. She counters with, “We’re not talking about a man, we’re talking about you.” Oooh! Their little tête-à-tête is interrupted when Other Engineer we met earlier shows up per Tony’s request, without Smug Jerk Boss. She tells them that DG’s relationship with SJB was complicated, then goes on to say that she and DG were the only female engineers at the company. She’s clearly sincerely grieving the loss of her friend, and talks about how DG was the only one to stand up to SJB. She gives them a box containing contents from her locker, including a day planner and hopes it will help them. She exits as Gibbs enters. Ziva finds a lunch date with Mr. K scheduled for that day, and the café is mentioned. Gibbs sends them off to meet Mr. K.
Sean Murray as McGee and Pauley Perrette as Abby in the NCIS season eight episode Cracked. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)
Meanwhile, Abby and Tim are going over the Metro schedule as they continue to chart the path. McGee tries to tell Abby it’s a lost cause, but she is convinced they’ll find something. The bus pulls up and she gets on, leaving Tim behind. Fade to black and white.
Back in the bull pen, McGee tries and fails to track Abby via her cell phone GPS but she’s turned it off. Gibbs is not happy. We shift to Abby and her lovely black lace umbrella as she crosses a campus … and then we’re inside with her talking to a professor, explaining her journey and how she found him. She confirms that DG was on her way to see the professor the day she was killed. Abby shows him some of the equations, but they don’t look familiar to him. He says DG kept her projects secret, even from him. Abby asks him about Mr. K and the professor says DG mentioned him many times, but never by his full name. He retrieves a book that DG gave him several years earlier, explaining they used to read from it when she visited, that it calmed her. It’s Walt Whitman’s autobiography, Leaves of Grass. Abby declines, saying she couldn’t take it, as it was a gift, but he gives it to her anyway, thinking maybe it will bring Abby peace of mind, too.
In the bull pen, Ziva and Tony come back from their lunch date with Mr. K. He didn’t show up, but that turns out not to be unusual. From the security tape, they confirm that DG was there on every date she penciled into her planner, and she’d sit in a booth, having a very animated discussion with … nobody. The owner finally kicked her out when other diners complained that she was getting too loud. McGee comes in and says Abby’s cell phone pinged back on so he’s going to nail down her location. Tony makes a snark comment about Tim losing Abby, but Gibbs shuts him down. McGee asks about their meeting with Mr. K and who is going to tell Abby. Tony, who you realize now is actually angry at McGee for losing Abby, says he doesn’t know, but it won’t be McGee. Gibbs says he’ll handle it.
Before he can, Abby rushes in, excitedly telling Gibbs about her day and finding the professor and how she learned so much more about Mr. K and now they have to find him. You can see how pained Gibbs is, given what he knows, and he tries to shut down her animated speech several times, but finally has to shout, “Stop!” Abby does, then looks a bit wounded, and says, “You just raised your voice at me. You never do that.” Gibbs turns the security tape back on, so Abby can see DG having her talk with “Mr. K.” Abby looks on in silence, then quietly says, “I was wrong.” Only then she adds, “About you.” She claims Gibbs doesn’t understand, that none of them understand, and rushes from the bull pen.
Mark Harmon as Gibbs, Sean Murray as McGee and Cote de Pablo as Ziva in the NCIS season eight episode Cracked. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)
Down in Ducky’s Digs, we learn Abby has locked herself in her lab, determined to find the answers, much as DG did. Ducky says it’s clear Abby identifies a lot with DG and that it’s understandable. Gibbs says he wants his Abby back and Ducky assures him he will get that. He hopes the results from the lab will shed some light into what happened to DG, how she was poisoned, and with what. He also reveals he found tissue embedded deeply under one of DG’s fingernails, and says she could have been in quite a fight to have it so deeply under her nail. Gibbs asks if Ducky knows whose tissue it is. He hands Gibbs a folder and Gibbs looks at the report, then smiles. Tell us!!
But no, we head to her former place of employment, so naturally we’re sure it’s SJB tissue, living up to his name. Tony spies SJB leaving in his SUV and calls to Gibbs. They surround the car and demand he get out. No response. Tony sees him opening the driver door and shouts to Gibbs, but as Gibbs closes in SJB topples from the driver’s seat to the ground, begging for help, looking … well, a lot like DG did earlier. Ruh roh! So that leaves … Other Engineer? Who else would it be? We have to wait to find out, because … fade to black and white.
Back in the bull pen we learn SJB died the same way DG did, so probably from the same poison. McGee wonders if the project both DG and SJB were working on ended up with them finding a working solution. If so, it would be worth a lot of money. But that leaves Abby as the only one who can make the breakthrough, as she’d have to figure out exactly what it was DG created, for them to know who might have killed for it. Gibbs thinks he has just the person to help get Abby out of her locked lab and back on track. We shift to DG’s labyrinth where Gibbs, Abby … and DG’s mom are all talking. Abby is telling Mom that her daughter was on a mission, one she wouldn’t have stopped, no matter what. Mom says she hears Abby is doing much the same and Abby tells her she promised DG she would finish whatever it was that DG started. “At what cost,” Mom wants to know. She says that being a scientist was what drove her daughter, what gave her the happiness that nothing else, not even her mom could, but that it also drove her to the brink.
Abby insists she’s not on the brink, that she’s just trying to find answers. Mom asks does Abby expect to find them inside DG’s head? This sets Abby back a step, and Mom continues that despite all the love in the world and being as close to her daughter as anyone could be, even she has no idea how her daughter’s mind worked. Mom says Abby feels connected to DG because of science, and Abby agrees. Mom asks if Abby wants to help her daughter and Abby says that is the only thing she wants to do. Mom steps closer and tells Abby to do what DG would have done, and put emotion aside. She cups Abby’s cheek, smiles, and tells Abby she has to let DG go. Gibbs looks on approvingly.
Pauley Perrette as Abby in the NCIS season eight episode Cracked. (Photo: Monty Brinton, CBS)
Back in Abby Lab, we seem to have the old Abby back. McGee is with her when Gibbs enters and she tells him she’s made progress. She’s happily back in her groove and has narrowed down the equations on DG’s body to one that is based on E coli. Another common equation found in the labyrinth is based on photosynthesis. At first she thought it was about converting E coli into fuel, but that wouldn’t work, so she’s stuck. McGee finds one symbol they couldn’t translate and Gibbs says it looks like a plant. The lightbulb goes off and Abby realizes it’s not a plant … it’s a leaf! She retrieves the book given to her by the professor. She shakes the book and a memory card comes out. They plug it in and DG’s complete equations come to life. It turns out that the main reason Abby thought DG couldn’t turn bacteria into fuel was due to carbon dioxide. Turns out that carbon dioxide was the solution, not the problem. DG found a way to turn bacteria into fuel. The ultimate green solution to the world’s energy problem. Gibbs notes the company name on the memory card documents. McGee pulls up an employee list, and lo and behold … there is a Mr. K! Abby is victorious.
We go to interrogation with Gibbs and Mr. K. He admits he hired DG on the sly and paid her under the table to keep it quiet, given that biotech is a cutthroat business. Gibbs also notes that DG’s former employer was one of K’s biggest business rivals. K smiles, says, “It’s complicated.” Gibbs grins, too, and agrees, telling K, “Yeah, two people are dead and you’re the chief suspect.” K says he wouldn’t have killed DG given her project just netted him two billion dollars and he wanted her on his next project.
Down in Ducky’s Digs as he tells Gibbs that SJB’s throat was burned from swallowing a significant amount of what smells like gasoline but is a form of ethanol mixed with formaldehyde. Ducky says you couldn’t buy it, you had to make it. Palmer found a patent listing for a fossil fuel made from ethanol but it was rejected because the chemical compound created the deadly side effect of formaldehyde. It was SJB’s company who filed the patent and Gibbs sends Palmer off to find out who spearheaded that project. Then Ducky tells Gibbs that DG was killed a different way, with a poison that was absorbed through the skin over a two-week span of time, possibly in a lotion or a liquid. Gibbs surmises it had to be done by someone who knew DG’s rituals. A closer inspection of the labyrinth shows that a canister was attached to the water supply, so DG was actually bathing in her poison. (Which has to bring us back to Other Engineer! I knew it!)
We shift back to DG’s former work place where Other Engineer is holding court with some Navy personnel, sitting comfortably as the new leader. This is about to change as Gibbs comes in and flashes his creds. Navy personnel leave and Other Engineer, looking very different in her leadership roles, asks what she can do for them. They share with her notes from DG’s journal where she talks about her trust and friendship with Other Engineer, but OE maintains that DG didn’t care about her, and how hard it was for her to get ahead while DG — who Gibbs calls the “real deal” — was always out in front. She asks them how they think that made her feel. “Bad enough to kill,” Gibbs says, right before cuffing her. Boom!
Oh, but that ain’t all, folks. Cue the opening chords of the Brothers Gibb and Staying Alive … as Tony enters the bull pen, Full Travolta. “It’s Tony as Tony,” McGee says, impressed. Ziva wants to know if he’s fat Elvis. HA! In response, we get Tony doing Tony. He’s going to give Special Ethel what she thinks she wants, he says as Tony Manero, then adds, all Special Agent DiNozzo, that his heart, however, will always be his. Exit, stage awesome.
We end down in Abby Lab as she decorates for Halloween. Gibbs enters, tells her it looks good. She says she’s trying to get in a spirit that is more her. She apologizes, but he gives her a hug and a kiss, tells her it’s OK. They exit, but she runs back to pick up the Whitman book and smiles. Fade to black and white.
Aww. Abs. We love her. Another good episode!
Let’s keep the good vibes rolling and announce the winner of last week’s giveaway! Winner gets a signed copy of my current release, Starfish Moon, and that winner would be … Nancy & Craig Bailey! Drop me an e-mail to donna@donnakauffman.com with an address and your prize will go right out to you!
As always, feel free to share your feelings about the episode, or anything NCIS with me at that same address, donna@donnakauffman.com. I love hearing from you!
I want to thank you again for spending time on the recap couch with me this summer! I’ll be taking a bit of a break after this week (book deadlines must come first) but I’ll be back with a few more classic NCIS recaps this summer before we usher in the exciting new season and new faces with brand new episodes this fall! Join me again Aug. 22 when we skip back in time to season nine and the episode that brings Gibbs, Fornell and their wife, Diane, together in the episode Devil’s Triangle. I love Gibbs and Fornell together, so you know this will be fun!
In the meantime, you can keep up with me over at my FB page where I share the wildlife out here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, my research travels, and I giveaway more stuff, PLUS keep you up to speed on all things NCIS! I know! It’s like the place to be! See you there and in a few weeks, right back here!
Donna Kauffman is the USA TODAY bestselling author of over 50 titles. Born in Washington, D.C., she now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains in southern Virginia where she is surrounded by a significant amount of wildlife that thankfully no longer has anything to do with what’s going on in our nation’s capital. You can check all that out for yourself and more at www.donnakauffman.com. Also? She loves to hear from her readers (and NCIS viewers!). Yes, even you.