Recap
In the last episode, it was determined that a new group calling itself “The Calling” was responsible for recruiting children for jihadist purposes. It looked for kids who were loners, who were unhappy. But oddly, it was led by a young British guy named Daniel Budd with died blond hair who looked very European. But because of his recruiting kids, they refer to him as a twisted Peter Pan, hence the Neverland title to the episode.
They had been buying S bombs on the black market and had set some off in a hotel in Cairo Egypt that had killed agent Dorneget. But they found that was just a test run and the group was planning coordinated attacks around the world.
It turns out Dorneget didn’t want anyone to know that his parents had important government jobs. Now Gibbs is pushed to break one of his rules and let Dorneget’s mother (Joanna Teague) to work on the case. She is an operative for the CIA in the Middle East.
Gibbs Mental State
One thing that isn’t clear is about Gibbs’ state of mind. At the end of the last episode, as Dorneget’s body was brought out of the plane, Gibbs saw Dorneget and other killed agents standing there watching. Fine, that seemed like a nice tribute to them. But in this episode it is like Gibbs has schizophrenia or something because he is seeing and talking to dead people all the time, especially Mike Franks who is giving him grief about his decisions.
Luke in Protective Custody
So to start, they are protecting Luke, whose “friends” killed his adoptive parents when they thought he was turning on them. Joanna tries to buddy up to him since she lost her son and Luke lost his parents.
Luke opens up a little but both the ghost of Mike Franks and Joanna at different times tell Gibbs that Luke is playing him.
Somewhere in here McGee discovers that The Calling is sending songs to all its followers. Luke still had his mp3 player and Gibbs didn’t bother to take it from him. Why? Maybe he felt bad for Luke? Not like Gibbs.
Luke Snatched
Somehow an older kid who has been tasked by Sadiq Samar, the local honcho of The Calling, to find Luke manages to find Gibbs house and take Luke. The person who was guarding Luke was knocked out. But she was hit in the back of the head. By Luke? At some point video was found of the killing of Luke’s parents. Everyone seems horrified, but we never find out who did it. Luke?
Coded Songs
Then Abby discovered that the songs being sent out had messages in Morse code in the base notes of the music. That seemed far fetched to us. You never see Luke carefully writing down things, just listening to music. All these kids are so talented that they can listen to a base line and translate the Morse Code in it? Seems dubious. In any case, Gibbs should have taken the mp3 player.
It turns out that Daniel Budd was a popular DJ in Britain who was popular no longer. Somehow he got kids to follow him and started using them in small crimes. This escalated. It is not clear exactly what Budd is looking to accomplish now.
Enhanced Interrogation
So Gibbs and the team try to find Luke before anything happens to him. They are looking for Sadiq but can’t find him at first. Then there is a scene where Joanna has used her sources to find him and has him tied up in his trailer and is beating him and interrogating him. She gets some information about where Luke is. There is a knock at the door and you think Joanna is screwed, that some of Sadiq’s people are going to get her. It turns out to be Gibbs.
Gibbs is not happy that Joanna went behind the team’s back, after all they bent the rules to have her take part and he was definitely not happy with her questioning techniques.
Trip to Iraq
They find that they were not able to stop a plane from taking off in time and that Luke was on that plane heading for Iraq. So the team heads for Iraq.
They are walking through the market place and notice a girl with bright tennis shoes and figure she has been brought from the US as well. They follow her and then they find Luke. Gibbs starts talking to him and DiNozzo gets a phone call. It turns out to be Daniel Budd who is watching from a room above. At this point Luke pulls out a gun and shoots Gibbs three times. Not rapidly, but slowly and methodically.
Cliffhanger?
So will Gibbs die? If it had been Duckie it might have you wondering, but many people feel it isn’t much of a cliff hanger because Gibbs is so central to the show.