How Gibbs' Appearance In NCIS: New Orleans Created A Plot Hole
Whether you're a fan of the CBS spin-off NCIS: New Orleans because you love the original series or you caught on to the New Orleans-based show and you love it all on its own, you're sure to have noticed that a few cast members from the original NCIS, set in Washington, D.C., have shown up from time to time.
While the team in New Orleans is led by Special Agent Dwayne Pride (Scott Bakula), fan-favorite Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), who leads the team of investigators on the original show, has made the trip to NOLA a handful of times himself. It makes sense, as Harmon is an executive producer for the spin-off series, according to Assignment X.
However, there was this one time when Gibbs showed up in the Big Easy to help an investigation, only to find out something that has thrown at least a few fans for a loop.
Here's how the apparent NCIS: New Orleans plot hole was set up
As Express UK notes, the Gibbs appearance in NCIS: NOLA that has some fans up in arms is the one on the show's third episode of season 4, "The Asset."
To summarize the plot, we first get to see a naval officer and his passenger get run off the road, with the vehicle driving into a river. While the driver is unconscious as the SUV takes on water, the passenger is seen taking air from a tire underwater to swim away and escape his attackers. Agent Pride and his investigative team then find themselves helping the FBI find the surviving passenger, who is a missing Russian informant. After all, FBI Director Raymond Isler (Derek Webster) is eager to get answers.
However, Once Gibbs does some digging around, fans are given an answer that was later on seen as implausible and unrealistic.
Gibbs' discovery was responsible for the plot hole
It's not so much that Gibbs makes an appearance in the show, but rather what he discovers while visiting the Big Easy that throws the whole thing into doubt, according to a take from one fan.
On the online forum Moviemistakes.com, a user with the handle "mlknc" revealed that the evidence that Gibbs finds is flimsy at best. "The opening has a Navy officer in an SUV with his partner," they wrote. "The bad guys run them into a river, the passenger survives by letting air out of the right front tire. During the investigation, Mark Harmon [Gibbs] finds the tire with a very cleanly-cut valve stem. There is no way a drowning person could cut the stem off that clean with anything."
So, thanks to this unlikely bit of info regarding what Gibbs found at the crime scene, fans are left to wonder if the passenger could have realistically survived the ordeal in the way the investigative team ends up writing it up.