NCIS

Season 16

Destiny's Child

1. As of this episode, Emily Wickersham (Bishop) is billed before Maria Bello (Sloane) in the opening credits.
2. First appearance of the character Joey Peanuts (Chad Lindbergh) since the Season 8 episode "Baltimore".
3. The onscreen credits are featured in the second act, not in the first. This is the 5th episode in which this has happened.
4. While preparing to torture the diplomat, Sloane says "Wrong answer". Maria Bello co-starred with Mel Gibson in Payback (1999) In that film, Gibson's character Porter tortures a drug delivery boy by pulling out his nose ring. Porter uses the same "Wrong answer" line when the courier fails to give Porter the right answer.
5. First time Diona Reasonover appears in the main credits as of this episode.
6. The type of character Pej Vahdat plays in this story arc is in sharp contrast to the type of character he played on "Bones" for 8 years. As the character "Arastoo Vaziri" he did not believe in the concept of "revenge" or violence of any sort and even talked others into abandoning their plans for retribution.

Love Thy Neighbor

Boom

1. The agency lawyer briefs the team (minus Gibbs) that the Supreme Court has just held that "pinging" cell towers to get the location of cell phones is now illegal. This is a reference to a then recent actual case, Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. ____ (June 22, 2018) which held that various cell phone location data (CSLI) was protected by the Fourth Amendment. Carpenter is a significant search and seizure decision.
2. McGee and Torres violate the 4th Amendment by illegally entering the apartment, which violated the privacy of the resident. Earlier, after learning from the lawyer about a Supreme Court case involving privacy, McGee had commented about understanding how privacy sometimes outweighs security.
3. In reviewing a SEALs class for suspects Gibbs asks the team "How many rang out?" During SEAL training, SEAL trainees can voluntarily quit the physically-demanding training at any time by ringing a large bell.

Fragments

1. The Laurel / Yanni audio recording controversy was popularized on the social media platforms Twitter and Instagram in May 2018.
2. This episode starred three veteran actors from 1980's Television/Film fame: Dee Wallace (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)), Fred Dryer (Hunter (1984)), and Charles Robinson (Night Court (1984)).
3. Actor Charles Robinson played different Vietnam veterans on first-run episodes of two series that aired on the same night (October 23rd, 2018). He played Ray Jennings in this episode of NCIS and Don Robinson on This Is Us: Toby (2018).
4. Rib plating is the process of realigning ribs and bridging breaks by making small incisions at the break sites, and spanning the broken ribs with tailor-made titanium plates, holding them in place with locking screws (Open Reduction Internal Fixation).

Friendly Fire

1. According to Brian Dietzen, his late mother, Trudy, drew all the sketches attributed to Jimmy.
2. This episode contains a plot element involving escorting the remains of a fallen Marine. Emily Wickersham had a small role in Taking Chance (2009), a movie about a Marine escort.

Tailing Angie

1. Nick wonders what Gibbs' rule is for "there is no such thing as coincidence". It is #39, first mentioned in NCIS: Obsession (2010).
2. James MacDonald previously appeared as a different character, Captain Faul, in season one's "NCIS: Hung Out to Dry (2003)".
3. This is the fourth episode title to include a character's name, following Kill Ari, Sharif Returns, and The Penelope Papers.

Toil and Trouble

1. If Mitch Pileggi, who played the Secretary of Defense (SecDef), seems to project a "command presence" with a gruff exterior, it would be due to the fact that he has played authority figures before. His two notable appearances would be as Assistant Director Skinner in the long running series The X-Files (1993) and as Colonel Steven Caldwell in the Stargate SG-1 (1997) spin-off Stargate: Atlantis (2004).

The Last Link

1. As Kasie states, Carfentanil is an extremely potent analog of fentanyl that is used as a large animal tranquilizer. It is not allowed to be used in humans due to its extreme potency. It is 100 times more potent than fentanyl, 1,000 times more potent than diacetylmorphine (heroin), and 10,000 times more potent than morphine; the median lethal dose of carfentanil in humans is 3 micrograms. Kasie said the victim ingested 6 milligrams, more than 2,000 times the lethal dose. Sometimes heroin is cut with carfentanil in order to make it more potent for long-term users who have developed a high tolerance - this is almost always fatal when used by recreational and new heroin users. Carfentanil-laced heroin has been responsible for thousands of deaths in North America in the past decade.
2. As another example of an actor portraying someone older or younger than their actual age, Dabney Coleman plays a WW2 veteran, specifically one that served during Normandy (June 1944). Coleman was born in 1932, so he was about 12 years old when the Normandy invasion took place.

She

1. Bishop mentions that in one of her journals, Ziva wrote "happy as a oyster" instead of "happy as an clam". During her run on the show, a running gag was Ziva's difficulty with American idioms, resulting in mix-ups like "donkey's butt" instead of "horse's ass" and "eager platypus" instead of "eager beaver".
2. Rule 10 is referred to by Gibbs in Ziva's office. Rule 10 is never get personally involved.

Once Upon A Tim

1. Matthew Glave plays the role of a young Navy Commander John McGee, who was previously portrayed by Jamey Sheridan.
2. Sean Murray was played by Charles Tyler Kinder as his younger self in 1994. In 1998, Murray first appeared in JAG (1995) as an Ensign in JAG: Innocence (1998), and then in 2000 as Danny Walden in JAG: Florida Straits (2000), a semi-recurring character. JAG was the show from which NCIS spun off, so Murray has now played three different characters in this universe. Also Sean Murray step-father is Donald P. Bellisario, the creator of the JAG-NCIS franchise and his biological father is an Admiral Craig Harland Murray.
3. This is the fifth episode title to include a character's name, following Kill Ari, Sharif Returns, The Penelope Papers, and Tailing Angie. It is also the first time a main character's name has appeared in a title.
4. McGee was said to be 16 in 1994, making his year of birth circa 1978. Sean Murray was born in 1977.

Crossing the Line

1. The Navy Yard bombing referenced from 6 years ago originated on NCIS: Till Death Do Us Part (2012) and concluded on NCIS: Extreme Prejudice (2012). The character of Ed Girard was not credited in either.
2. There was a JAG episode with the same title (2007). It also involved the "Crossing the Equator" ceremony.

Bears and Cubs

1. Francois Chau and Ping Wu were both in the voice cast of the American version of "Godzilla 2000."
2. The title of this show's installment, "Bears and Cubs", seems to refer to the overarching theme of the episode - namely, the dynamics between parents and children.

Silent Service

1. This episode's title was also used 20 years earlier as the name of an episode of the show's predecessor series "JAG: Silent Service (1999)".
2. COB stands for Chief of the Boat.
3. The Silent Service, with respect to the episode title, refers to submariners, or Navy personnel who work in a submarine.
4. XO is short for Executive Officer.
5. McGee made mention of the following symbols with respect to the formatting of the stand-down order: Hash - #Bang - !Splat - *
6. When the submarine dives, the alarm is sounded too many times. It should be sounded twice to dive and three times to surface.
7. A major component of a overpressure or gas check valve is a diaphragm.
8. McGee said the following about ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) communications: Reed-Solomon error correction is used to limit transmission errorsLinear block-code to maximize that correction

Hail & Farewell

1. A Hail and Farewell ceremony is a customary military event which celebrates a change in command. It is a time to honor those who have departed the unit and thank them for their service. At the same time it is a welcome to those who are joining and introduces them to the special history and traditions of their new organization.
2. Doug Savant played another character (Father Larry Clannon) in NCIS: A Weak Link (2004) (Season 1, Episode 22).

Judge, Jury...

1. When McGee is putting on his lanyard he says "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start" and the woman he his talking to replies "Unlimited Lives Granted." The button combination he mentions is a very well-known cheat code called The Konami Code, allowing the player of most Konami games in the 1980s to have augmented abilities and/or unlimited/multiple extra lives.
2. The complete phrase with respect to the episode title is "Judge, Jury and Executioner", however, the phrase is completed in the, presumably, concluding part.

...and Executioner

1. The inscription on the courthouse at the end, "Where law ends, tyranny begins" is attributed to British philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). In D.C. it is not on the depicted courthouse, but is on the Department of Justice Building.
2. The plot seems to mirror the film The Star Chamber (1983), starring Michael Douglas which in turn was based on a former English court, in which a close-door proceeding was presided by a group of individuals who pass judgment against a person without the benefit of due process.

Lost Time

1. Gibbs' rule #4: best way to keep a secret is to keep it to yourself.
2. Bishop is upset and wonders what to do about Gibbs' confession about murdering Hernandez, yet in "A Many Splendored Thing" (14x12), Bishop murders Kai Chen.
3. Bishop did not murder Kai Chen in "A Many Splendored Thing". She gave him a choice between suicide and waiting for the arrival of his angry Syrian associates, similar to the choice he had offered the original victim - suicide or the death of her daughter. He chose suicide.