21.00–22.00Continuing this evening is the hit drama series following a team of special agents who investigate Navy and Marine Corps-related crimes. In tonight’s episode, forensic evidence discovered at a crime scene seriously implicates Tony in a murder case. Gibbs and his team arrive on the scene as a pair of severed legs is discovered in the woods at a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. Despite Tony’s derision, Ziva is keen to remove and examine every minute detail that might be evidence. Her fastidiousness is rewarded when she discovers part of a rubber glove amongst the detritus. Ducky, meanwhile, sets to work on the body parts and finds an anomaly: while the marbling of the skin suggests advanced decomposition, there is no sign of any insect activity. The body, therefore, must have been kept chilled since the time of death, two days ago. “If that’s the case,” Ducky reflects, “we are dealing with a dark soul – one who kills, cuts and keeps.” Further examination reveals that the owner of the legs was a young woman, aged between 19 and 21, and that a circle of skin was meticulously removed from one of her legs. This leads Ducky to suspect that the killer may have been trying to remove a sign of his attack, but he feels confident that he can still identify a bite mark from the impression in the flesh below. He also finds a spot of what may be the assailant’s blood. While all the forensic evidence, including the glove fragment recovered at the scene, is sent up to Abby for scrutiny, Ziva and McGee plough through some complex equations in order to predict the height and weight of the victim. Choosing instead to trust his instincts, however, Tony guesses the girl’s statistics – and is remarkably accurate. Could Tony know more about the victim than he claims?The notion that Tony could be involved in thecase begins to look like a very real possiblity when the fingerprint from the rubber glove is matched to his own. But Abby is confident that the results from the bite mark test will prove her colleague’s innocence. “Don’t worry Tony,” she reassures him, “the chances of even one of your teeth matching is like a hundred thousand to one!” So when Abby’s 3D-modelling programme matches every one of Tony’s teeth to the mark on the victim’s leg, Tony my finds himself in real trouble.While everyone at HQ is sure that Tony is innocent, NCIS director Jenny Shepard is forced to take action. “Appearances matter, Jethro,” she tells Gibbs – “in this world, sometimes more than fact.” She has no choice, therefore, but to officially suspend Gibbs from the case and bring in the FBI. But Gibbs is not put off so easily and rejoins his agents as they prepare a long list of people who might want to frame Tony.As the FBI arrives, Gibbs takes agent Fornell aside and asks to be kept in the loop as the investigation progresses. Agent Sacks, however, is keen that no preferential treatment is shown and, in light of the mounting evidence against him, is keen to arrest Tony. For now, Fornell decides not to make the arrest, but takes Tony into custody until things can be cleared up. Making the most of the little time they have, Gibbs and his remaining agents scour for evidence of a frame-up examining likely suspects and searching for possible victims.

Working round the clock in her lab, Abby is crestfallen – the forensic evidence which she has always loved now appears to be suggesting that her good friend is a killer. But despite Abby’s best efforts, the case against Tony continues to build, and when the blood from the leg is proven to match Tony’s DNA, time appears to have run out. Could Abby’s beloved forensic evidence be wrong? Could someone with a grudge and an expert understanding of forensics be framing Tony? Or could one of NCIS’s finest really beresponsible for murder and mutilation?

Tagged in