'NCIS' Season 17 Episode 14: Torres fights for his life while the team fights for justice after a hit-and-run
This article contains spoilers for 'NCIS' Season 17 Episode 14 'On Fire'
In Episode 14 'On Fire', the NCIS team was tasked to solve a case involving two of their own, Agent Nicholas Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) and Eleanor Bishop (Emily Wickersham). The official synopsis of the episode reads: "Torres and Bishop are victims of a hit-and-run, Torres fight for his life in the Intensive Care Unit."
A hit-and-run had Torres fighting for his life as Bishop goes on a rage mission with her team to put the criminal that's claiming "sovereign immunity" behind bars. With the victims being part of the policing family, this case got personal, with more than one member of the team with a motive to hurt the man responsible. The promo for this episode titled, 'On Fire', had fans nervous when it showed Torres injured, and they were right to be.
In this episode, the team sets out on a chase for a man hiding in plain sight — Xavier Zolotov, a spoiled trust fund baby. He has a violent criminal record and the team has a warrant for his arrest, but under a convenient clause, the man can leave the team's jurisdiction a free man.
Torres is in a medically induced coma and has getting fluid drained out of his lungs while Bishop suffers from PTSD and is unable to "regulate her emotional responses." The discovery of a piece of carbon fiber found in Torres's cervical spine matches the car Zolotov drives and even after he admits to multiple felonies, NCIS Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll), has to let him go. Zolotov apparently has royal blood and friends in high places, hence he was able to get out of jail on bail. With the criminal boasting about leaving, Bishop is set out to take him down, even admitting to Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) that she would want to kill him. Her boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), talked her adrenaline-induced anger down, though.
In order to keep the Zolotov from jetting away, the team tries to arrest his wife for owning a tiger without a license under the prosecution of violating the endangered species act among other offenses. Since she was deemed a flight risk and was denied bail, the NCIS team thought that it would keep her husband, Zolotov from leaving the country. Unfortunately, for them, his girlfriend, Colleen Kennedy, is the person he'd stay back for.
Zolotov seems to have "histrionic narcissistic disorder" and has committed crimes over five continents and after a barge in at his girlfriend's house, it seems they are a perfect self-obsessed match. McGee, Gibbs and Bishop find Zolotov's dead body in her home and a background check on her revealed that she too, was a trust fund baby. They also found out that she had a sister, in the navy, that had suspiciously passed away from a "suspected heroin overdose." Turns out that Torres was sent undercover to collect evidence on Kennedy under the false preemption of dating her. The evidence he had collected was not enough at the time, but new evidence had her case rolling again making her nervous. Kennedy then arranged for her boyfriend, Zolotov, to make sure Torress won't live to state his testimony.
Kennedy was then found with the murder weapon, a needle with some sort of drug, attempting to kill Torres. While she will be going away for a long time for that, when it comes to the murder of Zolotov, all the evidence collected against her was completely circumstantial. She claims she was framed for that murder and denies she killed Zolotov.
For the end that makes the most probable sense: Bishop may have been on the verge of committing premeditated murder, but with the way McGee and Bishop confirm it with sharp looks, we all know Gibbs did it. He said, "these are all the kids I have left!" Remember? Of course, this was not confirmed verbally, so that's driving us crazy.
NCIS' Season 17 airs on Tuesdays at 8 pm ET only on CBS.
