NCIS season 16 episode 3 review: Why won’t Vance return to work?
What we love about this season of NCIS so far is that some important departures have not been forgotten, like Reeves. On a procedural like this it’s easy to lose an agent and just move on from it in the next episode or two, but we have entered the next season now and Reeves death is still affecting both Torres and Bishop. We typically see Torres involved with fairly superficial personal storylines on this show, but now they are digging a bit deeper with him and that’s something we really appreciate. Not only that, but when he was ready to finally open up to someone, that person was Bishop and for all of you out there that are hoping these two will become a couple, this was another positive step in that direction.
NCIS videos: If you didn’t know CarterMatt has a YouTube channel where we love to discuss all things NCIS! Subscribe for more and take a look at our NCIS playlist. We will be bringing you new videos all about the show all season long, so make sure you don’t miss out.
Vance’s reluctance
Director Vance has been on medical leave from what happened at the beginning of the season and is supposed to be back to work, but instead he’s at home, giving his daughter Kayla a hard time even though she’s making him breakfast and doing what she can to help get him back to work. After going to physical therapy he’s been cleared to go back to work and is told he’s done with therapy, but he convinces them that he’s still in pain and needs another week and texts Gibbs to let him know. Is he nervous about returning to work, or is something else going on?
Kayla calls Gibbs for help since she knows something is going on with her dad not wanting to go back to work, and Sloane goes over and see what’s happening. Sloane calls him out on having a paralyzing fear of putting people in danger again after what happened and now he’s avoiding work, but he sticks to his story about his hip still hurting. She leaves a case file with him in hopes that it will spark his deep seeded want to help catch the bad guy. It worked and he’s back!
Also, is there a bit of a romance popping off? Vance met a woman named Mallory at physical therapy and asked her out… and she said yes!!! Boom, Vance romance! Unfortunately, this isn’t all about romance for Mallory… she’s actually working with a partner and spying on him. She has photos and is now getting close to him, but for what purpose?
Who is starstruck?
We had heard that someone on the team was going to be starstruck by a reality star in this episode and it wasn’t that easy to guess who it might be, but it turns out that McGee is the one that was stumbling over his words when he meets Sheba, star of the Real Wives of War. She is involved in the case of the week when a bomb is delivered to her house addressed to her husband. He suspects that it might be her because the week before she threatened to kill him saying that he’s having an affair. Even though he’s not having an affair he said he was in hopes that she would give him a divorce, but she won’t let him go. McGee is convinced that Sheba is innocent since that is her persona on the show, but when he sees her away from the cameras and how intolerable she really is he’s crushed.
Related: Check out a preview for what’s coming up next week!
CarterMatt Verdict
As a fan of many of the Real Housewives series on Bravo (in fact our Dog Coco Chanel Vanderwoof is named after Lisa Vanderpump from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills), this episode was a lot of fun for us, seeing Sheba’s persona on the show as well as how she acts away from it. It was a nice little fictional (maybe not so fictional) peek behind the curtain at reality television and how meeting someone you admire on TV can come with some consequences like it did for McGee.
We also really liked that NCIS didn’t just throw Vance back to work and showed how deeply this situation affected him. This is a very procedural show so having a multi-episode arc on any story doesn’t usually happen, but this Vance story needed more then one episode to happen.
What did you think of this week’s episode of NCIS and how are you enjoying the season so far? Leave us a comment below and tell us what you think! (Photo: CBS)