NCIS season 15 episode 16 review: What is in Jack Sloane’s tin box?

After last week’s episode of NCIS we are wondering how the show is going to top that this week. Last week’s episode was hands down our favorite episode of the season as it had two incredibly engaging villains in it – Gabriel Hicks and Paul Triff. They are both back in jail right now, but we are still hopeful that we will see them both again at some other point down the road (after all, Triff thinks that he and McGee are best buddies now). This week the show is moving in another direction and will once again be bringing in a high profile guest star in Drew Carey. We know him best for his comedy acting chops and his hosting abilities on The Price is Right, so seeing him in a more dramatic role is something we’ve been looking forward to ever since we heard he was coming on board the show.

The university is on spring break giving Ducky some free time, so he’s back working with Palmer on the latest case (and squaring away some time to share a scotch/bourbon with Gibbs later on). Can we just say that we have really missed having David McCallum on the show? It’s been fun seeing Palmer working on his own and he’s fully capable of it, but we love the interaction between the two – makes the morgue feel a little less lonely down there.

So let’s talk Drew Carey for a moment. As we mentioned we were really excited to see Carey on the show since it was going to give us a chance to see him working in a dramatic role. His character puts together care packages for sailors and one of the cookies in them killed someone. We didn’t expect him to be the killer (and he wasn’t), but it was so much fun to see Carey step outside of his normally comedic role and take on something like this. To be fair he had a joke or two in there, but it was within the natural flow of the conversation. This performance reminded us a lot of Robin Williams career where he was mostly known for comedic roles and then when he took on a few dramatic roles like in Good Will Hunting it was hard to see him in anything else.

Now let’s talk about another guest star in Jake Busey! He’s known for having a big personality in life (much like his father Gary Busey), so it wasn’t too far of a stretch to see him playing a big personality shock jock on the show tonight. That being said… Busey was fantastic and we completely bought everything he was selling.

This case brought out some more back ground on Sloane and some of what she went through. It was the first time we really saw a broken down version of Sloane and it was understandable after hearing some of the things she endured. We don’t know if the scars we saw on her back were part of that particular torture or something else, but this is a woman who as gone through some pretty terrible things and has found a way to cope (to some degree). We had a chance to see that things like that never fully leave a person and her connections to Carey’s character and his PTSD where haunting. Beautiful performances from these two, we loved every second they were on screen together.

Also, do you remember the tin box that Sloane found? Tonight we finally found out what was in her tin box and it seems related to what she went though. There were three winged patches in that tin box that looked like they said “Wingo” on them and earlier in the episode she was in Vance’s arms sobbing about some people she felt she could’ve saved… are these items related?

Related – Check out what’s coming up on episode 17!

CarterMatt Verdict

Last week’s episode was so chock full of meaty storylines and amazing guest stars that we knew this week was going to have a hard time keeping that up. This week’s episode did a great job bringing us back to basics for the show, giving us a solid story of the week and great guest spots from Carey and Busey. Maria Bellow had us sobbing right along with her and made us want to jump right through our TV screens and hug her so tight. Love a great performance like this.

What did you think overall about NCIS season 15 episode 16? Sound off now in the comments!

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