Pirates’ Pufferfish Poison Preference

It’s never a good day when your boss tells you to grab a body bag and meet him in his boss’s office on the double. But that’s the situation on this week’s NCIS when the agent Vance (Rocky Carroll) had embedded in the Venezuelan government collapses and dies on his commercial-grade work carpet.

The death of Diego Barreto comes at an inconvenient time, as Vance is embarking on high-profile talks with the Venezuelan Navy to create a joint task force to combat piracy in the Caribbean. Heck, Torres even put on a jacket for the occasion, although he’s forgoing a tie, and he’s got at least three too many shirt buttons undone.

Before you can say “international incident,” the team agrees to help smuggle the body out of NCIS HQ and into Barreto’s hotel room for a maid to “discover,” which will allow them to start their investigation without jeopardizing the upcoming talks.

Of course, they’ll have to distract the press waiting in the big orange room to interview Vance. Parker (Gary Cole) volunteers to be the affable government stooge who ushers the group into the hallway to view the display case commemorating NCIS’ work abroad.

The reporters are grumpy, but the ruse works, and (Sean Murray) and Torres’ (Wilmer Valderrama) scurry across the upstairs hallway carrying roughly 200 pounds of literally dead weight.

Kasie (Diona Reasonover) quickly determines that Barreto was killed with pufferfish poison, and she knows it happened in Vance’s office because she’s got everyone’s carpet samples on file. Efficient or intrusive? Discuss!

Oh, did you think an undercover agent cracking his skull open and bleeding all over Vance as he died would be the most uncomfortable thing to happen to him today? Nope. The true discomfort comes when Lena Paulson (Marem Hassler), Vance’s annual Interpol conference hookup, strolls into NCIS.

The former German government agent is an independent contractor representing NATO at the talks. So not only is Vance feeling weird about her not telling him she was coming to town, but he’s got to lie about the death of Barreto in front of a woman who knows all of his tells.

So far, we know that Barreto was undercover with Admiral Carlos Mendoza (Carlos Gomez) and learned that someone is trying to sabotage the anti-piracy task force talks. The likeliest suspect is Fernando Vega (Lyduan Gonzalez), a new Mendoza aide who’s vocally anti-American.

But when Barreto’s body is finally called in, McGee and Torres are surprised to learn that a dead man with a broken neck was stashed in the bathtub sometime after they deposited Barreto and dashed.

The next unpleasant surprise is the arrival of Robyn Kael (Czarina Mireles), a reporter with the D.C. Chronicle who tries to force her way into the crime scene with way more physical aggression than you usually see from reporters. “What is NCIS hiding?” she shouts as she leaves.

Vance gets the news about the second body over drinks with Lena at the restaurant where they’re meeting Mendoza. She sees how stressed he is and suggests they retire to her hotel room after dinner, but he declines. Then they dance around a relationship talk.

He’s surprised to hear that she’s buying an apartment in New York, and she barely hides her hurt that she learned about his shooting through news reports. Neither of them’s being completely open about their feelings, but it’s clear that neither of them is satisfied with current the state of affairs.

When Mendoza arrives, his little joke about beautiful women being his weakness gets a way bigger laugh from his entourage than it really should. Then the moment’s interrupted with the news of Barreto’s death. Vance bluffs his way through it, but it definitely sours the mood.

It also prompts Mendoza to send a security employee to oversee as Palmer (Brian Dietzen) conducts the autopsy. In light of the Venezuelan visitors, Palmer’s been learning Spanish on a free app, and the one sentence he managed to pick up comes in handy: “Necesito lavarme los manos.”

Over the running water, Palmer scrubs his hands and tells McGee that the dead guy in the tub is a local hitman who uses pufferfish poison. Although the fingerprints on the man’s body aren’t in the system, Vance lifted prints from Vega’s glass at dinner, which allows Kasie to confirm that he’s the one who snapped the hitman’s neck.

Also, Barreto had several off-the-books meetings with an unknown source in a Caracas apartment before his death, according to the GPS on his cell phone.

When Torres and Knight (Katrina Law) track down Vega, they find him talking to a hoodie-wearing contact who gives Knight quite the battle before revealing herself to be… Lena, of course. (Meanwhile, Torres’ chase of Vega ends in a dead-end hallway with a glib, “You done, bro?”)

In questioning, Lena admits that she’s back with the German government because she was Vega’s original handler. Now he’s undercover with the Venezuelan government to ferret out the assassin hired to scuttle the task force talks, likely at the behest of Hezbollah, which wants to continue smuggling diamonds around the Caribbean. (My word, we’re really criss-crossing the globe here.)

That night, Vance stops by Parker’s place, which remains a drool-worthy oasis of brick and greenery. For real, put that place on Vrbo so I can stay for a long weekend.

Vance is ostensibly there to let Parker know that they told the press about increased security at the talks in the hopes that the news will deter the assassin. But really, he needs to talk to a buddy who also went through a near-death, knocking-on-heaven’s door moment last year.

Parker admits that he had some surprising thoughts while he was bleeding out on that decommissioned ship in last season’s finale. He says he hasn’t unpacked it all yet, which means we’re likely in for an exploration of Alden’s sister trauma in a future episode. Bring it on, I say!

Vance, meanwhile, thought about how he wants to spend the time he has left, and who he wants to spend it with. Although he claims he’s not sure what that looks like, Parker suggests that Vance needs to be honest with himself first if he wants honesty from anyone else. (“Anyone” is how we’re pronouncing “Lena” tonight, for the record.)

Hey, remember when I said that Robyn Kael from the DC Chronicle was surprisingly ready to fistfight a cop for access to Barreto’s hotel room? Turns out, Kael was fired from the Chronicle months ago, and a domain belonging to the Chronicle’s been used to email Hezbollah. We’ve got a radicalized reporter on our hands, people!

And ope, said radicalized reporter’s snatched Lena and told Vance he’s got an hour to scrap the talks or his lady love is dead.

Vance orders his team—including Torres in a snazzy suit and tie, all his buttons buttoned—to get out there and save his woman, thereby keeping the Caribbean waterways safe for everyone except diamond smugglers.

Thankfully, Lena flashed her smartwatch at the CCTV camera as Kael was herding out of the hotel with a gun to her back, and the team’s able to track it to where she’s being held. Unfortunately, it’s too far away for Kael’s deadline.

To buy the team time, Parker yet again is shoved in front of the press to stall. This time, he embarks on a lengthy history of U.S./Venezuelan relations beginning in 1853 and ending with, “Some would say that Miguel Cabrera was the greatest Venezuelan player in the MLB, but I dunno, have you seen Felix Hernandez?” Ha!

Just as Kael’s taunting Lena about Vance’s lack of concern for her wellbeing, the team bursts in to rescue her and the talks are successfully resume.

Ah, but we have one twist left. Although Admiral Mendoza pretends not to know Robyn Kael, the team discovered that Barreto was having an affair with the admiral’s wife, so he hired the hitman to take him out. Beautiful women really are his weakness.

The episode ends with Mendoza returning home to receive a slap on the wrist and Vance mustering the courage to say he wants a real relationship with Lena.

She’s quiet for long enough that he starts to feel foolish, but she saves him from bursting into embarrassed flames by handing him his copy of the key to her new apartment.

Cheers to this couple! Please don’t kill this woman, show!

Stray shots

• Cómo se dice “pruney” en español?
• Let’s cross all of our fingers that Leon Vance gets to be happy for the rest of his life with Lena. The poor man’s been through it. He deserves a hot German operative to come home to.
• Speaking of deserving good things: Jess! Jimmy! We need you two to talk things out, okay?
• In conclusion, I know where I’d like to spend at least a little of the time I have left on this earth: in Plant Daddy Parker’s green slice of heaven on earth.

### Frequently Asked Questions

#### Q: How did Diego Barreto die?
A: Diego Barreto died from pufferfish poison in Vance’s office.

#### Q: Who was suspected of sabotaging the anti-piracy task force talks?
A: Fernando Vega, a new Mendoza aide who’s vocally anti-American, was suspected of sabotaging the talks.

#### Q: What was the twist in the end regarding Admiral Mendoza?
A: The twist revealed that Admiral Mendoza had hired a hitman to take out Barreto due to an affair with his wife.

#### Q: What happened to Robyn Kael, the reporter from the DC Chronicle?
A: Robyn Kael was revealed to be a radicalized reporter who kidnapped Lena and threatened Vance to scrap the talks.

#### Q: What was the outcome of the rescue mission for Lena?
A: The team successfully rescued Lena, allowing the talks to resume, and Vance expressed his desire for a real relationship with her.


Credit: ew.com