NCIS head-canon time
Aug. 3rd, 2010 07:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eliyes* After Viv Blackadder, Gibbs ordered Tony to be less nice to new team members/probationary agents.
* Kate wasn't a prude (about most things) -- if you pay attention, she actually brings up sex more than the men. She just had trouble keeping balance walking the line between being completely herself, and letting herself be too strongly associated with sex in the minds of her male co-workers. There are indications that she was historically bad at keeping this balance, for example the way all her "buddies" from her Secret Service days want to have sex with her, and think they have a shot. Even the married ones.
* Kate was really too oblivious to be a good profiler. Maybe she would have been better if she'd gone into something that required the skill after her training, but she didn't, and it showed.
* Have Abby and Tony had sex? Inconclusive. They were probably lying when they implied so to Kate, considering Abby's inappropriately-timed and surprised-seeming comments when Ari shot into the lab. On the other hand, Abby was overtly fishing for dates with Tony during the pilot, so they may have had a casual thing then. Regardless, they definitely talk to each other about their sex lives with more honesty and disclosure than they do to anyone else.
* Tony has played D&D. Kate was not geeky enough to pick up on this or pass it on to McGee.
* Even Tony is not sure whether or not he really loved Jeanne. Maybe it's best to say, Tony DiNardo loved her.
* Tony loved Paula.
* Tony liked Kate better than he likes Ziva, but Ziva is much more like him. Actually, that's probably why.
* Tony and Ziva have way more sexual chemistry than Tony and Kate ever did.
* Kate wanted to have sex with Gibbs, and he knew it, and she knew he knew, and it bugged her. That's part of why she ultimately gave him more backtalk when he gave her orders than she gave Tony.
* Tony's father is bi.
* Someone on the writing staff, or possibly Don Bellisario himself, has serious daddy issues... which is why Gibbs, Jenny, Tony, and Ziva (etc.) do, too.
* Viv was relatively new, in the pilot, and fired directly thereafter. She may have gone back to the FBI, but considering her fuck up in Spain, they might not have wanted her.
* Vance is not actually as much of a bastard as he wants Gibbs to think he is. He knew that, with their differences, it would be hard to earn Gibbs' respect, so he had to make damn sure he could at least get the ornery ex-Marine to follow his orders until that could happen. He split up Team Gibbs primarily to keep them from self-destructing over Jenny's death, and it worked.
--* He sent Ziva back to Mossad because having her liase with NCIS was an agreement made between Director Shepard and Eli David; I'm sure he got to renegotiate terms to bring her back.
--* He made Tony an Agent Afloat for a number of reasons. The ones that are about Tony include: getting him away from easy access to alcohol, sex, and situations where he could easily get himself killed in the line of duty (his major self-destructive coping mechanisms); making it harder for him to suddenly quit and move to a new city and job (a behaviour he had left behind since coming to NCIS but which he might have reverted to under stress); and testing for himself Tony's quality as an agent when he's away from brilliant forensic support and Gibbs' direction. The ones that are about Gibbs mostly involved holding out that last, most-depended on piece of the pie -- Gibbs' long-time partner and favourite protégé -- to force him to play Vance's game in order to get him back. He wanted to study what Gibbs would do about it.
--* He put McGee down in Computer Crimes to cross-pollinate: update McGee's skills as much as the tech gremlins could, confer on them the tricks McGee had learned which are specifically useful on a team, and -- most especially -- show the kids at the computers that it's possible for a tech geek to be a successful field agent. Vance firmly believes that modern agents need to have a really good grasp of technology and computers, after all. Unfortunately, the hero worship McGee received there no doubt has contributed to his recent unsavory change of attitude.
* As stated in the show, when McGee first came over from Norfolk, Tony spread a rumour that McGee was gay. He did this a) as a favour to Abby, so that she'd have significantly less competition for him (since Tony knew she and McGee were interested in one another) and also some camouflage against Rule #12, and b) so that people would be nice to McGee. Yes, nice -- what government worker wants to risk offending the Politically Correct Police? Tony wanted people to be nice to Tim for several reasons: so that he wouldn't get scared off, so that Team Gibbs could handle any and all McGee-hazing (train that Probie up right), AND because with McGee's behaviour and appearence the rumour was inevitable anyway. But people would assume that if Tony is gossiping about it, Gibbs knows -- and, knowing, Gibbs took McGee onto his team, therefore comments about McGee's sexual orientation will be extremely unwise over and above office policies and sensitivity training. Plus, if McGee is actually interested in guys (remembering that Tony and Abby initially concluded he was bi) it paved the way for people accepting that.
* Kate wasn't a prude (about most things) -- if you pay attention, she actually brings up sex more than the men. She just had trouble keeping balance walking the line between being completely herself, and letting herself be too strongly associated with sex in the minds of her male co-workers. There are indications that she was historically bad at keeping this balance, for example the way all her "buddies" from her Secret Service days want to have sex with her, and think they have a shot. Even the married ones.
* Kate was really too oblivious to be a good profiler. Maybe she would have been better if she'd gone into something that required the skill after her training, but she didn't, and it showed.
* Have Abby and Tony had sex? Inconclusive. They were probably lying when they implied so to Kate, considering Abby's inappropriately-timed and surprised-seeming comments when Ari shot into the lab. On the other hand, Abby was overtly fishing for dates with Tony during the pilot, so they may have had a casual thing then. Regardless, they definitely talk to each other about their sex lives with more honesty and disclosure than they do to anyone else.
* Tony has played D&D. Kate was not geeky enough to pick up on this or pass it on to McGee.
* Even Tony is not sure whether or not he really loved Jeanne. Maybe it's best to say, Tony DiNardo loved her.
* Tony loved Paula.
* Tony liked Kate better than he likes Ziva, but Ziva is much more like him. Actually, that's probably why.
* Tony and Ziva have way more sexual chemistry than Tony and Kate ever did.
* Kate wanted to have sex with Gibbs, and he knew it, and she knew he knew, and it bugged her. That's part of why she ultimately gave him more backtalk when he gave her orders than she gave Tony.
* Tony's father is bi.
* Someone on the writing staff, or possibly Don Bellisario himself, has serious daddy issues... which is why Gibbs, Jenny, Tony, and Ziva (etc.) do, too.
* Viv was relatively new, in the pilot, and fired directly thereafter. She may have gone back to the FBI, but considering her fuck up in Spain, they might not have wanted her.
* Vance is not actually as much of a bastard as he wants Gibbs to think he is. He knew that, with their differences, it would be hard to earn Gibbs' respect, so he had to make damn sure he could at least get the ornery ex-Marine to follow his orders until that could happen. He split up Team Gibbs primarily to keep them from self-destructing over Jenny's death, and it worked.
--* He sent Ziva back to Mossad because having her liase with NCIS was an agreement made between Director Shepard and Eli David; I'm sure he got to renegotiate terms to bring her back.
--* He made Tony an Agent Afloat for a number of reasons. The ones that are about Tony include: getting him away from easy access to alcohol, sex, and situations where he could easily get himself killed in the line of duty (his major self-destructive coping mechanisms); making it harder for him to suddenly quit and move to a new city and job (a behaviour he had left behind since coming to NCIS but which he might have reverted to under stress); and testing for himself Tony's quality as an agent when he's away from brilliant forensic support and Gibbs' direction. The ones that are about Gibbs mostly involved holding out that last, most-depended on piece of the pie -- Gibbs' long-time partner and favourite protégé -- to force him to play Vance's game in order to get him back. He wanted to study what Gibbs would do about it.
--* He put McGee down in Computer Crimes to cross-pollinate: update McGee's skills as much as the tech gremlins could, confer on them the tricks McGee had learned which are specifically useful on a team, and -- most especially -- show the kids at the computers that it's possible for a tech geek to be a successful field agent. Vance firmly believes that modern agents need to have a really good grasp of technology and computers, after all. Unfortunately, the hero worship McGee received there no doubt has contributed to his recent unsavory change of attitude.
* As stated in the show, when McGee first came over from Norfolk, Tony spread a rumour that McGee was gay. He did this a) as a favour to Abby, so that she'd have significantly less competition for him (since Tony knew she and McGee were interested in one another) and also some camouflage against Rule #12, and b) so that people would be nice to McGee. Yes, nice -- what government worker wants to risk offending the Politically Correct Police? Tony wanted people to be nice to Tim for several reasons: so that he wouldn't get scared off, so that Team Gibbs could handle any and all McGee-hazing (train that Probie up right), AND because with McGee's behaviour and appearence the rumour was inevitable anyway. But people would assume that if Tony is gossiping about it, Gibbs knows -- and, knowing, Gibbs took McGee onto his team, therefore comments about McGee's sexual orientation will be extremely unwise over and above office policies and sensitivity training. Plus, if McGee is actually interested in guys (remembering that Tony and Abby initially concluded he was bi) it paved the way for people accepting that.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 11:23 pm (UTC)Also, how do we know that Tony played D&D? (having not ever played myself, I'm 95% sure I missed the reference unless it was super-duper obvious. Or it's from an episode I've only seen once).
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-25 06:16 am (UTC)Have you watched much season 1? Episode 4, "The Immortals" is about a death related to an online fantasy game. At the end, Tony presents Kate and Gibbs with presents he bought them in Puerto Rico. He got Gibbs a (Spanish-language) beginner's box set (with a cover that doesn't correspond to any real world game). 1:15 - "It's a fantasy RPG book, complete with character sheets and dice." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmaYCYPJbyU) Conclusive? No, but combined with other geek-coded things Tony did in the early episodes, plus that fact that D&D and other such tabletop roleplay games appeal to a wide player base, I choose to construe that he probably played it in college or one of his many boarding schools. (And possibly, he wanted to play with Gibbs. He speaks Spanish better than him, apparently, after all.)