'NCIS' recap: Dressed to kill 3/4/2014

Another exciting episode of NCIS begins as we find Tony’s father is back in the area for reasons unknown. Father and son share a hug outside a hotel and as they are about to go, Tony spots a man walking out of the hotel in military uniform. However, something seems to bother Tony about what the man is wearing and he calls out to him. When his dad distracts him, the man rushes off, only for Tony to follow him into an alley.

Upon reaching the alley, the man pulls a gun and Tony draws his weapon as well. At the last second, Tony’s father appears and with the gunman pointing his weapon toward them, Tony fires a shot, killing the unknown man.

We see the team examining the victim and the scene. While Tim tries to figure out the man’s identity, Tony is explaining to Gibbs why he was suspicious of the man. The sleeves on his shirt were labeled for a lieutenant commander while his hat was for a full commander. Tim discovers that the man wasn’t military. According to Ellie, the hotel security system has been shut down so they can’t see what happened.

Ellie is ordered to get DiNozzo Sr. back to NCIS so he can’t talk to anyone about what he witnessed. Tony has to wait on the sidelines, since an investigation will now need to be done of the shooting. Eugene Coyle heads the investigation.

Coyle interviews Tony’s dad, who is still in shock after seeing his son shoot someone. As Coyle asks him questions, DiNozzo Sr. wonders if he’s trying to confuse him.

Meanwhile in the squad room, the team found out the hotel security cameras crashed due to an outside source. Tony suggests they go and show the “bogus commander’s” photo to the hotel staff, but Gibbs tells him he’s benched until he’s cleared. DiNozzo Sr. comes down after his interrogation and Tony is set up to talk to Coyle.

DiNozzo Sr. asks if he can go back to the hotel, and Ellie is given keys to take him there. Abby rushes over to give DiNozzo Sr. a hug. After Ellie and DiNozzo Sr. leave, Abby tells Gibbs and Tim her news. She has discovered the dead guy is a private investigator. Tim tells them Tony will be “doing bad Bogart impressions for a week.” Gibbs replies, “Do not tell Tony.”

The dead man is Nick Bodeen, a disgraced private investigator of the rich and powerful. Gibbs wonders why he is in military uniform then.

Tony is in his interview with Coyle and is defending his actions over shooting a man while off duty. Tony tells him he drew his gun after the other man did. However, because DiNozzo Sr. didn’t see this, it’s a problem.

Ellie is on the phone with her husband, having to cancel plans they had made three months previous, while Tim had to tell his girlfriend why he wasn’t making dinner. Gibbs wants an update and they explain Bodeen was a private detective for the rich until he was accused of wiretapping in a corporate espionage case.

Tim has to figure out how to get a judge to sign a search warrant on a Sunday. He takes the information about Bodeen off the plasma screen as Tony comes back downstairs. Gibbs avoids telling him what they have found on the case as he gets a call to go down to autopsy.

Abby is down in autopsy with Ducky and Palmer. They discovered gun shot residue on Bodeen’s hand, meaning he had recently fired a gun. Meanwhile in the squad room, Tony is trying to get a hold of his dad, who isn’t answering his cell phone and didn’t check into the hotel Ellie took him too. Supposedly he had told Tony he checked in there, but he never did.

Gibbs sends Tim to go to the hotel to do a room-to-room search, since Bodeen had been leaving the hotel before he was shot. At the hotel, Ellie and Tim discuss having to search all of the rooms. Then, they discover DiNozzo Sr. on the other side of the hall, going into a room with a very young and very pregnant woman.

Back at the squad room, Jimmy gives the autopsy report to Tony, but he tells Jimmy to put it on Gibbs’ desk. He takes a call from Tim’s desk and after taking down a note about the search warrant, Jimmy unwittingly informs Tony of the dead man’s name.

Tim and Ellie are knocking on a hotel room door, but there is no answer. Opening the door, Tim discovers a mess in the room before they see the body of a man sittng in a chair, with a gunshot wound to the head.

The team, sans Tony, is examining the hotel room and find out the victim’s name is Michael Elliot.

In the squad room, the team finds out Michael Elliot worked for Senator Denise O’Hara. Now, they just need to figure out if there’s a connection to Bodeen. Tim plans on going to Bodeen’s office while Ellie goes to check electronic information. Tony is nowhere to be found.

Eugene Coyle goes to Abby’s lab at her request, where she has proof that Tony is innocent. Since the bullet that killed Elliot matches the test-fired bullet from Bodeen’s gun, it means Bodeen is a killer. But since Tony didn’t know this at the time, it doesn’t let him off the hook.

At Bodeen’s office, Tim discovers Tony sitting behind the man’s desk. He tells Tony that he’s screwed if Gibbs finds out he’s there. Tony begins lamenting on the great Nick Bodeen, while Tim looks on, annoyed. Tim tells Tony he can take pictures, just as Tony finds some keys to open a door in the office he was unable to get into. They find a room full of surveillance equipment, enough to hack into the hotel security system.

Ellie tells Gibbs there is a man named Commander Lionel Saxon in the interview room, who has information about Michael Elliot. According to Saxon, he got a call from Elliot, who was nervous and wanted to meet with him. He thought it was about a report he had helped drawn up with Senator O’Hara regarding U.S. ports. When Saxon arrived at the hotel, he was unable to meet Elliot. After asking Gibbs about the shooting death of Bodeen, he wonders out loud of the man was impersonating him.

Tim and Tony are trying to get into Bodeen’s safe, but neither of them have any luck. Then, they realize someone has come to the office to see Bodeen, so Tony goes out to meet a beautiful blonde woman. She thinks he is Bodeen and just as Tony is about to talk to her, he gets a call from his dad. He goes back into the office and Tim walks out to ask the woman questions. On the phone, Tony’s dad wants him to meet at the hotel bar.

At the capitol, Gibbs and Ellie go to see Senator O’Hara. Her secretary Jennifer Morrison is in tears, but she brushes it off. Through talking with Senator O’Hara, Gibbs and Ellie find out there is no way Elliot knew or associated with Bodeen.

Tony goes to the hotel bar to see his dad and find out what’s going on. DiNozzo Sr. brings up Tony’s dangerous job to deflect the conversation. DiNozzo Sr. reveals he’s getting married.

In the squad room, Ellie is working and Tim asks what she has found. Senator O’Hara has been focusing on a budget cut bill that would close U.S. ports in Asia, which piques Ellie’s interest since Commander Saxon was asked to assess military strategic value of these ports. They believe that’s what Elliot wanted to talk to Saxon about. Tony comes in the room looking disturbed.

Tim and Ellie realize, upon finding out Tony will have a future stepmom, that the woman they saw at the hotel is most likely DiNozzo Sr.’s fiancée. Tim makes his escape to see Abby just as Tony realizes Ellie knows something. Upon interrogation, Tony finds out the woman his team saw his dad with is young and pregnant.

Abby is in her lab and working on cracking the safe Tony and Tim found. Tim comes to help her and when they get it open, they find a gun, a prepaid burn phone, and $40,000 from a bank in Macao.

In the squad room as Tim is telling Gibbs what they found, Tony comes in ignoring his ringing phone. Gibbs tells Ellie to find out if Bodeen has been to Macao, without using his name, and Tony accidentally reveals that he had. In order to save himself, Tony urges Tim to pull up the photos he had apparently shown earlier. A photo on one of the pictures shows Bodeen in Macao with a man named Calvin Ling.

That night in Gibbs’ basement, DiNozzo Sr. goes down to have a conversation with Gibbs about Tony. When he finds out Tony thinks his fiancée is a young, pregnant woman, a stunned DiNozzo Sr. reveals she is the daughter of his fiancée.

The next morning, Tim has found a connection between Bodeen and Senator O’Hara. The burn phone records indicated Bodeen made calls to a cell phone registered to O’Hara. They also found out Calvin Ling owns a company that sells fuel and supplies to U.S. Navy Vessels in Asian ports. If the senate eliminated the ports, then he would lose a fortune.

In Abby’s lab, Abby has decrypted Bodeen’s audio files, where he recorded the calls of “half of Washington.” They listen to the phone call Elliot had with Saxon about needing to meet with him. They understand why Bodeen was in military uniform when Saxon tells Elliot that’s what he would be wearing.

The team finds out the senate committee will be meeting about the ports in Asia. Meanwhile, Tony has been declared fit to go back into the field. Gibbs wants him to see his father.

Tony goes to meet his dad and finds out that the woman his father was seen with was not his fiancée. His dad is engaged to Tony’s godmother, Linda Turner, who was also his mother’s best friend.

Gibbs stops O’Hara just as she is about to go to the committee vote. He tells her about the cell phone and she informs Gibbs that all of her staff has secondary phones. Tim calls the number and while everyone else checks his or her phones, Jennifer Morrison doesn’t.

Senator O’Hara is shocked to find out Commander Saxon’s report was altered and it was possible for Jennifer to alter them. Due to the arrest, Senator O’Hara puts a halt to the port-closure bill.

The Capitol Police informs Tim part of the money from Macao was found in Jennifer’s apartment. Tim and Ellie go to transfer their paperwork on the case to the Capitol Police. Gibbs asks Tony if he met with his dad’s fiancée. Tony is worrying he’s betraying his mother and Gibbs reminds him that his father might feel the same way.

Going back to the hotel, Tony meets up with Linda’s daughter, Taylor, who has begun to warm up to the thought of their parents getting together. When DiNozzo Sr. comes to greet Tony, Taylor goes to get her mother. Tony apologizes to his father for acting like a jerk and tells his father his mom would approve. DiNozzo Sr. says “It’s exactly what I needed to hear.” Tony suggests they all have dinner together as a family and the two share a hug.

Photo: Richard Cartwright/CBS