Directed by Kenneth Johnson
Written by Philip DeGuere, Jr.
Lt. Steven O'Dell (Mark Kiely) is accused of stealing from the Disbursing Office aboard the USS Connolly. Commander Rabb defends, Lt. Roberts prosecutes.
Lt. Colonel MacKenzie is the temporary officer in charge (OIC) at JAG headquarters while Admiral Chegwidden recovers (from the injuries he suffered in the previous episode). Mac sends Commander Turner (Scott Lawrence) to the USS Crawford to investigate how a nuclear torpedo was lost.
Mac tells Rabb not to go to the Norfolk Naval Station, where the Connolly is currently docked, but doesn't make it an order. So he goes anyway and learns from Turner that the base is going into lockdown. Rabb is absent from the courtroom when the judge, Commander Helfman (Jennifer Savidge), recommends O'Dell's case proceed to court-martial, after exasperatedly shooting down Roberts's motion for a continuance.
Turner figures out a tag was placed incorrectly and a torpedo was mistakenly ejected as if it were a "water slug." The lockdown has the unintended but fortunate consequence that Rabb is able to catch Petty Officer Marin (Travis Schuldt) trying to escape by boat with $10 million he stole from the USS Connolly's Disbursing Office by framing Lt. O'Dell.
By printing out documents from the Disbursing Office fax and copy machines, Rabb is able to figure out Marin's plan. As soon as O'Dell's replacement came aboard, Marin had her sign for an armored truck delivery at 6 p.m. Marin then used that form to create two armored truck requests: one for a 5 p.m. delivery of $10 million, and another one for a 6 p.m. pickup of who knows what.
Dressed like a lieutenant, Marin drives a van to the gate at 5 p.m. and takes the cash from the armored truck. When the new disbursing officer meets the 6 p.m. armored truck, it is empty.
But Marin couldn't possibly have foreseen that a missing torpedo would cause the base to go on lockdown, so he had to adjust the getaway part of his plan. Just after he's used a truck to put a boat in the water, the police show up to arrest Marin.
The charges against O'Dell are dropped, and O'Dell is ordered to return to the ship to replace the disbursing officer he was replaced by.
Prof. Cavanaugh (Isabella Hofmann) suggests a few names for Chegwidden's new she-dog. None of them quite seem to fit. But then, when the dog jumps on Chegwidden's chair, he says "That's my chair, Dammit!" So he names his new dog "Dammit."
Dressed in civilian clothes, the admiral visits JAG headquarters with his dog. Mac is ready to give Chegwidden his office back, but he tells her that she will remain the OIC for just a little while longer. Dammit knocks a bunch of folders off the desk, folders which Mac had so carefully arranged.
Tropes found here are
- Armed Blag: Petty Officer Marin impersonates the court-martialed lieutenant to steal ten million dollars in cash from an armored car.
- Empty Quiver: Subverted. This scenario is a misplaced nuclear tipped torpedo, and thereby qualifies as a “Broken Arrow” instead. Ironically, the John Travolta movie was an actual Empty Quiver scenario
- For Want Of A Nail: The nuke itself went missing because a momentary loss of illumination from the submarine switching power from its own reactor to the base’s power, caused a crewman to put a fallen tag on backwards. The tag indicated that a torpedo tube with a nuclear tipped torpedo inside was empty. Consequently, when that tube was “fired” to eject water, it ejected the nuke.
- Oh, Crap!: The sentiment of the torpedo crew when they realize that they are missing a nuclear tipped torpedo.
- Permission to Speak Freely: After being granted permission to speak freely, a senior enlisted man at the Disbursing Office tells Rabb he's not surprised about O'Dell, since he wouldn't be the first disbursing officer tempted to take some of the money for himself.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Sturgis laments that even though the entire situation was just a fluke accident, he also notes that every sailor involved will likely never serve on a warship again.
- Shout-Out to William Shakespeare: Prof. Cavanaugh had suggested Shakespearean names like Portia (from The Merchant of Venice), but Chegwidden said "There's nothing Shakespearean about this dog."
- Spanner in the Works: PO Marin’s theft of ten million dollars would have gone off without a hitch with even a different guy convicted for it, had the base not gone into lockdown over a missing nuke.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: The dog that Admiral Chegwidden ended up adopting, only responds to “Damnit” as a name.
