NCIS – Recap & Review – Freedom

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NCIS
Freedom

Original Air Date: Feb 1, 2011

Maria – TwoCents Reviewer
maria@thetwocentscorp.com

NCIS is never one to shy away from big topic. Last episode dealt with homophobia, alcoholism and Alzheimer’s: this episode deals with the subject of domestic abuse. Of course, we don’t know that at first, we know very little. The teaser consists of a dog-walker stumbling across the badly beaten corpse of a Sergeant Travis Wooten.

Then we cut to Tony and Tim squabbling. Tim opens a package and a blow-up doll inflates in front of his face. Tony finds it hilarious; I don’t, especially since someone has used Tim’s credit card to pay for it. There isn’t time to dwell on that, as Gibbs alerts them to the case.

Sergeant Travis Wooten was married with six year old son, Jacob. His wife is Marine Gunnery Sergeant Georgia Wooten. She has a higher position than him and that, combined with the fact he recently lost a job, seemed to drive him to a club, Feeney’s Billiard Club to be precise. Credit accounts show Sergeant Wooten at Feeney’s Billiards Club, merely an hour before his death. There, Ziva David and Tony DiNozzo question the owner Len Feeney. Len claims that he thought Travis was divorced, never heard of wife Georgia but he does know of Travis’s girlfriend, Jancey Gilroy.

The analysis of the body shows it was an angry and sustained attack. Even though Travis managed to get part of the murder weapon imbedded in his hand, a sliver of wood with some kind of stain or varnish on it, neither medical examiner Ducky or Mistress of the Magical Databases Abby can determine the murder weapon. At first it appears that Travis is a victim.

This image is maintained as we are introduced to his wife, Georgia. She does not appear to be grieving, in fact, she almost seems relieved. She was also caught trying to flee from home, without reporting her absence to her commanding officer. She looks very suspicious, as does Jancey Gilroy. It turns out that both women were being abused by Travis. He is looking less like a victim.

Gibbs deals with the situation with remarkable understanding and humanity. He refers to Georgia as a survivor and not a victim. Still, it is his job to determine whether she killed her husband and she acknowledges that, explaining that she knew that when he threatened to take Jacob from her, she had to flee. She would die for her little boy, but she did not kill her husband for him.

Len Feeney would kill to protect Georgia though. He lied to Tony and Ziva about not knowing her, because he spoke to her on the phone and in the club when she had to collect her drunken husband. He saw how Travis was treating her; he heard the fear in her voice that night and he snapped, bludgeoning him to death with a pool cue. Almost understandable, yet still so very illegal but sentencing isn’t the job of our NCIS agents. They’ve caught the killer; it’s not up to them what happens next.

The episode isn’t quite over though yet, because there is still the mystery of who sent Tim that blow-up doll. Tony uses his policing skills to figure out that it’s the grandson of Tim’s landlady who has been running up a bill on Tim’s account. The boy had been doing it because Tim was ‘acting old’ and rationalizes that Tim will only have to pay a $50 charge and not the several thousand dollar bill he’d run up. Tony is grinning like the cat which got the cream and Tim seems to have learned his ‘lesson’ because he ditches the paperwork to go out with Tony and the kid instead.

There was no Vance this episode and I barely noticed Palmer’s presence. I guessed the killer straight away and found myself frustrated that the murder weapon never occurred to any member of the team sooner. I also found myself frustrated by the young teenage boy who sent Tim the blow-up doll. It was criminal and Tony seemed to reward him for it.

On the other hand, I found the portrayal of Georgia Wooten as a strong woman who endured domestic abuse was realistic and powerful. I just wish the rest of the episode had been as strong as her character.

What are your thoughts about this episode? Did you guess the murderer? Were you affected by the portrayal of domestic abuse? What did you think of the credit theft storyline? Please, drop us a line and let us know your TwoCents.