Damon Worth (Paul Telfer) turns to Gibbs for help when he wakes up from a blackout to find a former Marine friend dead. Worth’s friend, Heatherton, had wanted to tell him about the last job he did for a shady trucking operation. Gibbs brings the case to Fornell (Joe Spano) while Worth takes Heatherton’s place behind the wheel.
Like “Outlaws and In-Laws” earlier this season, I thought “Jack Knife” took advantage of popular recurring characters to make an otherwise far-fetched plot watchable. If Worth and Heatherton weren’t Marines, this case would not even have been of interest to Gibbs. If Gibbs didn’t have Fornell as a friend at the FBI, NCIS would have no business working the case at all.
The question at the heart of this episode was, “What cargo was valuable enough to cost Heatherton his life?” There were the usual red herrings on the way to finding out, and the killer’s identity did surprise me, but I watched the episode to see Fornell again and to see how Damon Worth affected the romantic tension between Tony and Ziva.
I also liked that Gibbs was still recovering from being hit by a car, having pushed McGee out of the way at the end of “Jet Lag.” I’m not used to seeing Gibbs need help with anything, but part of him enjoyed having McGee at his beck and call. McGee’s debt to Gibbs mirrored the debt Gibbs felt to Damon Worth. Gibbs himself decided how to handle Worth’s case (Season 5′s “Corporal Punishment”), so he felt compelled to help Worth here.
Summing up, the character motivations were stronger than the plot momentum this episode. In a great episode, plot momentum and character motivation are equally strong.
