NCIS 14x15 “Pandora’s Box (Part I)” Review

SPOILERS

“Pandora’s Box (Part I)” was a two-part crossover with NCIS: New Orleans. I hadn’t watched NCIS: New Orleans since the pilot crossover but I wanted to finish the story. Overall, I enjoyed both episodes.

Quick recap: Part I starts with someone planting something suspicious-looking at a concert. They’re caught, there’s a dramatic reveal, and it’s Abby! She says something that sounds like a code, and since Abby would never be the bad guy, I assumed it was all a ruse. Turns out it was, and in flashbacks we get to see the war game planned out by a Homeland think tank. But, plot twist, the fake balloons were filled with real sarin, and no one knew there was a security test going on. There was a race to figure out who it was, and it ended up being a revenge-driven member of the think tank.

Abby convinces security that she's not a "bad guy".

The secondary plot that leads into the NOLA episode (“Pandora’s Box (Part II)”) is that information about similar Homeland security tests, plans, and results were hacked and stolen. Torres and McGee team with up the NOLA branch to find who took this “Playbook” and who’s going to buy it. A little undercover, a little kidnapping. I might have appreciated it more if I was following NOLA, but it was still good.

I really like the episodes that are less “who killed the Marine” and more high-stakes, national security, game-like puzzle pieces, and closely involving the members of the team. The way it was going it couldn’t have been just a one-off episode. I could almost have seen it becoming a season-long arc, but the two-part suited it as well.

I always enjoy episodes that have the team members tied into the storyline in an integral way, like a few episodes ago that was all about Jimmy. “Abby the bad guy” was a nice angle because she is the last person you would expect for this kind of thing. She’s the happiest Goth you’ll ever meet, and it’s really obvious that she is not happy about being used in this game and will definitely not be volunteering for anything in the future. This reminded me a little about an earlier season; I believe when Lee was on the team and they were trying to find the mole, they used Abby as the fall guy to smoke them out.

The title, “Pandora’s Box”, was very apt in this case. In Greek mythology, Pandora’s box was opened and released death and disease and other horrible things onto the otherwise perfect human race. Much like that, the balloons from the war game would be like Pandora’s box since if they had been released they would have let out the sarin and brought death to hundreds of people.

(Disclaimer for the future: I will only be reviewing spinoff episodes if they are crossovers; NCIS is the only show of the three I regularly watch.)

What a great two-parter to start this blog with!

9/10