NCIS recap: Divorce is better than murder
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Skip one measly mandatory building safety meeting, and you just might be karmically punished with a weasely potential murder victim (and definite conspiracy nut).
The team's surprised when Felix Lassiter (Michael Kostroff) strolls into the big orange room to announce that someone's trying to murder him... and that someone is his wife, the secretary of the Navy.
First, his truck's brakes failed and he slammed into a tree but walked away unhurt. Then his apartment's carbon monoxide alarm went off. And finally, a green Cadillac with a dented fender almost ran him down.
Felix is sure it's his wife of 33 years, SecNav Tara Flynn (Carolyn Hennesy). For one thing, they're getting divorced. For another thing, she destroyed his vintage 1976 Lionel train set (he's a big train guy, natch).
The team's pretty sure those murder attempts are all coincidences, and Flynn's assistant confirms that Felix is a hot mess who once thought his wife was having an affair with the Sultan of Brunei (she wasn't, natch).
Vance (Rocky Carroll) also knows Felix as a conspiracy theory nut who's talked to him at length about robot birds. Consequently, he wants to keep this investigation quiet so SecNav isn't dragged through the mud over her soon-to-be-ex's rantings.
Yet when the team escorts Felix to the elevator, he collapses, frothing at the mouth.
CBS Gary Cole as FBI Special Agent Alden Parker and Wilmer Valderrama as Special Agent Nicholas “Nick” Torres
At the hospital, the doctor says Felix had a preexisting heart condition, and then Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) and Knight (Katrina Law) are summoned to meet with Felix and Flynn's daughter.
Arlene (Elise Eberle) says her dad's brilliant but complicated, and yes, her parents fight all the time, but she's not the one trying to kill him. Arlene's husband Victor (Jonny Rios) chimes in just enough for my finely honed senses, sharpened to a knife's point by literal decades of primetime crime TV viewing, to lumber to their feet and shout, "It's him! It's the son-in-law!"
The team needs more than my split-second, half-baked hunch to go on, though, and they investigate all the incidents. A mechanic couldn't tell if the brake line was cut or had rotted out. A witness says Felix did almost get hit, but he was walking awfully close to the road at the time. And his furnace has a hole, but again, it's not clear if it was rust or a screwdriver.
A grim-faced Kasie (Diona Reasonover) and Palmer (Brian Dietzen) finally find some evidence: Felix's blood contains a deadly Russian nerve agent that the Navy uses for research and only a select few people have access to. You know, like the secretary of the Navy.
Time to bring Flynn in for questioning. Nobody's happy to do it, but she's gracious, apologizing to Parker (Gary Cole) and McGee (Sean Murray) for the chaos Felix has caused and denying her involvement in any of it. "I want to divorce the man, not kill him," she says.
But she seems genuinely shocked to hear Felix was poisoned, and it gets her to admit that Felix has a gambling problem that wiped out their life savings and Arlene's college fund.
This sends McGee and Knight to the illegal casino run by Olav Koslov, a Russian bookie who just happens to own a green Cadillac with a dented fender. And he's played by Patrick Labyorteaux, who portrayed Bud Roberts for 10 seasons on Jag, as I'm sure many of you already knew.
Labyorteaux's all silvery beard and hammy accent as he denies his involvement in the attempts on Felix's life. It's his associate, Zero, who finally admits that Felix paid him $2,000 to run him over with Olav's Caddy. Zero even pulls up the text exchange, which is awfully full of emojis for a message from a man attempting to end his own life.
Zero says Felix jumped out of the way at the last minute and is surprised when he's arrested on a charge of murder for hire. Turns out it's illegal even if the victim hired you himself. Pesky American laws!
But Arlene says there's no way her dad sent those texts, as he never uses emojis or shorthand. Besides, her husband is Felix's Gamblers Anonymous sponsor, and Victor says there's no way Felix is still gambling.
Then why did Felix check himself out of the hospital, get in a taxi, swing by a sporting goods store to buy baseball cleats and two batting gloves, and have the cabbie drop him off in the middle of nowhere?
Torres had an idea based on his undercover days: Felix hopped a nearby freight train and checked into a hotel down the line to stay off the grid. You need good gloves and grippy shoes to hop trains like that, Torres says.
At the '50s throwback motel, Knight finds a guest named John Stevens. Recognizing the name of the father of the American railroad, they head to that room, where they find blood but no Felix.
At this point, SecNav loses her cool with the team, and Vance pulls her into his office. There, she collects herself and explains that she and Felix were an example of opposites attract in college, but their relationship didn't survive the demands of adult life. Still, he's a wonderful dad, and she wants him safe and well.
It's why she quickly signs off on Kasie's request to access Felix's hospital records in the hopes of matching them with the blood in the room. But the blood isn't his; it's extremely rare AB negative. And Flynn knows only one person with that blood type: son-in-law Victor. Vindication! I knew that guy was squirrely!
The pieces all fall into place. Victor's gambling again and in deep, and Arlene's the sole beneficiary of Felix's life insurance policy. None of those "accidents" were accidents after all. Geez, I hope the Flynn women take a hard look at their taste in men.
Now that it's safe for Felix to come out of hiding, he and Flynn have an affectionate reunion that's quickly undercut by his irritation about the time she destroyed his vintage Lionel train set. Ah, how quickly we fall back to our old habits once the threat of murder has passed.
Stray bullets
Gotta love it pt. 1: Torres telling the unhelpful motel clerk that the guy they're looking for is a serial killer of motel clerks.
Gotta love it pt. 2: Kasie's wall of masks. It's a nice little set-dressing reminder of what we've been through the past two and a half years.
Gotta love it pt. 3: Felix using a Swiss Army knife from Flynn to defend himself from Victor in the hotel. It's nice that she helped keep him alive in a way.
Gotta love it pt. 4: Patrick Labyorteaux having the time of his life as a Russian baddie.
Gotta love it pt. 5: Useless boxes are real!
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