NCIS season 15 episode 15 review: Was Gabriel Hicks arrested? French Stewart shines

It may have been a short wait for the next new episode of NCIS, but that cliffhanger has made if feel more like months have passed! After Jessica told Hicks to find new representation, her car blew up (with her inside of it). Not only that, but Sloane was fairly close by and she looked to be unconscious and bleeding in the road. We know that tonight’s episode is going to be the continuation of this arc, but our real question is this: Are we actually going to see Hicks in this episode? He didn’t appear at all in the last episode, but Gibbs and Fornell are working together to bring him in. We are not-so-secretly hoping that he will elude capture since he’s such a great villain and be part of the season 15 finale.

Jessica’s car explosion was a car bomb (as Torres figured out from his days making car bombs when he was under cover) and even though there is no evidence yet that Hick’s is involved, we all know that his hands are all over this murder. As we suspected, Sloane came out of this with just a few cuts and bruises – a few inches closer and it may have been a different situation.

Torres and Bishop grab Hicks and bring him in for questioning, but he’s not sweating it. He claims that he stopped working with Jessica to let her concentrate on other clients since he was absolved of his crimes. Vance ends up cutting Hicks from questioning before they can get anything out of him since they really have nothing to hold him on. The smile on his face when he ran into Fornell and the chance to goad him about getting canned from the force was more than enough motivation for Fornell to want to nab this guy (not that he needed anymore motivation than he already had). Fornell is having a very difficult time keeping his cool in all of this… or is he? After punching Hicks and getting into a scrap with him, Fornell is able to plant a tracker on Hicks.

So are they up the creek with Hicks? Abby comes through and finds that a bug that was placed in Jessica’s phone and that Jessica had been in touch with Paul Triff – Hicks old cell mate. Can we just say that we were totally stoked to see French Stewart back on the show (we’ve loved him ever since his days on 3rd Rock from the Sun).

McGee and Sloan head to the prison to talk to Triff and he offers a trade: In exchange for information about a witness lose end that Hicks wants to tie up (as well as some evidence that Triff has on Hicks’ kills) Triff wants a 48 hour furlough, wants McGee to be his handler and lastly wants to stay at McGee’s apartment… Of course that’s a big no from McGee (and NCIS), that is until this lose end (Mary Smith) goes missing.

Once Triff gets what he wants, he gives them their first clue, telling them to really tear apart Hicks’ van. Once they have dismantled the entire thing, they find a murder weapon that has blood of 5 victims on it plus Hicks’ finger prints. Seems like a slam dunk now that Hicks is going to jail and our hope of seeing Hicks running lose until the season finale is starting to slip away.

Hicks is in the wind and Mary is returned back to the nursing home unharmed – using her as a distraction. What is Hicks up to? He wanted to get his hands on Fornell to make him pay for planting evidence on him and sending him to jail for ten years (also he has some serious daddy issues he’s been working out through murdering men).

Hicks loads up Fornell into the car and goes to McGee’s apartment where Triff tries to get into Hicks’ head about his daddy issues. Triff is trying to escape and gets Hicks close enough to the cage to hit him and get out, but not before taking a bullet to save McGee. Hicks runs out of the apartment and drives away with Fornell and we are sitting here asking ourselves one question… what was the point in Hicks going to McGee’s apartment at all? He wasn’t there to kill Triff, or McGee and he wasn’t there to get anything. Really he was just there to see Triff and give him crap.

Once on the road, Fornell becomes loose and was able to run Hicks off the road. Gibbs shows up in the nick of time and is able to taser Hicks and make the arrest dashing our dreams of Hicks in the season finale making everyone miserable. Triff is back in jail, but we are hopeful that we will see him again… especially since Triff thinks that he and McGee are family now – bonded for life.

Related – Check out a preview for episode 16!

CarterMatt Verdict

Having Hicks back on the show was such a treat and we’ve been excited about seeing his return ever since we first met him earlier this season. He did not let us down. He was just as smart and slick as he was when we first met him. Hicks’ interactions with Gibbs and Fornell were the stuff Emmy dreams are made of. Add to that an appearance from French Stewart who was just as brilliant as he always is and this was easily our favorite episode of the season.

What did you think overall about NCIS season 15 episode 15? Sound off now in the comments!

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