21.00–22.00Concluding this evening is the third season of the hit drama series following a team of special agents who investigate Navy and Marine Corps-related crimes. In tonight’s explosive finale, Gibbs awakens from his coma only to discover he has severe memory loss. Meanwhile, Tony and the team come close to unravelling the terrorist plot to blow up a navy frigate. Following an explosion on a cargo ship that killed an undercover agent and left Gibbs in a coma (see last week’s episode, ‘Hiatus – Part 1’), Tony has taken charge of the team in an effort to track down Pin Pin Pula, the Filipino terrorist suspected of planting the bomb and of planning another attack on a naval vessel. As the unconscious Gibbs languishes in hospital, he recalls traumatic events from the past, including his injury in the Gulf War and the murder of his wife and daughter. Suddenly waking from his sleep, Gibbs sets his eyes on Ducky: “I don’t know you,” he says. It would seem that Gibbs has memory loss stretching back to 1991, and his doctor does not know if the amnesia is permanent. Back at NCIS, Shepard informs the team: “To him, it’s 1991 and he’s a marine sergeant wounded in Desert Storm,” she says. Shepard also appears to be taking charge of the case – until Tony confronts her and insists that he be allowed to lead: “No one knows this team better than me,” he says. Shepard smiles, and tells him she had no intention of interfering: “I just wanted to see if you had as much guts as Gibbs,” she says. Tony hands out his orders while Abby creates a computer simulation of the explosion on the cargo ship. They discover that Gibbs should have been killed by the blast – unless he had prior warning and was able to take cover.

Ducky’s autopsy on the undercover agent, Galib, then reveals that he was dead when the bomb detonated. “If Galib was dead, who did Gibbs follow into the laundry?”

Tony asks. In the event, it is the ship’s captain who has the answer: the man that Gibbs met on the ship was not the undercover agent, as he thought – it was Pin Pin Pula himself. But what is Pin Pin’s real target? Only Gibbs knows the answer – if he can regain his memory in time.

Shepard and Ducky try to help Gibbs restore his memory and in the process learn of the tragic fate of his wife and child. Shepard searches for somebody from 1991 that Gibbs will remember, and finds the name of NCIS Agent Mike Franks (Muse Watson, ‘Prison Break’), who led the investigation into the murder of Gibbs’s family.

The gnarled Franks is now retired and living in Mexico, but hastens to visit Gibbs when he hears that he is injured. Gibbs is pleased to see a familiar face – Franks was his boss and mentor when he joined NCIS. “I became an agent because of you,” he says.

Gibbs confesses that he is grieving for his wife and daughter all over again: “It feels like I just got the news in Kuwait a few months ago,” he says. Franks jogs Gibbs’s memory, recalling his early days as an agent, when Gibbs was just a “probie”,and his boss used to cuff him round the head in the affectionate manner that Gibbs made his own.

But it is Ziva who provides the breakthrough. She pays Gibbs a visit and begs him to remember, reminding him of how she saved his life.

In an instant, the old Gibbs is back: “You killed your brother to save me,” he recalls. Gibbs rushes to NCIS headquarters with vital information about Pin Pin’s plot – but will he be in time to prevent the destruction of the frigate? The shocking outcome stuns the NCIS team and provokes Gibbs.

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