Angel of Death (NCIS)

Infobox Television episode
Title =Angel of Death
Colour =
Series = NCIS
Season = 4
Episode = 24


Airdate = May 22, 2007
Production = 4x24
Writer = Donald P. Bellisario
Director = Dennis Smith
Guests = Joe Spano as Senior FBI Special Agent T. C. Fornell Armand Assante as La Grenouille Scottie Thompson as Jeanne Benoit David Dayan Fisher as Trent Kort
Episode list = Episode chronology
Prev = Trojan Horse
Next = Bury Your Dead"Angel of Death " is the 94^th episode of the drama television series "NCIS", and the final episode of season 4.

Plot

When Jenny returns from her European trip, the entire NCIS team will be forced to take a Homeland Security polygraph test, and the deepest secrets of each agent are about to be revealed. Gibbs learns this when he visits Abby's lab and discovers McGee barechested and attached to electrical sensors, rehearsing for the polygraph and failing on questions such as his name.

Fornell informs Gibbs that the CIA thinks there is a security risk in NCIS and that it is the director, Jenny. Gibbs speaks to Jenny and points out that she went off the radar for 21 hours when she was in Paris, attracting CIA attention.

Abby, Ziva, Lee, Palmer, McGee, and Ducky all go out for Friday night drinks and stress about the forthcoming polygraph test on Monday. Ziva says that she has beaten polygraph tests, causing Lee (a lawyer and officer of the Court) to cover her ears against hearing about unethical conduct. The crew continue to drink until McGee and Abby get a summons, and Palmer and Lee grab the opportunity to leave to pursue other physical pursuits. Ziva and Ducky continue to toast to 'dry-eyed mice' (who never have cause to cry over losses). Ziva expresses concern over Tony because he has failed to appear at the bar. She intuits trouble.

Back at NCIS, Abby is told by the director to find the owner of a pair of fingerprints found on an empty glass and a bottle of scotch that her father used to drink that she found in her study. Abby's computer finds that the prints belonged to the Director's "deceased" father but, by the time the results show up on the screen, Abby has fallen into an alcohol-induced slumber on the floor of her lab.

McGee is instructed by Gibbs to sign a letter (a 'get out of jail free' pass) and then hack into the CIA computers and find out where the polygraph orders originated. He finds that it came from Homeland Security originally, but the trace went through several countries, before returning to the CIA's National Clandestine Service. Gibbs instructs McGee to look for information held about Director Shepard, which yields information on Jenny's dead father. Gibbs is unaware of Abby's fingerprint match at this point.

Meanwhile, a distraught woman and her boyfriend show up at the hospital where Jeanne works. She is there to check up on her brother, who was brought in earlier. Due to the woman's suspicious behavior, Jeanne carefully watches them. A nurse notices the presence of the Angel of Death, in the guise of a child. Other staff ridicule the notion and explain the child-sighting as being a child who has become lost whilst visiting the hospital. Eventually, the man dies and is taken down to the morgue.

The woman and her boyfriend sneak down to the morgue to get the body, knowing that the deceased was a drug mule and that the drugs remain in his intestines. Jeanne and Tony are taken hostage when they go to the morgue on a tip-off from a hospital porter. The druggie boyfriend attempts to cut open the body, but Jeanne stops him, telling Tony that he is so inexperienced that he will mutilate the body and psychologically scar the dead man's sister for life. Instructing the nervous sister to look away, she cuts open the body and pulls out the man's entrails. Jeanne cuts the drug bag open and spills the powder purposely, enraging the man. She lunges at him, shocking him, and stabs him in the shoulder with the scalpel.

Tony grabs the man's gun and shoots into the ceiling as he is about to retaliate against Jeanne, telling him "the next will be in his ear". Jeanne and Tony stare at the man for a few seconds. Then Tony turns and mutters "Oh my God." The camera pans and shows the woman sniffing heroin out of her dead brother's intestines.

At the end of the episode, the nurses leave the hospital and one points out the missing child who was found: the other nurse notes that it is not the child she saw when the druggie died but says nothing. Jeanne and Tony are leaving the hospital when a limousine pulls up. Jeanne tells Tony to get in with her, and inside Tony meets Jeanne's father, La Grenouille. He says hello to 'Professor DiNardo'.

Comic moments: Palmer ordering a girl's drink and realising he has made a faux pas. Ducky's toast to dry-eyed mice in the bar. Gibbs' reaction to Abby polygraphing McGee ('Abby, why are you torturing McGee?' uttered in only mild tones of curiosity as if torture were normal in Abby's lab). McGee's satisfaction that, because he reads his email, he knows something that the rest don't know (they are all to be polygraphed). The loathing on Gibbs' face when he has to go to his ex-wife's house in order to find Fornell: Fornell's amusement when he realises that the look on his ex-wife's face is not directed at himself but at Gibbs.