Friends and Lovers (NCIS)

Infobox Television episode
Title = Friends and Lovers
Colour =
Series = NCIS
Season = 4
Episode = 15


Airdate = February 13, 2007
Production = 4x15
Writer = John C. Kelley
Director = Dennis Smith
Guests = Brian Dietzen as Jimmy Palmer Liza Lapira as Michelle Lee J.R. Cacia as Detective John Carson Michael Whaley as Detective Jeremiah 'JD' Morris
Episode list = Episode chronology
Prev = Blowback
Next = Dead Man Walking"Friends and Lovers" is the 85^th episode of the drama television series "NCIS".

Plot

The teaser for this episode is a humorous scene where a couple revist the site of their first date (an abandoned building which once was a restaurant). The man is about to propose marriage after 10 years of dating but cannot spit out the words. The woman thinks he has cold feet but he has looked over her shoulder and spotted the corpse of a Marine Petty Officer. Everything points to an accidental overdose as the cause of death. This assumption changes, when Abby discovers poison in the victim's blood (oleander poison) and, on the victim's body, a blank card which disclosed the words "Expect More" when treated with luminol.

The clues lead Gibbs and the metro police to the exclusive night club "One", which is rumored to be a drug dealing place but metro police never was able to collect enough evidence for a warrant. Gibbs also fails to get one, as the only witness is a junkie who robbed the victim when they passed out outside the club. The team finds out that a young woman was with the victim before he died. Further investigastion reveals that the message written on the card which was found on the dead sailor was written with the blood of a woman who was murdered two months earlier. So it is a serial killer on the loose but the clues do not add up.

A feature of the story is the tension between the metro cops and the NCIS agents. Tony finds his equivalent in Detective Carson, and they form an easy companionship, comparing notes on women and finding that they are very, very similar in their tastes.

The NCIS/Metro team stake out the night club, hoping to spot the woman who was with the murdered man. As they cannot get a warrant, Gibbs decides to send in agents without a warrant: Agent McGee, in his alter ego as novelist "Thom E. Gemcity" is quite popular. The doorman/bouncer at the nightclub recognises him from the dustjacket on his book (which the bouncer enjoyed), so Tim/Thom and his harem (Ziva, Abby and Lee as his groupies), gain entry to the club. However, the stakeout team, which includes the outraged and jealous DiNozzo, spot the woman they seek in the back alley of the club. She is talking to the owner and trying to blackmail him over his dispatch of the murdered man: she is told that she should be grateful that he was stopped, because he had given the woman a spiked drink (they think it was a rufie, but it was actually poisoned). The woman soon realises that she will be lucky to get her life, let alone money and by the time the stakeout team arrive, the villainous nightclub owner has killed her already. In the ensuing shootout, the villain is killed by the stakeout team but, unfortunately, the villain had managed to mortally wound Detective John Carson, the metrocop mirror of Tony DiNozzo.

This mirroring of Tony and Carson is important to the side story line, where the episode centers on Tony's relationship to Jeanne Benoit, which has been going on, unknown by his colleagues, for several months now. She has problems dealing with her ex-boyfriend, who can't accept it's over and by failing to tell the ex that it's over, Jeanne causes Tony to believe she is cheating on him or still attached to the former lover. Tony shares his problems with aforementioned John Carson, who bears striking similarities to Tony. John tells Tony about losing the perfect girl because he cheated on her when he was drunk. Only the viewer knows that the twist is that John is talking about Jeanne, because Jeanne's name is never mentioned by either man. Even more of a twist, is that it is implied to the viewer, that neither Tony nor Jeanne realize the connection when John Carson dies, because Jeanne simply receives an email from Carson that says he'll never bother her again and she deletes the email and it's accompanying picture whilst Tony is asleep on her couch, recuperating from the horrors of watching that same John die in the gun battle.

Quotes

Tony (disgusted at seeing McGee treated as a celebrity): I gotta write a book. Gibbs: Better read one, first.