'NCIS' Season 17 Episode 13: Gibbs focuses on the 'silent victim' as Palmer tries to zero in on new assistant
This article contains spoilers for Season 17 Episode 13: 'Sound Off'.
In this episode, the NCIS team was tasked to solve a murder involving a top-secret weapon in Quantico, and with Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) kicking down doors, they were successful. As they try to find evidence that was destroyed in the blast, we have the side story of Chief Medical Examiner Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen) trying to find a suitable assistant to no avail.
The official synopsis of the episode 'Sound Off' reads: "After a body is found at an unmanned aerial vehicle testing site, the NCIS team must determine if the death was murder or an accident. Also, Palmer carefully interviews medical examiner assistant candidates."
A puzzling mystery makes it to the NCIS headquarters as a drone attack manages to reveal a dead body of Retired Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Backer. The episode revolves around military weaponry, a concept not lost on the millennial political understanding of corruption and the lack of empathy for lives as long as the selfish business takes are involved. Palmer had discovered that Backer was dead before he was blown to pieces during the drone attack as the blood flow stopped before the explosion.
The woman manning the drone happened to be Backer's ex-girlfriend Marine Staff Sergeant Diana Murphy (Katie Leclerc) who had 'ignored' a direct order to stop the attack. An obvious suspect in the case, she doesn't do herself any good by running away and although Gibbs (Mark Harmon) seems to realize she may be hiding something, the goodness of his heart has him seeing much more clearly at the end of the episode.
After they found Murphy at Backer's place, questioning the silent victim revealed that she had no idea Backer was dead before she blew him up. When she was asked why she ignored direct orders, she had no answer resulting in Gibbs becoming suspicious. He tests her using the Marine chant and she fails to hear him and a test conducted by Palmier reveals that she is almost 100% deaf in both ears. In order to save her position in the Marine Core, Murphy keeps her loss of hearing a secret from her seniors and gets really good at reading lips.
The team learned that Murphy lost her hearing when Backer was showing her a 'new long-range missile that uses sound rather than bullets' and activated it before she had her protective earmuffs on. Backer helped her cover up her injury although the team though that this was motive enough on her part but were proved wrong as she had an airtight alibi. Murphy gives the team the name of Backer's stepbrother Ronald Kepczak who revealed that Backer had a soundproof studio at his residence. The team finds out that Backer was holding sonic weapons there — the one that he had tested out with Murphy.
The team cracked down the case as they found out that Backer stole the weapons because he wanted to prove how harmful they were when it came to their faulty design. He had told his seniors and written several reports on it but all of those reports had been buried by the private contractor in charge of those weapons, Mr Geary. Geary did so as he was trying to sell his shares in the weapon company yet, he also had an alibi.
The team followed their investigation to Ingram, the person Geary was to sell his shares to. Turns out Ingram was Murphy's CO when she blew up Backer and had re-assigned himself to that team that day. The team found him knocked unconscious at Murphy’s place after he tried to attack Murphy. Gibbs, who was suspicious of Murphy all along, realized that the woman was a great Marine and so got her a job as a civilian liaison with a new military contractor.
Although the case was solved with the reveal of the not so surprising killer, this episode is hilariously overshadowed by Palmer desperately searching for candidates for the assistant position. Putting this off since Ducky retired, the extra workload seems to be stressful to handle. The lack of sleep and the overworking had put him off his game, with more than one person noticing.
With people that were either creeped out about knee caps or those that simply didn't meet his critical eye, Palmer finally settles on one candidate, Crane that seems more like a robotic clone than an assistant. Sadly for Palmer, the young guy didn't accept the position and left with parting words that even the Chief Medical Examiner could not understand. It seems as though it's back to square one for Palmer.
'NCIS' Season 17 airs on Tuesdays at 8 pm only on CBS.