NCIS / Tropes N to Z

NCIS contains examples of:

Tropes A-M | Tropes N-Z

---

N-O

• Name McAdjective: Tony's many nicknames for McGee, which he picks according to the circumstances. Examples include "McGoogle", "McBackstabber" and "McRomeo". This once confused McGee when Tony compared the condition of a body to the (discontinued) McDLT sandwhich. McGee thought it was another nickname that he didn't get.
  • Someone on YouTube has put together a 14 minute video of McGee's McNames.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: A suspected spy named Rudolph (which rhymes with Adolph) Stalin was looked at for planting a bug on the SECNAV, but it was really a military contractor who didn't like the fact that the SECNAV was a civilian (especially since he was also asked to be SECNAV and respectfully declined for the same reason).
• Nasal Trauma: In "Corporal Punishment", Team Gibbs is trying to find a PTSD-afflicted Marine who broke out of a psych ward. When they find him, the Marine attacks them as he believes they're the same enemies who captured and tortured him in Iraq; over the course of subduing him, Tony ends up getting his nose broken.
• Neat Freak: Agent Jardine
• Needle in a Stack of Needles: Ziva describes the task of finding a stolen defense system in a room full of computers as "looking for a needle in a needlestack". It was on what looked like an obsolete laptop with a suspiciously fast boot-up time; the guts were state-of-the-art.
• Nerds Speak Klingon: The Halloween Episode "Witch Hunt" provides the page quote. McGee is portrayed as a nerd and he translates when a guy wearing a costume for Halloween will only speak Klingon. Gibbs just gets annoyed and shoves the guy against the wall.
  Robert Miller: Hab SoSli’ quch!
  McGee: Boss, he just said your mother has a smooth forehead. It's a Klingon insult.
  DiNozzo: You speak Klingon?
  McGee: Not fluently, but yes.
• Never Found the Body: In Family First it is noted several times that there had been no body recovered at Ziva's farmhouse. In fact, several characters question whether she is in fact dead and there are several hints that she may not be. At the end of the episode, DiNozzo refers to Ziva in present tense with an implied wink. Ziva's supposed death is also an example of Bus Crash
  • The Season 16 episode She stops just short of fully confirming Ziva is alive. The case within the episode reveals that Ziva had personally been investigating a case originally ruled as suicide for years up until her supposed death, which eventually leads the team to finding a space Ziva had rented out and used as an office to store her files on the case. Ziva had written a letter to the man involved that she intended to read to him once he was finally caught. Bishop planned to do this in her place, but the man stopped her and told her that another woman had already done so. Upon investigating the office again, Bishop discovers Ziva's personal items missing and a note that reads "Eleanor Bishop, for the safety of my family, please keep my secret."
• Never Give the Captain a Straight Answer:
  • Much to Gibbs' annoyance, Abby loves to beat around the bush before giving her discovery. She claims it's because she's alone in the lab all day and if she didn't give a full explanation, Gibbs wouldn't appreciate the trouble she went through.
  • Ducky also has a habit of digressing into random reminiscences, though Gibbs is more prone to cutting off his babbling than Abby's.
  • McGee is also frequently guilty. Hilariously lampshaded somewhat in one episode:
    McGee: All right. I think I know what happened here.
    Tony: Oh, twenty bucks says McGee's about to say something nobody understands again!
    McGee: The GPS coordinates came bundled in a proprietary packet. Since it was a beta, I thought—
    Gibbs: I'm starting to think you can't help yourself, McGee.
  • In "Baltimore", Gibbs actually throws away one of McGee's reports because of the technical jargon he used.
• Never Heard That One Before:
  • In Season Two's "SWAK", Tony and Kate are quarantined at Walter Reed under the care of Dr. Brad Pitt, who is accustomed to explaining: 1) yes, that's really his name, and 2) no, he's no relation.^note Since the more famous Brad's real first name is William, this would not be impossible.
  • In Season Seven's "The Inside Man", Gibbs and Tony meet with a SEC investigator whose name is... Benjamin Franklin:
    Tony: Is that really your name?
    Ben: Yes, and I've heard every imaginable joke, so... spare me?
    • This doesn't stop Tony from trying, though.
  • In "Baltimore", McGee and Ziva are looking for Dao Huang, who turns out to be a Caucasian guy with a Russian accent. When McGee questions this, Dao rolls his eyes and explains that he was adopted by a Chinese couple who immigrated to Russia, indicating he gets a lot of questions about it.
  • In Season 12's "Grounded" Elle's husband Jake notes, with some exhaustion, he has heard "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown" "All my life, Mr. Mulwray".
    • Invoked by Tony in the same episode when he talks with Air Marshal Mike Beers and asks, after a tense introduction, should they grab "some [beers]." The guy acts like it was the first time he heard it and raises Tony's concerns. Turns out he is an imposter who killed the real Mike Beers.
• New Media Are Evil: Played straight in earlier seasons, but mostly subverted later. McGee's status as a die-hard gamer has proved useful more than once.
  Ziva: I spoke with the boy who saw the car. He said it was a "silver Kuruma," whatever that is...
  Gibbs: "Car."
  Ziva: What?
  Tony: "Kuruma" is Japanese for "car." Your description of the suspect's car? Is "car".
  McGee: The Kuruma is a car from Grand Theft Auto. It's a Chrysler Sebring.
• New Old Flame: Tony's ex-fiancee Wendy shows up mid-season 9. Whether she'll be the Romantic False Lead, or the actual Love Interest, was toyed with and eventually dropped.
  • Jessica's ex-boyfriend, Gage Winchester, a park ranger, appears in the Season 20 episode Leave No Trace. This creates an awkward situation between her, Jimmy, and Gage. Thankfully, Gage shows maturity and already knows she belongs with Jimmy by the end of the episode.
  • Vance has a zig-zagged version in the form of Lena Paulsen in the Season 20 episode Guardian. Despite this being Lena's only episode in the series, it is established that Vance had a yearly one-night-stand with her whenever he traveled to Germany some time after his wife's death.
  • Alden Parker has one in the form of a childhood girlfriend Joy Aaronson (Rachel Ticotin) introduced in the Season 20 episode Bridges. It is established that Parker never got over the circumstances that led to their break-up. By the time the episode starts, her son, Travis, stole Parker's identity, which leads to a reunion between the pair and an eventual arrest of two Russian spies. During the aftermath, Parker considers rekindling their romance after hearing that his ex-wife (a former FBI agent) deduced Joy's identity and paid her a visit without his knowledge.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands:
  • Abby, who completely alone can process forensic evidence for the whole building or has a relationship with someone with the required speciality. However, several episodes have featured her showing stress or fatigue from the demands of her job, so this isn't completely a God-Mode Sue situation.
  • To a lesser extent Ducky, who is now The Medic, performs autopsies, and generates psychological profiles when not working undercover.
    • Though, to be fair, he is shown in several consecutive episodes studying for his psychology exams with Palmer.
  • Ziva calls in a lot of favors. Then again, given her past, it's not that much of a stretch.
    • To the point where it seems if you exist in the NCIS universe, chances are good that Ziva has saved your life at least once.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain/Villain Ball: In the episode "Bloodbath" the money launderer would have gotten away with his scheme had he just let his lawyer do her work. Instead, he used his ill-gotten funds to pay for a man to stalk and then kill Abby, as she was the key witness his lawyer needed to discredit. The judge dismissed the money laundering case as he didn't think Abby's method, which hadn't been peer-approved, was a valid means to obtain forensic evidence, but because his hitman wasn't paid to keep his mouth shut, the launderer gets arrested for hiring the hitman.
• Noodle Implements: In season 9, Abby (as Palmer's Best Woman), is planning his bachelor party. She refuses to tell him anything about it and nobody else is giving anything away, either. We only get hints of the things that are required to pull it off, including 50 gallons of body wash and the autopsy saw (with the 20 foot cord; 15 is not long enough). Tony and McGee tell Palmer to make sure he's up on his hepatitis vaccination and bring a good pair of knee-pads and a helmet. When she approaches him to take him to the party, she is in a ringmaster uniform, top hat, and carrying a cattle prod.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The start of season four, when we were told that Tony had been regularly visiting Ziva's apartment, alone, at night, for no given reason. What were they doing?
  • Many of Ducky's stories get cut off before we get sufficient detail, becoming these. For instance, there was a story about a bachelor party that Gibbs would really rather he not tell Palmer about.
  • In "Hide and Seek", McGee accidentally runs over a custom golf club set that Ducky loaned him so he spends the whole episode trying to win a bid for a replacement set on eBay. When Ducky ends up finding out at the end of the episode, he sheepishly admits that the copy of the Crazy Rhythm Django Reinhardt album that McGee lent him met some unfortunate fate, so they can consider themselves even.
    McGee: It was autographed. What happened to it?
    Ducky: Good question.
  • In "Code of Conduct", Abby complained that costumes were no longer allowed in headquarters after "last year's Jonas Brothers Incident". All we learn is that it involved McGee in tight jeans, which Abby insists wasn't a good look on him.
  • During a flashback in "Truth or Consequences", Tony recalls being in a funk without Ziva on the team and only hearing cliche conversation pieces from the other team members. One of those conversations was Gibbs telling the team to get ready for this bizarre incident that is not discussed in greater detail afterward:
    Gibbs: Some idiot smuggled a koala onto a submarine, grab your gear!
  • In "Ships in the Night" the whole team is shown working long hours. Cue Abby's lab where there are no less than eight empty CaffPows sitting on her workstation, and another one in her hand.
    Agent Borin: Is this a record?
    Abby: No, we don't talk about the record. It got ugly.
  • When Ellie claims to have achieved what is apparently a very difficult sex position, the astonished Tony asks her if she's double-jointed. The guys are further amazed when she claims to have done so by accident. She starts to explain that she and her husband were on a camping trip, but gets cut off when Gibbs arrives.
  • In "Being Bad", Palmer accidentally reveals to Ducky that he once spent a night in jail during high school, but he's too embarrased to reveal why he had to do so in the first place.
  • Abby apparently has something called the "Two Month Rule", what it entails is never really explained, although the implication seems to be "if whoever she's dating doesn't do something within two months, they break up", in one episode where they first bring it up, she's almost reached the two month mark with the guy she's dating. At the end he brings her some black roses, she's pleased and he seems to have passed whatever the test was, although it's never explained if that was all that was required, or just one of the steps.
• No Sense of Direction: Ducky. He blames his assistants but he's always the one giving directions.
• Not Even Bothering with an Excuse: Jimmy comes into the office with an allergic reaction to henna on his back and asks for help to apply ointment. Tony's and Ziva's responses?
  Tony: I have to go to lunch.
  Ziva: I need to get the hell out of here.
• Not Me This Time:
  • This hilarious exchange in the opening of Act One of Season Six's "Murder 2.0":
    Tony: Run for your life, Probie! Run!
    McGee: What's going on?
    Tony: I'm just trying to save your life!
    McGee: What did you do?!
    Tony: [laughs indignantly] Why do you assume it's me...? That's a good point, but in this case, actually—
    Ziva: MCGEE!
    Tony: Too late.
  • In Season Eleven's Halloween Episode "Oil and Water" someone is pranking the team, such as wrapping McGee's desk up, putting a beeping device in Ducky's lab, and moving Abby's desk a few inches off its normal place. All suspect Tony as he is Tony and he hadn't been pranked. He claims it wasn't him and in the end, is pranked by having weights put into his pack and he tried picking it up unknowingly. In the end the prankster is Gibbs, who was beneath suspicion by the team.
• Not Proven: In one case, the perp is a gang leader, and the team know he killed a sailor and the previous leader, but can't prove it. So they showed the other gang members their evidence, mentioned that they would never get a conviction, and the leader shows up the next morning dead in a dumpster.
• Not Quite Saved Enough: Tony finally finds the beautiful but mysterious ZNN reporter who was uncovering info on her ex-KGB friend, but she's already been poisoned with ricin and dies not long after.
  • Also, Caitlin Todd.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • When Alejandro accuses Gibbs of being a murderer whose father was shot dead by a coward when Gibbs interrogates him following the attack on Abby on Clayton, Gibbs says the same thing about how Alejandro shot his own sister to death by accident.
  • Dearing tries to pull this on Gibbs, saying that both of them getting revenge for their families makes them alike. Gibbs doesn't even try to dignify this with a response in his Tranquil Fury, but his disagreement (and the audience's) needs nothing to be said given the series has long since covered that Gibbs isolated his vengeance to his family's assassin and wore the guilt of it ever since.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • Bishop thinks her husband might be cheating on her until she realizes that the woman she saw him with was from NSA's Internal Affairs department and thus concludes that he's in trouble at work. When she tries talking about him with it, he says that he's actually cheating on her with the woman from Internal Affairs.
  • In the Season 10 episode "Devil's Trifecta", Agent McGee and Diane Sterling are discovered in a rather compromising position on McGee's couch by Gibbs and Fornell. This is even given a Call-Back in the Season 12 Episode "Check", with Gibbs and his second ex-wife being discovered by Diane and McGee in practically the same position.
• Nothing Personal: Ex-CIA agent Kort says this to DiNozzo and claims Ziva's death was unintentional because he didn't know she was living on her father's farmhouse when he hired a hitman to bomb it. It kind of falls flat as he only targeted the place because Ziva's name came up in the investigation (Kort thought her father might have hidden info on his (Kort's) cover-up there).
• Obfuscating Postmortem Wounds:
  • In "UnSEALed", another coroner reported that two murder victims were killed by having their throats slashed. Ducky discovers that the throat wounds were post-mortem, clearly inflicted to conceal the fact that both victims were actually killed by having their necks broken.
  • In "Outlaws and In-Laws", two men were apparently killed by Gibbs's old friend Mike Franks, using his signature .45-caliber pistol. But when Ducky examines them he finds two bullets in each wound, a .45 and a .22. Working together, he and Abby figure out that the men were actually killed by .22-cal rifle bullets fired from some distance away, then Franks stood over the dead bodies and fired a .45 slug into each wound to make it look like he shot them, and conceal the fact that the killer was someone else.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Gibbs is no stranger to playing stupid, especially when dealing with smug characters who believe in their superior intelligence or power. Such as in season 10's "Canary" he purposefully messes up computer terms to make the guy think they are stupider than they are and trick him into their trap all the easier.
  • Tony, especially in later seasons. Even early on, it's implied that he's not as stupid as he acts. When undercover in "Chained," he is able to recall that people didn't live in Iraq 100,000 years ago, something he probably wouldn't have said in his "regular" persona. He also was able to come off as completely competent, fooling the guy he was cuffed to.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: In "Lost And Found", Tony is the only member of the team who doesn't notice what is screamingly obvious to everyone else: that the 12-year-old-boy they are temporarily responsible for is a miniature version of him in every respect:
  Tony: [in Carson's bedroom] Wait a second... No-o-o! No! [points to the bed] You know what this is? It's a Ferrari GTO, just like ''Magnum!
  Ziva: Yes, yes, just like Magnum...! But, Tony, doesn't he remind you of anybody?
  Tony: No, not really... I wonder if this comes in a king size?
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Tony deals with one at the end of season 10 in the form of his insurance company. After his third car is destroyed, by the villain of the season, they call him and say because this was the third car destroyed^note The first was stolen and totaled by the thief trying to evade police and the second one was blown up by a car bomb they plan on dropping him, despite none of those being his fault. Also, two of those were in the process of doing his job, and shouldn't be held against him.
• Office Romance: Played with several times, though none last very long. Abby and McGee date early in the series, Tony has a fling with another team leader in season 8, Abby goes on a date with a member from another team, etc.
  • It's explicitly stated in season 8's "Dead Reflection" that there is no rule that prevents NCIS agents from dating each other; they can even be married. However, it is against Gibbs' rules; his personal rule Number 12 is "never date a co-worker" and he frowns upon it in his team.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In "Mind Games", Paula Cassidy is caught by one of the episode villains, who binds her hands behind her back. The scene cuts away as he menaces her with a knife. At the end of the episode we learn that she killed him in the ensuing fight.
• Offscreen Teleportation: In the season 7 opener, Gibbs manages to snipe two baddies from what looks like a mile or more away. By the time McGee, Tony, and Ziva have managed to get out of their bonds, he manages to make it all the way to the building they were in, through combat right outside the building, and beating any of the SEALs who were in position around the building to finding and saving his team, in just enough time to save them, again, and have a Holy Backlight moment. That's not a complaint.
• Oh, Crap!: McGee telling Fornell that he "didn't" do anything to his ex-wife Diana.
  • In "Hiatus: Part 2", Ziva is conducting an interrogation with a witness whom she has intense hatred for. She sets her gun on the table. Alarmed, McGee asks Tony, who is in charge at the moment:
  McGee: That's not loaded, is it?
  Tony: Would Gibbs allow Ziva to carry a loaded weapon in there?
  McGee: No.
  Tony: And I'm not Gibbs, right?
  McGee: (Oh, Crap! expression)
  (Ziva picks up gun and points it at suspect's head)
• Old Soldier: Jackson Gibbs served in World War II.
• Ominous Hair Loss: "Dead Man Walking" begins with Lt. Roy Sanders arriving at NCIS headquarters to report his own murder, shedding a clump of hair in his hands as he does so; turns out he's been poisoned with thalium-laced cigars. Despite being given immediate medical care, he's been exposed too long to recover, and dies shortly after the episode's end.
• Omniglot: Ziva speaks ten languages, including the language of love.
• Omniscient Database: Lampshaded in "False Witness" when there is a national database for the DNA of wild turkeys and both Abby and Gibbs find it weird. (Truth in Television; such a database really does exist.)
• Once a Season: As of season 7, one autumn episode will involve CGIS Agent Abigail Borin (Diane Neal).
• Once Killed a Man with a Noodle Implement: Ziva David boasted that she can kill a man eighteen different ways with a paperclip. And from the episode "Jet Lag":
  Ziva David: And plastic silverware is not as safe as you may think. I once killed a man with a credit card.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Happens in S3 E17. Abby is dwelling on the fact that Gibbs apparently forgot her birthday, while McGee is telling her they've just uncovered a Serial Killer. Hilarity Ensues.
  McGee: If our missing woman fits the same profile, we could be dealing with a Serial Killer. One who uses park accidents to cover up abductions and murder. So what do you think?
  Abby: (staring off into space) I'm not sure yet, McGee. But I think...that this might be unforgivable.
  McGee: (confused) Well, yeah, of course it's unforgivable.
  Abby: What if he had a really good reason?
  McGee: A good reason?
  Abby: Yeah, like if he was really stressed out, or overworked -
  McGee: What difference does that make?!
  Abby: Nobody's perfect.
  McGee: Abby, there is no excuse.
  Abby: (hugs him) McGee, that's so sweet! [McGee looks thoroughly confused] You know what, it's just a stupid birthday. Who cares if Gibbs forgot.
  McGee: We - I - uh - guess that I do.
  Abby: That's why I love you.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. We have Abigail Sciuto and CGIS Agent Abigail Borin. Upon meeting for the first time, they simultaneously introduce themselves as "Abby". In order to avoid confusion, Borin is addressed by her last name or occasionally her full first name, with Abby Sciuto sometimes calling her "Other Abby" for fun. The two have also been collectively referred to as 'Abbs-es'.
  • Gibbs was named after Leroy Jethro Moore, an old friend of his father's. In episodes where he appears, the elder Leroy is addressed as "L.J." to avoid confusion.
  • Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, Jr. was named after his father: Anthony DiNozzo, Sr. The elder is addressed as "Senior" by the other characters while the younger is either "Tony" or "DiNozzo".
• Only a Flesh Wound: Averted. Characters who get shot are still recovering several episodes later, and even a hit to a bulletproof vest leaves a painful bruise. One supporting character (Gerald, Ducky's original assistant), deliberately shot through the ball-and-socket joint in his shoulder by Ari, never fully recovers from his injuries and retires on a disability pension.
  • Played annoyingly straight in Episode 200. See Hollywood Healing above.
  • Averted throughout season 13 after the end of the episode "Neverland," when Gibbs gets shot twice by Luke Harris.
• Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: In most of the interrogations of suspects, the issue of lawyers doesn't come up, but it does happen occasionally. This is a crime drama afterall.
  • Oddly enough, despite what has been implied on a few episodes, military personnel actually have more protection from self-incrimination than civilians. Not only do the 5th and 6th Amendments apply equally to them, they are also covered by Section 31 of the UCMJ, which has almost identical language in it.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: "Ducky", whose real name is Donald Mallard. About the only person who calls him "Dr. Mallard" are his assistants, while his mother is the only person to consistently call him "Donald".
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • At the beginning of "Kill Ari Part 1," the entire team is still feeling raw about Ari killing Kate, but what really drives it home for McGee and DiNozzo is the fact that Gibbs offers to get them coffee.
  • Abby doesn't usually turn off her rock music as much as turn it down, so it's kind of scary when she switches off her stereo to yell at Ziva.
  • Really, Abby personifies this trope. Whenever she's not her normal nice, upbeat self, it's a good sign things are really bad.
  • When Gibbs returns to the office after being shot by The Calling everyone is intrigued by the fact that he seems to care a little more about his appearance (he got a hair cut and wears a buttoned-up shirt and blazer).
• Orphaned Setup: Not really a joke but in one episode Quinn tells the group she had an Erotic Dream about Gibbs and starts to describe it, saying in the dream she was at work when Gibbs came up to her, knocked on her desk and said "Do you know what kind wood that is?", however, she gets interrupted and never goes back to explaining it, meaning we never find out what the sexy part was.
• ...Or So I Heard: The team find the website for a speed-dating event the victim went to. McGee explains the event...rather eloquently. Upon noticing the odd looks, he says this trope verbatim.
• Out-of-Character Alert: A distraught schoolboy holds his classmates hostage so someone - it happens to be our team - will find his ostensibly dead mother. Gibbs lets himself be taken, and Tony later tells the boy that Special Agent Caitlin Todd is looking for his mother. Out of earshot, when asked how he's going to tell Gibbs the kid's mother is dead, Tony replies that he already has: Special Agent Todd *is* dead.

P-T

• Pac Man Fever:
  • Played painfully straight in "The Immortals". For one thing, it seems to be confusing online Dungeons & Dragons games, with MMORPGs... and, most MMORPGs are pretty damn easy to trace...
  • Subverted in "Bete Noir", when Gibbs asks if Kate and Tony checked the computer of the man whose house they were sent to search. Kate says he didn't even have a Game Boy. Tony points out a GameBoy is a handheld system, and she's thinking more of an Xbox or PlayStation 2.
  • Also Subverted with Killscreen. The information given about killscreens is completely accurate, but killscreens are almost non-existent in modern games because of how they are designed and don't consist of a single screen as how killscreens are explained in the episode.
  • As a rule, this is averted wherever there's a throwaway reference or gag, as these tend to be pretty accurate. If any aspect of gaming or IT is central to a plotline, however, expect excruciating levels of this trope. (It is suspected that the writers are trolling the audience when they do this, as some of the reviews of the above-mentioned "Killscreen" speculated.)
• Papa Wolf:
  • Gibbs.
  • Mike Franks can be considered a Grandpa Wolf.
• Parental Betrayal: Eli David, hands down.
• Parental Neglect: Tony's father. Tony has a strained relationship with his father owing to this neglect; one glaring story involves a young Tony being left at a hotel in Maui for days. His father finally remembered he'd left Tony there when he received the room service bill. On top of that, Tony was shipped off to various boarding schools shortly after the death of his mother, while DiNozzo Sr. remarried several times.
  • Ducky's father worked a lot but his stepmother takes the cake: she ditches her son and stepson on Christmas Eve (her son's cool with it "I thought she'd never leave"); it's later revealed she was getting surprise divorce papers and leaving the country with her son purely to spite the Mallard men.
• Passing Judgment: Jimmy is often on the receiving end by virtue of being unbelievably terrible with his choice of words. He usually says just one thing that turns out to be highly irreverent and gets a really dirty stare from Gibbs or an appalled look from Ducky, sometimes both at the same time.
• Passing the Torch: In "Bears and Cubs", Ducky decides it's time for him to retire. While the next episode, "Silent Service", has Ducky stay at NCIS as the part-time Historian, Palmer still takes over as the Chief Medical Examiner.
• Percussive Maintenance: Being old school, Gibbs will naturally resort to this at times. One memorable example is in the season 10 episode "Hit and Run," where Abby has called in sick, (but she was really having bad memories that interfered with her work) leaving a flustered McGee to run her lab, and when Major Mass Spec acts up, Gibbs starts smacking it.
• Perky Goth: Abby, and her actress, Pauly Perette, in Real Life.
• Perp Sweating:
  • Oh, can Gibbs make them sweat. One of the best examples involves taking the suspect down to Ducky's area to "prep" him. It involves Ducky and Gibbs telling the guy exactly how he's going to be dissected. This is after Gibbs kills the guy and makes it look like a suicide, which it is heavily implied that he wouldn't hesitate to do if the guy didn't cooperate.
  • Sometimes, when Gibbs can't make them sweat, he gives Ziva a turn. Ziva's presence is also occasionally used by Gibbs as a threat: 'Cooperate with us or we'll extradite you to Israel'. This is used on those who would really, really rather not end up in the custody of the Mossad.
    • What makes Ziva's interrogations work is almost never shown on-screen, but it tends to quickly reduce the perp to a crying wreck. In one fairly early episode with a female accessory who won't talk, Gibbs locks her in her office with Ziva. In the next scene, as they're interrogating her, Ziva just slowly, calmly walks around her; the woman is a weepy, trembling mess and flinches like she's been shocked when Ziva lightly touches her neck. In the one instance where we do see her at work (in "Hiatus," after Gibbs is caught in the bomb blast), Ziva harshly interrogates the Turkish ship captain... at gunpoint.
  • Ducky has also broken several people just by explaining anatomy to them. (e.g. "This is how we cut your torso open", and "this is what happens to your skull when a bullet enters the back of your head.")
  • Tony, meanwhile, prefers to annoy suspects into submission. He's very good at it; in the season six finale he manages to get the better of Ziva's father (Eli David, the director of Mossad) this way.
    • Bonus points because Tony was the one being interrogated, and still managed to get Eli to spill more than he did.
  • Even McGee gets in on this.
    • In one episode, he informed a suspect that, as a known member of a gang suspected of terrorist ties, the Patriot Act says that he can be held at their discretion, and he doesn't have to be charged with anything, ever. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter, since the guy believed it. And Gibbs once used McGee as a blunt weapon for the same purpose; he had McGee come in and dryly rattle off a list of consequences, his banal, matter-of-fact delivery making them far scarier than any emotionally delivered threat.
    • McGee also had the luck of interrogating a teenage bully...the same kind that picked on him in high school. McGee basically gets buddy buddy with him, discussing the fun of tormenting geeks, then goes scary real fast when he reveals he was the geek in high school, and now he has the gun, badge, and paperwork know-how to make the bully go away for a long time unless the kid tells him where he found the victim's phone, and he's going to enjoy it. We still don't know if he was serious.
    McGee: Do me a favor. When you're crying and shivering on your cell bed after a hard day of beatings, I want you to think of me.
  • It's so prevalent that the team actually bets on what kind of interrogation strategy Gibbs will use next.
    McGee: So how do you think he's going to break her down? What's the style?
    Tony: He's leading with the Creepy Uncle, but I think he's going to with the Father Figure You Can Trust.
    McGee: Nope, that doesn't feel right. I'm gonna go with the classic, in your face Gibbs, The Intimidator.
    • They do the same thing when Tony is interrogating a suspect. Gibbs wins the bet.
    • In one of the first Season 7 episodes, as they're breaking in a possible replacement for Ziva, Tony starts speaking in tandem with Gibbs while observing.
  • Lampshaded in "Murder 2.0" when the suspect is literally sweating and complaining about how hot it is in the interview room while Gibbs is just talking to him, leading Tony to comment with pride on Gibbs' skills. Turns out the suspect had been poisoned, causing extremely elevated blood pressure and a shortly-ensuing heart attack.
  • In "Identity Crisis," Gibbs and Fornell double-team an interrogation.
    Gibbs: The worst mistake you made...
    Fornell: You tried to shoot our agents.
    [Fornell gets up and takes off his jacket]
    Gibbs: Hey, let me hang that up for you, Tobias
    [Gibbs tosses Fornell's jacket over the security camera while Fornell rolls up his sleeves; cue the Oh, Crap! look on the suspect's face as he realizes he's in serious trouble]
• Person as Verb:
  • Tony, frequently.
  • In her first outing with the team, Tony comments that Bishop "...pulled a Palmer..." referring to Palmer's Ram Job.
• Pet the Dog: Any time Gibbs is shown interacting with children, and his more gentle moments with Abby.
  • Used in a literal sense at one point. Gibbs sat on a park bench in the pouring rain because he put the dog that was sleeping under the bench in the nearby gazebo so it wouldn't get even more wet. He wouldn't sit in the gazebo with it because it smelled like...well, a wet dog.
  • Another literal one with McGee and Jethro (nee Butch), the German Shepherd he shot (in self-defense). McGee was wary of Jethro for the whole episode; at the end, when Jethro is vindicated and Abby's landlord has said "no dogs", Abby makes an impassioned speech to a reluctant Tim about how Jethro is the dog McGee has been wanting to get for a long time. A later episode shows that Abby did eventually succeed in this little campaign, and McGee has a very loving relationship with the dog.
  • And yet another literal one in the episode "Seek", with Gibbs' interactions with Dex the military dog. At the end of the episode, he declares with the utmost respect and sincerity:
  "That's not a dog. That's a Marine."
  • And yet another in "Caught On Tape". When the team gets into a shootout with a suspect who's made it abundantly clear that he won't surrender, Gibbs pauses to whistle to the man's dog (who he'd befriended earlier in the episode) so that the animal will run out of the house to safety.
• Pillow Pistol: Tony teases Kate for sleeping with a gun under her pillow, though Gibbs is impressed. Ziva has also been shown to sleep with one hand on a gun hidden beneath her pillow.
• Playboy Parody: Tony Di Nozzo has a subscription to "Get Some Magazine", or GSM, which is occasionally compared to Playboy.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Tony in the first few seasons. This gets lampshaded early on, with the trope even mentioned by name (that one about McGee though).
• The Pollyanna: Luca, Abby's younger brother "the one [she] grew up with" not the long-lost biological one has ridiculously good faith in people. This has led him to be suckered into at least one Ponzi scheme and in the cross-over with NCISNOLA he is unshakably certain that Ava, a woman he's let into his home and has a crush on, is a good person despite everyone telling him she's isn't due to the fact that she is a Russian spy, hid listening devices, guns, and money in his apartment, drugged him and left him in a motel, and used him as bait for an assassin. Turns out he's actually right and she was doing everything to prevent the Russians from getting top secret technology.
  • All-Loving Hero: He nearly sets an oyster bar on fire, among other roadblocks, just to help Ava.
  • He points out that his habit of "helping strays" must be biological since his parents took in Abby, "sight unseen".
  • Good Is Dumb: He trusts everyone... except both series' agents who are trying to protect him and uses every anti-tracking trick his sister taught him to evade detection. Granted he was initially afraid that he had accidentally killed the victims-of-the-week with food poisoning and later could not believe that an innocent domestic violence victim could be involved in mass murder.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot:
  • "Legend" is a pilot for NCIS: Los Angeles.
  • NCIS itself was born from the JAG two-parter "Ice Queen/Meltdown".
  • "Crescent City" is a pilot for NCIS: New Orleans
• Precious Puppies: Dogs have featured in a few episodes, but Mortimer, the rescue-dog-in-training Golden Lab puppy takes the cake. He even cheers Ducky up after his mother dies.
• Pregnant Badass:
  • The female assassin Ziva impersonates in "Undercovers" is discovered to have been pregnant before being fatally wounded in a car accident. Hilarity Ensues when Ziva decides to share this bit of information with Tony (impersonating the female assassin's also-dead husband), who is in the middle of hitting on another woman. The look on Tony's face when Ziva ends her phone call and tells him "I'm pregnant, Tony" in a complete deadpan voice is just priceless.
  • Presumably Ziva was one as well when carrying Tali, her daughter that resulted from a fond farewell Tony.
• Pretender Diss: In Season Nine's "Secrets", when a group of "real-life superheroes" are brought in for questioning:
  "Spandaxia": We would appreciate a little professional courtesy!
  Tony: [over personal loudspeaker] You are not professionals!
• Pretty Little Headshots:
  • Several instances, most notably when Caitlin Todd is sniped by Ari, although a squib on the back of her head can be seen going off, and in "Kill Ari" it's stated that the back of her head was pretty much gone.
  • Averted in "The Good Wives' Club" with the perp's suicide.
• Professional Killer: Ziva's father trained her to be a Mossad operative starting as a child; by the time she reaches NCIS, she is an efficient assassin.
  • Gibbs used to be a sniper and uses it to his advantage on at least one occasion during the series.
• Prohibited Hero Saves the Day: At one point Jimmy Palmer is with the team as they pursue the criminal of the week. Gibbs orders Jimmy to stay in the car (obviously intending for Jimmy to not be The Load). When the criminal gets in his truck to make a getaway, Jimmy rams him with the car he was forbidden to leave. Jimmy points out the Exact Words to Gibbs afterwards.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: After eight years with the show, Brian Dietzen was finally upgraded to a series regular for season ten.
• Promotion to Parent:
  • Ducky wanted to adopt his much younger half-brother; Tony and McGee note that it would've been great if Ducky had been their father/s.
  • In a more straight example, Jimmy Palmer and his wife Breena eventually have a baby of their own.
  • Tony resigns from NCIS when he finds out he is the father of Ziva's child, who is placed under her care when Ziva fakes her death. Ziva herself eventually rejoins him several seasons later.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • McGee never tells anyone where he works. He'll give out cell numbers, pages, etc., but he never mentions NCIS. Which is how he knows, when his new girlfriend shows up to pick him up after work, that she's not who she says she is. Overlaps with I Never Said It Was Poison.
  • Abby taught her brother Luca how to avoid detection from the government if he was in trouble. She would know—
    Abby: I am the government.'''
• Protagonist-Centered Morality:
  • There are a lot of "justified" extra-judicial killings on this show, even for a Post-9/11 Terrorism Show. Revenge killings are always justified if it's Gibbs taking the shot. In an early season, he arranges for the death of a suspect whose guilt they know but can't prove, by making sure the suspect's gang would be angry enough at his deception to kill him. Whether or not these actions are deserved is up to the viewer to decide, but it can be jarring when you remember that these are supposed to be law enforcement personnel.
  • In the Season 13 premiere, Gibbs heads to a prison to interrogate a man who had a connection with the terrorist that shot Gibbs last season. When Gibbs realizes that the prisoner is no longer in contact with the terrorist and doesn't have the info he needs, he stabs the prisoner in the arm with his pen, severely injuring him. Not only is Gibbs allowed to walk out like nothing ever happened, but when Vance finds out, he just gives a Death Glare to Gibbs, says they'll "talk about this later" and the matter is dropped entirely.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "I am one of the few people, in the world, who can kill you and leave no...forensic...evidence."
• Punny Name: Donald Mallard - a mallard is a duck...in other words, Donald Duck. Lampshaded time and again in the series as the explanation for his nickname, Ducky.
  • The first NCIS Director in the series, from the JAG pilot to the start of season 3, was named Thomas Morrow. Or rather, "Tom Morrow"... tomorrow.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Thomas Morrow, the NCIS Director when the show started, leaves at the beginning of Season 3.
  • Tony leaves at the end of Season 13 to take care of his daughter.
  • Ziva was originally killed off, but eventually revealed to be alive. She eventually plays this straight at the end of Season 17 to join Tony.
  • Alexandra Quinn left in Season 15 to focus on caring for her sick mother.
  • Abby also left in Season 15 in order to head a non-profit organization Reeves was going to make.
  • Jackie Sloane decides to stay in Afghanistan to help three girls rescued by the Taliban in season 18.
  • Eleanor Bishop leaves at the end of Season 18 to go on a dangerous undercover mission.
  • Gibbs leaves at the fourth episode of Season 19 to retire permanently from NCIS after arresting a corrupt businesswoman.
• Putting On My Thinking Cap: In Season Twelve's "Scope", Abby fashions a literal thinking cap, by combining her hardhat and a hydration pack loaded with two jumbo Caf-Pows. Palmer decides to try on the cap:
  Bishop: We have to shut [the airport] down.
  Gibbs: Or not.
  Palmer: If we shut it down then Cross will know we're on to him, if we leave it open we know where he'll be. (pulls a "Did I Just Say That Out Loud?" face)
  Gibbs: What He Said.
  Palmer: (to Abby) This thing really works!
• Ramming Always Works: After being targeted by an assasin, Palmer drives out to where the suspect is thought to be hiding. He sees the suspect preparing to drive away. Palmer takes this as his cue to attampt to stop said suspect. Although Palmer's car is totaled, the suspect is caught before he can get away.
• Rapid-Fire Typing: Anything can be done by quickly typing on the keyboard - which, strangely, always generates the same sound effects. In one episode, the computers in Abby's lab are attacked by a hacker. The best way to respond? Both Abby and McGee rapidly hit keys on the same keyboard to literally type fast enough to fight the hack. It's still ineffective, until Gibbs comes up with a simpler solution; unplug the computer.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: In "Viral", Tony has a bad run-in with some poison oak:
  Tony: So on a scale of one to ten, how bad is it?
  Ducky: Let's just say the scale needs recalibrating.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Kate's death was either because Sasha Alexander is completely exhausted due to the grueling schedule.
  • Pauley Perrette's nightmarish divorce from ex-husband Coyote Shivers may or may not have been the basis for the plot for "Bloodbath," where the team has to deal with Abby's stalker ex-boyfriend, but the parallels are impossible to deny.
  • "Honor Thy Father", which centers around Gibbs coming to terms with the death of his father, was written because Ralph Waite, the actor who played Jackson Gibbs, had died a few months previously.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic are depicted throughout season 18.
• A Real Man Is a Killer: Inverted. McGee and DiNozzo are capable of killing, and Gibbs is an expert, but Ziva boasts about her talents enough to make everyone, including the male characters, mildly uncomfortable.
• Real Men Take It Black: Gibbs is also known for drinking black coffee. It comes with being a former marine. When Tony takes over Gibb's position during Gibbs 10-Minute Retirement, Tony also starts drinking black coffee. Non Action Girl Abbie prefers soft drinks.
• Reckless Gun Usage: S10 Ep 16 "Detour" has Palmer (no actual firearms training) with a handgun, which he rather casually waves around. Fortunately, Ducky (military training from many decades past) carefully redirects it away from his face.
• Recruiters Always Lie: The Victim of the Week in one episode was an unscrupulous Marine recruiter who made promises that he knew would never be met, such as promising one recruit that he would be trained as a medic. As Gibbs points out, the Marine Corps doesn't have medics; they use Navy corpsmen.
• Red Herring: In "Obssession", the viewers are led to believe that the culprits are PMC goons, when in fact it's an ex-KGB operative that's responsible.
  • Similarly, the opening of "The Engagement Part 2" had DiNozzo arriving at the church with the chaplain and her father asking what the result of the mission to rescue Flores is, and the scene then cutting to the interior of a Marine transport plane with Gibbs and the others inside looking at a marine burial coffin, leading the viewers to believe that they failed their mission and Flores was killed. However, the episode later reveals that they actually succeeded in their mission, and the marine burial coffin actually belonged to her commanding officer, who was killed in action by a gunshot to the neck.
• Red Herring Mole: Brent Langer.
  • The entire Season 8 finale/Season 9 opener dealt with this: DiNozzo was assigned to track down someone leaking NCIS secrets (involving Watcher microchips), and the target is seemingly Special Agent EJ Barret. It is later revealed to be Special Agent Simon Cade, but then not only did he reveal that he was actually framed, but the entire thing was actually staged as a trap to kill all of them, although only Cade actually bit the dust, as Barret, while wounded, went into hiding, and DiNozzo was hospitalized with amnesia that was presumably brought about from getting grazed in the head.
• Redemption Equals Death:
  • The ultimate resolution of the season six "mole hunt" plotline.
  • Jonathan Cole in the Season 9 finale, although he unfortunately wasn't able to start bomb disposal before Dearing detonated it.
  • Captain Wayne died fighting against the sniper of his mole's organization, giving Gibbs a chance to stop a corrupt business man.
• Reference Overdosed: Justified in that many of the characters are pop culture savvy, from Tony being a movie buff, to McGee being a gamer and internet surfer.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: The episode "Dead Air" featured MAH (Military At Home), a group of isolationist Americans. A faction of MAH plot an attack to destroy some unmanned equipment, which our heroes need to stop. It turns out that the splinter group had another more extreme splinter group who are planning to attack a softball game that has the daughters of high-government officials playing.
• Replacement Goldfish: In the literal sense. Tony keeps actual goldfish as pets, one of which is named Kate after his partner of the same name who was killed early in the series. Later, when Ziva leaves the team to stay in Israel, he names the other after her.
• Retcon:
  • Very likely at least one element of the Ari plotline.
  • The friendship between Gibbs and FBI agent Fornell - in "Yankee White", the first episode, Fornell doesn't appear to know Gibbs at all, but in subsequent Fornell appearances they're implied to be longtime acquaintances if not perhaps not-quite-friends. There's also Fornell's dickish behavior in the same episode, while Gibbs is fairly affable, which has flip-flopped as the show's gone on.
  • Fornell was married to one of Gibb's ex-wives, and even had a child with her. Gibbs states in that episode that he warned Fornell about what kind of woman she was, as Fornell and Gibbs' ex-wife were also exes.
• Retirony: Played with in "Pyramid". When EJ is escorting Cobb, the P2P Killer, she runs into Palmer and they briefly talk about how he is getting ready to marry. When Cobb manages to escape two seconds later, guess who gets taken hostage?
  • Vera Strickland from "Under The Radar" is fully aware of this trope. When Gibbs tells her to help Tony out on a case, she loudly protests, using Tony's tendency to attract injury and that she is weeks away from retirement as reasons why she'd rather stay in the office. Vera ends up being nearly run over and needing crutches soon afterwards. At least HR expedited her retirement paperwork due to her injury.
• Reverse Psychology: Tony and McGee blatantly use it to hide the fact that they want to go on an overseas assignment. Gibbs knows what's going on and just rolls his eyes and lets the two sort it out for themselves.
• Secret Compartment: In "False Start", the team discovers that Navy Admiral Henry Davis' writing desk has a hidden compartment full of performance-enhancing steroids. Given Davis' work as a coach for athletes who compete in military and world events, it turns the murder investigation into a drug hunt.
• Sexiness Score:
  • In "Deception", Tony and Ziva get into a small argument over Lt. Commander Wilkinson's hotness and Tony rates her a perfect "10" due to her "incredible figure", which causes Gibbs to slap both in the back of the head.
  • In "High Tide", Bishop has to go undercover as a Dirty Harriet and is rated a "hard ten" by the perps for her looks.
• A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma: Tony refers to Abby in the season 8 episode "Two-Faced" as "A paradox wrapped in an oxymoron, smothered in contradictions in terms."
• Right Behind Me: Gibbs catches virtually everyone, especially Tony, with this all the time, bordering on Stealth Hi/Bye.
  • Other characters also do it occasionally; Ziva to Tony, and Tony to McGee, especially when he's emulating Gibbs in Gibbs's absence. Vance does it now, too.
  • Even Abby get caught by some of this, thanks to Fornell and Diane.
  • Bishop gets told early on that subverting this trope by warning others about Gibbs being behind them is unauthorized.
  • As more-or-less Distaff Counterparts of Gibbs, Lt. Col. Hollis Mann and CGIS Agent Abigail Borin are nearly as good at this as Gibbs himself and use the trope frequently — often in tandem with Gibbs.
• Ripped from the Headlines:
  • In "Truth or Consequences" (7x01), the team find a terrorist leader by tracking down his Western soda shipments. Two Pakistanis supposedly bought large orders of Pepsi and Coke for bin Laden, though he was actually located by tracking his courier, officially.
  • In "Dead Air" (8x05), the bad guys plan a terrorist attack on a baseball game attended by politicians, much like the Alexandria softball shooting.
  • "Recruited" (8x12) was written in the wake of the repeal of the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
  • TPTB were inspired to write "Seek" (10x18)after seeing a picture of a military dog lying at the coffin of his handler]. The episode even ends with a nearly identical shot.
  • The episode that introduced Ellie ("Gut Check", 11x9) opened with a presentation on the Zumwalt-class destroyer, a real Navy warship class, the first vessel of which completed construction a month before the episode aired. However, the list of companies involved in building it mentioned at the end of the presentation is entirely fictional.
  • Season 18's "Blood and Treasure" was a real life reference to Fenn's Treasure, first profiled on Expedition Unknown.
• Rip Van Tinkle: In "Boxed In", Tony and Ziva get locked in a dockyard shipping container for most of a day/24 hours. When they're set free, Ziva's first action is to head directly for the ladies' room, an intention she explains in tones that promise mayhem for anyone who gets in her way.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • Gibbs takes off on one of these when Ari kills Kate. He also went on one when his first wife and daughter were murdered.
  • Tony gets one of his own in season 7 when Ziva goes missing. Technically the whole team could count, but especially Tony. After learning of her (misreported) death, Tony has a Heroic BSoD. When he comes out of it, he becomes relentless in his hunt for the person responsible. While being held by Saleem and asked why he came, Tony specifically pinpoints revenge as his motivation for being there.
  Saleem: You were driving the desert with out back up. So what are you doing here?
  Tony: Well Saleem, there's only one force on Earth that can short circuit a man's better instincts, put fire in his veins, makes him dive head long into danger with no regard for his own well being... Vengeance, Saleem. I'm here to kill you.
  • An ex-MI6 agent is after the team (not "our" team though of course they're involved now) who killed his wife — or at least that's what he told his fellow prison escapee — and he started in a big way kidnapping current Director Vance to get info and killing former director Tom Morrow, number one on the list of people involved in the wife's death. However he never personally killed anyone — the prison guard had an allergic reaction and her boyfriend, the other escapee, killed two people on a grief-fueled drug binge. As for the other murders it was actually recurring character CIA agent Kort covering up his framing of the MI6 agent and his wife.
• Room Full of Crazy: In "Cracked".
• Rule #1: Gibbs's various rules, cited by the characters throughout the show. He originally had 50 of them, although he later adds a 51st. Later revealed in flashback to have been inspired by his first wife, on the day they met. The Season 7 finale has him adding "Rule Fifty-One". Ziva has requested that Gibbs write them down; only for Tony to rebut this by pointing out that while most are for day-to-day use. The ones in the forties are reserved for emergencies.
  • There are actually two Rule Number 1s, and two Rule Number 3s. Word of God is this was intentional. While Gibbs has his own rules, his mentor Mike Franks told him he only needs three golden rules. The other Rule Number 2 has yet to be revealed, and the writers are letting the viewers determine which are Gibbs' rules, and which are Franks'.
  • CGIS Abigail Borin a Distaff Counterpart to Gibbs, unsurprisingly, has her own rules. Her rule number one is "Never make excuses."
• Rule of Three: McGee warns Bishop to be careful when he realizes she's in a thicket of poison oak; he mentions two previous encounters with poison oak and how Tony teased him during his recovery This time Tony gets hit with poison oak.
• Running Gag: Many. In fact, they've evolved over the years.
• Saw It in a Movie Once:
  • In Season Three's "Bait", Tony comes up with an ingenious idea to head-fake the drug cartel hitmen monitoring the hostage situation. Afterwards everyone congratulates him on his brilliance... for remembering when the same trick was used in Speed.
  • In Season Six's "Love & War", the victim, a computer genius, was hacking into the Department of Homeland Security using a "phreak box" made from a "Beary Smyles" talking doll (an expy of Teddy Ruxpin). Gibbs doesn't have a clue what a "phreak box" is, but Tony (usually the team's Dumb Jock) volunteers an explanation that is close enough that McGee, the Computer Nerd, doesn't correct him on anything. Noting everyone's surprised looks, he asks if he's the only one who's seen WarGames, Sneakers, or Hackers.
• Scary Black Man: Leon Vance can be absolutely terrifying when he wants to be, which is probably one of the reasons he gets to boss Gibbs around. Taken to severe extremes when he put a fire safety axe through a metal table in the interrogation room to intimidate a teenage suspect who was suspected of killing one of Vance's friends.
• The Scottish Trope: After a stressful episode where Bishop thought her husband had been killed she starts the next one hoping for a quiet workday. Tony and McGee immediately point out she's basically jinxed it by saying "quiet" and that episode includes: Tony getting two giant splinters, Ducky being forced to admit he's a member of a secret cold case squad who are not happy with him revealing their existence to NCIS (one member quickly becomes an Abhorrent Admirer of Gibbs), and Abby freaking out because a now-discredited test she did on hair samples sent an innocent man to prison for 16 years. After Gibbs slices the second splinter out of Tony's finger because he realized it's evidence Bishop makes amends by standing on her desk and loudly begging the powers that be for a horribly busy day. The whole squad room claps in approval.
• Screaming Birth: In "We Build, We Fight," the birth of Jimmy and Breena's daughter happens off screen. Two of Jimmy's fingers are broken.
  Jimmy: Funny story. Did you know epidurals don't work on five percent of patients? Because I sure didn't.
  Breena: I had to improvise my pain management.
• Second Episode Introduction: Caitlin Todd doesn't appear in the Poorly Disguised Pilot; she gets introduced in the first actual episode as a secret service agent who transfers to NCIS for episode 2.
• Secret-Keeper: Played for laughs in season 2 "Caught on Tape" when Tim reveals his extreme reaction to poison ivy, including having unknowingly spread it to his groin, Ducky assures him he will keep this between them. Then Jimmy walks in, sees the undressed Tim and walks back out. Ducky isn't quite sure Jimmy will keep this secret.
• Sensitivity Training: Treated by the characters as a form of endurance trial (The very first episode in which this is mentioned has Gibbs and DiNozzo scouring the crime reports looking for something serious enough to justify them missing it). And Palmer takes things a little too literally when told he needs a person's permission to touch them and he works with corpses.
  Jimmy Palmer: [at a sexual harassment seminar] Uh, what if, part of your job includes, touching naked people and...
  Tracy Taylor: [quickly] Oh, that's inappropriate at any time!
  Palmer: Even if they're dead?
  Taylor: Why are you touching dead naked people?
• Sergeant Rock: The team runs into a few over the course of the series.
• Sexy Schoolwoman:
  • Referenced in "Forced Entry". Kate comments that she spent twelve years in Catholic School; Tony asks if she still has the pleated skirt. In that same episode, Abby's outfit certainly seems schoolgirl-inspired.
  • Tony's "hallucination" in Kill Ari, Part 2.
• Sexy Slit Dress: In S8 E7 ("Broken Arrow") Ziva David speedily defeats an attacker while wearing a full length gown whose skit is slit for ease of movement.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Somewhat of a Running Gag regarding Tony and Ziva in later seasons.
• Ship Tease:
  • Tony/Ziva and McGee/Abby are two shipping groups the writers especially love to mess with. However, McGee/Abby was canon before their breakup and might come back per Word of God. Tony/Ziva has yet to go beyond Ship Tease. (Granted, the sheer mass of Ship Tease there is so large, it's verging on upstaging the Great Attractor.)
  • This one's even messed with in-universe. Tony and Ziva are together in McGee's metafiction. See Write Who You Know below. Even in-universe alternate-universe timelines!
  • Between the long looks, blatant concern for each other, that time they held hands, and that forehead kiss, not to mention the way he borrows her glasses and she constantly sits on the edge of his (and only his) desk, the teasing for Gibbs and Jack Sloane is growing increasingly blatant. She is the only person he's ever voluntarily told about Shannon and Kelly, after all...
• Shipper on Deck: In "Singled Out", the team was playing with software showing what children of two people would look like. McGee uses Ziva and Tony for the basis to show them a grumpy little devil of a kid, then the two simultaneously say "Do the Director and Gibbs" and Abby compliments the result saying that Gibbs and Director Shepard make nice "Gibblets".
  • Lately it seems every woman Tony meets including his ex-fiancee who thinks he's perfect! ships Tony/Ziva or is at least aware there's someone he already really likes.
  • McGee ships "Tommy" and "Lisa", two of his books' main characters, and Tony and Ziva's counterparts. Considering that he uses his in-universe real life experiences for the book, it is pretty much the same as shipping Tony and Ziva.
  • In "Berlin", there is a flashback to a young Ziva dancing with Eli David who states "Someday, you will dance with a man who deserves your love." Present-day, Tony and Ziva are slow dancing in a nightclub. Writer on Board, anyone?
  • After the death of her father, Ziva prays for a sign that she should not give up hope. Her prayers are answered not ten seconds later as Tony walks through the door, offering her support. Yes, apparently even God ships Tiva.
  • Tony's father ships Tony and Ziva full stop. It's hilarious. From season 10's "You Better Watch Out", when he decides to crash at Tony's place for the holidays:
  Tony: No. No, no, no, no. Because it's not big enough.
  Senior: Oh, come on, Junior. You've got room. (looks pointedly at Ziva) Doesn't he?
  Ziva (flustered): I would not know. I've never been invited.
  Senior (to Tony):' Is that true? What's the matter with you?
  • invoked Tony ships Bibbs — Gibbs/Abigail Borin. Borin doesn't agree.
• Shirtless Scene: McGee's gotten two or three, and DiNozzo's gotten several. Strangely, Gibbs is absent from this unless you count the very-soapy shower scene in "SWAK", which is one for the entire Kate-era team.
• Shot in the Ass:
  • Gibbs inflicts this on a Serial Killer. It's strongly implied it's on purpose.
  • He does the same to Tobias Fornell in the second episode of season 11. Fortunately, it was actually aimed PAST him: the real target was a cell phone, set to trigger a bomb. Fornell was just a little too close to the path of the bullet. He complains loudly about it afterward as they carry him away on a gurney.
• Shout-Out: So, so many that we had to give them their own page.
• Shown Their Work:
  • All of the Hebrew in the show, plus the Jewish references related to Ziva are all accurate, and Coté de Pablo's accent is pretty spot-on.
  • David McCallum also does a lot of research to accurately portray Ducky's coroner techniques, and it shows.
  • In "Dressed to Kill", a list of Asian ports are shown◊ with some of the locations that have been previously/currently visited by US Navy ships.
  • One episode has Caitlin held hostage in an attempt to force her to identify which of six planes is Air Force One. She responds that there's no way to tell the real plane from the decoys. This is true, because Air Force One is the callsign of whichever plane The President happens to be on, so it can't be identified based only on visuals.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: In "Enemies Foreign" the Palestinian terrorist tries to lecture Gibbs about his war. Gibbs' response is basically "Yeah, you're right. Where's the other terrorist?"
• Silver Fox: Abby's referred to Gibbs as such on a couple of occasions.
  Abby: *to Gibbs* Well my silver-haired fox... Gibbs... sorry.
  Abby: I'm pregnant, McGee. Twins. Haven't told the father yet. It's Gibbs. I know it's wrong, but something about his silver hair gets me all tingly inside.
  [Tony walks in at the end of Abby's line]
  Tony: Excuse me for a second, I think I'm going to vomit.
  Abby: I'm joking, Tony. Except for that part about Gibbs' hair. That is really hot.
• Similar Squad:
  • In "Doppleganger", a Metro PD team gets involved in the case, whose members are ridiculously similar to the NCIS team, right down to the Gibbs Slap.
  • The team has also run into "child versions" of DiNozzo and Gibbs, respectively.
  • In "Jurisdiction", one of the CGIS investigators is a red-haired female version of Gibbs. Tony is the first to notice and the others are all rather amused. Gibbs is apparently the only member of the team that is not aware of this.
• A Simple Plan: In Season Six's "Love & War", Tony agrees that his latest prank on McGee went too far, but the question is how to reverse it without actually owning up to it.
  Ziva: What did you think would happen?!
  Tony: I didn't know! The flaw in the plan... was the plan.
• Simple, yet Opulent: In S8 E7 ("Broken Arrow") Ziva David speedily defeats an attacker while wearing a full-length gown whose skit is slit for ease of movement.
• Sixth Ranger: Kate is an example of this from the first episode, since the team was established in JAG. Later, McGee, and then once again with Ziva following Kate's death.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: McGee and Abby in the first season.
• Slashed Throat:
  • One episode involved the murderer using the Marine sentry removal technique (described in The Five Fingers example above) to kill the victim...while she was having sex with him.
  • In an episode revolving around a revenge plot against Ducky, when the team rescued Ducky, one of the perps slashed his own throat with a scalpel rather than go back to jail.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Tony.
• Snipe Hunt: S 13 Ep 7 "16 Years" opens with two boys out on a nocturnal one of these, supervised by their fathers. Bonus points for all of them actually using the word "snipe".
• The Sociopath: Ellie and McGee are taken aback at Quinn's description of really deep-cover agent Torres' double-agent gig, even Honey Trapping his enemy's daughter; naturally Torres isn't a sociopath (he's actually getting tired of not being able to just be himself), especially compared to his enemy who uses his son as an assassin and plants a bomb under Torres' seat right next to his daughter (he probably assumed that since Torres was such a highly skilled double-agent his daughter wouldn't be in danger since he would've easily spotted the bomb) and naturally blames Torres for his family's destruction.
• Somber Backstory Revelation: The two-part episode "Hiatus" reveals Gibbs' tragic backstory. It turns out that he had a wife and daughter before his three ex-wives — and they were murdered by a Mexican drug dealer. Also becomes Sympathetic Murder Backstory as Gibbs followed the killer back to Mexico and got his revenge.
• South Asian Terrorists: Gibbs and the others deal with a Pakistani terrorist named Al Zalim in one of their cases.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: In the first episode with Ari, after he shoots Gerald in the shoulder, Kate clearly calls him a fucking bastard, only the first word is conveniently drowned out in a sudden cry of pain from Gerald. Kate also swears in the first episode. When she attacks Gibbs in the bathroom, she calls him an asshole through clenched teeth while sobbing.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: In "Newborn King", the soundtrack of choice is "Silent Night" during a scene which is anything but silent: Gibbs is helping a marine give birth, while Ziva is having a shootout with some bad guys in the next room.
• Sparse List of Rules: Gibbs' Rules, a list of rules he has come up with (and occasionally adds to) for how to run a successful investigation. This fansite catalogs the whole list so far. Rule #1? "Never screw over your partner."
• Spanner in the Works:
  • The "Strangers on a Train"-Plot Murder in "Alibi" fell apart because a drunken Marine stole one of the conspirator's truck and accidentally killed somebody with it in a hit-and-run.
  • In "Bulletproof", a scheme to get rich from selling defective (and outright dangerous) bulletproof vests gets discovered when two teens get in a mild tussle and one throws a bag of spray paint out from a balcony in the process, which accidentally lands on a moving van's windshield and overturns it, revealing the defective goods it was hauling.
• Spin-Off: Of JAG, with two spinoffs of its own (NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans).
• Spoiler Title: "Trojan Horse"; "Aliyah", via Bilingual Bonus; "Shariff Returns."; "Kill Ari", the title of the two-part Season 3 opener.
• Sports Hero Backstory: DiNozzo was a college basketball player who made it to the Final Four before he decided to become a police officer.
• Spotting the Thread: The case of "Dressed To Kill" starts when Tony notices that a Navy officer leaving the hotel his dad is staying at is wearing (Or more accurately, carrying when he should be wearing) a hat whose insignia indicates a rank that does not match the rank indicated by the insignia on his uniform jacket.
• Standard Cop Backstory: Most of Team Gibbs fits the bill, though it's averted (refreshingly) by a few characters who had completely normal childhoods, like Abby and Palmer.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Gibbs loves to sneak up on people. Especially Tony.
• Stock Footage: Largely averted. For a show involving the US Navy, its hardware doesn't really feature all that much, although earlier seasons had many an obvious stock clip of various ships and sometimes planes. It is liberally used in the 200th episode to fill in for past NCIS characters who can't make it to filming, such as Kate and Jenny's scenes.
• "Strangers on a Train"-Plot Murder: Two episodes do this.
  • "Inside Man" gives us insider trading as the crime dujour. At least at first.
  • "Alibi" plays this out much, much straighter. It falls apart when a drunken Marine kills an innocent Marine in a hit and run while driving a car belonging to the other killer.
• "Stuck at the Airport" Plot: In the season 12 episode "Grounded", Tony is at Dulles Int'l Airport waiting for his father's flight to arrive. Bishop and her husband (We finally get to see him!) are also there to catch a southbound flight. Three things manage to happen all at once:
  • Gibbs calls Tony with news about some important intel regarding terrorist activity and airports in the Eastern US.
  • Bishop sees somebody she thinks she recognizes, but can't remember where from.
  • The airport admins decide that the snow is bad enough to begin closing the runways.
• Subtext: Beginning with the season five finale, Tony and Ziva's conversations are becoming increasingly subtext-heavy.
• Suddenly Shouting: In "Family First", after learning of Ziva's death, this is the line:
  Tony: We've lost agents before, haven't we? And when we do, it's ALL HANDS ON DECK!
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite being more of an action-drama mystery series with a fair amount of shoot-outs, it's notably very quick to draw the line from going too far off the action end.
  • One recurring example is what happens if someone takes a bullet; while some of the more determined villains might run even despite a bullet wound to a non-fatal area, getting shot hurts, and regularly drops a grown man to the ground fast, leaving even hardened mercenaries and criminals screaming if they're still conscious. A bulletproof vest hit still has the NCIS agents reeling on the ground gasping in pain, typically putting them out of the fight or severely inhibiting them if they get back up; if our heroes take a shot directly, they're down, and likely fighting weakly to avoid bleeding out or being finished off.
  • NCIS are still effectively Navy Cops, despite how many protocols are regularly broken. Any and every death on an agent's watch able to be linked to their doing that is not a fully-justified self-defense (including the death of a suspect that someone might have a grudge against) is severely scrutinized, and the entire department tends to get held up with internal affairs investigations as a result. The unrealistic part is typically the characters continuing their case-solving despite being investigated, never mind how the unlikely number of times this has been abused to cause a Frame-Up and that no one seems to raise their brows at it.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: They are sprinkled throughout the series.
  • A standout example would be the episode "Alibi" where the non-hit-and-run killer's lawyer denies her client's involvement with the hit and run death involving his vehicle.
• Taking the Bullet: In one season one episode Tony dramatically leaps in front of a wave to keep it from contaminating the crime scene further up the beach. Gibbs later tells Kate to go easy on him that day because he took a wave for the team.
  • Dex the bomb-sniffing dog does this for Gibbs at the end of "Seek", simultaneously avenging his handler who was killed in the opening sequence.
• Talking Down the Suicidal:
  • Season 5's "Leap of Faith" starts with a Navy lieutenant preparing to jump from a tall building, so Gibbs goes up there to talk to him. The man is clearly upset and claims that he screwed up with something, with Gibs offering to help him. Just as Gibbs is about to pull the lieutenant off the ledge, somebody shoots the lieutenant.
  • Season 14's "Keep Going" centers around Jimmy trying to keep the son of the victim of the week from jumping off a building while the rest of the team tracks down down the killer. At the end of the episode Gibbs catches the killer, explains to the son that the killer would have tracked down and killed his father no matter what the son had done, and the young man goes back inside, at which point Palmer gets a standing ovation from all the emergency workers who'd been watching him for the past several hours.
• Talking to the Dead: Mostly Ducky, as he says it "helps to reciprocate"; other characters have been known to do it as well.
• Talking through Technique
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Invoked by Ari, who kills Kate and deliberately goes after Shepard and Abby just because it would cause Gibbs more pain. The show has a bad record of killing female main/recurring characters and current male characters' love interests. To date, Kate, Paula Cassidy, Jenny, Michelle Lee, Jackie Vance, and Lara Macy, although Kate's actress, as well as Jenny's, wanted to leave the show of their own accord.
• Tap on the Head: Subverted.
• Team Dad: Gibbs.
  • This is most obvious with Abby in early seasons. He's even more or less threatened to spank her at one point. In Season 7, when she found evidence that would incriminate him for the murder of Pedro Hernandez, she pleaded with him to tell her that she was "like a daughter to [him]" and that he would not begrudge her for the results of her report.
  • In one episode, Gibbs, in attempt to keep calm a suspect who unknowingly had a bomb set to detonate in his backpack, commented that his "son, Tony, plays that same game" (the suspect had been playing Tetris). Cue a rather odd if semi-pleased look from Tony himself, who had been listening in from the bushes.
  • In Season 7, Ziva admitted that Gibbs is more of a father to her than her biological one. He's since acted accordingly on her behalf, later openly calling her his "kid". This has been commented on by other characters. Notably, when Ziva was considering marrying her boyfriend in Season 9, Tony told Gibbs to "[get] ready to play father of the bride" (Which unfortunately never happens. Not only does Ziva not accept the proposal, she dies four seasons later - still single).
  • In Season 14, Gibbs plays the part of Tim's father at the latter's wedding, even giving Tim a watch that his own father had given him on his wedding day, cementing Tim as his younger son in spirit.
• Team Mom: Agent Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane, a forensic psychologist and profiler, slips easily into this role when she joins the Navy Yard in season 15. She's a trained counselor and by nature a warm and rather maternal person, meaning that the team members often turn to her (sometimes with some reluctance) when they're struggling. At one point Gibbs even sends one of the "kids" (Nick Torres) off to her to Have A Talk after Torres "misbehaves" (read: gets arrested after getting in a fight with a couple of homophobic jerks)!
• Team Pet: Abby.
• The Tease: Ziva takes immense pleasure in short-circuiting Tony's brain.
• Technobabble: Let's just say that if you know anything about computers, you'll want to turn your brain off whenever Abby or McGee is talking.
• Technology Marches On: In "Blowback" (a fourth season episode) Abby expresses amazement at finding a 1 terabyte hard drive (which is quite large) in the suspects house. Nowadays hard drives up to 100TB are commercially available.
• Tempting Fate: ...from Season 4, "Witch Hunt". It ends, of course, when the kidnapper and his plan are shot full of holes. Should have listened to McGee.
  Victim: NCIS is going to figure this out.
  Kidnapper: I've had those Navy cops running around all night. They're clueless.
  Gibbs: Federal agents!
  McGee: Drop your weapon!
  • Happens with Special Agent Chris Pacchi back in season 1. Towards the end of one episode, he tries to ask Gibbs for some help on a case he's working, but relents when he realizes how busy he is. "What can one more day hurt?" He's dead at the start of the next episode, which presumably occurs the next day.
  • A sad example. Palmer talks about how the only thing that can go wrong with his and Breena's adoption is the birth mother changing her mind. It's initially played for laughs, but she does change her mind and Jimmy is absolutely devastated.
• 10-Minute Retirement: Gibbs in Season 4.
• Terminally-Ill Criminal:
  • "SWAK" has Tony being infected with Y. pestis sent in the mail by a woman named Hannah Lowell in a desperate attempt to get NCIS to reveal the truth that her daughter Sarah was the rape victim of a midshipman, despite investigations suggesting otherwise and Sarah's Trauma-Induced Amnesia about the incident. If they don't reveal what she believes is the truth, Tony will die without the antidote. Hannah was unafraid of the consequences of her actions due to her dying of an inoperable brain tumor, which made her undergo enough Sanity Slippage to resort to using the bioweapon in the first place, having stolen it from one of the researchers at the pharmaceutical company of which she was the CEO (Ironically, she had once been an activist against the use of bioweapons). Fortunately, Hannah didn't know that the sample was programmed to kill itself off thirty-two hours after infecting the host. This fact, combined with his modern-day immune system, allows Tony to survive. Apparently, after she was arrested, Hannah's tumor made her regress to her activist days during which she had a tendency to flash her breasts alongside her peace slogans. Sarah apologizes to the team for her mother's actions, knowing of her condition but not expecting she would do something that extreme. She also reveals that she faked her amnesia and lied about being raped. What had actually happened was that she was involved with the midshipman, and was consensually tied to his bed. He left to get food for them both but was killed in a car accident and never returned, leaving Sarah tied to the bed panicking and calling for help. She lied to her mother because she couldn't figure out how else to explain the situation of why she would be tied to a bed.
  • 'Last Dance': Convicted arms dealer Reymundo Diaz bribing his way out of prison and going on a bloody rampage with his henchmen across the US seeking revenge on the two people who put him away six years ago, Carlos Salazar (who happens to be one of Torres's undercover aliases, but Diaz never learned his real name) and his own cousin Maria (whom Torres convinced to testify). However, he shows no interest in rebuilding his empire. It's because Diaz is dying from a rare and deadly cancer, and he's hellbent on making sure Torres and Maria die with him. He fails, as Diaz is shot in the head by Torres during their shootout.
• That Came Out Wrong: Fornell on why he doesn't actually go out with the women he meets on dating apps a year after his wife was murdered:
  Fornell: I can't get it up!
  Gibbs: GAH!
  Fornell: The nerve, I mean the nerve!
• That One Case: Ducky in "Lt. Jane Doe", ever since he never could identify the original Jane Doe from the first "Trident Killer" murder and still carries her ashes without a family to go back to. At the end, it's confirmed that the present-day murder was done by a copycat and the real killer from back then died five weeks prior, giving Ducky some closure and hands Jane Doe's ashes over to be put to rest.
• That's an Order!: Though it's easy to forget because of his behavior, Tony is the most senior agent on Gibbs' team. He jokingly orders McGee to do scut work all the time, but there have been several situations where he drops the Small Name, Big Ego act and firmly commands McGee, Kate or Ziva to do what he says. They're insightful enough to tell the difference and listen to him at those times.
• Theme Tune Cameo: Kate's ringtone in "Heart Breaks" is a music box version of the main theme.
• Therapy Is for the Weak: Their initial attitude towards seeing a therapist, though eventually the team gets some long overdue therapy. It . . . seems to help. A little. Very little.
• There Are No Therapists: There is a staff psychoanalyst, and the team is long overdue for a checkup. However, she's got an ulterior motive. She's Kate's older sister who hadn't gotten closure since her sister's death and wanted to talk to the people who knew her best. Tony guesses who she is, and Gibbs takes her to the spot where her sister's killer died.
• There Is Only One Bed: Invoked in season 7's "Jetlag." While escorting a witness back to the US from Paris, they're forced to share a single hotel room. Ziva tells the witness she took the couch, while Tony tells McGee he did.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Tony, being The Movie Buff that he is, references the Trope Namer when interviewing a suspect in "Faith".
  Ziva: 1st Sgt. Tibbins?
  Tibbins [starts to hit on Ziva]: Call me Tibbs.
  Tony [impersonates Sidney Poitier]: They call you Mr. Tibbs?
• This Bear Was Framed:
  • Happens quite literally in Season Three's "Ravenous", with a serial killer masking his murders in a natural park as accidents. To be sure, a bear did partially eat the remains of his latest victim, but during the autopsy Ducky finds a stab wound in the heart that could only have been made by a hunting knife. Partially deconstructed by Ducky, who says that most deaths in national parks are caused by heart attacks, hiking accidents, or exposure, and genuine animal attacks are quite rare.
  • In another episode "Dog Tags", Abby clears the name of a German Shepherd she has named Jethro.
• Throwing the Fight: Ziva in the season 4 episode "Shalom" against an Iranian Agent so she would confess who she was, thinking she was going to kill Ziva right after said confession. Ziva laughs, thanks her and promptly knocks her out. Turns out she had a voice recorder and had taped the whole thing.
• Time-Delayed Death: In the Season 7 episode "Obsession", a Navy Lieutenant and his journalist sister are killed by an ex-KGB member with tiny metal balls laced with ricin, bringing to mind the Real Life assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978 in London.
• Title Drop: In an emotional conversation with Ziva, Tony reminds her of a Navy lieutenant she'd fallen for and refers to him by a common phrase, a phrase which happened to be the episode in which he appeared: "Dead Man Walking".
  • Mike's Swan Song.
  • In "Keep Going" Ducky drops the title offhandedly as part of a saying; Jimmy later gives a Meaningful Echo of it in one of his best moments ever.
  Jimmy, quoting Ducky: When you're going through hell...keep going.
• To Absent Friends: In the season 2 episode "Call of Silence" there is a touching moment at the end when Corporal Ernest Yost and Lieutenant Hitoshi Yoshida of the Japanese Empire, both of whom served in World War II, share a drink of sake together in memory of their friends who were no longer with them.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Kate and Abby, and then Ziva and Abby.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Tony, who Shepard puts in charge when Gibbs is seriously injured and doesn't appear to be coming back. Once he puts aside the smart-ass tendencies, he becomes quite the effective leader. This, of course, shows us some Hidden Depths, and leads to a great exchange when he starts channeling Gibbs during a team argument.
    Abby: You're not Gibbs, Tony.
    Tony: You're right. Acting like Gibbs doesn't make me the boss, being senior agent does. And if drinking coffee, staring, and whacking the backs of your heads helps me to lead this team...live with it.
  • McGee at the beginning of "Dog Tags" and at the end of "Caged".
• Too Kinky to Torture:
  • Implied with Abby in "Bloodbath":
    McGee: Now, you stay here and don't answer the door, or I will tie you up!
    Abby: Really?
  • Also, Jimmy "Autopsy Gremlin" Palmer. When he helps Abby solve a problem, Gibbs gives Abby a peck on the cheek and Jimmy a Gibbs slap. He looks just as pleased at this as Abby.
  • Much earlier in "Grace Period" Ducky mentioned that he had tried giving Jimmy a Gibbs slap, but Jimmy "appeared to enjoy it."
• Trademark Favorite Food: Gibbs' not-Starbucks and Abby's Caf-POW! Occasionally subverted, as Gibbs can be seen drinking coffee from Panera Bread early on. The not-Starbucks, however, is far more prominent.
  • Toyed with in one episode in which Gibbs (with his coffee in-hand) becomes engrossed watching Abby and McGee (both drinking Caf-POW!) showing him evidence on the computers in Abby's lab, Gibbs sets down his coffee, drinks are shuffled around the desk, and he gets handed McGee's Caf-POW!. He takes a big, hearty drink (with the straw) while distracted; his eyes go wide, he rips off the lid, spits it back into the cup, hands it back to a thoroughly devastated McGee, takes his coffee, and walks off.
  • In the Season 7 premiere a terrorist is tracked down to Somalia because he imported Caf-POW!.
• Tragic Keepsake:
  • Ziva's orange cap; it's a reminder of the victim from "Dead Man Walking".
  • Kate's desk, for about three episodes. When Ziva moves on, it returns to tragic keepsake status. Rachel Cranston even discusses this with Bishop.
    • This is so obvious that at first Ellie won't even use the desk, sitting either on the floor or perching on the partition behind it. She lampshades that Ziva is a Tough Act to Follow.
• Tranquil Fury: Ricki's dad in the flashback scenes of "Hit and Run," especially when Abby returns the teddy bear she got from her grandpa (whom the dad doesn't like.) The grandpa is white, so it is implied that racial tension is involved. Abby did grow up in New Orleans, after all.
• Trauma Conga Line: Ziva
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Gibbs after getting blown up in the season 3 finale, and DiNozzo in the season 9 premiere after getting shot. They both get better.
• Trojan Horse: "Trojan Horse."
• Troubled Backstory Flashback
• True Companions: With Gibbs in the "Team Dad" role. Do not hurt a member of Team Gibbs. They will hunt you down. And they will end you.
  • You can actually regard them as an actual family. Gibbs as the father, DiNozzo and McGee as the jock-and-nerd quarrelling brothers who seek Dad's approval, Ziva as the tomboy daughter that likes to play with her brothers, Abby as the young Daddy's Girl, Ducky as the odd uncle who loves to tell stories and Palmer as the weird cousin who is sometimes pushed aside. In the season eleven episode "Bulletproof", Ducky actually refers to the team as a family.
  • A running theme in Season 14 is Gibbs trying to make the new team members (Torres, Quinn, and Reeves) understand that the team is a family and that they're part of that family now.
  • When Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane, a forensic psychologist, joins the team in season 15, she slips easily into the Team Mom role, serving as something of a maternal figure for the younger agents — and on multiple occasions teaming up with Gibbs to parent them.
• Tyke Bomb: A plot point of S7 Ep 07, "Endgame", involving a North Korean assassin who was raised, along with other young girls, for the purpose of being so.

U-Z

• Underestimating Badassery: Eli David has a lot of information on Tony DiNozzo. He knows the Tony's great works and his failures. He still let Tony get under his skin when Tony was the one being interrogated by Eli over Tony's involvement in the death of a Mossad agent. Tony even got his interrogator to admit to something he shouldn't have.
• Unexplained Recovery: Fornell apparently died by hanging in one episode, then showed up at the end without any explanation (though everyone but Gibbs was surprised).
  Tony: Didn't you die?
  Fornell: I'm feeling much better.
• Unorthodox Holstering: Largely averted, as the team members almost always wear their sidearms on their "strong side" hip^note  (specifically, outside-the-waistband paddle holsters, oriented to "FBI forward cant", although Tony started out with a shoulder holster and temporarily switched back to a 'Jackass'-style shoulder holster rig in Season 8) though several times they have experienced difficulties when changing where or how they carry. A mini-dress wearing undercover Agent Lee once complained that she could "barely walk straight" because of the location of her gun^note  (Get your mind out of the gutter), and while dating Jeanne, Tony once almost blew his cover when trying to control a potentially violent situation by reaching for his gun...which he had forgotten he wasn't wearing.
  • Although we only see Tony carry his weapon on his hip or in a shoulder holster, Ziva and McGee once mentioned that Tony annoys the NCIS armorers by regularly visiting them to try out different types of holsters and carry methods.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: In one episode, Tony dates a woman who turns out to be a male seeking gender reassignment surgery. This is made all the more awkward by the fact the woman had killed a Marine and was intending to kill Tony before the night was over.
• Unwanted Rescue: Ziva tells Tony he should not have come to rescue her in Somalia.
• Urban Legend Love Life: Tony, starting in season five. He acknowledges in Season Six that he's going through a dry spell since falling in love while undercover. He just doesn't want anyone to know.
  • Tony and Tim are reading a men's magazine, scoffing at the sexual techniques listed, when Bishop claims to have pulled off several of them, one of which prompts Tony to ask if she's double jointed and for her to claim that she and her then-husband actually did it "by accident".
• Uncomfortable Elevator Moment:
  • Gibbs uses the elevator (emergency stopped, of course) as his own private conference room, so this results in many of these.
    "Boss using the elevator as an office again?"
  • In one episode, Gibbs essentially put McGee in "time out" by forbidding him from leaving the elevator as a punishment for a major screw-up.
  • In the "Abby's ex is stalking her" episode, Abby eventually hides in the elevator because she read some statistic that elevators are about the least likely place to die in the United States. Subverted when she realizes that the average person spends just a minute a day in an elevator, and if she moves into one, her chances increase thousandfold.
  • Ziva goes into an elevator with a very obnoxious suspect. When the elevator doors open, the suspect is dead.
  • In Season 7, a massive power outage causes McGee and Ziva to be stuck in the elevator together all night.
• Undercover as Lovers: Tony and Ziva in the infamous "Under Covers" episode, where they go undercover as insatiable newlywed assassins. And they're apparently very convincing.
  • Bishop and McGee go undercover as husband and wife, but it doesn't result in or heighten already present sexual tension between them. Rather, she ends up confiding in him about her faltering marriage.
• Unflattering ID Photo: Abby's ID card shows no hints of her usual Perky Goth look, showing her with a rather boring suit and hairstyle. She explains it away as saying she had to testify in court the same day she took the photo.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension:
  • Tony and Kate to some degree. Productions notes say that a relationship between the two characters was being developed, but Sasha Alexander asked to be released from her contract so they never went beyond belligerent flirting.
  • Tony and Ziva, for eight whole seasons before having to be abruptly wrapped up.
    • As one example for the former, they were required to go undercover as a couple of assassins. You read that right, couple. As in married couple. They engage in simulated sex for the benefit of a surveillance camera... and fool the guy who can tell if a person is faking an orgasm, who happens to enjoy ^note the "fake" porn manning the camera.
    • The entire Season Four has Ziva showing some jealousy at Tony's conversations with Jeanne (even if she tries to hide it as something else).
    • The tension is taken to the next level in Season Six, where Tony is obviously pining for Ziva and clearly jealous of her relationship with Michael. Of course, killing Michael doesn't help his chances, and probably kills any possibility of hooking up with Ziva in the near future.
    • Then again in season 7 Tony basically puts his life on the line to rescue Ziva, and while they are both captives and he has been injected with Truth Serum he warns her not to ask questions she doesn't want answers to.
    • Then again they're being rather cagey about who took the bed and who took the sofa while they were in Paris...
    • In season 9, Tony calls Ziva to tell her that the Navy officer she is safeguarding is actually the man they suspect of having hired an assassin to kill the officer. When she hangs up, the officer asks her if it was her boyfriend and she just gives a little smile that may say much more than what it seems...
    • The production team had to give Tony and Ziva some form of closure in the wake of Coté de Pablo's departure from the show and they did, with the barest of hints that there could be more in the future, in a moment Tiva fans spent the better part of a decade waiting for.
  • Gibbs and Jenny (though theirs used to be resolved).
  • McGee and Abby. When McGee has an onscreen girlfriend and before she turns out to be an assassin, Abby is noticeably torn between wanting him to be happy and just wanting him.
  • Gibbs and Kate, arguably.
    • Suggestive comments: in Sub Rosa, an emergency blow on a nuclear sub throws Kate into Gibbs' arms. His response to her "Wow?" "That's what they all tell me." Her response is to laugh, rather than react angrily. In My Other Left Foot, Gibbs also claimed to know that the tattoo on Kate's butt was not a rose. It's also Gibbs, not Tony, who suggests Kate try on the Puerto Rican two piece Tony gave her - a bikini bottom and a hat, a comment that would be unremarkable from Tony, but is not nearly so typical of Gibbs.
    • In My Other Left Leg, Kate shows quite a bit of jealousy and curiosity when Gibbs flirts shamelessly with a possible suspect.
    • The two of them are pretty uncomfortable reading the sexually explicit e-mails exchanged between a perpetrator and his would-be victim.
    • In one of the first episodes Kate can be seen drawing a very flattering sketch of Gibbs, whereas the ones she draws of Abby and Tony are caricatures. A few episodes later, Tony is riffling through her pad and she seems downright panicky at the thought that he or Gibbs might see it.
    • Gibbs' Berserk Button is triggered when Ari asks after Kate (quote: "Go near her and I don’t care what government agency is watching your back, I will kill you this time."), and to an extent when Tony teases Kate about the Wet T-Shirt Contest photograph. It's also Kate who appears dead in Gibbs' nightmare about Ari. It gets pushed even harder when she does die by Ari's hand.
    • On the flip side, Kate's own button is pushed at the realization that Ari is planning to kill Gibbs.
• The Unreveal: A very fiendish example mixed with Trolling Creator happened in the Season 14 opener with a mystery pointing back to the predecessor of NCIS, which features a cameo of now full Colonel Bud Roberts from JAG. The question is asked regarding who had to resign their commission when Harmon Rabb and Sarah Mackenzie decided to get married (because there are constraints regarding married personnel working in the military together due to concerns about fraternization interfering with their duties), pointing back to the famous last scene of the series where he flipped a coin for them but we never saw the outcome. Bud is able to get as far as, "So, Harm—" before being cut off. Of course, this also doubles as a Mythology Gag, because had JAG been renewed for an eleventh season, David James Elliot would have let his 10-year contract expire, so Harm would have been the one to resign. In other words, it's heavily implied it was Harm- who had just got promoted, too.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: In Season 18's "Blown Away", Gibbs helps out a reporter study cold cases while on leave from NCIS duty while his team help a NCIS REACT operator investigate why someone wants her team dead.
• Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: In "Ready or Not", McGee and Delilah's twins, Johnny and Morgan, are born.
• The Uriah Gambit: Vance is revealed to have been originally recruited to NIS in 1991 almost specifically for his expendibility. Obviously, it didn't go as planned.
• Vapor Wear:
  • Played with in a piece of UST-heavy dialogue between Ziva and Tony: Ziva wants to say that she has no cellphone reception but mangles her English, and says that she is braless rather than the intended "barless". Tony calmly responds, "Yes, I've noticed."
  • Ziva is, in fact, rather obviously not wearing a bra under many of her outfits.
  • In a couple of scenes where Abby is shown taking her T-shirt off, she is not wearing anything underneath. She does seem to be wearing a bra most of the time, though.
  • Discussed — especially by Tony — when an incident from Kate's past is revealed: she won a Wet T-Shirt Contest in her youth.
• Very Special Episode: More than one episode have slid into this trope's territory.
  • The 2 part episode, "Shell Shock" goes fairly deep into this territory with much screen time being devoted to a Marine's PTSD troubles.
  • "Alleged" focuses on sexual assault, especially the widespread issue with it in the U.S. Military, and it makes it clear that nobody deserves it.
  • S11 Ep 22 "Shooter" edges into this territory with substantial screen time devoted to the plight of unemployed, homless vets. And a runaway homeless teen.
• Viewer-Friendly Interface: The strangest example has to be the 3-D graphic of a hard-drive when scanning a perp's computers, but even the main office contains magical displays that are able to zoom in on whatever part of a digital document is being referred to with a simple click of a remote.
• Villainous Breakdown: Kyle Boone, Serial Killer, in the episode 'Mind Games'. He has two actually. He has the first, a minor one, when Gibbs "shoots" him with an unloaded gun instead of actually killing him in cold blood. The second is his real breakdown. It happens when he uses one last psychological attack to rattle Gibbs and put a stay of his execution. It has to do with an agent working under Gibbs (Cassidy) who Boone has his lawyer/protege abduct, torture, and kill. The breakdown at the end of the exchange:
  Boone: Hey, do you think she screamed, when he cut out her tongue, Jethro?
  Gibbs: I don't know. Why don't you ask her yourself?
  *cue agent Cassidy walking into the room and Boone's giant grin melting into shock*
  Cassidy: I'm afraid your lawyer's going to miss your execution tomorrow.
  Tony: He's kinda dead.
  Gibbs: Enjoy hell.
  Boone: *insert breakdown and screaming here*
• Villainous Legacy: Ari Haswari. He's the one villain that never completely leaves the series. Even close to fifteen years after his death, villains connected to him come out of the woodwork to terrorize Gibbs and the team. On a more personal level, his death continues to haunt his sister and killer Ziva, who has never truly gotten over the guilt of the act, regardless of its necessity.
• Virtuous Vegetarianism: Discussed. One episode had a vegan janitor as a suspect, and Abby invoked this trope to argue he had to be innocent.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: During the episode "Yankee White," Kate is unknowingly (at first) suffering from the flu. Gibbs makes her vomit into an clear evidence bag since the case they are investigating involves poisoning.
  • Combined with a Vomit Discretion Shot in the episode "Chimera." The first person to end up dead vomits all over another crewmate as he is dying. The initial projectile is shown in all its glory, but he then vomits on the floor — concealed by the character bending over out of frame.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Tony and his father, oddly, since Tony is usually portrayed as being the wacky teammate. His father has an even more carefree and laissez faire attitude, which Tony finds irritating and embarrassing. He becomes very serious and hard-faced when his father is around, much to the confusion of his teammates, who find Dinnozo, Sr. to be very charming. Tony's irritation probably isn't helped by the fact that his father takes every opportunity to hit on Ziva while in town.
• Wake Up Fighting: Tony, Ziva, and Gibbs all do this when woken up unexpectedly.
• Was It All a Lie?: In her last appearance before Season Thirteen, Jeanne Benoit asks Tony if anything in their relationship was real. While it was real in that Tony genuinely did love Jeanne back, the relationship itself was all based on a lie, so Tony claimed none of it was so they could both move on.
• We Named the Monkey "Jack":
  • S2 Ep 15, "Caught On Tape", has a Type 1. Kate names the dog of the killer, Tony, even though it's a girl. This leads to a humorous scene where Tony is listening in on Kate and Abby talking about whether Tony likes them, how cute Tony is, and how they could share Tony.
    • Tony returns the favour some time later, although on a fictional dog. While undercover as an escaped convict with real fugitive (to follow him to his partner), Tony is unable to contact the team to let them know where he is. He manages to leave them a message via a random civilian by pretending to be looking for his dog, Kate, who is apparently shaggy and mangy.
  • S5 Ep 13, "Dog Tags" has another Type 1. A military police German Shepard that Abby has to examine for evidence, who she names Jethro.
  • Tony has a pet goldfish named Kate.
• War Hero: The episode "Call Of Silence" is about a WWII veteran who earned the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Iwo Jima trying to turn himself in for murdering a fellow Marine on the battlefield. In the end, it turned out that he had performed a Mercy Kill for his mortally wounded comrade because the screaming would have attracted the attention of Japanese forces.
  Gibbs: You don't win the Medal of Honor, Kate. You're awarded it, for conspicuous gallantry above and beyond the call of duty.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!: When Tony abruptly goes into "serious mode" Ziva and McGee first thinks he's joking, then trying to make them look bad in front of an assistant DA and later believes he is going crazy. It turns out he was feeling guilty for not noticing a woman he had a one-night-stand with who thought they were soulmates was actually seriously depressed and was trying to make up for it by not making fun of everyone. He got better after Ziva gives him a pep-talk.
  • In "Kill Ari," Gibbs briefly starts acting nice, even offering to buy Tony and McGee coffee. Abby doesn't notice a difference, but Tony is horrified and spends a portion of the episode trying to annoy Gibbs into his usual personality.
  • Bishop snaps at Gibbs after realizing he's been going easy on her ever since she joined the team. After he explains that he's trying something new, since he keeps losing the agent that sits at her desk, she demands the same treatment that Tony and McGee get. Gibbs complies—and immediately tells her to sit at her desk and not on the floor where she'd pretty much been sitting any time she was researching in prior episodes.
  Gibbs: Back to the old way.
• Wedding Deadline: A mild example. The team rescue a Marine who was abducted shortly before his wedding for totally unrelated reasons. After closing the case he contacts his fiancee and they have to rush to the nearest courthouse to get married before it closes for the weekend. Thankfully, McGee cheats - he called ahead with an explanation to ensure that a justice of the peace would stay a little late to marry the couple if they didn't make it on time.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Tony; slightly subverted in that Gibbs has always been proud of him...he just doesn't feel the need to say it. This has lessened in later seasons, after Gibbs left his team to Tony during his Mexican sabbatical. This quote is from season six's "Bounce":
  Tony: Save the pep talk. We both know I screwed up.
  Gibbs: Yeah, three years ago. But now you're making it right...and me proud. You've been doing a hell of a job, Anthony.
  • On a related note, Anthony means "worthy of praise."
  • McGee; the episode in which his father first appeared had Gibbs and the others react strongly in the negative to the fact that Admiral McGee didn't actually seem to know who Tim was. Gibbs went so far as to make a contemptuous speech about how all the man was was an empty suit that wore medals and made demeaning comments about his estranged son.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: A Marine captain who, because he wanted to prevent his men from being tortured to death like his younger brother, decided to torture them the same way his brother was to toughen them up. When one of them accidentally died (followed not long after by his friend), the others rationalized it by saying they were weak.
• Wet T-Shirt Contest: A drunken Tony discovers that straight-laced Kate has not only entered, but won, one in her youth. He never lets her live it down. When a photo of the occasion finally is produced, it turns out to be a Nipple and Dimed version: it shows her in a Sexy Soaked Shirt but is cropped just above her breasts.
• Wham Episode:
  • "Twilight" has Kate being murdered in the last seconds.
  • "Angel of Death" ends with Jeanne introducing Tony to her father, La Grenouille.
  • "Shabbat Shalom" has Eli David and Jackie Vance being murdered.
  • "Berlin" ends with Tony and Ziva getting into a car accident.
  • "Check" ends not only with Gibbs' ex-wife/Fornell's current wife Diane getting killed by Sergei Mishnev but Gibbs actually finds Mishnev and is about to choke him to death when someone (with the same long red hair as Gibbs' other ex-wife (the 2nd one)) KO's him and allows Mishnev to escape.
  • "Family First". Ziva is murdered, it is revealed that she and Tony had a brief fling before they parted ways in Israel two years previously, resulting in a child, and Tony resigns to focus on raising his daughter.
  • "Two Steps Back" sees the death of Clayton Reeves in an attempt to kill Abby, and the resulting incident leads Abby to leave NCIS to honor Reeves and his work with orphaned children.
  • "She" ends with the reveal that Ziva is alive and in hiding.
  • "Rule 91" Bishop is responsible for leaking a NSA document.
  • "A Family Matter" Raven turns out to be the hacker Maxwell who NCIS took into custody initially.
• Wham Line: In season 11 "Better Angels" Jackson Gibbs revealed the man who saved him in World War 2 was German.
• Wham Shot: The end of "Daughters": Ziva's back!
• "What Do They Fear?" Episode: "Bête Noire" points out a few of the main characters' (plus Ari who first appears in this episode but becomes a recurring character) fears.
  • Tony fears vampires.
  • Abby fears going to Autopsy (but gets over it soon after).
  • Gibbs fears having to be taught about technology.
  • Ari fears butterflies.
• What If?: The 200th episode Life Before His Eyes takes place in a comatose dream where Gibbs reunites with some of the people in his life who had passed on (Franks, his mother, and Shannon and Kelly), where they show what would happen if things turned out differently in his life: if Caitlin never died by Ari's hand, she and Tony would've married, Ziva would've never joined NCIS and would instead be arrested for terrorism. If Gibbs never exacted his revenge against Hernandez for the death of his wife and child, he would've left NCIS and become a reclusive drunk. Finally, if Shannon and Kelly had survived, Gibbs would've stayed in the Marines and eventually die in combat.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Gibbs has been on the receiving end twice from:
  • Abby, regarding his murder of Pedro Hernandez, not confessing for 20 years and not stopping the evidence incriminating him from being buried, twice.
  • Tony, for not being as vigilant in the manhunt for Trent Kort after he's revealed to have killed Ziva.
• What You Are in the Dark: The short but sweet opening scene to Season Twelve's "The Artful Dodger"; a janitor at a U.S. Navy building is teaching his son the finer points of mopping a floor. His son protests that he's just working part-time until he finishes school, but his father gently admonishes him:
  People call this kind of work "blue collar". I don’t care what color your shirt is. You bring pride to the job, people will notice. And even if they don't, you'll notice.
• Whodunnit to Me?: "Dead Man Walking". A lieutenant is poisoned via radiation and asks NCIS to solve who did it to him before he starts getting really sick. He survives to the end of the episode, but dies offscreen a few shows later.
• Why Couldn't You Save Them?: A major plot point of season 9's "Rekindled" when Tony works with arson specialist Jason, whom he saved from a housefire when Jason was 9. Unfortunately, the fire was too out of control by the time Tony arrived to save Jason's younger sister without killing all three of them. He made a choice, one that Jason resents him for. He gives Tony the cold shoulder until the end of the episode, when the two finally has it out. Tony tells him the incident was the reason he became a cop (it's also the reason Jason became an arson specialist), and that the number one thing he learned that night was you can't save them all.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: "Why does it always have to be boats, and rats?"
• Wild Card: Tony describes himself as one when captured by Saleem.
• Wire Dilemma: In "Ready or Not", Reeves and Torres find a bomb, and it quickly becomes clear that neither has the slightest idea how to disarm one. With time clearly running out and the bomb squad not present, they ultimately just slice through some wires and run for it. Fortunately, it worked.
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: "The Enemy Within": A bunch of American terrorists are on a mission in America and one of them is posing as a volunteer who worked with orphans in Syria who pretended to be kidnapped in order to drum up funds for terrorists (she didn't expect the part where she was rescued by Navy SEALs and became famous). When their plan fails they let out a stream of what sounds like swear words and insults (I recognized this one her target was a peace-preaching imam and it's definitely not a compliment), quite a contrast to their previous behavior.
• Women Are Delicate: Hilarity Ensues when those not in the know assume this of Ziva.
• Woman Scorned: A mild example. In early season 11, Ziva runs into Dr. Deena Bashan, a childhood friend and Ari's love. He was planning on proposing to her when he went rogue and Ziva killed him. She was less than pleased with learning Ziva was involved in Ari's death, and so she lied to Tony so Ziva's love couldn't find her.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: A guy exploits vulnerabilities in the entire Navy fleet to avenge his son, who died when a terrorist exploited a flaw in his battleship.
• The Worf Effect: Want to show how awesome a new threat is?? Have Ziva be taken down by said threat.
• Working with the Ex:
  • Seasons three through five had Director Jenny Shepard and Special Agent Gibbs, who had formerly been lovers.
  • At least thrice has wife number 2 Diane, the one who wed both Gibbs and Fornell, has worked with both ex's.
  • Tony ends up working with his ex-fiance Wendy in season 9, and spends most of the episode trying to prevent her and Ziva from being alone together. He's not afraid that they'll hate each other...he's afraid of what Wendy might tell Ziva about him. He is unsuccessful, but is pleasantly surprised that Wendy had nothing but good things to say.
• Write Who You Know: In-Universe McGee's based a series of thriller novels he's written on his coworkers and miscellaneous civilians. He is a best-selling author, under the Pen Name of "Thom E. Gemcity". Despite his picture being on the back cover, he's almost never recognized. This causes problems when a Loony Fan starts killing people based on actions taken by their fictional selves in McGee's next book (the killer had been reading McGee's typewriter ribbons to get a sneak peek). In that episode, McGee finally admits that he bases the characters in his books off the NCIS team (after the content of his latest book had been revealed, he'd made it a point to deny the similarities).
  • This gets lampshaded and exploited in the episode "Friends and Lovers", when the team has to investigate a high-class nightclub. Rather than make up a celebrity to get into the place, they simply send in McGee using his "Gemcity" identity, complete with a trio of female admirers (Ziva, Abby, and Michelle Lee). The bouncer was a fan of his works.
• Wrongful Accusation Insurance: In "Lost and Found", the team learns that a Cub Scout who was visiting NCIS on a field trip had been reported kidnapped by a non-custodial parent years before. Later investigation connects the father to a convenience store murder committed around the same time. While the team does eventually prove that he had been framed for the armed robbery and murder charges, the fact remains that he had kidnapped his infant son from his legal guardians (maternal grandparents). Even if said guardians were now deceased and he had done his best to be a good father to the boy over the years, it seems unlikely that the authorities would simply hand the boy over to the man and let him go home, especially without some form of hearing from child services.
• X Days Since: Used a few times.
• You Are Not Alone: After the death of her father, Tony tells her this (in Hebrew, no less) as she leaves for Israel to attend the funeral.
• You, Get Me Coffee: Regularly.
  • Played with in the "Doppelgänger" episode when the McGee analogue fetches coffee for Gibbs and his counterpart.
  • This is also played with when one of the team members (usually McGee) drinks or spills Gibbs' coffee, leaving them stammering, sputtering, and scrambling to get him a fresh cup.
    • This panic exists, but with the exception of Tony. Upon accidentally getting each other's coffees, he and Gibbs take a sip, pull disgusted faces, and calmly swap and keep drinking, all without saying a word or looking at one another.
    • Director Shepard also had immunity, Gibbs GAVE her his coffee at least twice, and one time she actually stole his cup and drank from it. Considering their history, it's not surprising...
• You Have to Believe Me!: The show loves subverting this one. See trope page for examples.
• You Killed My Father:
  • Director Shepard to La Grenouille.^note And even this is up for debate as Jenny's father could have just killed himself over guilt about being corrupt Later she does kill him, but no one figures it out until she's already dead...or was it Trent, actually telling the truth?
  • The daughter of the drug dealer who killed Gibbs' family to Gibbs; it turns out she's now the leader of the gang and she's the one who's been orchestrating all the Mexican intrigue.
  • Variation: You killed my daughter. Prepare to Die. — Gibbs' former mother-in-law to the Navy captain who was the main connection to the drug dealers that killed her daughter and granddaughter (the closest she could get to the actual murderers) — as he's on his knees about to propose to her. Gibbs later reveals to her that he avenged his family and "illegally" arrests her in her lawyer's presence to negate the charges.
  • Another variation: You (tangentially) killed my son: A young Navy recruit was arrested by Gibbs after he and a friend played a prank. The recruit's dad, a technological firm CEO, had them transferred to another ship which was blown up by a terrorist who found a flaw in the ship's design. Years later the guy blames Gibbs for his son's transfer, and he knows at least two deadly flaws in the fleet.
  • Ziva invoked this after her father gunned down in a drive-by shooting arranged by his protege.
  • Another variation is a man killed this young man's sister in front of him during a mugging gone wrong. The victim purposely screwed with the case to get it thrown out, so he could exact a personal revenge.
• You Need to Get Laid: Gibbs' team tries to find him the perfect woman in the ninth season episode "Safe Harbor" so he will stop making them work nights and weekends.
  • Gibbs told Tony he'd made a mistake in blowing off his ex-fiancee for Christmas brunch in the ninth season episode "Newborn King."
  • Tony and Ziva often push Tim McGee to ask out a girl and Tony once arranged a date for Tim.
  • Dr. Samantha Ryan says this is the reason why Gibbs is so gruff in season 9's "The Tell."
• Your Days Are Numbered: Lt. Roy Sanders in "Dead Man Walking."
• You Taste Delicious: During the aforementioned sexual harassment training, Ziva notices Tony not paying attention, and licks him. He promptly jumps up and draws everyone's attention.

---