'NCIS' Season 18 Episode 8 'True Believer' Spoilers: Will Gibbs admit his feelings for Sloane on her last trip?
The upcoming 'NCIS' Episode 8 will be a bitter-sweet one no matter how you look at it. For one, the episode comes after a two-week hiatus. Two, it will give us some focussed time with Sloane (Maria Bello) and Gibbs (Mark Harmon), characters we have only seen vibing on the edges of the main action plotlines of the series. Those are the pros.
The con is that fans of the show have known for a while that Bello is exiting the show and Episode 8 is her last. This was set up in last week's episode and in Episode 8, we see what her plans may be for the future in a sneak peek scene.
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Turns out Sloane wasn't kidding about moving to Costa Rica. Having to deal with bad guys every day has finally burnt her out in a way that a few vacation days isn't going to cure. Right now, early retirement and a place on the beach sounds like music to her ears. Not so much for Gibbs though, who is visibly upset about her plans to leave.
But that is what makes the set-up for Episode 8 so brilliant. Gibbs is on the verge of losing Sloane and so he is more prone to be open about how he truly feels, now more than ever. So when both of them are thrown together for one last mission, things will be said and done that wouldn't be said and done in ordinary circumstances. The official synopsis for the episode hints at what is to come. "When Sloane's name is discovered in Afghanistan at the site of an abandoned bus with a dead driver, Gibbs accompanies her on a trip to find a group of girls who were kidnapped from the bus. Also, McGee, Bishop, and Torres track down a hacker who emailed compromising information to the Taliban."
This also points to the title of the episode, "True Believer" that might delve into fanaticism and other follies. This is also going to be a special episode because of the location the events are set in and we'll see Gibbs and Harmon don clothes more suited to the dessert as they search for the girls in hostile terrain. In fact, Gibbs and Sloane are going to find themselves engaging in actual combat as their camp gets attacked once they pinpoint the location of the kidnapped girls.
In another sneak peek, we see Gibbs and Sloane urgently request back up and outline the plans to blow up the perimeter if things go really wrong. This is when their camp is attacked and they both go on full-alert, aiming their guns at the invisible enemy out there in the night raining gunfire. Will Sloane survive the encounter and actually make it to Costa Rica?
'NCIS' Season 18 Episode 8 airs on Tuesday, March 2, at 8 pm on CBS.