‘NCIS’ season 11, episode 11 review: Leon Vance’s story, and Bishop starts to fit in

“NCIS” struggled mightily last week in a couple of respects, whether it be an uninteresting case that we don’t even remember now, or an attempt to try and factor in Bishop so much that the show become unbalanced.

But this week, we had “Homesick” which was easily the show’s best episode since the arrival of Emily Wickersham, and one that showed off some of the very best that this character has to offer. She’s great at what she does as an analyst, but very flawed in her social interactions. She basically fills a very different need for the show, and gives you that sort of newbie vibe while everyone else is so experienced. But, this case wasn’t really about her. Instead, it was about an attempt to stop an epidemic of illness among young children suspected to be bio-terrorism.

As for the other major story of the week, it was one that Rocky Carroll was all sorts of awesome in. Leon Vance had to come to a decision regarding the appearance of Lamar (the always-great Ben Vareen) in his family’s life. This was a guy desperate for forgiveness after what happened with his daughter and Vance’s late wife. For a while, he wasn’t interested in providing anything of the sort, but in the end, he changed things up and tried to give the man a chance. The story wasn’t complicated, but it had a warm and fuzzy message that was perfect for the holidays.

Of course, everything came together by the time the episode came to a close. The disease story was resolved thanks to Abby and the lab team, and even the story regarding Jimmy Palmer’s hesitancy to start up the adoption proceedings had a happy ending to it. We were admittedly worried about the opening scene of this episode casting a dark light on this holiday season, but in the end this is exactly what we wanted from “NCIS” during the holidays. It was kind, occasionally funny, and uplifting. Nice job to all parties involved. Grade: B+.

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Photo: CBS