Moment of Goodness: McGee Learns Valuable Lesson, NCIS “Freedom” 

The latest NCIS was coined “Freedom” and I think the word had more than one meaning in this episode. First, an abusive husband’s murder meant freedom for his Marine wife. At work, she was strong and authoritative and no one could mess with her. But at home, she was battered and bruised by her no-good hubby who had lost his job and was just plain unremarkable. He obviously was threatened by a woman who actually had it all going on. When the owner of the bar took it upon himself to take care of the violent jerk, she was free to be a mom and a marine. She was free from being a victim. Then there was a sense of freedom achieved by Special Agent Timothy McGee, who appeared to be the victim of identity theft. McGee should be used to things like this; after all, wasn’t it back in Season Two when his girlfriend at the time kept charging exorbitant amounts of stuff using his credit card? This time around, poor McGee couldn’t figure out the cause. After receiving a blow-up doll, naturally, he thought Dinozzo was the culprit. And to tell you the truth, I thought so too, especially when he immediately knew how to deflate the thing.

But, as the episode continued, things kept getting worse and worse for the computer geek. Finally, Tony decided to help him out. At the end of the hour, in walked Tony with a little kid. The boy turned out to be Nick Miller, the son of McGee’s landlady. Nick had a good reason for causing the special agent a world of trouble. Apparently, lately, Tim has been in a bit of a rut. He’s been going to work and coming home. Nothing more. He thinks McGee is too young to be all business and no fun; after all, he even orders the same take-out night after night. So, Nick took it upon himself to add some spice to Tim’s life. Sure, he caused $10,000 damage on McGee’s credit cards. It was OK since he knew Tim was only going to be liable for 50 bucks of it since this was a case of fraud. No harm, no foul, right? And this is where the episode’s Moment of Goodness occurred. All’s well that ended well so it was time for Tony to take the “little dude” to an arcade. They asked McGee to go along and right away he countered with his usual McGeek response of having paperwork to do. Thankfully, Tim saw the light and decided to abandon the routine, at least for one night. The three guys got into the elevator and then phoof “Freedom” was over.

Hopefully, Tim is now free of the rut his life has become and good things will start to happen to him in the future. And I may even worship Tony a little bit more because he came to the rescue of his friend and coworker. Plus, it’s good to know Tony has not regressed back to some of his old behaviors; he wasn’t the one to send McGee the blow-up doll. He did reel off a litany of McGee nicknames, which I absolutely loved. Don’t even think for a minute I’d be happy with Tony maturing too much.