'NCIS' Season 17 Episode 6 highlights the prejudice former prison inmates face when they rejoin society and fans are touched
This article contains spoilers for Season 17 Episode 6
In tonight's Episode 6 of 'NCIS' Season 17 titled 'Institutionalized', we get to see the bias and inevitable, blatant prejudice people who have served time in correctional facilities are subjected to even when they have rejoined society.
According to the official synopsis of the episode, “A petty officer's son is found murdered at his 'welcome home from prison' party and the evidence suggests Kasie's lifelong best friend, Dante Brown, is the suspect."
The officer's son — Kendall Quichera who went by the name Trey — claimed to be a reformed man who despite being in for a 25-to-life sentence, got out after serving just seven years.
However, when our team investigates his murder which was carried out by a shiv, it leads them to believe that Trey must have had some very intense beef with the inmates from his time in prison.
The fact that Trey suddenly fond a steady inflow of considerable massive cash also led to his old criminal buddies believing that he was still partaking in some sketchy criminal activity after he got out.
Further in the investigation, the team learns that Trey wasn't an all reformed man when he was in prison as he got into several fights and was even thrown into solitary confinement for the same.
But it is only when Kasie is able to find dog hair on Trey's body that things take a whole different turn. As it is revealed, Trey did have beef with a dog-walker called Dante Brown, whom he had also met a short while before he was murdered.
Dante was a former inmate too and happens to be a close friend of Kasie. But while Kasie tries her best to "do her job" and be a good friend, believing earnestly that Dante couldn't have been the killer, the bias allows all fingers to be pointed towards a formerly incarcerated man is what the episode highlights here.
It is only when Dante tells them about the real reason why Trey caught up with him shortly before his murder that the team looks at things in a new light. Dante claimed that after exiting prison, Trey just wanted someone who has been through the same experience to share things with.
And Dante was in the perfect place to seek the kind of comfort Trey was looking for. He even told the team that against what other inmates reported, Trey had never stabbed him back in prison.
Despite all this, just because Dante possessed a shiv, he was still being considered a suspect and even put back into prison. In all of this, Dante ended up losing the support of the only person who was backing him up all this time — Kasie.
It was only after repeatedly claiming his innocence and the dog hair on Trey's body not matching the hair on Dante's pet that the team was able to figure out the truth behind the murder.
Eventually, it is revealed that Trey was smuggling drugs through a prison guard who ended up murdering him once he stopped being useful. The dog hair found on Trey matched with those from the prison guards.
Poor Dante was wrongfully imprisoned for just being a black man present at the crime scene where Kasie's brother was the victim, even though it was Dante who had saved the kid.
Noting the sheer bias prevalent in the system, fans poured in with praise for the episode for highlighting such a prominent issue in society.
"NCIS is to be commended for this one. Brilliant disruption of expectations - and raising critical issues of the difficulties for some caught in the correctional system," one of them shared on Twitter.
A couple of fans also praised Kasie's righteous faith in Dante which was mostly unwavering even though the rest of the team insisted otherwise.
One fan shared: "Thank you for an outstanding performance tonight and for giving us so much to think about. So glad to have you on #NCIS." 'NCIS' Season 17 airs on Tuesdays at 8 pm only on CBS.
