NCIS recap: 'One Step Forward'

NCIS recap: Season 15, Episode 21

When a woman is arrested following a scuffle at the Navy Yard entrance, it sends our agents careening toward a drug ring, a homeless shelter, a grumpy TV appearance, and a heck of a cliffhanger for Abby and Reeves.

Gibbs arrives at work in time to witness the arrest of Sara Carter, a veteran with a purple heart and a traumatic brain injury, who punches a security guard after demanding that NCIS investigate the death of her mother.

Mae Carter, also a veteran, was killed in a home invasion gone wrong a year ago, but the police had no luck solving the case. In desperation, Sara begs Gibbs. “I need you to take this case, and solve it. For her.”

Vance worries that cell phone footage of Sara’s arrest has gone viral, leading to intense scrutiny of NCIS’s actions. Undeterred, Gibbs says they’re taking the case and asks Torres to arrange for the transfer of evidence from Det. Olson, the cop who hadn’t solved the case.

Mae was a master-at-arms and command investigator who served in the Middle East before retiring to work as a parole officer. The suspect in her murder, Robert Flynn, was arrested breaking into a home on her block around the time of her murder, but Olson never uncovered evidence tying him to the crime.

Gibbs and McGee find Flynn leading one of his judge-ordered seminars on invasion-proofing your home. Flynn says he’s a burglar, not a murderer, although he heard two women loudly arguing when he cased Mae’s house before his arrest. Oh, and he just gave an interview to Diane Boyle, whose TV newsmagazine Profile 360 is doing a piece on the Mae Carter case.

Olson confirms that Mae and Sara fought prior to her death, and in the evidence boxes, Abby finds massive credit card bills in Sara’s name. When Reeves and Bishop arrive at the address Sara gave them to discuss this with her, they discover that she and her son Theo are actually living out of Sara’s vehicle.

Sloane and Reeves then deliver a PSA on the plight of female veterans, the fastest-growing segment of the homeless vet population. They’re less likely to be on the streets and more likely to be couch-surfing and living in cars because it’s safer for them and their children. Reeves says he’s been working with Final Salute, a program that helps homeless female vets and their families, so Gibbs allows him to be the one to join Sloane in questioning Sara.

Sara admits that her mother cashed in her 401(k) to start a photography studio but decided to use the money to pay Sara’s bills, which sparked the arguments. But when Reeves mentions Final Salute, Sara says they’re headed to live with her aunt in Texas once the investigation is over. Reeves gives her a prepaid cell phone in case she changes her mind.

Abby provides the next lead when she discovers that the killer removed something from Mae’s pants pocket after her death, and the ink transferred to the fabric. It turns out to be tracking numbers for shipping company Global Courier.

The employee NCIS speaks to looks up the one complete number they have and says it was sent to an Earl Kraft from mail-order pharmacy Veteran Alpha Care. It was marked as delivered, but Kraft reported that it was stolen from his mailbox.

Before Gibbs can ask more questions, Diane Boyle shows up with her cameraman to ask about NCIS agents mistreating Sara. Gibbs brusquely pushes the camera away, and McGee prompts the GC employee to kick her off their property.

The team then discovers that Mae bought gas and parked her car in a rough neighborhood shortly before her death. Reeves and Torres head into a nearby hostel to flash her picture, prompting Jax Wesley, the front desk employee, to bolt.

The two agents give chase with their usual competitive spirit, ribbing each other about who’s winning the race. Reeves takes the lead and gets close to taking down Wesley, but Torres pulls him back…just in time for Wesley to get hit and killed by a car.

Torres denies trying to save Reeves’ life, claiming, “I just can’t stand seeing you ahead of me.” Mmmmm, yes, I love the smell of testosterone in the morning. (Next: Just hand over your purse, Abbs!)

Gibbs and Bishop discover a gun and a cache of prescription pills hidden in Wesley’s desk, and Olson confirms that the police has been surveilling Wesley to learn the identity of his supplier. He further suggests that Mae could’ve been supplying the drugs, or buying them.

Turns out, Mae was hospitalized for an overdose in 1998, but Sara says no way was her mother involved in drugs at the time of her death. Then Gibbs tells her a story about taking Iraqi shoe polish home from the Gulf War as a reminder that everybody polishes their shoes the same way. In other words, we’re all human, including Mae. But Sara just accuses Gibbs of dragging her mother’s name through the mud and storms out.

The case advances when Abby matches Wesley’s gun to the bullets that killed Mae, although the police didn’t do a tox screen to determine if she had any drugs in her system when she died.

In other Abby news, she was randomly selected to dine with a guest at The Cooler, a hip new restaurant with an impossibly long wait for reservations. Naturally, the team falls all over themselves to bribe her with Abby-approved, Goth-friendly items, but Abby’s holding out for the most deserving of her friends.

And we’ve got a major contender when she finds Reeves making homemade pizza for the residents at the Final Salute H.O.M.E. program. He tells her he does it to honor his late mother, who was also homeless, and expresses his frustration that Sara won’t let him help her. Abby tells him to let his guard down so Sara will do the same.

Then Theo calls him on the burner phone to report that his mom’s being attacked. She manages to chase off the man who was rummaging through her car, but she took a beating in the process.

At NCIS, she tearfully tells Reeves that she’s trying to be a good mom to Theo, but work is hard to find (especially with a TBI) and she’s worried she’ll lose custody if she asks for help. Also, she doesn’t have an aunt in Texas, which means she doesn’t have a safety net to fall back on.

Reeves shares that his own mother struggled through something similar, which encourages Sara to confide that her own pills disappeared a few weeks before Mae died. Mae offered to call the insurance company, but now Sara’s worried that her mother was actually using again.

However, the team finds a record of the call Mae placed, and they learn that the insurance company accidentally emailed her the tracking numbers for all of their missing pill packages over the past year. Mae and the former investigator suspected a drug theft ring and tracked it to Wesley and his supplier, Sara’s likely attacker.

The supplier’s reasons for attacking Sara become clear when Gibbs reviews the Profile 360 footage, which features surveillance photos Mae took of Wesley talking to his supplier, who isn’t visible in the news footage.

Sporting a battered face, he lawyers up, but the team lays it out for him anyway: All the missing pills went through his warehouse, and Mae snapped photos of him selling to Wesley. So Wesley killed her and tossed her house but didn’t find the pictures. Then when they turned up on the news, the supplier decided to search Sara’s car.

Then a mugger corners them in an alley, pulling a gun and demanding money. Reeves hands over his wallet, but Abby offers to help, instead of giving up her purse. He goes berserk, asking if she thinks she’s better than he is, and as we fade to black, a gunshot sounds.

We’ve been cliff-hung, friends!

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