Left for Dead (NCIS)

Infobox Television episode
Title = Left for Dead
Colour =
Series = NCIS
Season = 1
Episode = 10


Airdate = January 06, 2004
Production = 1x10
Writer = Donald P. Bellisario Don McGill
Director = James Whitmore Jr.
Guests = Sherilyn Fenn as Suzzanne McNeil
Episode list = Episode chronology
Prev = Marine Down
Next = Eye Spy"Left for Dead" is an episode of the drama television series "NCIS".

Plot

A woman claws her way out of a grave and stops a passing car for help. She does not remember her name or why she is there, but when she sees headlights, she has an alarming memory that there is a bomb on a Navy vessel.

NCIS is called in due to the potential bomb threat. Kate interviews the woman at the hospital. Though the woman seems sweet and wants to be helpful, she does not remember anything except for little details, like the fact that she likes blueberries. She also knows a German word relating to bombs. Kate believes the woman will recover her memory more quickly if she is in a more relaxing environment, so she has the woman pretend to remember her name so that Kate can sign her out of the hospital.

Meanwhile, Gibbs finds a key at the grave site. Abby identifies it as a magnetic key, and it appears to belong to a hotel. DiNozzo notices a very fine scratch. Upon closer inspection under a microscope, it is clear that the words "THE APARTMENT" have been microetched onto the key.

Kate and the woman spend time together and work towards recovering her memory. When the woman recognizes a coat that Kate has, they go to the few stores where the coat is sold to see if the experience will trigger a memory. While at a store, a bald Caucasian man walks in, and the woman gasps; he reminds her of the man who attacked her. Kate calls Gibbs to inform him of this, and Gibbs asks if the man who attacked the woman was wearing a burgundy tie and other detailed questions about his clothing. Surprised, Kate says yes; it turns out that Gibbs has found out the room that goes with the magnetic key, and there is a dead man inside matching the description of the woman's attacker.

Gibbs investigates the dead man, Walter, and goes to his place of work, BFF, a German company that works with bomb-detection devices. Gibbs is highly suspicious of the CEO of the company, Stephen Breuer. Breuer shows them a photo of a woman who makes bombs for them, and the team discovers that the name of the amnesiac woman is Suzanne McNeil. She makes bombs and places them in a mock Navy ship to test bomb-detection devices. This is the benign source of her initially alarming memory.

Kate gives Suzanne her work portfolio to look through to see if it brings back any memories. It does not, so Kate takes her to the morgue to look at Walter and see if she remembers him. Suzanne remembers talking to Walter in the hotel room and hitting him over the head, which killed him, but she does not reveal this to Kate. Instead, she says she remembers nothing. She asks to go to BFF so that she can sit at her desk. After hesitating, Kate agrees.

At BFF, Suzanne and Breuer run into each other as Suzanne comes down from her office. He greets her warmly, but she says she does not remember him. However, we see that she does have flashbacks of him, including one in which she seems to be throwing a fit and he is grabbing her to calm her down. Breuer asks to have a private chat with Suzanne. Immediately, she reveals that they were having an affair and that she was angry with him for trying to end it. He was such a coward that he could not end it himself; he got Walter to end it. Suzanne brings a small new bomb out of her coat, turns to apologize to Kate with a somewhat sarcastic tone, and drops the bomb. Though the end is unclear, it seems that Breuer and Suzanne die, while the NCIS team members are slightly injured but alive.