By now you might have discovered that when there is a rerun on NCIS, we don’t write a critique. That’s because we’ve already written one when the episode appeared for the first time. Those critiques can be found in the archives of earlier episode on our website. For the last two weeks there has not been an NCIS episode that wasn’t a rerun. Last week there were election returns on Tuesday night, so this episode remained ‘in the can’. The week before that (when this episode would have been run) there was a World Series game on TV. Television executives know better than to waste a never-before-seen episode on a night when their ratings will be down.
It was hard to escape all the political advertisements the preceded the November 8, 2016 election. Then there were the claims that many in ‘liberal media’ were trying to influence viewers in favor of their favorite candidate, or to denigrate the candidate they opposed. One of the positions taken by the Republican Presidential candidate was that he would deport persons who were illegally in the U.S. unlawfully.That being said, let’s look at tonight’s show, “Home of the Brave.” Though it aired tonight, keep in mind it was originally scheduled to air one week before the election. This show features a former Hispanic Marine Victor Medina who was brought to the U.S. as a child and served in the Marine Corps. Now, because he was discovered to have committed a felony while in the Marine Corps, Immigration agents are going to deport him back to Mexico. Medina’s complaint to Agent’s Bishop and Torres is that he will be sent back to Mexico where he can’t even speak the language. As the drama unfolded, it seemed to us the writers decided to feature a political angle. Before we comment further about tonight’s episode, we ask the many perceptive viewers: does the original timing of this episode dealing with the hot-button issue of immigration just before the election, pass your smell test?
The imminent deportation of a Marine with a felony record was juxtaposed against an extremely weird sub-plot involving Agent Quinn’s dream about Gibbs knocking on wood. We won’t toy with your minds to even discuss that further. The appearance of Robert Wagner, who plays Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo’s father, provided the only redeeming aspect of an otherwise less than stellar program. He wants to lease Tony’s apartment to one of the “family.” It was really a hoot to see Abby, Tim, Ellie lobby to be selected. In a fun twist, Jimmy selects the Torres, which throws the others for a loop. Torres does something classy at the end, which will endear him to many fans.
We briefly looked up the issue of non-citizen military personnel being deported for crimes committed. While the Armed Forces claim they won’t admit unauthorized immigrants, several articles we read seemed to suggest several service branches were going to be initiating a fast-track citizenship program for those who serve.
On a final note, the U.S. Marines just celebrated their 241st anniversary. Semper Fi.
Be Blessed, Diane and David Munson
I respect and love politics and enjoy talking about the subject. But for goodness sakes folks keep it away from the programs. they even have weird political view points in cartoons. Not that I watch cartoons or anything. But I do like Iron man, Uhem… I have to support you on your perspective. I get very discouraged when they take supposedly very seasoned and exceptionally well trained agents and make them look stupid on TV for the purpose of entertainment . Example , when Torres was chasing the one person out the back of the building and looking away slowly walks past that stack of tires and I yelled.. HE”S BEHIND THE TIRES !!!!!!! And evidence shows that I was correct. The one thing that was shown more in the very early years of NCIS was respect and honorable treatment of the agents and the staff of NCIS. seems to be missing for the sake of stupid so called entertaining blunders.