NCIS In Review - UnSEALed (Episode 1.18)

 NCIS In Review - UnSEALed (Episode 1.18)

No character dies in real-time. However, behind the main plot, there is an old seemingly resolved murder case. Former Petty Officer First Class and Navy SEAL Jack Curtin allegedly murdered his wife and a cable technician. The alleged motive was that he believed the cable installation was a cover-up. Curtin was tried, convicted, and incarcerated. However, now he is free. But what is he after?

Episode:  1.18, UnSEALed

Air Date: April 6, 2004

Victim: No character dies in real-time. However, behind the main plot, there is an old seemingly resolved murder case. Former Petty Officer First Class and Navy SEAL Jack Curtin allegedly murdered his wife and a cable technician. The alleged motive was that he believed the cable installation was a cover-up. Curtin was tried, convicted, and incarcerated. However, now he is free. But what is he after?

There is no corpse to be found. However, it is suspected that the couple whose house was invaded by Curtin, a fugitive from Ft. Leavenworth, is facing significant trauma. Especially the lady of the house, who initially thought she was being sexually assaulted when Curtin made her turn around and began undressing. However, Curtin only intended to change out of his prison clothes and grab some pieces from her husband's wardrobe.

Kate and Tony, on their way to work, discuss home invasion strategies. Kate is in favor of grabbing a gun she keeps under her pillow and shooting an intruder, something even Gibbs finds interesting, given the fact that she sleeps with a gun.

The conversation in the vehicle stops, and the narrative shifts to the actual home invasion case, focusing on Jack Curtin, a former Navy SEAL and Leavenworth fugitive. As mentioned earlier, both the Army CID and the NCIS are collaborating on the investigation, without Director Morrow needing to intervene and interrupt his golf game to handle the situation appropriately. This, indeed, creates confusion. Nevertheless, Gibbs decides that the contents of Curtin's cell need to be examined by Abby.

Gibbs and Kate pay a visit to Curtin's son Kevin's grandparents, who are taking care of him. The grandparents, Curtin's wife's parents, believe that there has been no contact between Curtin and Kevin. Furthermore, they believe Curtin is guilty of their daughter's murder and, therefore, are not willing to facilitate a meeting between them. When Kevin does show up, he behaves rebelliously towards his grandparents. Gibbs tries to connect with the boy using a skateboard, but Kevin responds with hostility. Gibbs then decides to let Kate handle Kevin in case Curtin shows up. While one could argue that leaving a woman to care for a child is sexist, Kate's performance so far has shown she is not up to the task of handling a SEAL.

Gibbs visits Abby, who is busy working and does not yet have any relevant information to provide. This raises the question of why this scene was included, perhaps to fill time?

Tony visits the JAG prosecutor, who is not interested in his cable technician and sex-related jokes. She informs him that the victims' blood was found on Curtin, and his fingerprints were on the murder weapon, a knife. The overall conclusion is that Curtin found his wife with the cable technician and went into a rage. Tony is puzzled by the fact that Curtin called the police after committing the murder. Furthermore, it is discovered that the cable technician was not actually involved in an affair with Curtin's wife but was doing a genuine cable installation. Curtin was not sentenced to death because he claimed to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) due to his combat missions. However, the prosecutor disagrees and considers Curtin too tough to have PTSD, given his history of foreign infiltration operations, although she did not contest this.

Tony hands Gibbs Curtin's file and provides an analysis of Curtin's resilient personality. He grew up in foster homes, joined the Navy at 17, went through SEAL training, fought in Afghanistan, and his SEAL team testified at his trial. His team is deployed, but his former commander, Commander Foley, is in Norfolk. Gibbs decides to visit him. Commander Foley had no contact with Curtin but considers him a decent man. Furthermore, he understands why Curtin might have committed the murder.

Gibbs returns to check on Abby's progress and brings her a Café-Pow. Abby determines how Curtin managed to escape from prison. The method is intricate, but Curtin tricked a guard into doing finger exercises on a door and accidentally left his fingerprints on a semi-dry toothpaste tube he placed on the door. Curtin then used those fingerprints (and an access card he had obtained earlier from the guard) to enter the laundry room, where he hid in a basket of dirty laundry before escaping.

Kate is at Kevin's house, playing solitaire and appearing quite enthusiastic about the game until she hears a noise. She calls McGee to inform him that she is investigating a noise in the kitchen. There, she realizes that a knife is missing from the knife block and panics in an unprofessional manner. Fortunately, she does not shoot her gun at Kevin, although there is a suggestion that maybe she should have, as he deceives her and lets his guard down, allowing Curtin to take her weapon and point it at her. This marks the second time in three episodes that Kate is captured due to her negligence. This time, she is tied to a chair and gagged. Curtin informs Kate that he came to say goodbye to Kevin.

Curtin and Kevin share an intimate moment in Kevin's bed, discussing their experiences in prison. McGee tries to reach Kate, but she does not respond. When Curtin realizes it's time to leave, he uses Kate's radio to listen to a fictitious conversation about his car being surrounded, prompting him to flee on foot. Curtin ends up carjacking a vehicle at gunpoint, with McGee firing shots at the rear window. Sasha Alexander or the writers apparently decided that Kate needed redemption, as she retrieves a shotgun from McGee's trunk and shoots at the driver's side of Curtin's stolen car.

Curtin doesn't die but is injured and bleeding. This probably saves Kate from complications when she needs to confess to Gibbs that she was taken prisoner with her own weapon.

Gibbs talks to Kevin. As we've seen in the episode "Hung Out to Dry" (Episode 1.2), Gibbs is good with children, even those who weren't very respectful before. He offers food to Kevin and assures him that children are not arrested for helping their parents. Gibbs tries the skateboard approach again, but Kevin doesn't respond. However, when Gibbs mentions that it's difficult for people like them, who tend to be reserved, to talk about their feelings, Kevin asks what Gibbs is hiding. Gibbs hesitates but eventually shares information about the Terrorist, explaining that he hasn't been able to capture him yet, and it deeply bothers him. Kevin refuses to help Gibbs find his father, but Gibbs wasn't there for information or to manipulate Kevin.

Abby determines that Kate hit Curtin with the shotgun but can't tell the severity of his injuries. Gibbs begins examining the contents of Curtin's stolen car's glove compartment. There, he finds two maps of Washington, DC, which leads him to suspect that Curtin wasn't aware there would be a city map in the glove compartment and bought a new one.

Ignoring what was mentioned earlier, it becomes clear that Gibbs got some information from Kevin off-screen. Kevin believes Curtin is planning to kill a specific person and then turn himself in. The agents rule out the possibility of Curtin targeting the prosecutor or the judge, as both favored Curtin during his trial, not contesting the PTSD defense and being lenient with the sentence, respectively. Since Curtin instructed Kate not to run under any circumstances, Gibbs starts to consider that Curtin has always claimed to be innocent and may be seeking the real killer. Tony makes a reference to "The Fugitive," mentioning the one-armed man, and Gibbs understands the allusion, although it's an older TV show. However, if the cable technician was indeed installing cables, the lawyers were professionals, and the judge was fair, then who else could be the real murderer?

Curtin is not found despite an APB on the car and a search of medical clinics and even veterinarians. Kate realizes that if Curtin discovered his wife's real killer while in prison, he would have mentioned something. Since Curtin had a box of case-related files in his cell, it's reasonable to assume he found something during that time. Gibbs decides to reinvestigate the old case from the beginning and instructs Tony and Kate to involve JAG lawyers from both sides to assist. He tries to get the NCIS file on the murder, but McGee has already obtained it, impressing Gibbs.

The defense attorney, now in private practice, refuses to cooperate with NCIS, so Tony decides to arrest him. Everyone gathers in the evidence garage to examine the case. Even Abby and Ducky have the opportunity to participate, providing a fresh way to recap the evidence for the audience. Drug tests do not show positive results, eliminating the possibility of the wife being killed by drug dealers. Evidence of marital infidelity is questionable, as it's unlikely someone would romantically involve themselves with a SEAL's wife. Gibbs requests the wife's phone records. While these records had no value at the time, the lawyers claimed the wife didn't own a cell phone. However, Curtin had already contacted phone companies and prepaid cell phone providers, obtaining billing records in Margaret Curtin's name, leading Gibbs to believe that Curtin had discovered something significant.

A brief interlude shows Special Agent Chris Pacci (last seen in "Bête Noire" - Episode 1.16), approaching Gibbs and asking for his help with an old case. Gibbs, busy, treats Pacci's request with his typical pragmatism. Pacci agrees that the matter can wait.

Gibbs visits Ducky, initially interested in discussing the medical examiner's theory about the Terrorist, whom Ducky believes conducted his higher studies in the British Isles. However, the conversation shifts to the current case, and Ducky informs Gibbs that the original case's medical examiner misinterpreted the cause of death. He believed the victims had their throats slit, but in reality, the killer broke their necks. Tony suggests that this points to Curtin's guilt, especially considering the wife's phone records, which mainly consisted of appointments or calls to Commander Foley's residence. Since Commander Foley was on a mission abroad, the team presumes that Curtin's wife was probably seeking news about the troops. However, the cell phone record is something Curtin had recently acquired, making it a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Meanwhile, Abby discovers that Curtin's wife had herpes, while Curtin did not have the disease. Tony and Kate interview Commander Foley's wife, an attractive and athletic woman playing tennis. She does not believe that Mrs. Curtin had an affair and claims that most of their conversations focused on deployment information. However, they discover that Commander Foley returned to the United States almost a month before Curtin. Tony and Kate summon him for questioning. While talking to Commander Foley in the interrogation room, Gibbs begins to develop a theory that Commander Foley killed Mrs. Curtin, and Curtin assumed the blame, possibly without Commander Foley's knowledge, as the investigation could have taken a different turn if Curtin hadn't returned to the base when he did. Commander Foley seems to be changing his story, now describing Curtin as one of the most jealous men he's ever known, contrary to his previous statements praising Curtin during the trial.

At this point, McGee interrupts the interrogation, leaving Tony and Gibbs baffled. Whatever it is, McGee shares it with Gibbs outside the room. Gibbs returns to the interrogation room and reveals that Mrs. Curtin was not murdered by her jealous husband, but rather by her jealous lover, who infected her with herpes. Commander Foley requests a lawyer.

Still without leads on Curtin's whereabouts, the scene cuts to him tending to his wound. Then the scene returns to Tony, who remains intrigued by the fact that Mrs. Curtin's calls to Foley's residence ceased when Commander Foley returned from deployment. This wouldn't make sense if they were having an affair. In fact, after Commander Foley's return, Mrs. Curtin only called Foley's residence when he was proven to be in the hospital due to injuries sustained during deployment. Mrs. Curtin's lover was not Commander Foley; it was his wife. And Curtin is still after her.

The scene cuts to the Foley house, where Mrs. Foley is taking a bath, wearing sensual lingerie, and applying lotion while Curtin invades the house. Curtin approaches her... but to his surprise, it's Kate who finds him, adding one more item to the list of challenges she has faced in this case. Kate points her gun at Curtin, demands her own weapon back, and the team makes the arrest. Gibbs pokes at the wound, asking Curtin, "Is this what you wanted your son to remember about you?"

The episode ends back in the office, with a cliché conversation about male fantasies and typical interactions between Tony and Kate. Gibbs leaves the redhead, and Tony tries to convince McGee to ask Gibbs about his identity. McGee thanks Gibbs for the opportunity to work with the team and mentions that Tony and Kate have a question for him.

This episode presents a complex enough plot to keep the viewer's attention. Curtin is a character who oscillates between threatening and sympathetic until his sympathy is lost at the end. While his actions may seem petty at one point, the mystery and twists keep the episode interesting and engaging.

Seven Abby´s