The NCIS Season 8 Scene That Went Too Far

With 19 seasons under its belt, "NCIS" is easily considered one of CBS' consistent and longstanding series. For longtime fans, the recent character shake-ups have probably created a craving to revisit past seasons. Fortunately, there are a lot of solid episodes to choose from. And that could be said for much of Season 8, as there are many memorable moments. For one thing, much of the original "NCIS" team is still intact, as no major actors had departed during this time. And when it comes to plots, there's undoubtedly a great buffet of entertaining stories.

We see the crew deal with a lot in Season 8, including its opener, "Spider and the Fly," as the team is once again forced to deal with the Reynosa Cartel as its head puts them in danger. The season also saw an appearance from Tony DiNozzo Sr. (Robert Wagner) in the episode "Broken Arrow," which led to some great father/son drama between him and Special Agent Tony DiNozzo Jr. (Michael Weatherly). Yet while those episodes provide great moments, the episode "Freedom" gives us a scene that arguably goes too far, thanks to its absurdity with a plot involving Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray).

The minor storyline in the episode "Freedom" deals with Timothy McGee becoming the victim of identity theft. The NCIS agent discovers that he's ten grand in the hole as someone makes credit card charges for inflatable blow-up dolls, video games, and comic books. Tony DiNozzo remarks that it seems like the fun time checklist for a teenager and after he does some digging, that turns out to be the case. The identity thief is Nick Miller (Aramis Knight), the young son of McGee's landlady, who got her keys, went into McGee's place, and took his credit card. When confronted, Miller explains he only did it for the sake of McGee as he felt the agent wasn't having enough fun.

The episode ends with arguably the season's most ridiculous scene where McGee, DiNozzo, and Nick are in an elevator cheerily making their way to GameStop. As McGee tells Nick that the thief owes him at least 50 bucks for the minimum fraud charges, Nick lounges back against the wall in a pose so full of attitude, a '90s video game character would sneer with envy, and flippantly responds, "Talk to my mom, bro." And that's it. There's no punishment for Nick. There's no remorse on his end. We just get a scene where two NCIS agents forget Nick racked up $10,000 in fraudulent charges and are just cool with it. 

For such a procedural crime show, "NCIS" seemingly dropped the ball with this scene. Realistically, Nick should have been sent to juvenile hall, while his mother should have paid McGee back. Instead, the episode ends without Nick suffering some type of consequence or, at the very least, admitting what he did was wrong. It comes off as so ludicrous, as sitcoms have probably handled this type of plot better.